My view of the world

I just read an article in the NY Times that said that someone in Baltimore is stealing street lights, not just the lights, but the entire pole. It seems that theses poles weigh about 250 lbs each, are 30ft long and aluminum is being sold to salvage yards for about 35 cents a pound, so, for about $87.50 these guys are sawing down the poles, hauling them away and carefully taping the electrical leads so no one gets hurt.
The powers that be, say it will cost about $156,000 to replace each pole, so far they’ve misplaced 130 of them.
It seems to me that the thing to do is to find these guys and ask what they would charge to install new poles. Obviously their operation is a great deal more efficient that the City of Baltimore.

Last year, Baltimore, with a population about one-twelfth that of New York City’s, had a homicide rate more than five times as high. The city has a population of about 650,000 with an estimated 40,000 addicts, it seems to be implied in the article that it’s the druggies looking for some fast cash that are doing this, however, having known a number of addicts, it’s my opinion that this is much too organized and way too neat to be any tweaker I’ve ever met.