Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

"Of course, Marines will adapt. but they shouldn’t have to. If they need access to a downtown urban environment to train, they ought to have it.”

Why? Why do Marines have a “right” to take over downtown Toledo for war games while Toledans don’t have the right to say no? Are the rights of Marines privileged above the rights of everyone else in society?

“If a Marine from this unit dies because he wasn’t able to adequately train for the urban combat the Marines face in parts of Iraq, the blood will be on Finkbeiner’s hands.”

You know what, Stephen? If a Marine from this unit was not able to adequately train for urban combat in Iraq because the unit was not able to play war games in the downtown of Toledo, Ohio, then the fault is with the military, not the mayor of Toledo. Something would be terribly, horribly wrong with the U.S. military if taking over an American city’s downtown for three days were the ONLY WAY a unit of Marines could train for combat.

“Just in case anyone would like to let Mr. Rat Fink know what they think about his running marines out of town… here’s his Home Address and Telephone number:”

This is absolutely disgusting. Giving out the Toledo mayor’s HOME ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER? There’s no reason for this except as an invitation to terrorize the man and his family with hate mail and death threats. Why else would this reader give his HOME address instead of his official mayor’s address?

“The freakin’ Man” is contemptible and you, Stephen, are also at fault for allowing this comment to stand.

If the mayor’s life or that of his family is threatened, or if any harm comes to them as a result of this reader having posted his homes address and phone number, the responsibility will be yours.

How’s that? PB Replies: I’m invoking my site owner’s privilege to alert readers to my reply below..

Kathy, you have seriously missed the point.

Calm down Kathy. As soon as I saw that comment I deleted it.

For the benefit of those who came in late, someone posted the Mayor’s home address in a comment to this post. I do not moderate comments, but I usually read them. When I see an abusive comment such as the one in question, I delete it. Sometimes, however, there’s an unfortunate delay before the abusive comment comes to my attention. On those occasions, instead of going off half-cocked - like Kathy - why not use the contact form (the link’s at the top of every page) to send me an email alerting me to the problem?

There is nothing new between democrats and the Marine Corps.  This is an ongoing issue.  There was a lot of friction between the Corps and the Clinton administration, the most publicized was when a member of the administration called the Marines fanatics (I can’t remember the name of the person offhand).  Hollywood has always used the Marines as an example of the real warmongers in the military.  These incidents you cite are just the latest, but this conflict is old hat.

Kathy,

The Marines had made arrangements with the city of Toledo in advance. It was only when their nutjob mayor found out that he had not been notified that he refused the Marines entry into the city.

The man needs a new job, somewhere where he will be far from the people who lay their lives on the line so nutjobs like him can continue to be nutjobs.

gee, giving out peoples home addresses and phone #’s, wonder what people started that trick?

As to ‘taking over’ downtown Toledo, you’re right, 200 people would be very noticeable in downtown Toledo on the weekend.  Mainly because they might be the only ones there.

Liberal Derangement Syndrome - it’s not just for Bush anymore!

One last thing, why do Dems hate the military so much?

Why? Why do Marines have a “right” to take over downtown Toledo for war games while Toledans don’t have the right to say no? Are the rights of Marines privileged above the rights of everyone else in society?

Thats rich...you are not at war, the Marines are at war. Do the Marines get to choose who they defend? What a despicable display of humanity by you and that “Mayor” of yours.

The pity is that those Marines would still die for you.

Perhaps you have foregotten 9/11.

It sure seems Kathy hates the Marines.

I bet she will be along in a moment to deny it and shed a few crocodile tears.  Too bad the rest of us understand what she really ment.

Why? Why do Marines have a “right” to take over downtown Toledo for war games while Toledans don’t have the right to say no?

“Take over”???

You need to calm down.

Nobody’s talking about taking over a city. They were specifically going to train in an abandoned building.

One.

Building.

No. live. ammo.

Training.

Have a drink and relax, toots.

But don’t you dare question Kathy’s patriotism!

She supports the troops, don’tcha know.

Does the mayor hide his address and phone number from the people of Toledo?  Is he not in the phone book?

The mayor of my city is in the phone book and actually answers the phone if you call him…

Finkbeiner has been described by numerous Toledo Dems whom I know as “nuts,” “crazy,” “stupid,” and worse. And these are Dems within the “A” Team Finkbeiner belongs to, in a city entirely owned by Dems so they created a “B” team just to scream at.

B-teamers in turn are convinced he’s so twisted he has threads in his neck, to screw his head on.

