What a weekend that was! It’s hard to believe it’s really been 24 years since the last time the Cardinals won the World Series; it seems like we’re in the running at least as often as Nader. Fans were out in the streets banging pots and pans; everybody I knew called everybody else I knew; people on the highway were hanging out of their car windows cheering. And that was before the parade with half a million people in attendance. Man, this is a great week to be in St. Louohhhh nooo.

St. Louis Named Most Dangerous U.S. City

It’s your own fault for enjoying yourselves downtown. I guess we just can’t have nice things.

My first thought upon hearing this (first thing this morning; happy Monday!) was, “Hey, I’m going to get e-mail from my mother-in-law today.” After that, though, all I could think was, “If this is the most dangerous city in America, then way to go, America.” Honestly, when you next encounter one of my fellow city folk, ask them: Do you feel 20% more endangered this year? My guess is that they probably will not say yes. Because they’ll be stabbing you.

No, they won’t. This sort of thing has come up before, and it’s always the same b.s. numbers from the same b.s. guy; the mayor has already taken him apart the same way I wanted to, except with less cursing. Every place has good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods; it’s just that, in addition to those things, St. Louis also has forefathers who drew an imaginary line around a lot of the good neighborhoods 100 years ago and declared that they weren’t officially part of the city. (At the time, the good neighborhoods were the bad neighborhoods and vice versa. Sort of. It’s complicated. Just try to take the long view next time you’re redrawing your borders. That’s my advice to you.)

It just kills me because the city is like a different planet than it was when I was in college. We routinely go to a restaurant near my old school that’s in a neighborhood I would not have run through in broad daylight wearing kevlar with a military escort ten years ago, and now I park my car on the street and stand out front at 10:00 at night. There’s been such a huge resurgence, and then some airspender like this comes along and kicks the legs out from under everybody.

I noticed, by the way, that New Orleans is nowhere on the list. Apparently the list is only comprised of those cities that chose to release their crime stats. I think I have an efficient way to fix our problem.