The road to hell

If there is indeed such a thing as a real hell on earth -- as opposed to pedestrian, rhetorical hells on earth -- Juarez, Mexico, might be a finalist for the designation.

And when you get right down to it, Juarez became hellish due to a lot of factors you can see, to a lesser degree, in my own Louisiana hometown, Baton Rouge. And in things closer to home here in Nebraska -- like, for example, the growth of "concierge medicine."

This hit me like a thunderbolt as I listened to All Things Considered this afternoon. In the NPR program's feature on the plight of Juarez, one part hit me between the eyes with a journalistic two-by-four.

IT WAS this segment in the report:

In March 2009, Calderon put the Mexican army in charge of the Juarez police department after one of the local drug cartels ordered the police chief to quit.

Calderon now concedes that military muscle alone isn't going to end the violence. "We need to tackle this social plan, because the problems in Juarez have deep roots in the structure of this city," Calderon told a group of local business and community leaders.

Young people lack opportunities, he said. Juarez doesn't have enough schools, hospitals or soccer fields. Only half the roads are paved. Murder, extortion and kidnapping go unpunished.

Calderon said the social fabric and rule of law need to be re-established in Juarez. He received one of his biggest rounds of applause when he declared that motorists should be accountable and people should no longer be allowed to drive around without license plates.

Calderon pledged tens of millions of additional dollars for social programs in Juarez, but he also said he will not pull the Mexican army out of the streets.

The double punch of the global economic downturn and the gruesome drug war has battered the border city across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. The maquiladoras, or assembly plants, in Juarez have cut more than 100,000 jobs since 2008. The owners of thousands of restaurants, bars, corner stores and other small businesses have shut their doors rather than pay "protection money" to local gangs. Many professionals have moved to El Paso.

Alvador Gonzalez Ayala, a civil engineer who works in Texas, has chosen to keep his home in Juarez. "And I want to remain here," he says. "I want my children to remain here."

He says one of the biggest problems facing the industrial city is the huge disparity in wealth.

Gonzalez says much of the blame rests with the local elite, which he says is "a privileged and influential minority that's totally indifferent to the great mass of poor people [who] live in the area." [Emphasis mine -- R21]

He adds that the city has been neglected for decades. Young people who see the opulence in Juarez and just across the border fence in Texas are attracted to the quick money of the drug trade, he says. Workers in the maquiladoras earn $60 to $70 a week. Drug runners can earn that or much more in a day.

Gonzalez is involved in several civic groups, and he recalls going recently to talk to a group of preteens in one of Juarez's poorer neighborhoods.

"We were promoting education and science and math. And we were asking them, what do you want to do when you grow up? Many of them told us, 'I want to be a sicario.' That's striking. A sicario is a paid assassin," he says.

THE PART about tolerating cars driving around without license plates reminded me -- in the sense of a concept being carried to its logical conclusion -- of the great Gallic shrug Louisiana gives the larger concept of civic responsibility and good behavior. As did the part about indifferent elites.

It was the indifference of elites that also reminded me of life here in Omaha, home of one of the nation's poorest African-American communities -- one with only the tiniest of middle classes. The indifference doesn't, in my opinion, reach Louisiana (and certainly not Mexican) levels, but it there.

It's there whenever people can tout "concierge medicine" in the face of high infant mortality rates, astronomical levels of sexually transmitted disease, endemic street violence and disenfranchised people whose greatest deprivation is that of hope for a better life.

There are only two things that can lead to such tone deafness and rank selfishness. One is abject malevolence. The other is abject indifference. I don't know, frankly, which is worse.

But the end of the road, if the better angels of our nature do not eventually prevail upon us, is Juarez.

A bitter harvest of hunger

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As we emerge from our Thanksgiving food comas and start thinking about throwing away the leftover leftovers. . . .

Issa X

It occurs to me that if Christian churches -- and I point big-time at my own -- believed as much in Jesus as even the Muslims believe in Jesus and were as open about that fact, we just might get somewhere in this country.

I mean, what if the Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha put as much energy into flooding the 'hood with some of that ol' time religion as it does into promoting the annual appeal? Is what I'm saying.

(Yes, of course the Catholics have lots of ministries and Catholic Charities, etc., and so on, but it's hardly "flooding the zone." What about the big high-profile push . . . like the annual appeal?)