This drooling simpleton once thought it a wonderful idea to move deaf people out by Toledo Express Airport southwest of town. They wouldn’t be bothered by the night flights coming in overhead....

Kathy’s response was driven over the top by the deleted poster who published the Mayor’s address.  That was both bad conduct and bad politics. The correct thing to do is to post links to his political opposition.  Don’t be a thug, be a more effective political opponent. 

While the mayor may have the right to renege on the promises his police department made, he also deserves to reap the fallout of his decisions.  If there were real problems caused by Marines in downtown Toledo, they would have been noticed during the prior exercise in 2006 and the Marines would address them to keep access to the area. 

The Mayor’s excuse that armed Marines would cause a “War of the Worlds” panic is thinner than paper.  He denied the Marines to engage in political grandstanding and possibly because he is a petty twerp.  He lost something once to a military person and will always hit back at them while he is in a position to do so.  The thing to do is to remove him from a position to exercise bad personal judgment in the guise of public interest.

The point is not to win this fight, it is to make other idiots like him avoid starting fights like this.  You can’t do that while you are angry, lasting damage is done while concentrating.

Kathy sounds like one of those British “Leisure Center” members who objected to wounded soldiers using the pool.

Why do Marines have a “right” to take over downtown Toledo for war games while Toledans don’t have the right to say no?

Honestly.  You have to really work at it to be that stoopid.

As for publishing home info ~ you really have to work at it to be THAT stoopid, too.  There’s no excuse ~ in this society filled with whack jobs ~ to subject anyone to the potential for personal harm.  Over politics, no less.  Get a grip, people.  You have a problem with hizzonor, then bombard his office with phone calls and email.  (I put up the Berkley mayor’s official email from his official pseudo-apology page and invited readers to share their missives with us if sent.  Got an absolutely poetic one.)

"Why? Why do Marines have a “right” to take over downtown Toledo for war games while Toledans don’t have the right to say no? Are the rights of Marines privileged above the rights of everyone else in society?”

The Constitution of the United States of America doesn’t specify many duties for the federal govt.
Doesn’t say anything about funding schools, healthcare, city this or city that.

The Constitution of the United States does explicity state that the Federal Government will provide for the Common Defense...to include training and equipping an Army and a Navy.

The Interstate Highway System was built as the “National Defense Highway System”...the citizens whose path it crossed didn’t have a right to say no either. Its called “eminent domain”. The training and equipping of an Army and Navy are consitutionally mandated activities.

Scared of Marines?  Scared?

What an ul-tara ma-roon.

Polished well-groomed, polite and socially considerate, all-American good looks are so so so scair-wee.

Kathy,

Take a look at this video (see if it affects your views of the Corps):

<http://our.marines.com/cms_content/showblogvideo/rel_id/169/id/870>

Best,

Jamie Irons

I didn’t see anything that alleged the Marines had a right to take over Toledo.

I did see that they had dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s to gain permission for the operation.

But I’ll tell you as a sometimes big-truck driver there is nothing in Ohio worth fighting for.

What scares Toledo’s citizens more. Marines training in barricaded neighborhoods in Toledo’s lifeless downtown, or local police SWAT teams raiding neighbors homes with no-knock warrants.

Besides, it tells me volumes about the American who tremors at the sight of a Marine. For one, they certainly don’t support them.

I dunno the mayor seems to be just a garden variety jerk face, not necessarily anti-Marine. The give away to me is he has bad blood with his law enforcement branch and unfortunately the Marines (and the people they are sworn to protect) became the victims of a petty power play. By Monday he and his staff will be groveling like the so-called Mayor of Beserkely

As it happens, I pass through the affected (sic) area frequently. There was some disturbance the last time the Marines “took over the streets” of downtown Toledo: passersby of several different ethnic backgrounds kept bothering the Marines by asking if they needed any (presumably armed) assistance. This time, they had to ask in advance for the citizenry to stand well back form the trainees. That’s right--they published this in advance in the Toledo Blade, which is delivered every day to the Mayor’s office.

The building in question is the now-vacant former Nasby Tower, site of one of the first commercial radio broadcasts, named after the satiric copperhead-redneck creation of David Ross Locke, Lincoln’s favorite and the editor of the Toledo Blade…

The reason why Toledo has an obligation to provide for the Marine Corps is found in the concept of DUTY. DUTY is probably a word of which Kathy, the mayor, and the moonbats in Berkeley are ignorant. The United States Marine Corps provides for the common defense of the United States of America. Do you remember the USA, idiots? While the Marine Corps provides for the defense, it is the DUTY of every citizen to also do so. Inasmuch as any citizen of the USA does not contribute to the common defense whenever necessary, he is DERELICT in his DUTY. Being an American is not a priviledge, it is a responsibility. If anyone does not see it that way, please accept my cordial invitation to get the hell out of my country.

