The Dark Side of New Orleans

Can the people of New Orleans get a break please? Nine days into the year, and nine people slain violently. Mayor Nagin had a press conference today, and while he stopped short of issuing a curfew in the city, he is going to set up checkpoints between the hours of 2am and 6am (when most of the violence occurs).

A reader (C.) sent me a link today to this commentary by Chris Rose from the Times-Picayune (thanks to C. also for title of my post).

…how close to my house do I allow the shots to come before I claim no mas? How many more friends and acquaintances will die stupidly in their cars and yards and doorways before I realize that I have become more afraid of and for my city than ever before and am bordering on a siege mentality?

I’ve written about this before — the pervasive predatory element of New Orleans — and truth to tell, I don’t have anything new to contribute to the conversation. But then again, I can’t sit here at my desk and write about anything else — the Saints, the weather, the Road Home, trash collection, whatever — without thinking that it’s all kind of moot when the cloud of murder descends over the city… READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

I don’t have anything poignant to say. Gun violence is a problem everywhere here in the U.S. Every level of government has tried to remedy it somehow: education, harsher sentencing laws, etc. etc. But how to instill some sense of respect for human life in these murderers? How will it ever improve?

Ugh.

Aaron Neville: Amazing Grace (YouTube) – from Jazz Fest 1990

In more uplifting local N.O. music news, Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis sat in at Cafe Brasil with Bob French and Friends last night on Frenchmen St. How cool it would be to live in a town where you could stumble across a scene like this on a random Monday night. Frenchmen Street. I’m kicking myself for not checking out while I was there.