Cornithaca County

Chipping Away . . . Lines of Defense – Part 5

I live in an Ag Ghetto. I call it an Ag Ghetto because the local policy is one of containment: contain the poverty, contain the crime, contain the drugs. The deputies patrol the borders of the Ag Zone and only enter when called, write a report, and leave. A kid was tossed onto the road outside my house while playing a game where they stand on the truck of a car as it drives around. It’s the sort of games they allow kids to play in the Ag Ghetto. He landed on his head. He died. • • The Ag Zone is no Old MacDonald’s Farm; it more like “Fire Down Below”: people use the land as a dumping ground, buy off the residents futures with next to nothing, while telling them they’re lucky to get anything at all — and the residents know who calls the shots at the sheriff’s dept. and the regulatory offices.