I am from Toledo, and everyone there knows Carty Finkbeiner is kind of crazy. Sadly, though, Toledo is a one party town (Democrat) and elections often comes down to Finkbeiner vs. someone who’s 1) basically an unreconstructed socialist or 2) completely and utterly useless. Finkbeiner is a total hothead and makes everyone mad, but Toledoans more or less accept this. We are talking about a guy who once pulled over a random Toledoan for running a red light. Carty saw this and forced the guy to pull over and yelled at him, apparently because he saw this as some kind of insult to Toledo. He’s a total weirdo, but believe it or not, for Toledo he is probably the best from among a lot of terrible alternatives when it comes to governance. (Actually that is not true, any Republican would have been better, but they have no chance at all in Toledo.)

The Marines had made arrangements with the city of Toledo in advance. It was only when their nutjob mayor found out that he had not been notified that he refused the Marines entry into the city.

Well, Dale, some people might say that the major IS the city of Toledo. The Marines “made arrangements” with the Toledo Police Department. Hardly the “city of Toledo.” Don’t you think the mayor has a right and a need to know that 200 marines are going to be playing shoot ‘em up in the streets and on the rooftops of his city’s downtown?

mayor not major

And to Curmudgeon: Nobody has tremors at the “sight of a Marine.” A lot of people would surely have tremors if what they were seeing was 200 Marines in full battle gear running around the downtown of their city and shooting from rooftops. The whole point of this “exercise” is to simulate guerrilla warfare conditions. Seeing guerrilla warfare in the middle of your town might give a lot of people pause.

The training and equipping of an Army and Navy are consitutionally mandated activities.

Yes, in appropriate military-owned and operated facilities. Not in the heart of a metropollitan area where over a million people live.

We have not had a military coup in the U.S. yet, soldier’s dad. The military does not have unlimited rights that privilege it above the rights of everyone else.

Some liberals fear people that have decisive judgment or take decisive action.  Marines are decisive.

"Well, Dale, some people might say that the major IS the city of Toledo.”

Oh really? I suppose that President Bush IS the USA then, and Governor Perry IS Texas, and nothing can happen in their fiefdoms without their ok, hmm? City Council? Who needs em. Courts? Extraneous rubbish. We don’t elect civil servants here anymore, we elect petty dictators!

Pfft.

Take a look at this video (see if it affects your views of the Corps):

Jamie, with all due respect to Marines as individuals and as a defensive fighting force, do you think that video is an objective portrayal of the Marines or of what the wars Marines fight in actually look like?

I mean, to me, it was clearly a promotional video made by the Marine Corps or people associated with the Marine Corps. “Promotional” is obviously not the same as “propaganda,” but it’s also not the same as a legitimate educational tool. It’s very one-sided, meant to portray the Marines as faultless, shining heroes.

This is not intended as disrespect for the Marines, but I truly am baffled when an adult (I assume you’re an adult) presents something that is clearly biased to a particular viewpoint as thought it were documented, indisputable fact.

"The Constitution of the United States does explicity state that the Federal Government will provide for the Common Defense...to include training and equipping an Army and a Navy.”

And where in that explicitly stated language do you find a mandate and a right for the Marine Corps to do urban guerrilla warfare training exercises in downtown Toledo?

Jeez, Kathy, you certainly are unrealistic. The mayor doesn’t do everything in a city, even a podunk burg like Toledo. He has, y’know, staff, & departments.

When someone wants to do something in Toledo, they don’t all go to the mayor. They go to the staff. Or the departments. It’s called “chain of command.” Oh, maybe that’s a military term you are unfamiliar with.

AFAICS, the Marines followed the procedures, got the permissions, made all the proper arrangements, then the fruitcake of a mayor in Toledo went off the deep end, evidently because his own people didn’t bother to tell him that they had agreed to something that any patriotic American would agree to in a minute. Also because he’s another one of those really strange guys that seem to be able to get elected to office in Ohio.

Do you live in Toledo, maybe? That would explain a lot…

Kathy said:

“Well, Dale, some might say the major IS the city of Toledo.”
---------------------------------------------------
I believe Louis XIV said “L’etat, c’est moi.” If the mayor WAS the city, that would worry me.

