LA has become a filthy jungle, like San Francisco.

Typical LA suburbia circa 1950

“Diners at a Los Angeles sidewalk cafe were approached by a pair of brazen robbers Tuesday who walked up to them wielding guns in broad daylight along a busy street. 

Security footage of the incident shows three patrons dining at the La Creme Cafe on Melrose Avenue around 5 p.m. when two people wearing hoodies and at least one displaying a handgun approach. 

One of the suspects appears to check the pockets of one patron while the other rifles through a purse and shopping bags on the table as the visibly shaken diners are seated. “

Comment: When I was a boy my father was stationed by the Army at a federal building in LA city. We lived in an Okie immigrant community just south of LA proper. This was 1949 to ’53 approximately. The LA metro area was still a wonderful mélange. There was magnificent public transportation in an electric trolley system. There was one company that ran cars colored red. Another that had yellow cars. wiki, wiki, wiki. One of the yellow car company’s lines was the “J” line. We could get on a “J car” two blocks from our house and ride it all the way to the center of the city going north or to Long Beach going south. I rode my bicycle about three miles to school every day. Places like Compton, Lynwood, and South Gate were clean and safe. They are now Pachuco ridden “seas’ of individual household fortresses completely paved over and walled up like medieval landholdings that must be defended against all. The “downtown” of LA proper had many wonderful attractions. My dad used to take me downtown to ice shows, museums and then afterward some Chinese or Mexican place in the barrio.

The sheriff of LA County (as big as some countries) and the police chief of LA city itself have expressed their anger at the Lefty politicians who have destroyed civilized life.

OK. Let’s see them do something serious about it. pl

https://www.foxnews.com/us/los-angeles-diners-robbed-gunpoint-cafe

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28 Responses to LA has become a filthy jungle, like San Francisco.

  1. Babeltuap says:

    It’s still very nice if one lives in the same neighborhood as the politicians and B plus actor AO’s. Gated communities, private parks, beaches, golf clubs, pools, restaurants. Seriously, who really cares about all the peasant “riff raff” people once inside those lovely areas.

  2. walrus says:

    Col. Lang, I agree with you about LA. I first visited in the mid Seventies on my first business trip outside Australia. I worked for an airline. I hired a car at the airport and drove myself to the Beverly Hilton – 50% discount to airline staff and had what I considered at the time to be ten days in paradise.

    When I wasn’t hanging out with the guys from Boeing, Douglas, Lockheed, GE, P&W and Rolls, I was exploring Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice. I drove as far as Malibu and Bakersfield. Jerry’s deli on Ventura, shopping for vinyl records, motorcycle accessories, etc. Every time I hear the song “Baker Street” it takes me back to that wonderful time.

    Everything seemed fresh, clean and bright, including the people, despite the air pollution, after stuffy, inward looking, Australia. I put on so much weight I needed new Levi’s and had to buy an extra suitcase going home. More visits followed. Sadly my last was a few years after 9/11 and the gloss was wearing off by then.

  3. BillWade says:

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1435082826366472194

    The short video above was snipped from a longer video recently done in Philadelphia.

  4. Le Comte says:

    “In the popular narrative, Attica has persisted to this day as a symbol of prison brutality and state oppression. In reality it is most apt to stand as a byword for the bloody and disastrous consequences of excusing, placating, flattering, and emboldening violent criminals.”

    https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/massacre-of-the-guards/

    • Fred says:

      Le Comte,

      I doubt that the majority of Americans (median age 38 years) know or care about Attica, which is a state prison. In prisons today Jefferey Epstein did not kill himself and masks don’t stop Covid so prisoners are released onto the streets. Those still incarcerated awaiting bail hearings are January 6th “insurrectionists”, excluding those on the FBI payroll as informants.

  5. Pat Lang says:

    LeAnder

    You expect that I would remember the fee for riding the streetcars after 70 years?

    • LeaNder says:

      No, I was babbling. But considering San Francisco vs LA during my stay, very, very different places …

      In LA, I stood in Venice, in SF pretty downtown. Already then, my SF host offered me to take tear gas along, in case I visited certain places. Security was a recurring theme during this first visit and after. It wasn’t pepper spray yet, it feels. Ok, maybe it was. In Venice, I was offered a car to use. In both cases I said, no, thanks, but I don’t think I need it. And strictly, I learned a lot from passengers on public transport. 😉

      Google now only brings up both tear gas and pepper spray as used by police only.

      But many things about the US surprised me, e.g. what felt surprisingly cheep fees for public transport in LA then compared to over here at the same time. But yes, that was 30 years after you lived there. Plus from a student’s perspective, or someone who spent most of his money in jazz clubs. 😉

  6. akaPatience says:

    The demise of streetcars occurred by the time I was born. And while it’s laughably considered by some to be a conspiracy theory, IT’S A FACT that GM, oil companies, tire companies, et al., successfully bought numerous streetcar lines and put them out of business. It truly changed America: freeways scar our landscapes, and homes today are routinely built with a standard 2-car garage – but affluent homes have 3, 4 or more-car garages. Forget about walking or bike riding to school these days. No wonder childhood obesity is increasing at an alarming rate.

