… end in Madison WI!
Like a child’s first puppy dog, Madison WI is cute, playful, innocent, and destructive. We flaggelate ourselves over America’s endemic racism. We dispense trust as if it were candy thrown from a parade float. No sob story is too improbable to make us reach for our wallets or vote a subsidy. We apologize for our success. Guilt is our sacrament.
Not Blaska, but the average Madisonian.
How else to explain the efflorescence of beggars on our major street median strips? Early this month, all four corners of Whitney Way and Odana Road were occupied by beggars. They’re becoming more sophisticated. At Gammon and Odana Road, adults with very young children as props. At another intersection, a dog. Everyone loves dogs, right? When a second shift of beggars took over the dog remained — in 90-degree heat. Others are claiming to be refugees.
Not like there’s no paying jobs available in a county begging for workers. Or that metro Madison (Dane County) isn’t the mother lode of poverty resources. What’s more, median strip panhandling is illegal!
Sandy from Verona: Why am I the only one that thinks these homeless people just want to feed their children? What happened to “do not judge until you’ve walked in their shoes”??
Samantha from Park Ridge: I’ve seen them switch off with other people on Gammon and Watts. Like a van shows up sometimes, someone else gets out, and they exchange signs, and people who are on the street get into the van. So I never know what to think. I used to offer water sometimes until I saw that they exchanged people out through the day. It’s like a business.
Point is, panhandlers work the median strips because it pays better. Because Madison is guilty, trusting, and oh so gullible!
Shoot out at the Harmony
Which brings us to the shoot-out Thursday 07-13-23 at a subsidized housing complex on the east side of Madison WI, whimsically named The Harmony at Grandview Commons.
Sixty shell casings recovered and one 20-year-old fellow very much unrecovered in the parking lot turned firing range. “A dispute between two groups of males,” it is described, none of whom appear to be working stiffs, given that this fun and frivolity occurred at 3 o’clock in the afternoon of a work day. They could afford weapons of war and enough ammo to make Volodomyr Zelensky jealous but they’re occupying subsidized housing.
The 94-unit, low-income inharmonious Harmony was officially declared a chronic nuisance three years ago, as if that made a difference. Same status for the city-subsidized affordable housing project at 6810 Milwaukee St. — better known as M Block experiencing almost daily police calls.
Bodies have been carted out of Tree Lane, off Mineral Point Road on the far west side, since it first opened in June 2018 as a “Homeless First” experiment. On the near east side, Rethke Terrace is another chronic nuisance, built in 2016. Combined, the properties produced a staggering 3,681 police calls. Both built with financial help from the city and county via trusting taxpayers.
Here is an idea: How about the City of Madison get out of the housing business? Either that or throw up a permanent crime scene yellow tape around every one of them.
Re: the median strip panhandlers, West District Police Captain Kelly Beckett acknowledges the safety hazard; says her officers have “begun the process of educating individuals” about this ordinance and all the services. “We do not want to cite individuals who do not comply with this ordinance; rather we would just like to gain some voluntary compliance.” Wouldn’t we rather!
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Captain Beckett: scoop up the median strip scam artists. Chief Shon Barnes, locate a bare-bones police substation in every subsidized low-income ghetto. Erect a stout chain link fence around every one of these “affordable” public housing complexes. Control egress. Verify I.D.s. Set up a for-profit sheltered workshop in each. Tenants work off their public largesse. Everyone is better for it.
Blaska Policy Werkes 
11 responses to “Gullible’s travels”
[…] This post originally appeared at https://davidblaska.com/2023/07/15/gullibles-travels/ […]
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the left views the worst elements of society as a protected class.
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The even sadder truth is the beggars work harder than many State office workers.
And they don’t have the option to work remotely!
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Panhandlers. Years ago I was talking to a coworker that vacationed in Tampa FL. He said he ran into a local who’s occupation was professional panhandler. Said he made 6 figures a year. All tax free.
Shootout. As the shootings get worse the politicians will call for more gun control. They always seem to forget that we have gun control laws on the books that the D.A.s don’t prosecute and judges don’t enforce. Milwaukee and Dane County’s D.A. have a terrible record of plea bargaining away or dropping firearm law violations. If these cases don’t go over to Federal Court nothing happens.
Madison seems to be creating new slums by building low income housing projects in the same areas.
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As the economist and historian Thomas Sowell has said, if you want to get rid of street begging don’t give them any money.
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“Control egress. Verify I.D.s.”
Yes, and investigate as to whether they have any ‘handlers’ that coordinate their activities. I saw a drastic increase in median panhandling when the Occupy movement was in town (before we moved out of the reality-free zone to bucolic rural Pennsylvania). It looked to me like the same people showed up at different locations in town from one day to the next.
Even in the medium sized towns near us, I’m seeing more panhandling this year, some people with more sophisticated signs (stick-on lettering and family pictures).
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Well David hit on the solution+ without realizing it. Put the slum shooters in the medians to panhandle and control the speeders at the same time!! No more slum shootings, panhandlers make a nice living, and the streets are safe (sort of)
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Leave it to some comically laughable Gosh I’m Nice/I’m Dialed In/Look At Me neighborsnextdoor (THEY report/YOU decide) Lefty trying to GUILT the great unwashed into embracing panhandlers.
What a maroon!
The Gotch
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And, they still will not allow the cops to wear body cams..hmmmm. who are they protecting without them?
Maybe highle sugur coated police chief will end up in chicago where he came from. New higher crime by 33% mayor will welcome him. “HIDE THOSE DAILY CALLS OF A 1000 A DAY. JUST REPIRT ON 20”.
Works here.
Did real hard…crime stoppers, u wont see much from local.
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Hope mother blames someone who is creating the high crime increase. Surly she knows who that is. Rest of the normal do. Abby normal..not so much.
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Coupla years ago, The Gotch was on his way to the car wash and at westbound Odana Road (@ S. Whitney) median enroute stood a young blond woman holding a “gimmee gimmee” sign. Car wash completed, not 15 minutes later, and returning eastbound through that same intersection, lo-n-behold, a young man had assumed the site and was holding the exact same sign.
What are the odds, am I right?
Anywho, coupla weeks before that at Sam’s Club, I saw a reasonably well-dressed adult male POC with two children holding “gimmee gimmee” signs on the median at the entrance/exit.
While stowing purchases ~ 1/2 an hour later (~04:30 p.m.) all three were observed leaving their posts and heading over to a late model van parked in the shade. There, comfortably seated in a lawn chair, was mom, apparently resting up after her shift.
As they all piled in and drove away, “Land Of Lincoln” license plates suggested they may have been…um…visiting.
The Gotch
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