Things are indeed bad here. The march today had 5000 or so people who have simply had enough and are baffled as to where our political leadership has been. Almost everyone here has been directly touched by this or knows someone who has. A bar that Alice and I used to go to frequently, before Viv arrived, was held up at gun point a few months back. Someone else we know was pistol-whipped in a bar robbery a few weeks ago, her father, who was in town to visit, had 6 ribs broken. A botched home robbery/invasion ended up with a young mother being killed and the father shot multiple times protecting their toddler- this happened a stones throw away from Grandma Kathy's and Nonna Linda's house.
People have always had to be a little more careful in N.O. than in most places but it feels different now. I've stopped taking shortcuts home for fear of getting stuck off the beaten path. Die-hard New Orleanians are starting to question the sanity of staying here. I really thought that despite all the damage Katrina dealt that we could recover as a city but if crime isn't dealt with quickly and harshly here, I'm afraid that New Orleans may not survive this.
Enough of the gloom & doom- here's a cute pic of Viv:
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