Sitting On My Porch Part Sixty One

It was a cold day in New Orleans. The weather has been bad ever since the Saints loss to Seattle. I think Mayor Landrieu secretly bet our normal warm and sunny weather against the clouds and rain. I have already gotten over the game. Yesterday I was in Winn Dixie supermarket and I cross paths with a guy wearing his Saints fleece. I was wearing my Saints hat. He looked at my hate and nodded his head in affirmation. I nodded back and instantly I was ready for next season. No one wins the championship every year.

Back in the day when New Orleans still had its old school personality we would have had a parade for the Saints this weekend anyway just because that’s how we roll. Now since our culture is so commercial we can’t do it because the Ying Yang Twins and the cast of Treme aren’t available.

I guess we have bigger things to worry about. Crime is still sucking the life out of everybody. The other night some young ladies were in an accident resulting from a police chase. The getaway car was being driven by a guy who should have been in prison for a dozen different things before this accident. I’m afraid it may be years before New Orleans stops paying for years of incompetence in the justice system and education. Rest in peace to Mariah Woods. We have to do better.

Then there was the shooting in Arizona that has sparked debate about the political climate, the consequences of words and gun control.

The political climate is not going to change because of this incident. Both sides have too much to lose to just stop scrapping now. Besides, if you listen to the opinions the last few days this guy was both a left and right wing wacko. No one knows for sure. The words will keep on going. They may be toned down slightly but I don’t know how long that’s going to last. I gave up on the idea of civility in politics after 9/11 didn’t bring about a permanent change.

Then there’s the issues of the words people use to make their arguments and the type of environment those words have sparked around the country. I do believe that the environment is pretty mean spirited right now. The shooter in Arizona was probably crazy enough to do something anyway but maybe the atmosphere made him just a bit less hesitant when he finally got a clear idea in his head. We may not ever know for sure because how can you trust anything that maniac says?

What if he mentioned Sarah Palin by name? How much weight would that hold coming from a man in his mental state? She’s taken a hit for this and I think she knew she would which is why she cleaned up all of her social media accounts to get rid of all the violent references. I’m a pretty hardcore blogger. That means I love writing my blog and reading others. There is some pretty wild shit going on around the internet. There are things being said about politicians and different groups of people that make Sarah Palin’s crosshairs on her website seem like something from PBS Kids. The difference is that the blogs that have that kind of language may have a few thousand hits a week if they are lucky. They are not harmless but have a far less chance of inspiring something crazy than a former candidate for vice president and highly popular leader of a political party. I’m always prepared to deal with a fair amount of crazy in America. It comes with free speech. The only group I feel should be above that or at least try to fake it are people in leadership. Why doesn’t she just say that she’s in it for money and entertainment? I don’t have a problem with that and maybe the media would stop broadcasting what she says on the news like it’s legitimate so she can reach a million times more people than a blogger ever could. The higher the exposure you have the bigger the responsibility. People need to stop talking about what she and other politicians say and what bloggers say like it has the same impact.

Rest in peace to the victims in Tucson Arizona and I hope Congresswoman Giffords and everyone else recovers.