Bud Talkinghorn

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.
Patrick Henry, 1775

Happy New Year especially for a friend who wrote to me this season. This Was Once a Love Poem by Jane Hirschfield -- a woman who has a way with words



Handgun crime--Lessons from Miami

Miami's black community has suffered from rampant gun murders for decades, while Toronto has just begun to discover those pangs. In 1994 in Miami, a "Breaking Story" was featured on television. It involved seven black youths who had stolen three cars and driven them up to the 163rd Street mall. They used one car to smash through the plate glass window of a clothing store. The rest stormed the store with handguns ready. After looting the store of expensive leather jackets, they fled in the remaining two cars. In their flight down the I-95 expressway, they damaged four vehicles. One car speeding off the Liberty City exit hit a car at the bottom. The female driver died instantly, while two occupants in the get-a-way car died in hospital. The survivor was quoted as saying, "That bitch deserved to die." The members of the other car were captured after a gun battle. Nobody said, "Miami has lost its innocence". That had disappeared decades before.

A friend related a story to me from years ago. He awoke to find a tall guy at the foot of his bed. He feigned sleep but managed to reach his golf club from under the bed. He came up swinging. The man ran away. When the Miami police showed up, they found the invader had left behind two pieces of plasticized rope. They surmised that one was to strangle my friend to death, the other to tie up his wife so she could be raped--then probably murdered also. When the husband asked how he could protect himself, the cops said, "Next time have a gun under the bed, and blow the f***er away."

He told me that that is what 31 Miamians did that same year. Not one was convicted for defending himself. Years later, Larry, a Miamian friend in South Dade, told me how he and his neighbours prevented the massive looting that followed Hurricane Andrew. They sat on Larry's roof with pistols and shotguns, while the bedsheet they displayed across their front yard stated flatly: "You loot, we shoot". Nobody on their street was burgarized.

Now E.W. Bopp, a British Columbian, has written a letter to the National Post editor that informs us that in 1999 Florida had signed a bill called "10-20 LIFE". It set out a minimum 10 year sentence for a crime committed with a gun and 20 years minimum if the criminal discharges his weapon. If death occurs it is an automatic 25 to life--or maybe a one way trip to "Old Sparky". In the six years of its existence, gun crime has fallen 30%, while the state has grown 16.7%. That is Canada's answer, not bleating as Martin did about the poor murderers feeling "excluded". Let's give our Vancouver and Toronto gun thugs some real "exclusion"--say 20 years in the Big House.

© Bud Talkinghorn


Bud is just warming up for 2006.

I like a man with a plan who cuts straight through to his point ... no detour through 'exclusion', nor 'root causes', nor checking whether that would be all right with the racism industry 'stakeholders'.

New Year resolution for PM & Team: Cut the bluster and bafflegab; end the canvassing of voting blocks; fix the problem(s). Go straight to them and root them out. March them to exclusion from the rest of the citizenry, right to the slammer. And, by the way, fund justice for victims, instead of funding friends.

By the way, what MP's or Ministers received the stolen money PM has said the Liberal Party will pay back or has already paid back? Is it being used to fund candidates this time? Interest on that money? NJC



Interesting true crime stories

During the decade-long Lebanese civil war a truce was called each year. It was harvest time for hashish. Since the Phalangist Christian forces controlled the country's ports and the Muslims controlled the Bekkas (Bekaas?) valley marijuana-producing area, an economic solution had to be reached. So a short truce was called between the combatants. Phalangist trucks were allowed to carry the dope to the ports. The profits were split equally. Each opponent used most of the money to buy arms, so they could go back to slaughtering each other. A charming story, I thought.

CNN presented the purportedly true story of how Pablo Escobar and his cocaine cartel were brought down. After Escobar escaped from his luxurious "jail"--where drugs, prostitution and executions of rivals were allowed, the gloves were taken off. While the combined forces of the Colombian police, the Cali cocaine cartel, and the Delta Force of America had failed to track him down, a new group called "Los Pepes" suddenly emerged. These were ex-supporters of Escobar's enterprise. Recruited mainly from a right-wing death squad, they systematically assassinated most of Escobar's organization. When Escobar retaliated with a huge bombing campaign, Los Pepes blew up a 12 story apartment building housing his relatives and supporters. Finally, without any allies, he was forced to live like an animal. Former (surviving) gang members kept giving up his various hiding holes. At last, he was cornered in a house above Medellin, where he was gunned down. Sometimes you simply have to play with bad guys to get your man.

For the crime freaks out there, let me suggest the story of Charles Sohbraj. For years he was INTERPOL's top concern. He was captured and put in maximum security prisons in Iran, India, and Greece; however, he managed to escape from them all. Tom Thompson, in his book "Serpentine" followed his incredible crime wave that stretched across continents. There are numerous Canadian victims included. A must read for the aficionado of true crime.

© Bud Talkinghorn

---