So here we have a little story from my hometown about yet another "Stop the Violence" rally trying to convince people with nothing to live for to stop dying for nothing, too.

AND IN The Advocate's dispatch from Baton Rouge, there's this toward the end:

Children from Muhammad University of Islam on Plank Road visited the rally to share messages of faith and peace.

“Our religion teaches us that we should always be for each other because we are family,” said Tynetta Muhammad, 13.

Leslie X, of the Nation of Islam, said the solution to violence is simple: “Jesus told his apostles to love ye one another as I have loved you. If we do that, we will see our condition around us turn around.”

BUT CHRISTIANS by and large don't put stock in Jesus beyond Him being a celestial sugar daddy, and the Muslims are outnumbered, so we have the need for all these "Stop the Violence" rallies. Because in America today, you either have status and stuff or you have squat.

Not even a God who understands.

Omaha: To be young, gifted and white

In one day, in one newspaper, two sections told a tale of two cities.

Both of them were Omaha, and they were as different as black and white.

Yesterday afternoon, I went out to fetch the paper -- yes, the Omaha World-Herald still has an evening edition, and we still take it -- and at the bottom of the Midlands section front, there was this column by Mike Kelly.

HERE'S HOW it started . . . and note, please, that it's just one movement of a long and ongoing symphony of civic self-congratulation:

A U.S. women’s sky-diving champion who has lived on both coasts made a big leap of faith — and moved to Omaha.

After nine months here as as­sociate director of the nonprofit organization Kaneko, she says cosmopolitan Omaha “disrupts preconceived notions” of the Midwest as seen in movies and on TV. And she sees people con­stantly trying to improve the metro area.

“What makes Omaha very special for me,” said Jacquie Scoones, “is that people have such a strong sense of pride in the city — and they don’t just say that, but actually invest in relationships. I don’t think I’ve met anyone yet who doesn’t vol­unteer for something.”

Scoones didn’t parachute into Omaha. She drove from the East Coast in January, arriving eight hours ahead of a snowstorm. But she has come to enjoy an­other kind of local climate.

“Omaha has an extraordinary climate of possibilities that I’m growing to love,” she said Mon­day. “I want to live and grow old in a place where people younger than me are fiercely invested in building a city where their chil­dren will want to live.”

Scoones, 50, said she appreci­ates what previous generations have done for Omaha but sees a fierce community investment by young professionals and oth­ers in their 30s and 40s.

OMAHA: City of Possibilities. That has a nice ring to it.

Cosmopolitan Omaha disrupting preconceived notions of the Midwest as Green Acres writ large. Damn straight! Fly over THAT, coastal America.

It's almost enough to provoke hubris in the modest, practical Midwestern soul.

And it's true -- Omaha is a great place to be now. It's a city "on the move," with a critical mass of creative individuals determined to keep up the momentum.

Dare I say it? The Big O is the place to be, a veritable creative commons . . . for the white, the well-heeled and the well-educated.

BECAUSE ON THE FRONT of the Living section, we got to hear about Cool Omaha's dysfunctional doppelganger. the one that's largely black, bad-off and ill-educated.

The Omaha that leaves some of its citizens behind. The Omaha that doesn't dare make any sudden moves when pulled over by a cop. The Omaha that, when it does go away to college and gets that degree, doesn't come home to where the alienation is.

That's the unheralded, troublesome city that no one writes glowing columns about. But sometimes it finds its way into news stories chronicling the rare instances where folks feel free to speak their minds:

As for the hosts, Tom Hoarty was curious. Race remains such a pressing issue. Take Obama's beer summit a few months ago with the black Harvard professor who had to force his way into his own home after the door jammed and the white Cambridge police officer who arrested him.

Margaret, though, reflected on something more personal: how her childhood friend and next-door neighbor was black, how it was OK that they played together but spending the night at her black friend's house was off-limits.

This sparked a similar memory for Loretté. She was the black girl who invited her white friend for a sleepover in 1969. Her friend couldn't believe a black family's home could be as nice as Loretté's was.

Memories and experiences segued into larger questions.

About the degree to which the news media perpetuate racial stereotypes and the degree of demand for such conflict.

About how stereotypes play out. Valerie being told more than once that “you don't sound like you're black.” Ed being told he's not black enough.

“It's probably not a whole lot different,” he told the five white Catholics, “if someone asks, ‘Are you Catholic? Are you really Catholic?'”

Tom Hoarty noticed who was missing at the table: Latinos.

