I have just finished listening to President Obama followed by a response from Governor Bobby Jindal from Louisiana.
While I was inspired by what President Obama told us, I was gravely disappointed with Governor Jindal.
I was born in New Orleans and although my family left for California at the age of 5, I returned to Jennings, a small town in Southwest Louisiana, for high school. I left there about 45 years ago, but it still seems like my home town
About six years ago, I moved my mother closer to me from Jennings. She had lived there for 40 years and still keeps in touch.
When we heard from friends there that seven women were murdered in Jennings last summer - in a town of fewer than 10,000 people, We were horrified. This would represent a murder rate equivalent to almost 70 people killed in a city of 100,000 in one year.
Moreover, six months after these crimes - where bodies were left in the streets - not a single murder has been solved. Needless to say, society deserves better.
I thought about these murders as Bobby Jindal spoke about the need to reduce government services. I thought about the needless loss of of life through inadequate health care, the loss of productivity through poor schools, the loss of jobs from mismanagement and absent oversight of our financial institutions, and I felt that the philosophy that Jindal has espoused is terribly, terribly flawed.