Death, Drones, and Shake Down Artists

 #blacklivesmatter 

It's been a busy few days along the dirty, sacred river. Up stream in Losantiville, the city is bracing for the aftershock of a shooting. A University of Cincinnati rent-a-cop shoots 43 year old Samuel Dubose. According to the reports, Dubose was pulled over and rather than produce a driver's license, he produced a liquor bottle. Students and family held a peaceful campus rally. UC cops handed the investigation over to the city -- but even the county prosecutor doesn't think it looks good for the rent-a-cop.

Anyone who knows anything about the long history of Porkopolis and police knows there is no love lost between those who wear a badge and pretty much anyone west of 5 Mile Road. And anyone who knows anything about the nature of power and the University of Cincinnati's land grab in the shriveled corporate heart of that city knows that the university, like many universities of equal size and reach, behaves like a city-state unto itself.

That Dubose is dead and not awaiting trial for drunk driving is not only a tragedy that should have been avoided; it one more testament to the hubris of an out-of-control power and greed machine that is the modern university.

[UPDATE, 10:55am -- I hear that the campus is closing at 11am today. Someone is worried about something happening.]

Drones

 Meanwhile, back here in River City and in parts nearby, a Bullitt County man was arrested for shooting down a drone hovering over his backyard. The drone didn't belong to to any governmental agency -- just a couple of techie interlopers who undoubtedly thought they were being funny, or who were being pervy. In either case, William Merideth, while on the hook for firing a weapon in town limits and firing in the air on a day other than Christmas and Independence Day, is at least a good shot.

Shakedown Artists

Near the top of the food chain in power and greed machines -- otherwise known as the modern university system -- is the university president. If you pay attention  to local news and views, you may be aware that poor ol', Dr. James Ramsey -- the University of Louisville President -- is so destitute that a local contractor and good ol' boy -- who's frequently getting all kinds of contracts and favors from UofL -- has offered to cover some of Jimmy nut. 

Meanwhile, in news and views up 3rd Street and in Versailles, Kentucky, the KCTCS regularly publishes the budgeted salaries of certain important people, including system president Dr. Jay Box. While adjuncts -- who teach a majority of the courses in the KCTCS system and therefore create most of the wealth and value of that institution -- draw poverty wages, Jay Box -- who generates nothing, creates nothing, and contributes less than nothing -- earns $345,000 a year.

That doesn't include other perks and benefits, of course.

While I object on moral and ethical grounds to either Jimmy or Jay being paid what they are for the very little they actually do, I have to commend them both on putting on some pretty good scams.

Operation 200

I'm trying to get my Facebook Page up to 200 likes. As an incentive, I've promised to record a short show somewhere in the city. This show will be posted here. I promise it'll be worth the freight.

A Sketch of North Eustacia, Illinois

The report was a staggering one; three counties over, in a little town no one had thought about since nobody remembered when, the entire town simply dropped dead one day. Of course, no one noticed until the January thaw, and then it was only a lost tourist trying to get to Galena who took a wrong turn and ended up in North Eustacia, Iowa. And the tourist wouldn't have thought anything of it, except that milk cows were roaming the streets, along with the left behind chickens, pigs, dogs, and other semi-domesticated and domesticated critters that hadn't starved to death or had learned how to survive just fine on the eyeballs, belly fat, and fingers and toes of their deceased caretakers. Just walking around, like nothing was wrong. After the tourists – two little old ladies from Cicero, Illinois – noticed the milk cow standing at the corner of Main and Market Street, they noticed the broken windows in all the store fronts. The foul stench of 557 dead bodies – based on the most recent census numbers available – didn't reach them until one rolled a window down, mostly out of amazement. Neither of them had ever seen a real milk cow or a live chicken up close; neither woman expressed a desire to look at one, alive or on her dinner plate, ever again.

After the shock wore off and they rolled up the window and immediately drove themselves to the next town over – Bluffington, population 1978 souls according to the most recent census numbers – which was only about twenty miles north west of North Eustacia, they went straight to the police station and reported what they saw. The jabbering old women were not taken seriously at first, though they might have been if the Police Chief had been on duty; the Chief Delmer Cole was worldly man, a decorated veteran of both Gulf Wars, and had seen enough to know that a town full of dead people, while odd, was not outside the realm of probability. Instead, these two panicked septuagenarians had to explain themselves to one Jasper Cullen, a part-time police deputy and with a high school equivalency and plus ten academy hours. Jasper wasn't even allowed to carry a loaded gun yet, so they let him answer phones and go for coffee. Jasper had never gone any father than five miles in any direction from the town of his birth, and had only heard of North Eustacia when the high school football team played them each year at Homecoming; and even at that, he only knew the name from the cheerleaders rallying cry “There's no pretty faces from North Eustacia!” He remembered this because he liked to watch them jump up and down in their short shirts and tight sweaters.

The two old women – who have still refused to give their named for fear that the strange death they witnessed would somehow follow them back to Cicero and look them up in the phone book – were in near hysterics When Chief Cole happened to come back from lunch with the mayor and heard their story. The first thing he did was call the North Eustacia Police Chief, Watson Gunderson. Not getting an answer, he called City Hall. Still not getting an answer, he called the one or two other numbers dialed at random using the same prefix. Getting neither an answer nor a wrong number recording, Cole got into his car and drove to North Eustacia himself – leaving the babbling women in care of a much humbled Deputy Cole, who offered to go get them a cup of coffee from the new coffee house that had just opened up the street, free of charge.

It took several days to herd all of the animals. Cleaning up the bodies took more than a week, because it meant going door to door. Some people were sitting in their chairs. Some were in bathtubs. Some had collapsed in the middle of the grocery store, or sitting in their cars. It looked like all 556 of them had simply died wherever they were, whatever they were doing. A few people were found dead while having sex. Two teenagers were dead in the backseat of a Chevy Impala at the park; the minister of the North Eustacia Church of God was found dead in the ladies' restroom at the park, his pants down to his knees, his hands still clutching what remained of himself after a wandering animal, to avoid starvation, bit the head of his penis off.

The investigation into the event took longer than it should have because out of 557 residents – according to the most recent census – a total of only 556 bodies of men, women, and children were found. At first, the detectives from the State Bureau of Investigation thought there might be someone alive to notify about the deaths. Then they supposed that maybe the one missing person was somehow responsible; but when the coroner's opus report came back, indicating no cause of death this theory was discarded and the 557^th person was considered a statistical error.

The water was tested, as was all the food at the grocery, and in the restaurants. There were no other reports from any surrounding town. Many of the policemen, fire fighters, and others who came to help or to gawk needed therapy for years afterward. Delmer Cole never talked about what he saw, either with the people who helped in the clean up or with anyone else. He simply wrote a report and filed it with the proper authorities. Jasper Cullen eventually passed all of his deputy training and was allowed to carry a gun … though no one ever gave him real bullets and he still only answered the phone and got coffee. The two old women, it was supposed, returned to the safe suburban haven of Cicero and never wandered that far from home again.