Monday, November 30, 2009

We're the Only Ones Non-Preventive Enough

Evans said police showed her photos of Cobbs and that she identified him as her attacker. Then Cobbs, 24, walked past them on the sidewalk and implied he was going to get a gun, Evans said. But the officers didn't arrest Cobbs. Instead, she said, they told her to go to her apartment, and the officers left. [More]
Could the "Only Ones" have prevented it? Well, thanks to citizen disarmament, it's pretty damn obvious no "law-abiding citizen" could have.

Forget it Jake, it's Chi-Town.

[Via The Bitter Clinger]

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Okay, this may come across as a stupid question, but as a teenager I reserve my God-given right to be a moron. I have only recently been reading this blog, but have noticed the "Chi-town" quote come up several times. What is this a reference to, exactly?

Ken said...

Hello, Eleven:

It's not a stupid question at all. It's a take on a line from (I say, anyway) the only good movie that child rapist SOB Polanski ever made: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

David Codrea said...

Not at all. Being a teenager, you have different pop culture reference points than I do.

Chi-Town, of course, is a nickname for Chicago. I prefer "Hog butcher for the world," but even fewer recall Carl Sandburg.

There is a very famous movie from the 70s called Chinatown, starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston, and directed by Roman Polanski (who at least one teenager heard of).

At the end of the film, the protagonist, PI Jake Gittes (Nicholson) is trying to make sense of everything that happened, the corruption, the violence, and he's arguing with a cop who tells the character Walsh to get him out of there, and Walsh tells him-- in the last line of dialog in the film-- "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown," meaning you're not going to make sense out of it, you're not going to fix it, you're not going to get justice or make anything right because that's the way things are there.

So being somewhat of a pop culture nerd who likes to have fun with my posts, this is how I typically sign off on stories dealing with Chicago absurdities.

Sean said...

Yo, Eleven, I'm teetering on the edge of sixty, and I still take a little drive through Moron Estates, every now and then. About the only thing you can do to prevent it is to assume room temperature.