I will pray for the safe return of your friend, but, truth be told, he is safer today as an American soldier in Iraq than he would be as an American civilian in Detroit.

he is safer today as an American soldier in Iraq than he would be as an American civilian in Detroit.

??

Statistics. Detroit is more dangerous than Baghdad. So are Philadelphia and DC.

Flawed interpretation of data. Detroit is not more dangerous than Baghdad, that statement is absurd.

http://seesdifferent.wordpress.com/2006/07/16/iraq-safer-than-detroit-not-so-much/

Not a flawed interpretation. He uses statistically invalid numbers cooked up by Lancet.

Note what I said: If you are an American soldier in Iraq, you are safer than an American civilian in Detroit. Last month (March 2009) a total of seven U.S. servicemen were killed in all of Iraq. Of these, three died of non-combat accidents, which means four were killed by enemy action. With a total of 150,000 troops in Iraq, this gives a combat death rate of 2.6 per 100,000. In Detroit, the murder rate in 2006 was. . . wait for it . . . 47.3 per 100,000.

Also, the Lancet study has been discredited both on methodological grounds, and because its authors refused to subject their data set to independent peer review.

If these statistics are even comparable, why don't we give the Medal of Honor to a kid who "survives" Detroit?

The fact is, while the statement is technically "true", the comparison lacks necessary common factors.

We usually give Medals of Honor only to those who DON'T survive.

I lived in DC most of my life until a few years ago,my family and friends are currently there and I visit often, and , frankly, in the combined 45 years we've lived/live in different areas of the city among people of all socio-economic levels we've individually experienced a total of maybe two unpleasant episodes. Oh, and I've walked the streets of Spanish Harlem and ,gasp,lived to tell about it.

Unless you live in a city it isn't wise, to judge it according to statistics. The negative sensationalism on this board is getting real tiresome. Any chance of cutting it out until after Pascha,at least? We need more spiritually uplifitng pieces like the ones Alice has been posting.

I live right across the River, and I always like to recall the words of his enormity, Marion the First Barry, Once and Future Mayor, on the crime situation in the city:

"DC is a pretty safe place, if you discount the killins'"

Most American cities are pretty safe places, by the way. You have a much higher risk of being mugged in London or Paris than you do in New York or LA. But places like Detroit and New Orleans are a different order of magnitude entirely.

I grew up in Detroit, and it depends greatly on where you are at. If you walking around in downtown area, more cops, near hockey town and comerica park you are pretty safe. The residential neighborhoods from the West to the East side are all fairly unsafe. If at all possible I avoided these areas driving around town. So many of these areas look like war zones!

One of the greatest shocks I have received came when I flew into Detroit for the first time a few years back (my other visits having been by car or train). As turned onto final I looked out the window and saw trees growing on the roofs of abandoned factories and apartment buildings--not saplings, but fully grown, deciduous trees! Trees that must have been at least twenty years old. That speaks for a degree of decay and neglect only found in utterly collapsed civilizations.