crime information

i just returned from the anti-crime meeting at skull club and have some information to pass on.
to report police misconduct:fixnopd@gmail.com
to contact new orleans against crime:skull-club@cox.net
the text alert website:http:www.nolacrimealerts.com

distric attorney leon cannizzarro 504-822-2414
public integrity bureau 504-658-6100
nopd internal affairs 504-658-6800
state police 800-434-9232

i will have more to say on the meeting shortly. some very good ideas were put forth on how we can protect ourselves.

things i have learned from being stupid

1) do not startle a man peeing in public. it may seem like a good idea but trust me, it's not.
2) never introduce your current girlfriend to your ex. there is never a good reason for this and it will never not end badly. either they will hook up, compare your sexual prowess in bed, or become best friends long after they have cut all ties with you and there really is no lonelier feeling than that.
3)do not, under any circumstances go to your friendly neighborhood bar after your girlfriend has dumped you. you know too many people there and they will buy you too many shots. you will make an ass of yourself, fall down, get hurt, wake up hungover and twice as miserable as the day before.
4)do not tell any secret that you value as staying a secret. it will never stay a secret, even if you entrust it to the one that has your heart. you will be lucky if it is not on the 6 o'clock news.
5)do not try to pop a wheelie on your bicycle while riding down royal street. i don't care if you could do it effortlessly when you were twelve. you are in your thirties now and you will wreck your bike in front of a large crowd of people, including a gaggle of pretty girls. this brings me to number 6.
6)know your limitations. Icarus, the wings won't hold that close to the sun!!
7)do not spit into the wind.
8)don't pull the mask off the ole lone ranger.
9)don't tug on superman's cape
10)and don't mess around with jim.
these helpful tips have been brought to you by darwin's top ten, helping stupid people exit the world before they breed for as long as man has been devolving.

stupid things i heard about hiv today

i was sitting in the united states of disturbia when i overheard a conversation where a woman proclaimed that hiv could live outside the body for days. wow. i was not aware that hiv was the andromeda strain, able to burn its way through the hull of a ship. my friend informed me that hiv, when exposed to the light of our yellow sun is actually endowed with super powers and thus able to perform all manner of outlandish acts. who knew? another friend told me about a gentleman who believes that it can be transmitted by a dog licking a person infected with the virus and then licking a non infected person. hell, my parents believe that you can catch it by being around someone who has it...you know shaking their hand, eating food prepared by them. hey ripley, forget the aliens, hiv truly is the monster worth setting the self destruct over. but seriously, it is appalling that people still harbor such antiquated notions about this disease and little wonder that those suffering from hiv keep their secret well hidden. there are still those who refuse to rent to someone who is positive. there are some employers that refuse to hire an hiv positive person. and this, all in the face of medical science. small minds. small fucking minds.

crime alert update

* Lower Garden District: Send a text to 68398 with JOIN8440Q in the body of the message from your cellphone, or follow this link: http://tatango.com/join/8440-Q0MDAuN
* Marigny/Bywater: Send a text to 68398 with JOIN8337M in the body of the message from your cellphone, or follow this link: http://tatango.com/join/8337-MzNzAuM
* Mid City: Send a text to 68398 with JOIN8404Q in the body of the message from your cellphone, or follow this link: http://tatango.com/join/8404-QwNDAuM
* Treme: Send a text to 68398 with JOIN8443Q in the body of the message from your cellphone, or follow this link: http://tatango.com/join/8443-Q0MzAuM

what the fuck is going on??

so my friend, who lives uptown, woke up to find some strange man in her bedroom. he had bloody hands, so i guess he smashed the window to get in. she told him to leave and he finally did, so thank god this story had a happy ending. what the fuck is going on around here??? there have been a series of break-ins and/or attacks in the mid city area. and now this, on top of another friend getting killed. if the police won't do anything about the crime, perhaps they would consider passing out flak jackets and weapons so we can all protect ourselves. it is out the fucking box. i'm sick of it. i'm sick of hearing that someone i know has been raped, mugged, broken in on, assaulted, or shot and killed. i'm sick of the gunfire that you hear throughout this city, not just in the so called bad areas. hell, where is the demarcation line between the good and bad areas in new orleans anymore? i'm tired of looking over my shoulder when i walk the quarter alone at night, even though i am careful to avoid the other side of bourbon. i'm tired of being scared at night when i bike home lest a couple of kids jump me like last time. i'm exhausted over having to fend off crazy, drunk homeless people from my tours. jesus! enough already. i want some fucking accountability and i want it now. i want riley's fucking head on the proverbial stick. fuck you riley! fuck you for blaming everything else but the actions of your police department. you know what? we know the educational system sucks here but that is not your job, so stop bitching and do your job. is it really a police presence when cops sit in coffee shops for hours on end? NO and let me just say again for clarity's sake, NO. sure, their radios will let them know that a crime is in progress or over but what about deterring it in the first place? and don't cry that there are not enough police to go around. we have plenty of police and the damn national guard. my god if you can't get it right under these circumstances, then maybe you are an idiot that will never get it right. step down. we need another police chief. i propose that we take one day out of the week where no one goes to work. instead we all march on city hall and demand riley's resignation. i mean from the cooks to the bus drivers. from the cabbies to the bartenders. from the tour guides to the construction workers. let's shut this city down for one day in an act of civil disobedience to show the higher ups that we won't live this way. we want an end to the fucking war. if you read this pass it along. let's get this going. the life you save may be your own.

