“In that regard, Bob Brown is what every police official and neighborhood association claims as the solution to the trouble in their streets. He is every bit the old-time beat cop, the retrograde image of walk-the-footpost, know-the-people policing. Get the cops out of the radio cars, runs the latest theory, and you begin to get them back into the neighborhoods. Get the out walking their real estate, and they’ll start to reconnect with the people, learn the neighborhood, prevent crime. Community-oriented policing has become the watchword of the nineties in law enforcement. Houston, New York, Washington, Detroit–everyone is nostalgic for foot patrols and grassroots policing and whatever the hell else kep the streets safe in 1950. That Bob Brown knows his post from one end to the other, that he can recite most of the players and their deeds by name, that he has fought for the same terrain for two decades–all of it seems the textbook model of what the visionaries in law enforcement are promoting. That there are already Bob Browns on the streets, that for all their will and desire and knowledge, they have lost their private wars in hardcore places like West Baltimore–that is somehow beside the point.”
–The Corner, David Simon and Ed Burns, p. 152
Archive for the “Quotes and Whatnot” Category“The U.S. government declared war on poverty, and poverty won.”—Ronald Reagan “A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it.”–Aldous Huxley “The poor will always be with us, declared the biblical sages, and this divided nation seems to go out of its way to prove the point.”–David Simon and Edward Burns, The Corner I was looking for quotes about the city, when I came across this gem:
I like it.
Feb
20
2008
A quote from Vincent Baker that made me laughPosted by: Seth Ben-Ezra in Links, Quotes and Whatnot, Roleplaying GamesThis is from Story Games. Vincent is apologizing for the tardiness with which some of the hard copies of his latest game In a Wicked Age are shipping:
I doubt that I could get a preorder of 210 on one of my games. Well, maybe one day. Of course, I’ve never actually done a preorder for one of my games. Maybe I should…. “If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is, that we should have nothing to do with conquest.”—Thomas Jefferson
Nov
16
2007
A short thought on creativityPosted by: Seth Ben-Ezra in Art and the arts, Quotes and WhatnotMade me laugh when I heard this.
Particularly that bit about “fifty percent pain”. Yeah, that’s about right.
Nov
09
2007
Quote of the momentPosted by: Seth Ben-Ezra in Quotes and Whatnot, Thoughts About My Life“I am not as manly as Seth.”–Ralph Mazza
Oct
24
2007
Another Best quotePosted by: Seth Ben-Ezra in Art and the arts, Links, Music, Quotes and WhatnotFrom the same article:
Emphasis mine.
Oct
24
2007
A quote from Harold BestPosted by: Seth Ben-Ezra in Art and the arts, Links, Music, Quotes and WhatnotI haven’t finished the article, but I’m sympathetic to this idea:
Plus he then goes on to discuss “high” culture vs. “low” culture…or rather how there isn’t really a “versus” at all. Hopefully this will be some solid food for thought.
Sep
21
2007
But…but…but…Posted by: Seth Ben-Ezra in Humor and Satire, Links, Quotes and Whatnot, Thoughts About My Life
Jul
16
2007
Detective fiction quotePosted by: Seth Ben-Ezra in Dirty Secrets Development and Playtest, Quotes and Whatnot“The realist in murder writes of a world in which gangsters can rule nations and almost rule cities, in which hotels and apartment houses and celebrated restaurants are owned by men who made their money out of brothels, in which a screen star can be the fingerman for a mob, and the nice man down the hall is a boss of the numbers racket; a world where a judge with a cellar full of bootleg liquor can send a man to jail for having a pint in his pocket, where the mayor of your town may have condoned murder as an instrument of moneymaking, where no man can walk down a dark street in safety because law and order are things we talk about but refrain from practicing; a world where you may witness a hold-up in broad daylight and see who did it, but you will fade quickly back into the crowd rather than tell anyone, because the hold-up men may have friends with long guns, or the police may not like your testimony, and in any case the shyster for the defense will be allowed to abuse and vilify you in open court, before a jury of selected morons, without any but the most perfunctory interference from a political judge.”— Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder
Jul
09
2007
Detective fiction quotePosted by: Seth Ben-Ezra in Dirty Secrets Development and Playtest, Quotes and Whatnot“Life hangs together in one piece. Everything is connected with everything else. The problem is to find the connections.”– The Far Side of the Dollar, Ross MacDonald
Jul
08
2007
Detective fiction quotePosted by: Seth Ben-Ezra in Dirty Secrets Development and Playtest, Quotes and Whatnot“[M]urder is an act of infinite cruelty, even if the perpetrators sometimes look like playboys or college professors or nice motherly women with softly graying hair.”—Raymond Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder” |

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