Different Day, Same Shit.

For the past few months, Koch Carbon, an affiliate of Koch Industries, stored tons of petroleum coke on a lot near the Detroit-Windsor Ambassador Bridge. This stuff happens to be a byproduct of the ongoing tar sands oil operations in Alberta, Canada. When it's not sitting idle on some industrial lot, the "pet coke" is usually shipped overseas as a cheap but nastier alternative to coal.

Normally, this stuff is hosed down with an epoxy to keep it from blowing everywhere. The following is what happens when the epoxy stops working.



After seeing portions of the city devolve into wastelands and crumble to bits, the average Detroiter probably thinks this is the shriveled cherry on top of a heaping shit sundae. Understandably, Detroit and Windsor residents are a bit upset over their respective cities being treated like dumps.

To top it all off, all of that pet coke was being stored without a permit:

After months of operating without one, the company responsible for Detroit’s petroleum coke piles went hunting for one Tuesday.

Detroit Bulk Storage representatives faced a city panel that will decide the issue. At times, panel members were highly skeptical of the company’s actions.

A company representative said they didn’t know they needed a permit to openly store pet coke along the Detroit River.

It’s stopped taking additional shipments of the substance — a byproduct of refining Canadian tar sands oil — until it gets one.

“Our understanding was that once we were moving toward compliance, we could continue our operations,” said Detroit Bulk Storage lawyer Terri Whitehead.

A Detroit Bulk Storage representative also insists the company is using “best practices” when it comes to handling the openly-stored piles safely.

Fantastic.

- Detroit is officially bankrupt. Or at least it would be hadn't a judge ruled the city's Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing unconstitutional:

Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie E. Aquilina issued the orders Thursday and Friday, including a temporary restraining order, in an attempt to halt the Chapter 9 filing by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr. The judge says the bankruptcy filing “…will cause irreparable injury” to the pensioners.

“In order to rectify his unauthorized and unconstitutional actions described above,” wrote Judge Aquilina, the Governor must (1) direct the Emergency Manager to immediately withdraw the Chapter 9 petition filed on July 18, and (2) not authorize any further Chapter 9 filing which threatens to diminish or impair accrued pension benefits.”

- Fiery White House journalist and former correspondent Helen Thomas has died at the age of 92. Being a mainstay of the White House press pool through 10 presidencies is no small feat.

- A man walks into a bank and gets swindled:

(Philip L. Ramatlhware, an immigrant from Botswana) was 48 years old at the time and disabled, after being hurt in an accident as a passenger on a Greyhound bus. His English wasn’t good, he had no college education and his last job had been at a fast-food kiosk at the Philadelphia airport. In April 2008, he received $225,000 in a settlement for his injuries, part of which went to pay legal fees. He was holding the settlement check when he walked into the branch.

Immediately he was referred to a broker for a “financial consultation,” according to an arbitration claim he filed against Citigroup. The broker assured him the money would be invested in “guaranteed” funds and that he could have access to them whenever the need arose, the complaint said. Ramatlhware gave him $150,000 to invest. The broker put $5,000 into a bank certificate of deposit, bought a $133,000 variable annuity and invested the rest in a series of mutual funds.

Less than six months later, Ramatlhware had lost $40,000, according to the complaint. Citigroup settled the case in 2010 for $22,500, without admitting liability, according to a report on the case by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

- Scottie Nell Hughes, Director of the Tea Party News Network and unabashed ultra-conservative*, thinks that rape victims who abort their pregnancies should be locked up and serve the same amount of prison time as their rapists:

FUGELSANG: “Let’s say Roe v. Wade is overturned and abortion becomes illegal. If a woman is raped and she goes to a doctor, and the doctor terminates the pregnancy – Please tell me who deserves the longest jail sentence? The rapist,the doctor or the woman? In order.”

HUGHES: “Across the board.”

FUGELSANG: “All three of them?”

HUGHES: “Go for it!”

Let's just say if Scottie Nell Hughes found herself in that position, she'd find any and every excuse that makes her exempt from the above. That's just what conservatives do.

- George Zimmerman won't be getting his gun back thanks to the DOJ. However, a Florida gun store has kindly stepped in to give him another one, free of charge. Now if someone would be so kind as to give Trayvon Martin his life back...

