For those that don't know, most of Robocop was filmed in and around Dallas.
Posted on 04/25/2005 10:17:44 PM PDT by Doctor Raoul
01/25/05 A Day in the Life in North Oak Cliff
I awake to find several urgent e-mails from neighbors alerting me to three separate, serious criminal incidents that occurred in the last couple of days here in North Oak Cliff. I read and quickly dispatch them to neighbors who share my concerns about our rising crime rate, then hop into the car to take my 5 year old to school. I back out of my driveway onto our street, Winnetka Avenue, the street where Oscar Sanchez was kidnapped last week.
I dodge three major potholes on the way to I-35, wait briefly at a malfunctioning red light, then head south to the private school in DeSoto where we enrolled at great financial sacrifice out of concerns about the quality of education on offer at our local DISD elementary. Along our last leg to school, we drive past an apartment complex at Old Hickory and Wheatland Road, the scene of the first quadruple murder of 2005.
My daughter safely in the classroom, I return to Oak Cliff and stop for coffee in the Bishop Arts District, meeting up with friends who relate details about yet another carjacking, this time about 500 yards around the corner from where we live. Coffee in hand, I head back to my office in my restored, 95-year-old home, driving past a mountain of trash bags laying in the street along the curbside of an empty house - bags the City agreed to collect as a "courtesy" more than three weeks ago.
Settling in, I call code compliance for a status update on our block's recent code complaints against my next-door neighbor's conversion of a single-family, historic home into a raucous apartment building. I learn that the officer who initially inspected the premises works for the wrong division of code enforcement - and, even though he's seen firsthand the two kitchens and apartment doors they've installed, the proper code department can't act on his inspection unless it, too, sees the violations firsthand. Not surprisingly, my neighbors refuse to cooperate. This, apparently, takes me back to square one - helping ensure that the overcrowding, 24/7 traffic, holiday gunfire and chest-thumping rap is here to stay.
On my lunch hour, I drop by a local merchant's shop to leave an item for repair and have a friendly mug of tea. As we sip, she tells me that she's taken to clutching a can of tear gas as she leaves her shop because the neighborhood is just too creepy at night these days. Taking her cue, I make a mental note to procure some mace for the car.
My daughter climbs into the car after school, asking to go to Kidd Springs Park to see the ducks. It's a beautiful day - sunny and bright - but we head home instead. (On our last visit to the park, we found used needles and condoms laying by the small kiddie playground, then witnessed what appeared to be a cash-for-drugs exchange in the cul de sac in front of the community center.)
Homework done, I take my kid to ballet - this time, two blocks from the Sanchez kidnapping site. I exchange greetings with her ballet teacher, who tells me that she's getting increasingly scared about keeping her studio open late into the evening - and reports two apparently related armed carjacking incidents that occurred two streets over in the other direction over the last week. As she moves to the barre, she tells me she's thinking of shifting some of her late-hour students to Sunday afternoon because her husband fears her leaving her studio after dark.
After ballet, I realize that I need gas before tomorrow's drive to school -- but it's after dark and I have my daughter with me in the car. Standing at the pump with keys in hand and my child in her booster seat leaves me too vulnerable, I calculate, so I elect to leave my home early tomorrow to fill up in broad daylight. Driving by the gas station, I'm again tempted to fill up and be done with it. While I wait to turn left into the gas station, four young men dripping gold chains climb out of a car at the closest pump, blaring obscenity-laden music so loud I can't hear my own radio and hassling a lone man at another pump. I decide my first instincts were correct and, again, point the car toward home.
Daughter asleep in bed and dishes done, I turn on the nightly news. As I settle into my chair, I hear a couple of shots go off a block or two away. I call 911, exactly as my neighbors and I did repeatedly to no effect on New Year's Eve when tenants of the newly minted apartments next door shot into the air for hours on end.
I return to my chair just in time to catch the latest punches being thrown in the WWF wrestling match the strong mayor proposal has become. Both sides posture, both sides dig in their heels, both sides predict gloom and doom if the other guys win.
As I turn off the set and head for bed, I wonder for the thousandth time how much worse it has to get before the shouting stops and we see real progress on the problems facing us here in North Oak Cliff. Just how many car jackings, burglaries, rapes or shootings will we endure before either side actually does something that results in measurable change?