crime meeting

NOCAC - New Orleans Citizens Against Crime, will hold a meeting Saturday, January 31st, at the Skull Club Alternative Gallery, in the Marigny, corner of Spain & Rampart Streets. Meeting to start at 3pm.


The purpose of this meeting is three fold:

1) To bring local citizens together with the intention of creating better contact, higher awarness of community action, and a forum in which those things can and will occur.


2) To collect and share information necessary to take action against crime, to contact and be heard by City Hall, the New Orleans City Council, the NOPD, and the use of citizen support programs, such as the Text Alert Service, recently implemented.


3) To create a functioning model of a New Orleans Citizens Against Crime neighborhood group, with the hopes of members starting their own
independently run groups, throughout the City of New Orleans.


While initially designed to deal with crime in the 5th District, this meeting is open to all citizens of New Orleans, in the hope that attendees will take the information, and suggested model offered here, to their own immediate neighborhoods, and form independent NOCAC groups of their own.


This meeting is NOT open to City Officials, NOPD or the Organized Press. These institutions can & will be informed of any activities of interest once the platform for action is established. As citizens, we wish to exercise our right of assembly in a private setting, to discuss our situation.


For more information, contact us at: skull-club@cox.net

my question

i guess my question to the police department is this: why does it always seem that a murder has to take place before you increase patrols? i'm just asking because i often see nopd drinking coffee, eating muffins(the new doughnut), and just hanging out. here's a thought, bring back the beat cop that actually gets out of the vehicle and walks.

something beautiful

there is something beautiful about the way we sing our dead off here in the city of new orleans. and so it was with wendy's second line memorial. there was the horse and carriage. the brass band. the umbrellas and a sea of red and black. there were also photographers, various news agencies, and gawking tourists. i resisted the urge to tell the tourists that we did not march for fun, we marched in memory of wendy. wendy was from california and i am glad that her family was able to see just how loved she was here in her adopted city. i am sorry that they will never again think of this amazing place without feeling the pain of what they lost here. it seems so much has been lost here. we sat in the lantern after the memorial and raised our shot glasses of jaeger in honor of wendy. i never knew how she could drink that stuff. here is to you wendy and to all our loved ones lost on the new orleans' streets to violence. you will all be missed and we are poorer for your passing.

protecting ourselves

http://www. nolacrimealerts. com/

NOLA Crime Alerts
NOLA SMS Crime Alert Network PDF Print E-mail
Saturday, 24 January 2009 18:31

WHY:

One night soon after the tragic murder of Wendy Byrnes in the French Quarter, a friend of Wendy's was mugged in the Marigny. Concerned friends sent out text messages to others warning them of the specific area to avoid and to be careful in general - and urging everyone to pass the message along. Ten copies of the same text message and three phone calls later, the idea to set up an SMS Crime Alert Network was born, with the intention of warning as many people as possible of recent and/or in-progress crimes without inundating anyone with multiple copies of the same message.


WHAT:

An SMS (text message) based Crime Alert notification network allowing community members to warn other community members of recent and/or in-progress crimes. Timely warnings will help community members steer clear of "hot spots", alert people of suspicious characters to watch out for, help track stolen vehicles and other items and further track crimes. Unfortunately the public officials in New Orleans have not seen fit to properly address the severe crime problem in New Orleans, and while the Crime Alert Network does not address the roots of this problem, it is our hope that the network will help keep people a little bit safer, provide the community with all too often unreported details of crimes, and provide an independent log of crimes that occur in our city. copy of all SMS Crime Alerts will be forwarded to NOPD and a multitude of other public officials on a weekly basis and will also be archived on this website.