- Rush Limbaugh doesn't think the N-word is racist anymore. Neither does David Sirota. Hans von Spakovsky, John Nolte, Ben Shapiro, Dan Riehl, Joe Walsh and Todd Starnes all think that racism is "dead" and the president is a "race baiter" of the highest order. All deserve the DDSS Award for Excellence in Rank Stupidity, lovingly crafted out of pigeon droppings, old Klansman robe cloth and discarded anti-abortion bill clippings.

By the way, if you can turn your sink faucet into a flamethrower, thank your local gas-drilling operation for giving you a neat party trick to impress friends. It's not like you actually drink tap water...

*Considering you have to be ultra-conservative for that gig, a bit of an oxymoron there.

One thing I've noticed about websites and blogs where white Americans of a certain ideological persuasion gather to bemoan and bemuse the current state of majority-black cities (often made that way through white suburban flight and loss of economic capital to other, often cheaper locals), is that for all of the symptoms they "pinpoint" and the blame they assign to the black American citizens and majority-black government, they never seem to offer a clear solution as to what they'd do about what they see as a "problem." That, and they never seem to realize the true root causes of the situation they see before them.

Case in point is a post from "Stuff Black People Don't Like," which focuses on Detroit, an "actual black-run city" that epitomizes what the SBPDL and attendant Freeper/bigot/RWNJ crowd see as abject failure, caused solely by blacks who had the nerve to be in charge of a city that was and still remains in economic and social turmoil:

None of this will matter once the storm hits, for, like Hurricane Katrina, all that will be left in its wake is the unvarnished truth that those on both the politically-acceptable left and right work feverishly to hide: Detroit's collapse through financial mismanagement, depleted tax-base, shuttered businesses and completely broken local economy is due 100 percent to being the crown jewel of Actual Black-Run America (ABRA).

In other words, black leadership is the problem. There's no in-depth discussion about any inherent qualities in blacks that make them such "poor leaders," other than the typical canards about blacks being lazy, wasteful and all too willing to grift and give each other handouts - essentially a darker and more open version of GOP politicians. And there's the typical sob story about poor, defenseless white Americans being run out on a rail towards the suburbs and exurbs by an angry mob of black city-dwelling savages led by a charismatic Coleman Young holding an axe or a shotgun or some equally dangerous looking weapon blacks use to scalp their white enemies.

And it is Detroit - on the heels of Jefferson County (home to 72 percent Black Birmingham) declaring the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history - that WILL soon run out of money and declare the same.

Sorry, SBPDL/RWNJ folks. We all know the reason why Jefferson County went bankrupt in the first place, and it didn't have anything to do with a high melanin count. This sort of grasping for straws is why people tend not to take race-bating, dog-whistling RWNJs seriously.

But the real problem with this entire post is that it is simply too cowardly to suggest any real solution that would please the SBPDL/RWNJ crowd and "fix" Detroit and other cities supposedly run into the ground by the so-called "ABRA." Instead, all you get is constant comparisons to cities and countries in Africa left behind in the wake of European colonial "scorched earth" flight. I bet it pains the SBPDL/RWNJ crowd to hear of Pretoria, South Africa being renamed "Tshwane." Africans reclaiming their cities and heritage from white European colonists is something that's treated with utter revulsion from those who see these people as only worth as much as the labor they can get out of them.

Which brings me to what could be the closest admittance of what the SBPDL/RWNJ really want:

One Detroit council member had the audacity to say the state takeover of ABRA Detroit would turn it into a "plantation," but Walter Russell Mead’s blog on The American Interest states:

“Plantation”? “Plantation” is a colloquialism for a prosperous place where white people live good and make money from the back-breaking labor of black people.

Detroit is a place where the predominantly black population doesn’t work but receives handouts from white middle and upper-middle class taxpayers in the form of food stamps, welfare, health benefits, etc. Rather than being prosperous, the whole thing is collapsing. “Plantation”? OK, you can start calling me a racist now. Just remember, I wasn’t the one who made this a racial issue.”

Rachel Maddow would still find a way to spin this truth into blaming white people for the fall of Detroit because not enough money was spent on Black people.

Being rank cowards of the highest order, they won't openly admit that what blacks need is some more time performing back-breaking labor for their own good while white Americans profit from their labors once more, for the good of society of course. They beat around the bush, blow the dog whistles and drop hints here and there, but they won't openly state exactly what they want to see of black Americans. Doing so would place them on the same social footing as the constantly discredited (and woefully open) white supremacists and unabashed bigots. There's nothing more terrifying to RWNJs as being irreparably ostracized and marginalized as open bigots of the highest order.