“We just had a roof put on our house,” he said. “The entire crew was Latino.”

Rita pointed out that you have to go out of your way in Omaha to really mingle with other races and social classes.

“How many African-American professionals do you see?” Ed asked.

Tom Tilden reflected on his job. “There are not many. Not many. There's one, that I know of.”

Valerie: “We just don't have that. When you go to Chicago … you see African-Americans that look like me that are in power-play positions.”

Take D.C. and Baltimore, said Loretté.

“I had a blast. So many people who looked like me. Black people supported one another ...”

Ed: “What's different about Omaha? … We have (four) Fortune 500 companies and no African-Americans reporting to the CEOs.”

Tom Hoarty: “I don't have an answer. … Omaha is a very divided city.”

Margaret: What happens to successful black students who graduate from college?

Valerie: “They vow never to return.”

Ed asked what the two Toms would do if the police pulled them over.
Hoarty said he'd dig for his license and registration. Tilden said he'd demand to know why.

Ed said black men have been warned about making a move for the glove box or appearing mouthy to a cop.

They talked about where black people are missing in Omaha: boardrooms, the College World Series, restaurants.

“Why am I the only black person here?” Valerie said she asks herself when dining out at nicer restaurants.

Loretté got that feeling when she attended a classical music concert at the Holland Center.

They talked about blacks “dumbing down” to be acceptable. About stereotypes they wish would die, about interracial relationships.

Loretté really struggled when her nephew married a white woman, a pattern she felt played out way too frequently among black men. And yet she describes her nephew's wife as “wonderful” and as “my niece.”

LIFE DOES GET complicated, doesn't it? Cities, too. And people? Don't get me started.

I am grateful for the Omaha that's cosmopolitan, creative and forward-looking. I am ashamed that it's mostly for people who are white (and reasonably well educated) like me.

The Omaha I enjoy -- the one attracting all the go-getters to this former "flyover" burg -- is, alas, no reason to gloat.

It would be too easy, and too deadly, to sip martinis in the Old Market and feel so very self-satisfied that we're not like some redneck justice of the peace in Louisiana. Especially when Bad Omaha -- the place where hopes and dreams go to get they ass capped -- lurks just beyond the skyline . . . whispering "j'accuse."

Blame the TV Lady

Would you like to know why, in New Orleans, this poor woman is screwed?

Why no one is going to listen to the people advocating for the right of all poor people to have decent housing?

Why, no matter how plain the moral scandal -- no matter how many vulnerable people die squatting in fetid Crescent City heaps for lack of affordable housing -- no one will care, and they will feel morally justified in not caring?

Two words: Sharon Jasper.


THIS IS HER. Sharon Jasper, a.k.a., "the TV Lady."

The woman whose Section 8 housing is nicer than my house, but not good enough for her to refrain from decrying it as a "slum house" almost two years ago.

The woman who can't afford to pay full rent but who can afford to have a 60-inch television.

The woman who spent her time protesting the demolition of rundown, crime-ridden public-housing slums so the city could replace them with mixed-income developments, designed to provide better housing while breaking up concentrations of poverty and violent crime.

The woman who, with a cadre of angry local and out-of-town "activists," spent her time protesting, yelling "Shut up, white boy!" during city council meetings and getting arrested for allegedly bopping a cop.

All this despite local housing officials' assurances there were more than enough subsidized-housing units for residents who would be displaced.

In a New Orleans Times-Picayune story this week, the head of a group that assists the homeless said hers is a race against death in some cases:

UNITY head Martha Kegel explained that the homeless people they met were placed on a waiting list and given priority according to how likely they were to die without housing. Quite a few already had died waiting for housing, she said.

"Is there a quick way to house people so that they're not dying on a list?" Farha asked. "What is the policy answer to address the immediate need?"

WELL, one policy answer might have been for local activist groups to not to jump on board the Sharon Jasper Express, which went full-steam for the right to live not in decent housing, but instead in a hellhole named Desire . . . or St. Bernard . . . or Lafitte. That is, before it jumped the tracks.

At top, Grace Bailey sits in her squat, as captured by Times-Picayune photographer John McCusker. In 2007, Sharon Jasper thought her nice Section 8 apartment with the 60-inch TV was a "slum house." I'll bet Bailey wouldn't mind trading up to Jasper's "slum" abode.