HOW:

*

Sign up to send and receive SMS (text) Crime Alerts on your cell phone for areas of the city you live/work/play in (sign up links below). While you will be able to receive messages immediately, please allow up to 24 hours before you are able to post.

*

If you are the victim of or witness to a crime, SMS the appropriate neighborhood group with pertinent information by texting 68398 (add the number to your address book to keep it handy!) and starting the body of the message with the # symbol. Tatango, the SMS service utilized, will send back a message prompting you to select which group you would like to send your message to.

*

Before sending an SMS, please make sure one has not already been sent for the particular crime, only send another SMS if you have additional useful information to add.

*

Be as specific as possible - time, location, description of crime and perpetrator(s) - any and all information that will help others from becoming a victim of the same crime/criminal and/or help catch the criminals or retrieve stolen property.
However, It is very important to refrain from posting specific personal/identifying information (exact address, names, phone numbers), and please refrain from editorializing!
*

A short, all-age appropriate ad will follow all posts - these are placed by Tatango and allow the Crime Alert Network to remain free. The only costs to the end user will be whatever charges your cell phone service normally charges you for sending and receiving text messages.

*

We will be adding additional neighborhood groups, but would prefer them to be user suggested rather than try to figure out appropriate subdivisions for areas of the city we (the creators of the network) do not personally live in. To request a group, please send an email to admin@nolacrimealerts.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .


TERMS:

*

Posting alerts repeating already posted information and/or posting specific personal/identifying information will result in loss of posting privileges, though you will still be able to receive alerts.

*

This network is for Crime Alerts ONLY! Posting ANYTHING off-topic will result in loss of posting privileges.
This is very important!

SIGN UP FOR GROUPS:

*

French Quarter: Send a text to 68398 with JOIN8338M in the body of the message from your cellphone, or follow this link: http://tatango. com/join/8338-MzODAuN
*

Holy Cross: Send a text to 68398 with JOIN8408Q in the body of the message from your cellphone, or follow this link: http://tatango. com/join/8408-QwODAuN
*

Lakeview: Send a text to 68398 with JOIN8406Q in the body of the message from your cellphone, or follow this link: http://tatango. com/join/8406-QwNjAuO
*

Marigny/Bywater: Send a text to 68398 with JOIN8337M in the body of the message from your cellphone, or follow this link: http://tatango. com/join/8337-MzNzAuM
*

Mid City: Send a text to 68398 with JOIN8404Q in the body of the message from your cellphone, or follow this link: http://tatango. com/join/8404-QwNDAuM



The network and this website are a work in progress, please bear with us as we grow and feel free to send any and all suggestions to admin@nolacrimealerts.com

time change for wendy's second line

Mae-beth just gave me an update. She is coordinating with Starlight right now and the walk needs to be moved up.


The new time is 2pm. Be there at 2:15 please... we have to roll by 2:30 at the latest.

wendy's memorial second line

caught

they caught two of the three suspects that shot wendy when their mothers recognized them on television and called the police. i applaud those mothers. it is my understanding that the boys are to be tried as adults and i agree with that decision. if you commit an adult crime then you must face the consequences of your actions as an adult. if found guilty, they will be sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole. juveniles are not allowed to face the death penalty. i'm troubled by that. please don't get me wrong, i am angry over wendy's death. it was brutal and senseless and she doesn't get a do-over. there are no more tomorrows for wendy. yet, there is something that creeps over me when i think of fifteen year old boys spending the rest of their lives in jail. part of me says good, let them rot. the other part of me wonders how they got to this point of carrying guns and shooting someone down in the street. did their parents let them down? did their schools let them down? did society let them down? why do we have a generation of children running the streets attacking and killing people like this was damn mogadishu? wendy is dead and three boys' lives are over. no rehabilitation. no mercy. no second chances to reintegrate into society, nothing but the rest of their lives in a gray cell. i think we are doing something wrong. i don't have the answers but we really need to start asking ourselves the hard questions of what it takes to destroy the innocence of childhood, turning children into murderers and thus ending the life of a beautiful woman. i'm sorry wendy is dead. i'm glad they caught the boys but i am sorry that multiple lives are ruined by something in new orleans that taints and lets violence run rampant and has for the entire length of our history.

a little late night self pity

Little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth.
For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures,
and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.