You're probably wondering does it matter if they want to be open, unabashed bigots? The answer is "Yes, Virginia, you bet your sweet iced tea it does." Being a crass prototypical bigot who uses "Nigger" every fourth or fifth word is a great way to get people to STOP listening to you. These people want an audience - that's way SBPDL and the Free Republic exist in the first place. Even Stormfront seems a bit tame nowadays. This is why you'll hear Republicans call President Barack Obama every coded epithet under the sun, but you may never, ever hear them call him a Nigger in public. It would be a "I Shot Marvin in the Face" moment for whoever said it, and the resulting backlash and rallying with Obama will be nothing short of amazing.

Now on to more contrived color-aroused stupidity:

I live in Mississippi and it is really gut wrenching what clueless blacks have done to many cities throughout after gaining office. Rampant carelessness on the tax payer dime and outright theft.

Add Jackson Mississippi to the list of craphole black run cities that whites are fleeing. The mayor's biggest concern for Jackson at one point not long ago was naming streets after black people, as the city sinks in a pit of blight, crime, and general decay.

This is fundamentally how blacks are: all show, no substance, inept and all at taxpayer expense.

Because Mississippi was a well-run utopia that was the shining example of how a state and its cities should be run, sort of how the southern debutante was the shining example of how a darling young white woman should look and behave, at least until she was despoiled by some awful Negro. Or a pack of awful Negros.

Methinks these are the same type of anonymous commentators who shit up sensible and enlightening blogs like the Field Negro on a constant basis. And the above blockquoted proves that in many cases, color arousal and indoctrinated hatred of blacks and other dark-skinned "others" both qualify as mental illnesses worthy of being researched and treated.

I won't delve any further into the comments, because they say the same thing while taking great pains to avoid what they really want to say. Because what they want to say is as good as putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger, as far as social and media graces go. Veiled and coded bigotry is OK, but full-on open hatred is a killer.

These people angle for a full-on collapse of Detroit and other cities, in a fit of Collapse Fetishism with copious amounts of color-arousal mixed in for seasoning. Yet when the smoke clears and the "ABRAs" are finally in ruins, no one bothers to ask the SBPDL/RWNJs "So, what happens then?" Just as the bigots who paraded New Orleans' collapse in the wake of Hurricane Katrina had absolutely nothing to say about what should happen to the Big Easy after most of the poor black population was devastated, the SBPDL/RWNJ crowd won't have anything to say about what should be done with the black ruins of Detroit - they'll be too busy getting their fix from yet another "mismanaged" majority-black city. I suppose when you come down off a color-aroused high, you never look back to the time that last hit made you feel a certain way; you're only focused on the next hit.

Birmingham, AL and Detroit, MI are similar to one another in a variety of ways. Both were regional powerhouses during their heyday, both were heavily invested in the steel industry and both cities were hit hard when they lost their respective industrial capacity. Both were hotbeds of the Civil Rights movement and both cities saw a steady stream of white suburbanites flee for suburbs and cities on the outer rim of the metropolitan area. Detroit had the 1967 riots help them in that regard, while the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and Eugene Connor's "peacekeeping" measures ruined Birmingham's image for quite a while. The major difference between Birmingham and Detroit is the horrific level of decline the Motor City experienced before essentially hitting bottom.

No need to offer links -- just Google "Ruins of Detroit." Birmingham is nowhere near that level of collapse, not even after the tornado that nearly blew Pratt City off the map, but there are a number of people who wish the city would just sink into a hole without a trace.

Take a quick visit to the AL.com website and click a link to nearly any story about Birmingham. You will inevitably find the "collapse fetishists" -- a largely white, largely rural and suburban group of people who constantly rag on the city in a largely non-constructive manner. They hate the current form of government, the mayor, many of the citizens within and the fact that the city has the audacity to tax their precious taxpayer dollars away from them when they stop in Birmingham or Jefferson County to eat/gas up/work/whine. These are also the same people who are glad that former mayor Larry Langford will most likely die in prison, but that's another post for another time.

