No Place To Hide

One of the many unusual affects of last year's hurricane here is that since Hurricane Katrina out-of-state criminals are being arrested here in New Orleans at a record rate. Yep Out of the area residents are the ones coming here now and police and court records show they have turned New Orleans into a modern-day frontier town. Waves of riff-raff are flocking here to work in construction projects that are never ending and pay good wages and because of a misconception they have that they can get lost in this ruined city.
New Orleans is now the place the criminals think is the one in which to hide. But surprise! Because the city is broken and lacks police officers, the national Guard and state police are here patrolling the streets in record numbers. With less than half the former population here, the number of law enforcement officers per capita is at an all time high. And because of that they are arresting those criminals right and left. The courts say they have twice the number of cases as before Hurricane Katrina and the number of criminals being extradited back to the jurisdiction where they committed their crimes is at an all time high.
Ha! The business of sending thugs back to where they are wanted may be one of the brightest economic aspects to my dead city. On average, police ship out 20 per week, and they go to every corner of the U.S. accused of every imaginable crime. Well, New Orleans has always had a reputation as a fun place and a great place to hide from the law. Even back in the days of pirate, the legendary 18th century pirate Jean Lafitte used to hide in our swamps, reappear and disappear again before the police could find him.
But now the extra law enforcement officers is making this city the least desirable place for a criminal to flee. It's yet another example of how New Orleans has changed. We are no longer the city in which a thug on the run can find fun and anonymity.
Nobody thinks tattoos are ugly more than I do. I don't understand mutilating the body with a tattoo, but as long as no one is hurt by the practice whatever one wishes to do to him or herself is fine with me. Well, now there are some others who think that tattoos aren't as cool as they thought when having them etched into the skin.
It seems that the tattoo business is getting a boost in one type of tattoo- those once trendy Chinese language tats that were often either mistranslated as nonsense (for example, "blood and guts" translated as "blood and intestines") or were jokes played on the recipients who thought they were too cool (such as the tattoo of Chinese words for "gullible white boy"). One tattoo removal service in the fantasy land of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, says it takes off at least seven Chinese tattoos per week. In any language, those tattooed fools make no sense to me.