But she won't get to trade up to a house where she doesn't fall through the floor and where the mosquitoes don't swarm her as she sleeps. Justice -- and housing -- for the poor has been thoroughly discredited by many of those claiming to be their advocates.

Nowadays, the greedy and the callous in New Orleans can blow off "the least of these," and their cause, with three little words.

"The TV Lady."

Katrina, poverty and America's Big Lie

What's the difference between the United States and a lot of banana republics where the rich get richer and the meek inherit not the land, but troubles and sorrows instead?

Pretension and self-delusion. Most banana republics, I would wager, have no real illusions about who -- and what -- they are.

America, on the other hand, has a grand national myth to uphold. Liberty and justice for all . . . Horatio Alger . . . rags to riches . . . the glory of the free market, and all the rest of that convenient rot allowing our hearts and our consciences to remain relatively unmolested.

AND TO THOSE Americans who hold fast to our national delusions -- to those who believe the Big Lie for the sake of an untroubled life of relative ease and conspicuous consumption -- I say let them come to New Orleans.

Or, at a minimum, read this story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Mickey Palmer, who traveled the world for 20 years as a merchant seaman shipping out of the Port of New Orleans, welcomed international visitors on Monday morning to his home, an abandoned building scattered with Katrina-era debris.

As a cool wind blew through a large open window, Palmer, 57, puffed on a cigarette and tried to stay positive.

"This is a good place to squat, as we call it, " he told international housing expert Leilani Farha, who led a small entourage to New Orleans this week to interview people who have lost affordable housing and others who may lose their homes.

Farha, who leads a low-income-housing advocacy group in Ontario, Canada, is part of an advisory group that reports to UN-HABITAT, the United Nations agency charged with monitoring poverty and housing. The group spent Monday morning with outreach workers from UNITY of Greater New Orleans who tromp through blighted buildings searching for disabled people who need help. The group will publish a report online after their visit.

Representatives of the United Nations have shown special interest in New Orleans since Katrina, with some U.N. officials using the storm as an opportunity to critique the U.S. government's policies toward poor and minority groups.

The group's forays haven't been without controversy. Last year, two U.N. specialists attracted international attention when they said the federal government's response violated an international treaty on racism. But the authors of the resolution also acknowledged they hadn't visited New Orleans since the storm.

On Monday, UNITY officials told the latest U.N. visitors that they believe 6,000 squatters may live in the city's more than 65,000 abandoned structures.

(snip)

In a nearby decrepit house, two other homeless women cited similar medical woes. Peaches Jackson, 42, suffers seizures because she lost 20 percent of her brain in an accident 10 years ago, she said. Charlene Stewart, 35, is scheduled for abdominal surgery next week for a bacterial infection.

Bailey walked back to the room she sleeps in. She keeps the window there closed at night or else mosquitoes devour her, she said. When it rains, the roof leaks generously onto the rotting floorboards.

She didn't always live like this, she said quietly, talking about her work in the service industry and the low rent she'd paid nearly all her adult life.

TO THE EXTENT the average citizen can look at this and spout platitudes about free markets, bootstraps and "U.N. socialists out to get the United States," God will -- and should -- damn America. That human beings live like this in the richest country on earth -- live much as the biblical Lazarus did right under the nose of the rich man, begging for crumbs off a table of plenty -- should be as much a scandal to us as it was to Jesus Christ two millennia ago.

19
"There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day.
20
And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
21
who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.
22
When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried,
23
and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.
24
And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.'
25
Abraham replied, 'My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.
26
Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.'
27
He said, 'Then I beg you, father, send him to my father's house,
28
for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.'
29
But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.'
30
He said, 'Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
31
Then Abraham said, 'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'"

IN THE WORST economic times since the Great Depression, there has been much talk about "stimulus packages."

The bottom line is that people need work. People need decent places to live. People need dignity and a sense of their basic worth. That's the "stimulus" we need.

President Obama, I have a "stimulus" package for you. The trial for this new stimulus program can be conducted in New Orleans, where many American citizens are living in Third World conditions in the wake of Katrina. (In fact, many were living in Third World conditions before Katrina.)

HERE'S THE STIMULUS: Put New Orleanians to work providing decent housing to people like the ones being surveyed by the United Nations. That such a survey is necessary is a national scandal -- but that's not important now.

What's important is eliminating the scandalous conditions.

And I don't see how it should take that much effort to make this project "shovel ready" -- or "saw and hammer ready," to be precise.

