In an election year, the popular question in pop politics is “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” But I have another to add:
I haven’t been to the library in a while, gentle reader, so when my beautiful wife and I went in late last week, I was surprised to see a little security guard station with a security guard in it at the entrance to the library proper, past the gift shop, the bathrooms, and the meeting room entrances. I mentioned it on the way out, and my wife agreed that she hadn’t seen it before, either.
Yesterday after church, we stopped at the Hy-Vee, which is almost the most la-di-dah of groceries in Springfield. At 9:30 on a Sunday morning, Hy-Vee had an armed security guard walking around the front of the store.
Now, this was not atypical for the store where I worked back in the day, but that store was in a neighborhood in transition. Why are all of the neighborhoods seemingly transitioning these days? And why are security guards proliferating?
And is there any particular persuasion of elected official who might have an impact on reversing that trend? Hint: It’s not the former prosecutor.