The City of Detroit has fallen on hard times. A significant portion of it has been abandoned to decay. Detroit’s fiscal problems are so severe that The State of Michigan is in the process of appointing a manager to preside over it, since the city’s bankruptcy is almost certain. The idea of ghost towns is symbolic of the west, but not the mid-west. Are we now to have mid-western ghost towns? Southern ghost-towns, too, since a significant part of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward is likely to stay un-rebuilt forever.

We’ve witnessed many a movie shoot-out in western ghost towns and abandoned mining villages. Now, the formerly real ghost-town shootouts, since relegated to movies, have re-emerged as real shootouts between bad guys, and bad guys and good guys in abandoned sections of formerly major cities. History is repeating itself.

Luxor, Troy, Capernaum, Pompeii, the ruins of castles in Europe, Detroit . . . we are witnessing our own modern history in the process of being reduced to mere artifacts. One day in the future, someone may declare that the ancient, fabled Detroit is just a myth.

If one thinks that new civilizations will not be built on top of the ruins of this one, then history class was a waste of the student’s time and the school’s resources.