Every day between now and Christmas, Jeff at Side Salad will be posting a picture of a “Disturbing Santa.” I am four days late in linking to this, but this link (for the fourth day) contains the links for days 1 through 3 as well. Great stuff. Go look.

It’s not a good year for Detroit. It turns out that the City of Detroit has topped the Morgan Quinto annual list of the 25 most dangerous cities in the United States for the second time. This is based on the city’s crime rate for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft. To be considered, a city must have a population in excess of 75,000, which, of course, means that there may be smaller crime-ridden burgs out there that were not considered.

It looks like I’ll again be postponing my planned summer vacation in downtown Detroit.

Lest I even consider gloating, I should point out that two – count ‘em – two New Jersey Cities are in the top 25 of the most dangerous. Camden, New Jersey is number four (behind Detroit, St. Louis, and Atlanta), while Trenton, the capital of the Garden State, checks in at number 15. Isn’t that special?

I recall being in Camden several years ago for a hearing in the federal court. I had to fax a copy of the judge’s order back to the office, so I asked one of the employees in the Clerk’s office if I could use the fax machine. I explained that I was willing to pay for the use of the machine. She told me that lawyers were not permitted to use the fax machines. I then asked the employee whether she could direct me to a local candy store or drug store where I might be able to send a fax. She burst out laughing and said, “Obviously, you are not from here. This is Camden. There is nothing around here.” Sadly, she was right. There are parts of Camden that look like Dresden after World War II.

However, the news is not all bad for New Jersey, as three Jersey cities are among the top twenty-five of the safest cities in the U.S. Brick Township was number 2 (behind Amherst, New York, which has been the safest city for four years running),with Hamilton Township and Edison Township being numbers 22 and 24 respectively. (Note to Craig at mtpolitics: Billings is number 23).

For a small state, we seem to have it all, from horse farms to tank farms; from pine forests to sandy beaches, from backwoods roads to choked highways, and from the safest to the most dangerous cities.

We cover all the bases in Jersey.