The collapse fetishists are an interesting mix. You have former Birmingham residents who got out sometime around the 1970s, back when the blacks were supposedly conquering City Hall. These people don't have any love for former mayor Richard Arrington. Then there are the suburban residents who are only concerned about their horrid commute on U.S. 280 and the number of businesses and residents fleeing to their suburban enclaves. Oh, and making sure none of the "criminal elements" from the city make their way over the mountain. Then you have the rural residents of Jefferson County and the other surrounding counties, always eager to apply small government solutions to big government problems, not realizing a 200k+ population city can't be run in the same manner as a 2000+ population township. It never sinks in - they're a stubborn lot. Last but not least are the toney T-towners from Tuscaloosa who wish they were Birmingham, only with less blacks and zero Civil Rights baggage. All of these people want to see the city deteriorate to the point at which it just falls in on itself, as proof that 1)blacks can't run any city properly, and 2)to be able to raze the city and remake it in their own image (and by "their" I mean well connected property and land developers specializing in suburban tract and strip development).

It's not just the Internet sounding boards where people who actively harbor these attitudes, but were too scared or "polite" to express them until given the cloak of anonymity. A lot of people out there are more than willing to publicly state how crappy the city is, why they themselves moved (if they did move) and how they'd like to see the city collapse into a heap of rubble and failure. The Internet's done a good job of exposing more of these feelings, if not amplifying them by a larger factor.

The city government of both cities haven't done themselves any favors. Detroit had Kwame Kilpatrick and a city council that could be summed up with the phrase "Hot Ghetto Mess." Birmingham had a city council that often engaged in internecine bickering and a series of mayors who failed to adequately address key issues affecting the city and often got caught up in their own avarice. None of the people involved in both governments are saints, but they are constantly indicted as proof positive of the failure of black leaders to govern effectively.

That was what the whole ruckus over Patrick Cooper was all about. A clean-cut Yale-educated (although he flunked out during his sophomore year) fresh face placed in the role of Great "White" Hope™ for a city "tarnished" by what most whites saw as cliquish, corrupt black leadership. In the end, Cooper wound up with only 29.5% of the 40,000+ ballots cast, while Langford walked away with 50.3%, enough to avoid a runoff. In that election, only three of the nine districts in the city went for Cooper, and those three districts were concentrated in the northeast and southeast portions of the city. Even after Langford vacated office in late 2009, Cooper came up short once again, this time being bested by current mayor William Bell, 54% to 46%. When Cooper lost, most of the AL.com commentators threw hissy fits over the city continuing down a "dark" road.*

Keep in mind that both cities have majority-black populations, with most whites living along the suburban and rural fringes. Both majority-black cities are more or less inclined to vote for mayors who represent the best chance of understanding their concerns, and given the history behind both cities, non-black mayors don't have a sterling track record when it comes to listening to and understanding the black community. Collapse fetishists hailing from rural and suburban areas could care less about the concerns of the black community, only that they see an "out of control" black criminal element under feckless Democrat leadership and a need for a hard-nosed conservative to waft into office and set about "restoring order." There's little to no understanding about the underlying socioeconomic and educational problems that create and maintain poor living and educational environments in the inner cities, only the understanding that the problem can be "solved" by Nixonian "law and order" posturing and the relocation of unfriendly black and Latino faces elsewhere so suburban whites can feel "safe" enough to venture back into the city center.**

I don't want to be too hard on these folks -- Detroit definitely has some serious issues regarding crime, largely vandalism and arson. The "Devil's Night" tradition, copper scavengers and general neglect have wiped out most of the housing stock in Detroit. The city was once home to a treasure trove of architectural delights -- and now whatever buildings that aren't barely standing are now being cleared off and turned into pasture. Birmingham has it's own issues, but it's blessed in that it's nowhere as bad as Detroit is right now. Hopefully Dave Bing is doing his best to mitigate and hopefully reverse the damage done over the decades; it's a hell of an uphill battle.

But the collapse fetishists, the people who, day in and day out, hope that the city hits rock bottom so it will grudgingly accept a preferably white conservative savior and retool itself to suit the sensibilities of suburbanite and rural whites, those folks gotta go. These same people who constantly criticize the city are usually nowhere to be found when it comes to putting in some work to help repair and improve the city. Funny that.

*The sooner AL.com restricts comments to the "Email us for feedback" links like other, semi-respectable news outlets, the better.


**This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons A.C. Roper, Birmingham's current police chief, is so loved. He does crack down on crime.