If There Are Elk There Must Be Elves

A friend wrote that he was now convinced there was an elk on Whidbey Island. I smiled. I had stopped and visited with a young bull moose on the way to the university this morning… Got me to thinking that there are quite a number of people to my mind who conflate “fear” and “respect”. I was not afraid of the moose in the least, but I certainly respected him for what he was. I had no reason to change my path of travel, and no cause to have to travel in a pack.

Now, in Anchorage, our local constabulary has advised the citizenry that they should beware isolated areas like parks, bike trails or unoccupied streets, and if one plan to be out ‘late at night’, to travel with a group, because we have had 25 homicides so far this year (certainly no record for Anchorage, most of them, believe it or not, taking place Screen Shot 2016-09-01 at 5.10.46 PM

where police are rarely seen — I will leave you to put two and two together on that one).

And to put that in perspective, the homicide rate in Anchorage is the same as the car crash mortality rate for Alaska and the maternal mortality rate in North Western Europe. The US, of course has a maternal mortality rate three times Western Europe’s. The rates per 100,000 for syphilis and gonorrhea are both about the same as the homicide rate here.

This all seemed to come together during a discussion of whether Trump was winding up the hate and fear across the political spectrum. I pointed out that any perceived decrease in personal or community security (as was being projected by our police) was going to raise fears, and rising fears produced irrational aggression and/or flight, and what we all really needed to do was take back our public spaces (real, as well as virtual):

Unfortunately, at the same time the Trumpus is winding folk up, we have the APD telling everyone to bar the door because it is unsafe to be out in Anchorage. The “answer” is not to hide, but to take back both the streets AND the tone of conversation.

And of, of course, there were exceptions taken. After all, as I pointed out, there is a perfectly sane reason for all white people to avoid Haarlem, Five Points, hhalf of Detroit and most of Baltimore isn’t there 😉 Apparently, while I am a man, and I can change, if I have to, I guess, it can’t be soon enough for some…..

“‘Elk on Whidbey?’, you said?” I think a sense of proportion comes of mixing with wild creatures on a regular basis. Much as I don’t reach for a gun when I see a black bear, I don’t reach for a gun when I see a black kid in a hoody. And when I talk about community policing I am not talking about squad cars assigned to districts, I am talking about officers spending time on foot in neighborhoods getting to know what happens there, and giving the people there an opportunity to get to know their local police. Public safety is a two way street if you want to talk about security, and not reactivity (the latter being mostly what we engage in today). You may want to wreak vengeance on the dastardly perp, but I would rather keep the crime from taking place.

I live with bears, moose, geese, and the occasional criminal. Get outside 🙂 Tell your elected officials you’d like to be able to stroll the neighborhood with a police officer on a regular basis. Tell the Angry Birds to stay out from behind the wheels of their automobiles.

Pardon me, but….

A serious place for some serious discussion

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