PISSED

spoke the cat is angry. i'm disgusted and fed up. last night i was biking home from work and when i passed two young guys, one of them threw something heavy at me. it nailed me in the spine between my shoulder blades. it hit me so hard that it almost knocked me off my bike and it certainly knocked the breath out of me. i'm grateful that it didn't hit me in the head as i am certain it would have knocked me out. now i know that kid did not think five seconds past throwing that and this is what i see as the heart of our crime problem. we are raising children who see no future. by the time most of these kids are 16, how many people have they seen gunned down? how many friends or members of their family have they lost to the violence? i believe it must be hard to see the value in life when there is so much death. i feel it is damn near impossible to opt for a different path. this is a war zone. it is a self generating cycle of violence. now, i'm not excusing that kid's behavior and if i could get my hands on him, i would kick his miserable ass from one end of new orleans to the next but what i am saying is has he learned or been taught anything different. this incident happened at 11 last night and why was he even allowed to be running the streets at that hour? where were his parents? where was anyone that might be concerned that he was not home asleep and safe? we have an epidemic of children raising children and we have to break that cycle. our schools also have to stop failing our children. stop worrying about the leap test and be more concerned that we are graduating functionally illiterate kids. what options do they have when reading on a 5th grade level? well, they can work at mcdonalds for 8 hours a day and go home the the smell of fried food clinging to them or they can start dealing like their big brother who was shot at the age of 21. the pay is not bad and the hours are flexible. just the other day a boy was caught at school with a gun and weed. this emphasizes the lack of forward thinking. i doubt he thought five seconds past taking it. there are no consequences if you live in the present only. we as a city clearly cannot count on the police. and it is too late to make a difference after the shooting when going forward with your testimony can get you killed or at the very least, get your car fire bombed like what happened to my neighbor. we as a city must start reaching the kids. we have to give them a way out. we have to give back their futures or we will continue to lose people like jessica hawk and countless children that had such potential when they came into the world. if we don't do this we will continue to be held hostage in our own communities, afraid to leave the damn house and too scared to stay in it. fuck. i still think that bastard desrves an ass kicking, a little lesson in cause and effect.