-Francis Bacon

i'm tired of riding this merry-go-round. i think i want off. i'm tired of standing here, watching you go round. i think i want on. why is it that misery must outlast love? yes, i'm indulging in a little late night self pity because as far as indulgences go, at least it won't make me gain weight. somewhere, she has written me off and is smiling.

numb

we shoot. we kill. we get angry. we march. nagin does nothing. riley refuses to step down. we get angry. we shoot. we kill. we march and still another person is shot dead, this time at 7:50 at night in the french quarter. 39 years old. great personality. dead. and for what? whatever cash she had on her after her shift at aunt tiki's. think about her last bits of conversation. little shreds of laughter. all the while never knowing that death was coming for her. she turned a corner of a darkly lit street and then a shot and i hope she was dead before she hit the ground so as not to have suffered. what will we do now? will we march? will we call for riley and nagin to step down? will we get angry? will we shoot? will we kill? what happens now that this boat is sinking? numbness sets in. we have been in the noisy war for so long that if the silence ever came it would be deafening. so we eat. we drink, often too much. we love. we are loved. we hope. we pray. we cry. we mourn. we march. we get angry. we shoot. we kill. we die and someone pours the dirt on top and goes on with their life, life such as it is in new orleans.

andrew wyeth dies at 91

one of the 20th century's most iconic artist has passed away at age 91. wyeth was noted for his bleak rural scenes of dilapidated structures and vast lonely expanses. he preferred autumn and winter landscapes, remarking that "something waits beneath it."
and something does. having grown up in the rural south, i can attest that there is something haunting about burnt umber fields and yellow grasses grown quiet beneath a gray sky. to look upon such things is like a whisper that passes your ears, far too faint to catch the meaning. it is a memory you can't quite remember and thus it is not just the land that is haunted, but you as well.
wyeth suffered the stings of the art community and often was lambasted as nothing more than a glorified illustrator. he was compared to hopper but suffered by the comparison. all i know is that i was introduced to wyeth in my high school art class and immediately fell in love with the isolation of his paintings. i enjoyed the mystery and raw boned beauty of such works as the helga series. though he denied that they ever had an affair, he must have loved her to paint her the way he did. and when i first saw the helga paintings in person, i loved her too.
so here is to andrew wyeth that stirred such emotional creativity in me that i went on to paint. because even though his images were so far removed from my own landscape, i could look at them and see the something waiting. thank you wyeth.

it's all about chemistry

we used to joke that we had enough chemistry between us to blow up a science lab but that is more true than might at first be expected. when we fall in love, our dopamine levels increase. dopamine is the pleasure chemical. it is responsible for cravings, especially craving one's lost love. it is the addiction of love. it is also involved in drug addiction and partly responsible for why we crave our love like a fucking crack addict. another chemical responsible is serotonin. when we fall in love, our serotonin levels drop sharply. they can drop by up to 40% which is what is seen in ocd patients. this decrease in serotonin is the reason why we obsess on our lost love. it is why we cannot get them out of our head no matter how hard we try. it is why we drive by their house, hoping to get a glimpse of them on the sly and praying we won't see them with anyone else. it is also why we get drunk, fall down, put holes in our knees, and drunk dial to tell our loved one just how pathetic and lonely we are without them. amen! it is also why we can't sleep or eat. we are literally love sick. the dopamine is making us jones for the one that gave us the high, especially for sex with the one that gave us the high and the serotonin is turning us into hyper focused, sleepless maniacs who will say and do the most asinine things in order to get the person back. so i know what is wrong with me but i have no way of fixing it. chocolate ice cream only goes so far, despite the fact that chocolate impacts the part of your brain that heroin does and ice cream taps that area that sex does. i'm hopeless. at the risk of sounding redundant, she's all i can think about and all i want is for her to come back to me. if anybody wants me, i'll be the fat cat in the ice cream section of the store, lapping it up and getting wider. oh, and baby if you are reading this, don't forget to click on the ads so i can get paid.

funny

my friend said that a group of nuns might be called a bunch of bad habits. i know it's silly but it makes me laugh and laughter really is the goal right now.