The premise of the police, who are in charge of keeping the streets safe and generally administrating them, is to be able to control the streets to the extent that they can allow things like parades, out-of-control airplane landings, and even wargames to happen without interference. Sure, I would have notified the mayor, but firstly, he has no right to say no, secondly, he was even worse off denying it after the agreement was made and causing actual monetary losses, and thirdly, he only denied it to be a brat. I would be pretty burnt if my mayor virtually shredded the constitution.

"It sure seems Kathy hates the Marines. I bet she will be along in a moment to deny it and shed a few crocodile tears.”

Why would I feel a need to “deny” something I didn’t say or imply? I’m not responsible for your baseless assumptions.

The idea that uniformed US military personnel might “scare” civilians is surprisingly common. 

The military used to use the Philadelpia airport as an origination point for charter flights.  Though their weapons were stowed, the use of a rented gate meant that service members in various combat uniforms often walked through the terminal.  Then we were told (IIRC, during DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM) that our charter flights were no longer welcome in Philly because the sight of our combat uniforms distressed people.

Much more recently, a military charter flight was sequestered far from the terminal at the Oakland airport for hours, without food or conveniences, for the same reason.

For this and other reasons, the military’s regular use of US commercial airports has shrunk over the years to a mere handful of airports.

Such treatment is all the more silly when one considers that the sight of large numbers of military uniforms in a commercial terminal often means the military travelers are reservists or members of the Guard.  Large movements of active units usually originate at the units’ base, while the Reserve and Guard are more apt to be picked up at a centrally located commercial airport.

I believe Louis XIV said “L’etat, c’est moi.”

Well, he said it first. But more recently, Pres. Bush has adopted it as his official credo.

Furthermore, it seems very perverse to suggest that Mayor Finkbeiner wanting to be informed about a major event taking place over three days in the heart of his city is analogous to Louis XIV saying, “L’etat c’est moi.”

"Sure, I would have notified the mayor, but firstly, he has no right to say no,...”

He does have a right to say no. Unarguably.

"I would be pretty burnt if my mayor virtually shredded the constitution.”

You must be indescribably livid with rage at Pres. Bush, then.

Kathy: While you’re using up my bandwidth so vigorously, you might consider an apology for having gone off half-cocked about the abusive comment in your original post.

I hope Kathy and the Mayor call on the Marines when a terrorist strikes their city.  And I hope the Marines tell them both to shove it.

The Marines won’t, of course.  They’re Marines.  They don’t selectively choose which Americans to defend - the defend us all.  But I suppose Kathy and Hizzoner know that - which makes it all the easier for them to grandstand and talk trash.

Kathy - just remember.  When the Islamists come, they’re coming for you liberal feminists first.  The Marines (and their brothers in arms) are the ONLY thing stopping that.  A bit of appreciation might be in order.

Of course, you’d probably look better in a burka.

The right to take over a city is one of many rights that the penumbra of the constitution gives any one of us who have the will and firepower to do it.  This is basic stuff Kathy.  Your right to be ignorant does not outweigh the rights of those who have the right to determine the scope of your rights and endow those with the right to protect your rights with the necessary rights to say they are right when they want or to have the right no to mention their rights and just do what is right without asking if their right to feel how you want as they protect your rights are being trampled by the upholding of everyone’s right not to be bothered by listening to you frame everything in terms of rights in order to muster up the moral indignation of an absolutist in order to exercise your right to feel righteous and outraged without having to exercise your right to think or listen or consider that maybe you just have bad taste and stupid fears.

"Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” - Rudyard Kipling

True then, true now.

Please, no further responses to “Kathy’s” comments.  You will only encourage her.  What started as a discussion of a last minute cancellation of an urban training exercise by the Mayor of Toledo and the attending costs (both in terms of lost military preparedness and $$$) has now devolved to shredding the constitution and comparing President Bush to Louis XIV.  The “bait and switch” is alive and well.

Actually, it was George Orwell, but Kipling would have understood it perfectly.

Who knows what makes civilian officials do what they do?  Civilians are overall strange, anyhow.

As the old saying goes, “I left home when I found out my parents were civilians.”

Way back to Mike Goldstein at 8:29 ... the Clintonoid who called Marines extremists was Sara Lister, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and incidentally not the worst of Clinton’s military appointments.