Take stimulus funds, hire unemployed and underemployed tradesmen and women -- hell, train "unskilled" workers for the job -- and salvage the abandoned housing stock in New Orleans. Turn it into livable residences for low-income people.

IT HAS BEEN four years since Katrina (and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) laid waste to New Orleans. If properties have not been razed or rehabilitated by now, it probably is safe to assume they won't be. At least not by the owner. Those property owners should be given 30 days to reclaim -- and remediate -- their property or forfeit it to the city.

If there are "legal impediments" to that, change the law. Property rights are important, but they are neither inviolable nor limitless.

Houses that can be saved should be. Those that can't should be torn down and replaced with "Katrina cottages" or new "green" construction. Most of the housing should be owned and administered by the Housing Authority of New Orleans as "scattered site" housing.

Some, say a quarter or a third, should be turned over to Habitat for Humanity and made available for purchase by eligible families.

DAMN IT, this is America. We don't "do" the Sudan -- or Haiti . . . or Somalia -- here. That's the party line.

It would be nice if that weren't just another damned lie in a world clogged with too many damned lies.

We say we are a great nation. But our collective inaction is that of small men and women.

Jesus is straight outta Compton

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I turned on the network news tonight and found Jesus.

All my churchy friends will think this odd, but it's true nevertheless. It seems Christ hit a rough patch for a while and got messed up with blow, but he's clean now and still hanging in there in Compton, that hardest scrabble of Los Angeles suburbs.

HE'S COACHING Little League baseball in the 'hood, Jesus is. Resurrected an abandoned ball field, too, so the kids would have a place to play.

And, by extension, Christ is the father a bunch of these Little Leaguers never had. He knows the value of a good stepfather.

What up? Jesus is. Jesus is straight outta Compton . . . living in his car -- never was much on real estate, don't cha know? -- and watching the Dodgers on a little bitty TV. Watch more here.

Quo vadis, Domine?

To the meager goes the spoiled

After the big storm Friday before last, our electricity was off for a full three days.

We managed to save the bulk of our perishables through a combination of dry ice, an ice-filled cooler and (finally) hauling everything to the fridge and freezer of friends who had power.

STILL, we took a hit in lost food. Not a big one, but a financial hit nevertheless.

But what if you're on food stamps and you lose everything in your refrigerator and freezer? The Omaha World-Herald reports:

Cerita Gaines lost a mid-size freezer full of food when the June 27 storm hit the metro area. The turkeys she had just purchased at a bargain price, along with the rest of her food, were wasted.

"I lost everything," she said. The 49-year-old was among the hundreds of people today who got in line as early as 5:30 a.m. to receive the emergency ration of food stamps from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

As many as 20,000 to 30,000 Douglas, Sarpy and Saunders County households are expected to apply for the aid that could total $7 million to $10 million, but — for now — families have less than a week to sign up. Long lines also formed Monday, the first day that people could apply for assistance.

One month's worth of food stamps will be provided, which for a single person is valued at $162 and for a family of four, $542. The aid is available to those who lost power, meet income guidelines and have either lost income or have had to spend extra money to recover from the storm.

More than 126,000 households and businesses in the metropolitan area lost power to the storm.

For the second day in a row, the number of food stamp applicants overwhelmed Health and Human Services. At midmorning today, officials were asking those not already in line to wait another day.

"We have waiting lines of several blocks at each location," said spokeswoman Kathie Osterman.

Why do you think they call it 'screwed'?

The woebegone account that follows, as published Sunday in the Omaha World-Herald, might be the most depressing -- and infuriating -- thing you read all day. Consider this fair warning.

Now, on to a tale of complete cultural meltdown:

Both Keyana and her mom, Samona Jones, were pregnant before high school. Samona was 13; Keyana, 14.

Samona dropped out of eighth grade, never married and had more babies.

Keyana adores her mom but dreams of a different life. She wants to travel. Move to a bigger city. Maybe become a lawyer.

She can't do that with a house full of kids.

"Who's got my brush?" Samona yells.

Today mom and daughter are both getting ready.

Keyana is taking daughter Lauren for her 18-month well checkup.

Samona also is seeing a doctor. She's 31 and soon to deliver her 12th child.

(snip)

And more than 75 percent of blacks in Douglas County who gave birth were not married. That compares with 24 percent for whites and about 49 percent for Hispanics.