it's worth pondering

new years' eve would have been our anniversary had we not broken up, again. then we got back together and then we broke up, again. i say we as though i in any way had a say in the matter. i was more like an innocent by-stander. i was just hanging out on the corner when the car made the turn, opened fire and mowed me down. there was lots of blood and much carnage. now i really have no idea why she ended things.i never really do. one minute i was kissing her goodnight in front of a herd of nuns(or flock of nuns, or clutch but perhaps not murder. i suppose murder is reserved for the crows)and the next thing i know i'm getting a break up text message. all i really know for sure is that i miss her. i miss her terribly. i wish she would come to her senses and realize that she misses me. i wish she would just admit that there is something between us that will always be there no matter how long we go without speaking or how far apart we might wander. i can't explain it. i can't write out what she means to me or what we have but it is there none the less. so i wait because i can't keep going to her. i can't always be the one that tucks my tail between my legs, coughs up an apology and tries to move on. just once, it would be nice for her to come to me. so i wage war on myself, battling against the weaker me, who wants to text her. i just keep wishing that she would come home and stop the war.

seriously

i mean how does the man sleep at night? surely bush can't believe the bullshit that comes out of his mouth. he must know what an ass he is. is he really just devoid of feelings? does his wife not tell him? do his children not clue him in? for crying out loud, we invaded a sovereign nation based on fabricated intelligence reports. it is hard to believe that he was in fact duped into believing it was the gospel that iraq had weapons of mass destruction. he can't possibly be happy with the federal response post katrina. can he? walmart got trucks of water into new orleans before the federal government!! we waited and waited and watched and waited and nothing. the day the storm hit, he was serving up birthday cake to mccain. he went on vacation in texas as one of the largest storms ever recorded formed in the gulf of mexico and menaced the coast. how dare he have the gall to stand up in front of the american people and say that the federal response was not slow? what a fucking mess he has left behind. that is his only legacy. fucking jack ass.

fuck bush

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090112/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_newser_katrina
after watching bush's final news conference as president, i have come to the conclusion that the old man is drinking again. i think the last eight years have taken their toll and he is hitting the sauce. perhaps he actually believes that the federal response was both timely and appropriate for the disaster. he said that 30,000 were pulled from their rooftops...i'm curious as to where he got that statistic. i think that number is a bit inflated. there is just zero justification to his statement. bush did not even leave his vacation until the wednesday following katrina. it is bullshit! it is offensive to all who live in this region. it is disgusting and indefensible. the federal response continues to be slow. there are still people unable to repair their homes, which means there are still people homeless. i guess if you are bush and preparing to make the move from the white house into your ultra exclusive and wealthy texas gated community, you are a bit removed from the trials and travails of those still wrestling with the damn road home money. mr. bush, let me just say that i am not sad to see you go and i'll be damned if i won't drink to that!

milk

i think the gay community has many people to thank for all the advancements we have made. thanks to the harvey milks of the world and all those who suffered the constant threat of violence to pave the way for future generations to be free enough to love who they want to love. despite proposition 8, i am very grateful.

silence is violence

many of us have been touched by violence. we have been victims, mourned the loss of victims, or watched in horror as others became victims. we have become numb to it all. we are raising a generation of warriors and we, as long term citizens are all veterans of that war, only the war never ceases to end. it just goes on and on. if it is to end, we must end it. we, as in every citizen of this amazing city must come together and bring about change. we must mentor our children, hold officials accountable, and we must have the courage to come forward and be witnesses. tomorrow, silence is violence is sponsoring events in several locations, including a memorial starting at noon at city hall. they are encouraging everyone to wear red in solidarity. i hope everyone makes this a priority and attends one of the several events. it is important that we not slip back into our old ways of allowing this level of violence to be commonplace. if the violence is to end, the peace must begin with us.

budget

i was thinking that it might be prudent to slash the city budget in the area of the 275 take home city cars that are rolling around on taxpayers' dollers, instead of pilfering it from sanitation. although, having said that, i could personally do without the nasty lemony spray they spritz all over the quarter. it smells like a shut-in's house. we could cut that expense out. oh well, it's just a thought.

giggling

i'm wearing a fuzzy hat with ears on it, just laughing.

fern

there once was a boy named fern
who like to watch things burn
he played with match sticks and candlewicks,
bottle rockets and light sockets
until one day he set himself aflame
with a lighter of butane
alas poor fern
did burn and burn
for actions quite rash
there is little left but ash.

interesting evolution

www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=1635

I find it fascinating that some scientists think that the black death may be responsible for about ten percent of europe's population being HIV resistant. this is wonderful because it opens the door for a possible cure in the future. it is a wonderfully odd and ever evolving world we live in.

sue

there once was a girl named sue
who couldn't decide what to do
should she eat her cereal cold or hot
should she watch t.v or not
one day while trying to cross the street
on little indecisive feet
she went this way, then that
and a bus squashed her flat
poor dead sue
run over by bus 22.