Tight Spot

I felt safe riding my bicycle around Harlem last Wednesday night. I had a meeting at 7 o'clock on W. 126th Street. I rode up there from East Midtown, locked my Gary Fisher to a sign post, and emerged an hour later to pedal home in care free leisure and security.

How times have changed. Nobody accosted me, nobody threatened me. I didn't even witness any fights.

I didn't see any gangs.

Are all the bad guys locked up already? Criminal Justice data for NY State is not currently available on the Citizens' Guide web page.

The Feds claim they have 185,000+ inmates.



As long as nobody complains, the police can just lock up anybody who jaywalks and America will be safer and safer for "law abiding citizens."

That likewise seems to be the strategy in American-occupied Iraq. Only their criminal justice system has much more of an emergency to address. It seems the police are taking extreme measures to create an enivironment of law and order from the chaos that is occupied Iraq.

According to the Times Online:

Sunni leaders said that the men whose corpses were found on Wednesday had been arrested before dawn in a series of police raids on their homes. Hours later they were found tortured, murdered and dumped in a streets in the Shia slum of Sadr City.

Looks like our troops are in a tight spot over there. I expect they'll be withdrawing to the permanent bases soon. Then the civil war between Sunni and Shia can rage away, but we'll be able to provide nominal protection for the government and the oil supply.

Someday, I may even be able to ride my bike around Baghdad or Fallujah and not worry about "terrorism."