We Need a Few Good Extremists

Saturday night in Toledo, Ohio, is like being nowhere at all
All through the day how the hours rush by
You sit in the park and you watch the grass die

Ah, but after the sunset, the dusk and the twilight
When shadows of night start to fall
They roll back the sidewalks precisely at ten
And people who live there are not seen again

Just two lonely truckers from Great Falls, Montana
And a salesman from places unknown - ces unknown
All huddled together in downtown Toledo
To spend their big night all alone

You ask how I know of Toledo, Ohio
Well I spent a week there one day
They’ve got entertainment to dazzle your eyes
Go visit the bakery and watch the buns rise…

video <a herf="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmFJy-asMdY">HERE</a>

Guess the Marines were too much fun for locals…

Thats rich...you are not at war, the Marines are at war. Do the Marines get to choose who they defend?

I wish we did. Its a good thing I’m retired. There are large segments of America that I will no longer defend.

Kathy, MOUT [Military Operations in Urban Terrain is the most difficult warfighting skill to master. Casualties usually range 10-1 against you. Proper “reality” training can cut that number in half.

But I’m sorry your manicure appointment was ruined. Next time, get a nice shade of red to remind you of the blood unnecesarily shed because of your selfishness. Now go back to enjoying your MTV, decaf lattes and cheap oil economy.

When Sharia comes for people like you, I won’t lift a finger. I may even laugh.

Kathy: If a Marine from this unit was not able to adequately train for urban combat in Iraq because the unit was not able to play war games in the downtown of Toledo, Ohio, then the fault is with the military, not the mayor of Toledo.

No. This unit was already green-lighted for training in Toledo. Cancelling at the last minute is much different than denying a request to “play” war games 6 months out.

Something would be terribly, horribly wrong with the U.S. military if taking over an American city’s downtown for three days were the ONLY WAY a unit of Marines could train for combat.

MOUT facilities are limited. 29 Palms has a great one, but ya see, since we’re at WAR, its kinda tied up at the moment by other Marines about to deploy into combat. The overflow has to go somewhere.

I think the Air Force should deny any Air Cap protection to Toledo if we have another 9-11. The sound of jet interceptors over the city might “scare” parasitic weasels like yourself. 

And quit whining about “hatefulness”. Islam would stone you to death for being such an idiot.

I’m not clear on how the Marines can “make arrangements with the city of Teledo” while leaving the Mayor in the dark. Wouldn’t the Mayor’s office be the party with whom such arrangements would be made? I mean, who else, the School Committee? The Water Department? The dog warden?

/Tom:

Members of the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines have trained periodically in downtown Toledo since at least 2004 and most recently in May, 2006.

Maj. Jeffrey O’Neill, the company’s commanding officer, said he was disappointed by how events played out yesterday, especially because Toledo had been a gracious host for Marine exercises in the past.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080209/NEWS16/802090394

Will the Democrat’s war against America ever end?

Now I understand where the expression “Holy Toledo” might have come from.

"Holy Toledo” is probably a reference to the city of Toledo in Spain.  Now if you put “Ass-” in front of it, you might be tlaking about the one in Ohio.

Why do Marines have a “right” to take over downtown Toledo for war games while Toledans don’t have the right to say no?

What an incredibly stupid and/or dishonest statement.  The Marines weren’t shutting down the heart of the city, they were using one abandoned building.

If the mayor’s life or that of his family is threatened, or if any harm comes to them as a result of this reader having posted his homes address and phone number, the responsibility will be yours.

Hey, guess whose lives are really and truly threatened EVERY DAY—the Marines!! When they deploy, the terrorists ALWAYS have their home address.  And now the mayor just made the Marines’ lives a little more dangerous.  For someone expressing such deep concern about a public official who probably has guards on duty 24/7 and whose address is probably well-known anyway, you don’t seem to care much about the troops’ safety.  I can’t imagine where anyone would get the idea you don’t support the troops.

Sigh. These people don’t use reason, they just emote.  If Bush wiretaps terrorists, he’s shredding the Constitution (never mind Article II and the vast number of precedents).  If a mayor has a fit of pique and cancels an approved Marine training exercise, then “he is the city.”

What an incredibly stupid and/or dishonest statement.  The Marines weren’t shutting down the heart of the city, they were using one abandoned building.

Well no, they were planning on running around the entire downtown area and wouldn’t have been in just one building.

Hey, guess whose lives are really and truly threatened EVERY DAY—the Marines!!

Well, yeah.  I mean that is what happens when you volunteer and join the military.  What’d ya expect?

