As I said in an earlier post ,I was "working", driving around the Raytown area today. There is a trailer park that sits up on a hill around 47th and Raytown road, which may actually be KCMO. Anyway I took at least one sweet ass picture, while I was driving through this quaint little village on wheels. Here are some observations. There are a whole lot of people living in this trailer park that work nights. I figure that explains why there were so many cars lining the street, and why everyone was home. Of course at least one busy house, may have been occupied by patriots celebrating Presidents Day.I saw at least 3 different skinny white guys, and only one had a coat on. Another was wearing shorts , to his credit, they were those real baggy super long shorts that look like high water jeans. From the absence of winter attire, I deduced that the temperatures were at least 20 degrees warmer than anywhere else in the city. Must have had something to do with the higher elevation.
They have a really vigilant neighborhood watch program. The skinny yet warm, white 20 sumthin fellas would watch me all the way up the street, and then dart inside their respective abodes. I'm thinking they were alerting other under dressed denizens of the area, that a stranger was in their midst. I'm telling you I got so many hard stares I felt as welcomed as Al Sharpton at a Klan rally.
Trailer parks get a bad rap. Sure there is an overabundance of camaros and fire birds, and yes a fair number of the men and women look like Joe Dirt and white trash Barbi. But there are small pockets of class and panache in the sea of aluminum and mullets. Clearly Martha Stewart's second cousin , Mardell Stewart lives in this funky retro retreat pictured above.
I wont swear to it but I think there might have been something funny going on. Which leads to this article as linked by Tony's Kansas City . The long and short of the story is that the Mo. Highway Patrol, is saying that Bush cut off 9 million in funding in the war on meth in Missouri. The HYPO goes on to lament that the war on meth will fold and the war will have been won by the skinny insomniacs.
May I say , BULLSHIT . If all of these years, all of the money and resources directed at the war on meth, haven't eradicated the problem, then throwing more money at it wont help. The truth is the war on meth and the war on crack haven't been fought to win. The sad truth is that if the drugs stop flowing, so does the money. Most meth in Missouri comes from Mexico via California and Texas, as does the majority of cocaine, and heroin. While there are still labs operating in Missouri, chemicals are hard to come by and small labs only supply a tiny portion of the current demand. So the authorities take down these small albeit, dangerous labs, and pat themselves on the back. While local meth labs are A problem they arent THE BIG problem.
The war on cocaine is pretty much the same story, just replace paranoid white wanna be chemists, with young sleepy eyed black guys. Sure we hear of the occasional "big" haul of dope and money, but in relative terms its a drop in the bucket. Mostly, when the police or feds talk about a major multi count indictment, its just some small loose knit group of street level dealers.
When a meth or crack dealer get popped, there are dozens waiting to fill the void. The supply and demand doesnt stop due to token small time arrests.
It is relatively easy to pop a small group of mental midgets who sling dope out of the same house, or the same corner, or the same shitty motel room, day in day out. Its also pretty easy to bust some idiot that tries to cook meth in a populated area, hopefully avoiding a huge explosion in the process, although that's not always the case. My point is its fairly easy and cost effective to take down these clowns, but it doesn't do much to stop the flow of poison. Before some genius posts a comment equating drugs flowing from Mexico with undocumented Mexicans, there isnt a connection. So dont even try it. Jorge wouldnt be up on your roof, or washing your dishes at Applebees if he was slinging dope.
So the Federal, state and local authorities lament the loss of funding while holding up the occasional small time lab rat or popcorn pimp, as proof that they are on the job, The truth is when it comes to true drug interdiction, the guys in white hats are nothing more than absentee landlords.
