I found out last night that my hometown is the seventh most dangerous city in America.

I remember the night that I started to hate Dayton.

Yeah, I hate Dayton too. But hey, why isn’t Chicago on this list somewhere?

The methodology section of the report states:

Chicago and Other Illinois Cities: For several years, rape numbers submitted by cities in the state of Illinois have not met the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) guidelines. This remains the case with 2002 crime data. According to state statisticians, the state of Illinois tracks “sexual assault,” which includes not only female rapes, but also offenses such as male rape, sodomy, etc. For these reasons, Chicago and other Illinois cities once again are not found in this year’s Safest City rankings.

According to the FBI:

For UCR reporting purposes, can a male be raped?

No. The UCR Program defines forcible rape as “The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will” (p. 19). In addition, “By definition, sexual attacks on males are excluded from the rape category and must be classified as assaults or other sex offenses depending on the nature of the crime and the extent of injury” (p. 20). An assault is a Part I offense and would be reported on the Return A form. Sex offenses qualify as Part II offenses and would be reported on the appropriate age, sex, race form (pp. 96 and 142).

According to the Attorney General:

Illinois’ rate of forcible rape is 45 rapes per 100,000 people, which is significantly higher than the national average of 33 reported rapes per 100,000 people. (FBI, Uniform Crime Report 2002)

I was doing really well on tracking down exactly why Illinois lumps all of its sexual assaults together, and why and when the change was made, and how our Attorney General can cite FBI UCR rape statistics about Illinois that may or may not exist, but then I started getting distracted. See, this is why I’m not a very good blogger.

Looking through the Illinois Criminal Code, I found that the section on prostitution (720 ILCS 5/11‑14) begins with the line, “Any person who offers a person not his or her spouse [...]” — I guess it’s okay to exchange money for sex as long as you’re married to the vendor. I also discovered we’ve got a fornication law still on the books, and also a “Sale of Maps Act”, which prohibits the “sale of current Illinois publications or highway maps published by the Secretary of State”. Both of these crimes are class B misdemeanors.

If this letter is yours, and you’d prefer that it be kept private, please let me know.

Possibly the most disspiriting thing I see everyday is a hand-written sign in the window of a local restaurant which states, “Restrooms are for customers only.” It just makes me sad on so many levels. Clearly, my quasi-libertarian mindset holds that the “right to pee” overrides other peoples property rights.

You could just get together a list of every registered Democrat in the country, then take a statistically valid random sample of 1,000 or so of these people fly them all to a big hotel in Dayton (shades of Balkan diplomacy), and tell them they’re not leaving until some candidate has the support of 600 people. [emphasis added -- tew]

Obviously Matt Yglesias has never been to Dayton.

The best thing I saw in NYC was the public library, specifically, the Newton exhibit. If you’re at all the kind of person who would totally spazz out upon seeing, for instance, a first edition of the Principia interleaved with Newton’s handwritten notes for the second edition, you should certainly go.

And, if like me, you found the scene in Quicksilver where Newton stuck a knitting needle in his own eye unbelievable, you will be thrilled to see the actual notebook he was taking notes in while he was doing it, along with a hand-drawn diagram of where he was putting that needle.

It’s on until February 5th.

We don’t especially prize design or craftsmanship here. What we like is speed, and we’re willing to do something in an ugly way to get it done fast.

He does get a little self-contradictory in parts, though. Americans lack taste, and therefore tend to build things quickly and superficially, but Americans have taste, so they’re increasingly choosing things like iPods and imported cars.

Still, some things to think about.