Mark Steyn seems to be rather hated in Detroit these days. His remarks on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show have cut too close to the bone, apparently.
“This is an American city at the dawn of the 21st century, and one in two of its citizens are illiterate. That’s about the same rate as the Ivory Coast, or the Central African Republic, under its aforementioned cannibal emperor. Whereas in the Seventies and Eighties Detroit was ruled by a Democrat mayor, a bureaucracy-for-life, and an ever more featherbedded union army, all of whom cannibalized the city.”
His many responding emailents (is that a word? it is now) proved to be at least half-literate, though they seem to know four-letter words best. A few got up to two syllables with arse-hole. Not really arse, of course, but we try to be nice around here. Why, I don’t really know, given the state of the culture. Just habit, I suppose.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
“I’d say QED, but they’d probably figure that’s the name of a rapper.”
Big HA HA HA – according to the season.
And what are our bets for the next Detroits-in-waiting? New Orleans was spared, or at least postponed, by Hurricane Katrina making the inhabitants flee like cockroaches. Communities that were generous by taking them in saw their crime rate increase as a result. But what’s coming down the pike? Philadelphia, Chicago, New York? And what do they have in common?
They’re all Democrat city halls. Philadelphia would be my bet. Lots of people have moved out already. New York has already been bankrupt (back in the 70s-80s) and survived it. Chicago has an epidemic of street shootings, and teacher strikes, but otherwise…
For New York, with de Blasio as the new mayor, I wonder how long it will take the city to descend to the pre-Giuliani, David Dinkins level of ruin, both physical and social.