These people don’t use reason, they just emote.  If Bush wiretaps terrorists, he’s shredding the Constitution

Such emoting goes both ways.  The wiretap objection isn’t about terrorists, it’s about doing it without warrents.  The irony of trading liberty and freedom to maintain liberty and freedom is getting less and less funny every day.

Kathy:

Please don’t hurt yourself regurgitating things you learned from Keith Olbermann. 

And don’t you have a government-funded psychotherapy session to go to?  Or an Al Anon meeting?...before the next Obama rally.?

Or is it a War Is Not The Answer (but we’re not quite sure what is the answer… and who cares what the answer is… but whatever the problem is, it’s gotta be Bush’s fault… and have you seen my car keys...?) rally?

Hey trashhauler, I’ve been on two military charter flights of the Philly airport in the last three years, so I’m not really sure what you’re talking about.

As another female named Kathy, I am astounded at the idea of of anyone else named ‘Kathy’ not being thrilled at the idea of the Marines training in a nearby city.  Or....maybe she’s a bit upset because it’s not nearby....

May God bless our Marines who would give their lives to make hers more secure.  ;-/

>Well no, they were planning on running around the entire downtown

Please don’t make random facts up.

>Well, yeah.  I mean that is what happens when you volunteer and join the military.  What’d ya expect?

What a disgustingly asanine thing to say. If a cop gets murdered or a fireman is killed, do you sneer, push up your glasses and say, “what an idiot. He should have been smart like me and got a job where I sit on my ass all day.”

Well, you probably don’t say that. But you _think_ it.

Please don’t make random facts up.

I’m not making anything up.  I was in Toledo last time they did it and they do, in fact, run around town. 

What a disgustingly asanine thing to say

I was refering to them being ‘at risk’ not murdered so ease up on the self-righteousness pal.  Btw, you don’t even comprehend what I’ve written so how can you claim to know what I’m thinking?

Kathy,

You seem like a dim bulb, indeed.

Of course I realized the video was promotional; it was designed obviously to portray the Marines in the best possible light.

I am not foolish enough to think that no Marine has ever done anything wrong.

You obviously didn’t respond to the video; I feel sorry for you.

And, by the way, I am an adult. Yale-educated in Molecular Biology; I speak seven languages and read ancient Greek. I have worked as a physician on the Navajo Indian reservation, and have lived in North Africa.

With a fantastic and beautiful wife, I’ve raised four sons, all engineers.

I’ve been around the block.

And this final fact will be hardest for you to digest: in the California primary, I voted for Barack Obama.

Jamie Irons

Words are wasted on the Kathys of this world. If you think we are at war with some party OTHER than the Bush administration; vile, vile man.... you inhabit a world too distant from theirs to comunicate. Let the times pass them by. Their actions and words are ignorant and shameful. Shun them. Whoever they are.

I’m a former Toledoan, and know some of the players in this, including the legendary Carty.

Carty is living proof that good intentions driven by idealism paved the road to hell. What a dunce.

Downtown Toledo, battered by an offshored and depressed economy, is so deserted and dull that the Marines would be a welcome intrusion.

Toledo is a blue collar town full of veterans and the presence of Marines would likely scare no one except a few trial lawyers or government employees who haunt the office buildings (and bars) near the empty Madison Building.

Many reasons why I am a former Toledoan.....

To paraphrase one far pithier than I:

“The Marines are at war; Kathy’s at the mall.”

I lived across the street from the Marine Corp barracks on 8th St SE, Washington DC, for a while in the ‘80’s.  Believe me, that was just about the safest place to live in the entire Capitol Hill area.

“Oooooh, 200 armed men running around downtown!” Yes, that’s a scary thing - if we’re talking about the Crips and the Bloods.  Perhaps Kathy and Robert S. can enlighten us re: the Hidden Story of the US Marine Corps which should cause us all to quake in our loafers - their history of rampaging through American cities like Bluebeard and his band of pirates, pillaging, plundering and raping innocents in Cedar Rapids and Witchita and Tuscon.  I seem to remember there was some trouble in Atlanta once - but wait, that wasn’t the Marines.  (Actually, I have recently witnessed the spectacle of a young Marine home on leave savagely attacking a plate - 3 plates, to be exact -of Mom’s homemade spaghetti and it was a fearsome sight indeed.  If every man Jack and woman Jill in the USMC ever goes insane at the same time, it won’t be City Halls that have to worry, but Outback Steakhouses across the land.)

Being afraid of the sight of Marines with guns is like running and hiding under the bed when the Blue Angels are in town because you’re afraid they’re going to drop bombs on you.  Morons.