Yesterday the first inaugural bus tour of LA Gang Tours took on 50 passengers at $65 each and a waiver acknowledging they could be crime victims. According the the Associated Press, it is the first tour of it's kind outside of historical crime tours across the country.

The tour goes through several neighborhoods, which are to some people, no-mans land. This brings me to Washington D.C., where a large portion of the population lives in poverty, however, this is largely unknown by tourists.

It seems like a revolutionary idea, one that could benefit ex-gang members and potentially bring light to issues in areas that many would never go.

Living in Washington, D.C., I see bus tours almost everyday during my work week when I go downtown and I've been on one with relatives when they came into town. It took us to the monuments, Arlington Cometary, historical houses: sites that were at one time lively, but now serve mostly tourists. They are relics to what was and where we've come from. But these tours are most definitely limited. I am not sure if there are any tours that specifically focus on the 1960s race riots in D.C. after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. or impoverished neighborhoods not on a tourists radar.

Ignorance comes from a lack of exposure and this would definitely be a way to expose someone. However, there is also a fine line between education and exploitation. If a tour of this kind started in D.C., it would need to benefit the communities or be run by the people living there. But it's an idea worth mulling over. Perhaps the apathy toward these communities could be abated by simply opening a bus door.

After two boys from a high school in Albany, Ore. were suspended for refusing to remove beaded crucifixes from their necks, The Oregonian investigate's the school's claim that the necklaces, similar to rosaries, are a gang symbol.

"When the 14-year-old and his 16-year-old friend Marco Castro were suspended recently for refusing to remove the religious beads because they were "gang-related," it thrust Oregon into the headlines and has triggered questions over the evolving role of rosaries in religion, fashion and street gangs.

In the latest cultural take of a symbol that's gone from Catholic altars to Britney Spears' bosom, the rosary is blurring the lines of liberty and safety on campus.

Some call the rosary-gang connection a stretch and urge caution. But for educators and public safety officials charged with blocking fluid gang trends, rosaries in the past few years have become one more marker to track suspicious activity."

Big ups to Bill O’Reilly for giving me the heads up that lesbian gangs are terrorizing America, raping young girls, indoctrinating children in the homosexual lifestyle, and beating the crap out of unsuspecting males. Since O’Reilly’s shocking June 21 report, I haven’t dared venture outside alone. I fear for my parents in Philadelphia where O’Reilly reports that “a lesbian gang called DTO, Dykes Taking Over, are allegedly terrorizing people as well."

Here’s O’Reilly, in the words of Radley Balko, “proving once again that when you're a conservative talk show host, the plural of anecdote is panic!”