    I can remember being in LA/Malibu in the early 1980s and seeing really crappy houses THEN that nevertheless had Mercedes, Jaguars, Porches and the like in the driveways. Envy, and the pretense of wealth, are particularly keen there. And now the Age of Covid seems to be ushering in a surge of crime.

    In olden times there were public employees who shoveled up after horses. Nowadays in California, they shovel up human waste.

    • LeaNder says:

      In olden times there were public employees who shoveled up after horses. Nowadays in California, they shovel up human waste.

      Explain, would you, akaPatience? Stupid foreigner, see? I am sure everyone but me around here understands what you mean.

      Shoveled up after horses ???
      Shovel up via human waste ??

      • Pat Lang says:

        LeAnder

        Once upon a time horses pulled conveyances in the streets. I believe that was true in Germany as well. Employees of the cities shoveled up the horse manure and took it away. No more. Today human derelicts crap in the streets of big cities here. Employees of the cities now shovel human s–t in the streets of places like San Francisco, Seattle, etc.

        • LeaNder says:

          Employees of the cities now shovel human s–t in the streets of places like San Francisco, Seattle, etc.

          Hard to believe. The closest I can get are urine corners or apparently urine dripping down on me from the platform around the dome above the train station, then … Highly inconvenient considering time and an upcoming meeting.

          Thanks anyway.

          • Pat Lang says:

            LeAnder

            The evidence of humans crapping in these streets is well exhibited. The Urine thing is in Germany? Shocking.

  7. scott s. says:

    The difference is SF is a pretty compact place, while LA is huge (not to mention LA county). As a result there are many “LAs”. I had family in Sunland which is “LA” but nothing like depicted in the photo.

    • Pat Lang says:

      scotts

      Better or worse?

    • Fred says:

      Scott S.

      I lived in Michigan for 14 years, leaving only recently. Parts of Detroit and Downriver are in good shape. My ex, who had led a sheltered life and never really seen American poverty, was shocked when after leaving the state fair (yeah they still did them in the outskirts of Detroit back then) I took a detour, by mistake, on 8 mile Rd. The first mile was just run down, then the stretches with bars on the windows, then the collapsed buildings, rusted out cars, and various debris. Just like Eminem sang about in his songs, but worse. Thanks goodness the US invested $2 trillion in Afghanistan. God and the bureaucrats only know how much in Iraq and elsewhere. It’s not like we ever needed to spend American money in American to make American lives better.

      • Deap says:

        A couple trillion over all on LBJ’s War on Poverty did not bring expected outcomes either besides embedded multigenerational impoverishment now welded on top of continued poverty; not much different than the $2 million in Afghanistan.

        Is this why they keep calling America a rich country – because we burn money like a northwestern Native American potlatch who proved their value by destroying vast quantities of their own goods just to impress their enemies of their wealth?

        Government is not very good at spending; while they do excel in taking.

      • walrus says:

        Fred, I agree with you 100%. I’ve made two wrong turns in the USA:

        – first was wrong freeway exit in LA that took me through at least ten blocks of Watts. I dared not do anything but look straight ahead and drive.

        -Fifteen years later I got lost in Phoenix between Marriott at the Buttes heading for Garrett AirResearch. I ended up in a cardboard box shanty town.

        Both episodes made me wonder how America tolerates such extremes poverty.

        • Pat Lang says:

          walrus

          “America tolerates such extremes poverty.” What would you have us do about it?

          • Pat Lang says:

            Elijah Ad hominem attacks are not allowed on my site. That is why I disallowed your comment.

          • walrus says:

            COl.Lang,

            What we I do about it?

            Wave the magic wand and:

            – universal single payer healthcare.

            -reform the education system including kindergarten.
            – major economic reform to remove rent seeking behaviour, the Louisiana Florists registration board being the most egregious example.

            – Tax reform to eliminate state taxes.

            – removal of property taxes

            -welfare reform to incentivise working.

            – destroy the power of unions.

            The irony is that America produces good economists and promotes such programs to everyone but itself

          • Pat Lang says:

            walrus

            Do you think maybe the people who persist in ghettoizing their own environments bear any guilt for their 3rd world lifestyle? Do you know that federal law requires hospitals to treat destitute patients starting at the emergency room and the government reimburses the hospital? If there are no property taxes who will pay for the public schools? What would your educational reform consist of? You wish to make the states into administrative tools of the federal government? You disapprove of private property being rented to the general public? You think economists should run the country?

        • Fred says:

          walrus,

          I was in no danger in that part of Detoit at that time of day. If memory serves it was all in the congressional district represented by the Honorable Carolyn Jean Cheeks Kilpatrick, mother of the mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick.

          “..how America tolerates such extremes poverty.”

          These individuals all have personal agency. They all also keep getting sold con jobs by our elites, to include businessmen repeating the kind of crap you’re saying in the trailing comments. That doesn’t excuse them, and especially not our so called elites.

