The New York Times reported yesterday that, after a slide throughout the 90s, murder rates are up in several US cities with Boston, Pheonix and Chicago topping the list. Reasons given are economic decline, Sept. 11 anxiety and the general cycical nature of crime. Panic and fear, of course, remains alarmingly high, as it did in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary throughout the last decade. One statistic I read reported that in 1996, citizens of suburban Milwaulkee had roughly the same amount of fear of falling victim to a violent crime as citizens of inner city Washington D.C. even though there is a 25-fold difference between the two.