How many potholes will I have to plunge into before the roads get fixed? How many fresh multiple-homicide sites will we drive past? How low will DISD standards eventually sink before changes are made that would allow us to visit local school campuses without walking through metal detectors or finding teacher misspellings on the board?
How much trash has to pile up before the city actually does make a real-time courtesy collection? How long before the two sides of code compliance can communicate to address basic zoning and code violations? How much time has to pass before I can again take my daughter to our public park without witnessing a drug deal or finding used hypodermics? When will my friends and I again be able to leave our homes and businesses after dark without fear?
As my head hits the pillow, I realize with crystal clarity that our city officials are too busy burning their political capital over their various positions on the Blackwood proposal to attend to actual city business here south of the Trinity. Drifting to sleep, I'm certain that I'm in for a lot more days like today.
Allen is now like Richardson was in 87. Frisco is now like Plano in 87, McKinney is about to be like Allen was 10 years ago.
Forgive me about being unfair about Texas, as the love of ugly sprawl/"exurbs" is a disease that affects the entire sunbelt. DFW Metroplex may have its faults, but it is nowhere near as bad as most of Flori-duh (which seems to attract rootless, disreputable types, being a low-wage state filled with transplants) or Southern California (where a declining population of wonderbread suburbanites whine about protecting their "culture" from impoverished immigrants). I'm generalizing of course, which is always fun to do. ;-)
For those that don't know, most of Robocop was filmed in and around Dallas.
You know, at this rate, Oklahoma City will be a suburb of Dallas by about 2050 or so :)
2035. No kidding, that's the current estimate.
And New York is a victim of its own sprawl, and you have to take thirteen elevators to appreciate it.
Yep. Sorry for going off subject.
I wondered..........LOL.
Good, someone send this to the interested parties as evidence against the shrew.
Were I Bolton and forced to put up with this whiny crap for weeks without let, I would have chased her down a hotel hallway. I would also have been carrying a board studded with nails with which to beat her and give her something to *really* complain about.
calling her a drama queen is being toooo nice
This women has major issues
Good Catch! :)
Thank You!
I'm from Houston but live in California, and have seen NY. Reading your "The Prisoner" tagline, and being a Prisoner fan myself, I definitely prefer the individuality of Texans and the randomness of Houston to the ancient buildings of NYC or the socialism of California.
Sorry for straying off like a little lamb. Its was late and my mind wanders.
Drama Queen is probably a raging racist too boot. She seems awfully uncomfortable with her gold-chain wearing non-white neighbors.
I missed that completely. I thought it was a thread about liberal urban racists, with an overlay of 'what happens when a liberal federal judge amends the city charter '. You were the first poster to mention that.
Bolton Accuser Admits Plagiarism at Daily Kos
The movement to smear and discredit John Bolton is melting down. Bolton accuser Melody Townsel, former leader of Mothers Opposing Bush, is about to get outed as a plagiarizer, and she’s whining about it to the people who understand her best—the lunatics at Daily Kos: Important Melody Townsel revelation—PLEASE DISSEMINATE. (Hat tip: DANEgerus.)
Hello, Daily Kos-ers:
Tonight, my deepest fears regarding my pending testimony in the John Bolton nomination process have come true: Republicans have dredged up un unfortunate chapter of my life and, clearly, are about to announce it to the world. When you read this, you may decide either that I was stupid to step forward, or that I no longer deserve your trust. I want, however, to be the one to announce this to you all since you’ve been so unbelievably supportive.
When I was in college, 22 years ago, I plagiarized some columns while working for my college newspaper, and I was removed from staff. Months later, while working for another college newspaper, I wrote a review for a local play that tracked closely in format to another writer’s review — and, although it was not plagiarized, it made my editors, who had become aware of my recent past, very uncomfortable, and we mutually agreed that I would no longer submit stories to them.
As you can imagine, I’m deeply ashamed to be forced to revisit these events so publicly — and, while I was under tremendous academic, financial and family pressure at the time, there is absolutely NO excuse for what I did so long ago. I knew it was wrong then, and I remain deeply ashamed and embarrassed.
I wish to stress that Amy, my friend who has been such a staunch supporter and has been keeping you posted on things happening with my pending testimony, was completely unaware of these events. There are some things you don’t tell even your best friend.
It goes on and on.
UPDATE at 4/26/05 8:30:38 am:
Power Line outs another Bolton accuser as an anti-Israel State Department drone: John Bolton and His Enemies.
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