In 2002, the most recent year for which comparisons are available, the Omaha area ranked seventh worst in teen births among blacks. More than 22 percent of blacks who had babies were teens, a share that beat New Orleans and Chicago.

Of about 800 births to Douglas County teens in 2007, 36 percent, or 283, were to black teens. Overall, the county's population is about 13 percent black.

Says Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research: "As long as half of black families with children under 18 are headed by a lone female and as long as a quarter of young black males who are out of prison and out of school are not even looking for work, the poverty numbers for blacks are not going to come down much, no matter how good the economy is and no matter what new social programs the politicians try."

Teenage pregnancy has become so accepted, sometimes even planned, that a counseling center in north Omaha dropped crisis from its name. Ads now emphasize its quality medical professionals.

I DON'T THINK you can overstress how dysfunctional every aspect of life has become among this country's underclass. Of course, it always has been thus. Now it's that and the kitchen sink.

Not only that, but I don't think you can overstress how it also undermines the foundations of the larger society. For example, the popular culture's glorification -- in its never-ending quest for "edginess," fashion points and amoral profit -- of the "gangsta" and hip-hop culture.

To an extent, the relative wealth of "middle-class, white America" counteracts some of the worst consequences of a chaotic embrace of thuggery, baby-mamas and baby-daddies. But it can't not steadily undermine those things that make a bourgeois life possible in a modern society -- self-restraint, education, a strong work ethic, the support of a relatively cohesive family unit.

Sooner or later, with the foundation undermined, our societal house will collapse upon itself. It can't not happen.

Again, from the World-Herald:

The Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy reports that a baby is nine times more likely to grow up poor if mom is unmarried, a teen and a high school dropout than if none of those factors exists.

Bottom line, says the Children's Defense Fund, odds are greater that poor children will lag in health and educational achievement. They're more likely to get in trouble with the law.

Omaha suffers from a toxic poverty blend that goes beyond money woes, said Franklin Thompson, a city councilman who teaches about race at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

He said the black community is gripped by a "culture of poverty" in which the so-called gangsta side of hip-hop marketing brainwashes youngsters into believing, for example, that speaking intelligently is "acting white."

So encompassing is the culture that those in it settle for less and adapt to an underclass lifestyle, Thompson said.

A strong generation of upwardly mobile minorities could help reverse such self-destruction with role modeling.

But, Thompson said, "Omaha lacks a sizable homegrown black middle class to help mentor children and undo some of the damage that has been done."

WHEN FACED WITH the complete collapse of a social structure -- when deviance become normative, in societal terms -- it seems to me that we have nothing in our secular civic or governmental toolboxes that can effectively address the problem.

We are shooting spitballs at Godzilla. All we can do -- even with model public-policy initiatives, superior schools and effective social-welfare programs -- is chip away at the edges of intractable poverty and deviance. Through heroic effort, both by the community at large and by the striving poor themselves, a few might be saved from the abyss.

And there goes Tokyo. Still.

Of course, it nevertheless is the duty of the larger society -- despite the grave challenges -- to make the effort. It's our duty to provide social services, formulate better policies and provide first-rate public schools.

It's our duty to do that if only a single child, in the end, might escape to a better life. But we have to recognize it's not enough. Our best social-welfare and policy tools can, at best, only provide a firm foundation for some future "killer application."

IRONICALLY, that "killer app"-- the societal "troop surge," if you will -- is the only weapon we have left . . . or at least the only one we have left with wonder-working power.

It's the "blood of the Lamb." It's a massive outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It's that whole triune God thing, via its local distributor, the church.

If it's sin that makes you stupid -- and I think rutting like jackrabbits out of wedlock historically has been considered sinful, not to mention societally disruptive -- we need something that overcomes the power of sin. I humbly would submit that's the power of God.

And, unfortunately, that's about the most unacceptable notion of all in these troubled times. Even within large swaths of the church itself, alas.

I LOOK AT the sad example of Keyana and Samona Jones, and I am tempted to think all is lost. That there is no hope.

But on the other hand, I also am fairly confident that the seemingly hopeless conundrum of our inner cities could be brought to heel in a generation or two. All we would need is a sizable number of Jesuits under the age of 90 who still believed in a God that actually mattered.

We're screwed.

Barring a miracle, of course. Fortunately, as an Easter people, miracles are something we have come to rely upon . . . and regularly receive.