The Wire and International Respect

Looking at Google news feeds for "The Wire," most stories are about characters that used to be on the show that are now striking it on their own. This one, about Felicia Pearson, aka Snoop, is par for the course talking about what the young actress is up to. I saw "Public Enemies" last night and was pleased to see Herc and the Judge make appearances.

More interesting have been articles in the international press in countries that are just now "discovering" the show. Here's one I found from New Zealand about the culture of "Wire bores" who talk about all the myraid details of the show to no end, sending their mates into a tizzy (I spent four months in NZ and can attest that Kiwis much prefer sports talk). These overseas chronicles attest to the resilience of the material and how far its themes of the complicated nature of urban life resonate.

- Also, after languishing behind Detroit for murder capital of the nation, Baltimore is back on top. The city had the highest murder rate for any city with over 500,000 people in 2008. All this despite having fewer murders in the city in 2008 than 2007.

The trend in the national homicide rate has been very interesting in recent years. Seattle, Los Angeles and New York have just seen 40-year lows in their homicide rate, whereas places like Memphis, Detroit and Miami top the list.