Breakfast at Tiffany's – Because I Do Not Know

Dumb And Dumber

If I see one more talking head on TV or politician grabbing a microphone to discuss the situation in New Orleans, every blood vessel I have may explode. I've stopped watching television coverage, and I'm reading less and less every day.

Simply put: None of these people have a clue about New Orleans. None. The media is dumb, and the politicians dumber.

They seem amazed and shocked -- shocked, I tell you -- by the actions of some trapped in the city after Hurricane Katrina. Why, pray tell? For all of its charm, New Orleans has always had problems. Its politicians are some of the most corrupt on earth. Hell, the whole state's. Former Police Superintendent Richard Pennington did wonders cleaning up his department. But it wouldn't take much to improve NOLA's Finest's image, considering cops were so crooked one was convicted for the murder-for-hire of her police partner. The public schools are wretched. Many of the streets are nothing more than connected pot holes.

As for the residents themselves, they are like most other people. They want to work every day, send their kids off to school, come home and drink a cold one and hope to provide a better life for the generation who follows. The kind of people you hear about forming small communities in the non-flooded areas, where the first food delivered immediately goes to children and the elderly, while stronger adults step aside.

Yet like most big cities, there is a criminal element. Sociopaths who prey on those they perceive to be weaker. Weaker because they are decent people like those mentioned above. There are murderers and rapists and child molesters and thieves. In 2003, 4,500 violent crimes were committed in New Orleans:

274 murders
213 forcible rapes
2,071 robberies
2,038 aggravated assaults

It's laughable to see the mayor and Louisiana's governor trying to pretend that what's happening now doesn't happen in the city daily. The main difference now is that a good number of the decent people fled before Katrina hit, leaving behind more of the criminal element -- and that the national media is flying helicopters overhead and have news crews on seemingly every spot of dry ground to capture their behavior.

I love New Orleans. I want to see New Orleans once again become the Jewel of the Gulf Coast. But let's not kid ourselves. It has never been a social utopia. New Orleans can be a dangerous place -- with or without 8 feet of water. Anyone who thinks that would change now under such dire circumstances can only be described as utterly stupid.

/Rant off.

3 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 6:25 PM
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3 Comments:

Right on,Jake-speak the damn truth! I'm getting sick of all this blame game crapola-I'm a New Yorker and our local government had a better handle on the ground during 9/11 than I've seen New Orleans all this week.

People can blame Bush and the federal government all they damn well please but the local government has to do their damn job,too and not just whine about how nobody's helping them. Bush and the feds just took over the whole bloody mess because the local authorites didn't properly prepare and didn't request enough services when they were made available,not to mention that I wouldn't trust the mayor of NO or the governor of LA to help school kids cross the street judging by the
organizational skills they've shown thus far!

Sorry for ranting-I need to watch some more Wonder Woman episodes or something to chill out:)

By lady t, at 9:05 AM

Yes! Finally!
And lady t is right-on too.

By dAAve, at 10:21 AM

Thank you all for the kind words. FB not passionate? It's in your nature, man. We Irish people typically only are passionate about alcohol ... but once our ire is raised, look out. Especially if we've been passionate about the alcohol most of that day. ;-)

By Jake McCafferty, at 11:06 AM