The Wire

So, I started to do one of the things I promised myself I wouldn't do: watch The Wire.
I wasn't going to watch, because I didn't want it to color my perceptions of Baltimore before I even got here. Like New Haven, Baltimore has a reputation. More so than New Haven, Baltimore's seems deserved. It's something of a standing joke, apparently, that New Haven talks a good game (of having a seedy reputation) but it's really a walk in the park compared to Baltimore. So far, my observations line up with that theory. There is a ton of theft, lots of muggings, car thefts, everything. It seems like a solid 60-75% of students have been the victim of a crime while they've been here. Like Yale, JHU takes security seriously, and we have a huge security force of mostly former BPD officers, as well as a hired security company and the BPD. It's pretty intense; my landlady keeps talking about how the slumlords who live two blocks away bring in riff-raff to the area (and she's not kidding or exaggerating). Almost every night, you see BPD helicopters. I thought they were news or traffic helicopters, or maybe taking people to the hospital. Turns out they use searchlights and go street by street looking for the bad guys.
Anyway, maybe watching The Wire still isn't a good idea. I think it's making me jumpy!