          “The irony is that America produces good economists…”
          I have a degree in economics. Let me point out you are wrong, the world isn’t better off with subsidies for the multitude paid for by the productive few. We are over regulated and generally over taxed, with said taxes skewing the market on many, many things.

          • Eric Newhill says:

            I grew up just outside the East side of Detroit, like a few blocks from the city limits. One of my earliest memories was my father taking me for a walk and showing me the tanks and armored cars forming a line on the Detroit/Grosse Pointe border during the ’67 riots.

            Prior to the riots, Detroit had a vibrant and successful black community and a fair number of white collar whites living within the city. After the riots, the city became a permanent hellhole. Downtown held out, but the many miles between downtown and the suburbs were war zones. When I was 14 my mother was a docent at the Detroit Institute of Art. The war zone had to be crossed to get there. During the summers, when the savages of the war zone tended to lurking about on porches and street corners, my father had me ride along with my mother when she went down there. He handed me a loaded .38 and admonished me to “do whatever it takes to protect your mother”. We all people who had been unfortunate and their car had broken down or they had been caught out late on Jefferson Ave and they had been robbed, beaten, raped and, in a few cases, killed.

            Yes, the black leadership of Detroit, installed post riots, was utterly corrupt and incompetent. I always wondered the savages trashed their own neighborhoods. Some of the old homes could have been quite nice, and were once upon a time, but the savages had ruined them. Savages going to be savages. Lafayette Towers was where my parents lived when I was born. It was a new highly luxurious apartment high rise a couple miles from down town. I still have pictures of me as baby in there. By the time I was a teenager the building was an absolute tenement full of drugged out homicidal savages. No one did that to them. They opted to be that way. All of the automotive factories moved out of the city due to fear of these people. The democrats ran the place and did nothing except enrich themselves and perpetuate the mess. They seem to do that wherever they rule.

    • KMD says:

      Grew up in Sunland during the late 60’s through the 70’s. Great place for us free range kids with the Big Tujunga Wash as a playground. It’s not nearly as nice a place now. Rampant drugs and increasingly aggressive homeless population.
      Just sold my house in Tujunga and left California. It is becoming more and more dystopian.

  8. Deap says:

    There was a progression from hobos – to bums – to vagrants -to drug addicts wasted on the streets. And a national tilt that pushes them all to roll on to “sunny California”.
    First error that keeps getting repeated here is calling them “homeless” which begs giving them a “home” is the solution. Which of course it is not. Wiser voices are just starting to triage them into:

    1. The HAVE NOTS – those who are generously treated by our current social welfare safety net – approx $60,000 worth of goods, services and vouchers – some of which gets traded for drugs or sent back to relatives in Mexico. These might also be the working poor. But since many are also illegals, they have learned to game the system, or are choosing multi-generational poverty as lifestyle choice. (SOLUTION: Taken care of already – they participate in the welfare system.)

    2. The CAN NOTS – those with mental impairments and or serious drug addictions that need to be in lock-down care institutions and under court guardianships – they are a threat to themselves as well as others.

    ACLU and liberal courts have currently tied our hands which block taking them off the streets for more than 72 hours – legislative reform is critically needed but not forth coming, at least in California. (SOLUTION: Need to be placed in lock down treatment institutions -state or federal California voters passed the Mental Health Services Act raising billions of “tax the rich” dollars every year – where did it go? To Homeless Inc staffers.)

    3. The WILL NOTS – what they call the “service resistant” – and also a combination of the two above, but just as often working age, able bodied adults who refuse to participate in any shelter services, they are grifters, con artists, petty criminals, and often make up the most visible portion of this over all problem.

    The primary cause of the destruction of downtown real estate, well before Amazon stole the business, mainly because people got disgusted going down town and getting pan-handled and hassled. Bums with attitude.

    WILL NOTS are sentient enough to cook meth in open camp fires; dangerous enough to burn down our freeways, RR tracks and of late and entire hillside up to some very expensive homes. Sentient enough to run massive stolen bike chop shops. Sentient enough to prowl mail boxes and become porch pirates.

    Sentient enough to have a drivers licenses and car registration to live in their car. (Prison or get up and gone.)

    My own priorities: continue our engaged social welfare system; put those with addictions and mental impairments in state/federal institutions, and lock up the rest of of them or create work camps -but no more trespassing, taking over public spaces, panhandling and enabling while staring down any court who tells us otherwise.

  9. Deap says:

    Florida is lucky to have the leadership California is sorely lacking. Yet Ron DeSantis barely won by a whisker against a porn-loving, drug addict. DeSantis reminder of what America continues to produce and are willing to stand tall and call themselves conservative.

    Ron DeSantis:
    Yale (History), magna cum laude
    Harvard Law, cum laude
    US Navy (JAG)
    Assigned to Commander – JFF-GITMO – Guantanamo
    Naval Special Warfare Command Group (Coronado) – Legal Advisor to SEAL Team One
    Iraq deployment – Legal Advisor to SEAL Team Commander (Fallujah)
    Assistant U.S. Attorney – Middle District of FL
    Bronze Star, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals

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