The Boston Globe, CRITICAL FACULTIES, Up for grabs, Sociologists question how much looting and mayhem really took place in New Orleans By Christopher Shea | September 11, 2005 BY NOW THE IMAGES and stories of looting and mayhem in New Orleans--the residents ''shopping" for nonessentials in an abandoned Wal-Mart, alleged rapes in the Superdome, a shot fired at a rescue helicopter--have been burned into the brain of every television watcher and newspaper reader in America. But do they give us an accurate picture of the aftermath of the flood? In fact, if criminal violence were indeed rampant in New Orleans...