Day #2. Old Man's house and the Intifada

I finished off the evening over at my old man's house. He cooked up some fantastic ribs and then we sat in his back yard, drinking beer and loading Uzi magazines, until the calm was shattered by the sound of rocks landing on a neighboring building and the cars in the street.

You see my Pop, for no good reason that I can fathom, lives in Dearborn, Michigan (or "Dearbornistan", as local blog susperstar Debbie Schlussel (a one-time acquaintance of mine) so appropriately labels it. Dearborn is home to the largest population of Arabs outside the middle east and this night they were having a pro-Iraq rally in Hemlock Park, complete with loudspeakers broadcasting Arabic rantings into the neighborhoods and more Iraqi flags than I think I've ever seen being flown in one place, including Iraq. The rocks I referred to were being thrown by a bunch of the Iraqi kids up on the railroad tracks. I don't know it they were playing "Palestinians and Israelis" or just showing their ingratitude for us allowing them into our country, but they were damaging the property of several residents and apparently this goes on regularly. It would have been nice had the adults at the rally reigned their spawn in, but failing that, why won't the railroad secure their property and keep the kids off of the right-of-way and out of rock-throwing distance? When we confronted the kids and told them to stop, they flipped us off, yelled what I presume were insults in Arabic, and threw more rocks. So we called the police and they came out, contacted some of the kids and the adults in charge of the event, and got it stopped. Kudos to Dearborn Police department! (But shame on Dearborn and the railroad and these ungrateful visitors and guests in our country.)

Here's a couple of photos of the little wanna-be Al Qeada members just before they saw me with the camera:



Note the little girl in the second one wearing the head scarf and holding the Iraqi flag as she shouts gibberish at us. When she did that, I turned Lagniappe loose and they all ran back into the park. Of course they told the police that I sicced my mean dog on them, but the officers had a chance to meet and play with Lagniappe and they were able to see for themselves just how "mean" he is.