Party Hearty

If you want to know the real New Orleans, don't visit during Mardi Gras. Just read The Times Picayne daily and weep at the murder rate and the unsolved murder statistics. They're appalling.

FINDING: Prosecutors have successfully prosecuted just one of the 162 homicides committed last year, convicting a man of killing his lover. A second trial, also a more easily prosecuted domestic killing, ended in an acquittal.

FINDING: More than 80 percent of the 162 murder victims last year were black men.

FINDING: More than half of all victims were black men younger than 30, and 29 percent were teenagers. Only 10 white men, 4 Hispanics and 3 Asian men were victims. Women were 9 percent of the murder victims. Nine black women, three white women.

FINDING: All but five of the 58 suspects police arrested were black men.

FINDING: Overall, police have "cleared" 43 percent of last year's murders. Meaning someone was arrested. But that doesn't mean a trial and conviction. The DA's office only accepted 55% of the 42 cases brought from last year.

FINDING: Of the 162 homicides last year, 105 occurred on the street, on a front porch, in a car or otherwise in public view. Forty-eight of those homicides happened in broad daylight. Witnesses won't step forward.

Read the whole thing. And you wonder why Ray Nagin is elected again and again? It's a culture of corruption, connivance and decay. The best thing we could do is sell it back to the French, but I doubt even they would take it.