Guest Post: The Gods of Texas

Given some of the comments by Recovery Czar Ed Blakely, and the subsequent fallout in my email the last two days, I thought that this very much needed to be posted. Written by a friend, Louis Pushkin, it reminds us once again that not all of us here, or even those still desperate to get home, are mendicants or buffoons. Pushkin owns a home in NOLA, evacuated, returned for a very short time, then because his partner's corporate employers decided to bail out of NOLA and head to Houston, he has been living in exile, as he calls it, and wants very much to come home. He wants to come home for all the standard reasons that anyone wants to come home, but he and his partner are very much the kind of people that everyone can agree we NEED to come back. (No, I am not getting into the who should and shouldn't come back argument, I merely state that as evidence that not all the brain drain stuff is true of every professional.) He doesn't want to sell his home and move to Covington. He and his partner care very much about the future of New Orleans and want to contribute to the rebuilding process in a more immediate way (they've already been contributing from afar very generously.)

His big fear is that the "Gods of Texas" won't let him come home, and he wrote this piece. I felt it was important that we remember those who are trying to get home, and the sacrifices they made and will continue to make in that quest. I also love the image of him in gaudy cowboy boots with candles burning. I believe he is rethinking the longhorns attached to the grille.
____________________

The Gods of Texas

The Gods of Texas are flat-out mean-spirited.

I first noticed that Texas has a way of not letting people leave easily when my husband was able to return home six months ago, and I drove with him to Baton Rouge the weekend before he started his new job. We sat in traffic for EIGHT HOURS between Houston and Beaumont (a trip that usually only takes about an hour and a half). That's a long time to sit and wonder why you're not moving forward. Enough time to start thinking there are dark and malevolent forces at work. Enough time to think about our other friends whose liberation from post-Katrina Texas purgatory was also difficult. Two friends who skidded off the road in a torrential downpour about five miles outside Winnie. Another whose rear axle shattered as she crossed the desert headed to a new life. And then for my husband's exodus, there we were: stuck in traffic worse than the Evacuation, hungry, bladders ready to burst, and burning through the reserve tank of gas at an alarming rate. Clearly, Texas doesn't like to let go. As I contemplated whether I should just pee in a cup and dump it out the window like we did sitting in Contraflow traffic on the Bonnet Carre Spillway early that Sunday morning, I came to a horrifying realization: Texas had given all of these people a really hard time getting out, and they hadn't even done anything to anger the Gods. They always defended Texas when I would go on a tirade about how soulless and uncouth was this place that I had started calling "Helltown" early on.

The least charitable thing any of them had ever said about Texas was when D explained her snap decision to quit her Houston job and move to California by saying, "I knew I had to get out of here when I realized Texas was growing on me – like mold." And she ended up stuck at an AAMCO station in the middle of the desert for three days getting her axle replaced. I have made it my raison d'etre for over a year now to malign and sully the name of this fucking Hell Hole to anyone willing to listen (or just too stunned, drunk, or polite to flee my outbursts). Sitting in that car in the middle of the East Texas flatlands, I began to wonder what special torture the Gods of Texas would have in store for me when I finally tried to escape. I still had to sell the house, find a new job, and move all our household, never mind the actual travel – any one of these endeavors could be the perfect channel for those vindictive deities to serve me a Texas-sized platter of come-uppance.

I didn't put much thought into what I should do about my impending battle with the Cowboy Gods for several months; the date of my emancipation seemed distant enough not to cause worry, and besides, I had Carnival Season to keep me busy (note: I have been able to prove that the Gods of Texas don't impede passage if they know you're coming back in a few days.) After Mardi Gras, we put the house on the market, and miraculously, we received a break-even offer on the house we owned just over a year. There's one thing the Gods of Texas won't hang me up with. I quit my job in HellTown, and have interviews lined up in Louisiana. I don't think the Texas Gods can influence the hiring process once I am across the State line, so that's one more area in which I think I am safe. I have resigned myself to losing all of our furniture in the moving truck to some mishap, but that loss will be insured. I can pack all the irreplaceables in the car with me, just like I did when we evacuated – after Katrina, I know exactly the items I do not want to leave behind ever again.

I am actually really nervous that the Gods seem to be narrowing the scope of their attack. That makes me believe they're going to deliver a quick knockout punch. Running over one of my cats on the way out the driveway, maybe, or the car catching on fire. Very possibly a heart-attack as I drive down I-10.

In an effort to placate the Gods, I have changed my tune lately; I have learned to two-step. I bought some country music CDs. I have eaten beef barbecue. I bought a tall votive candle with the word "TEXAS" painted on it, along with a big Lone Star and tacky, stylized cowboy boots. It has been burning on my bedside table for three days now. Since so many of my worries revolve around my physical liberation and the road leading to it, I decided to make the ultimate show of good faith: I bought a pair of genuine Texas Longhorns to mount on the grille of my car. (How did we ever live before eBay?) I am little troubled, though, at the thought that I might just be digging my own grave. I can just see myself cruising East on that final sweet morning and some hair-line fracture in my less-than-professional mounting job causes the longhorns either to fall onto the raod, puncture a tire, and send me careening into a bayou, or better yet -- fly through the windshield and impale me to my seat.

I confided my plans to a friend last week who approved of my strategy to offer pennance to the Texas Gods, but pointed out that I should also notify the spirits of my beloved Louisiana that another one of their lost children is coming back to the fold, and ask their assistance. I have made a phone call to the 504 area code to get my supernatural prescription. I have burned, buried, written, scattered, eaten and fed all the right things, according to a Louisiana perspective. The last piece of the puzzle is where you all come in. I need you all to think of the people who belong in New Orleans but aren't sitting with you tonight. Remember those who need to move on, but encourage those who want to come home. Celebrate those who make it back.

The Gods of Texas are only scary when you have to face them alone.

I Want Some of What Cheney's On

I rarely post anything about national politics as there are others who do so much better than I, but this was too good to pass up. At the risk of being called the "L" word, (no, not lesbian, not lady--bite your tongue!, not loony--although that sometimes applies), LIBERAL, here's this from WAPO's Dan Froomkin's blog (a good read btw):

It's not a coincidence that Cheney was talking to Limbaugh yesterday. The show has been one of Cheney's favorite venues.

As I wrote in my January 29 column, The Unraveling of Dick Cheney, Cheney is increasingly out of touch with reality. He seems to think that by asserting things that are simply untrue, he can make others believe they are so.

In Limbaughland, he's right.

In Limbaughland, not only were Saddam and Al Qaeda linked but -- more significantly -- liberals hate America. In Limbaughland, Cheney can say a lot simply by failing to disagree with his host's assertions.

Consider a few of yesterday's exchanges.

Limbaugh was complaining to Cheney about how the Democrats seem to be primarily motivated by a desire "to make sure we come home defeated."

Limbaugh: "Can you share with us whether or not you understand their devotion, or their seeming allegiance to the concept of U.S. defeat?"

Cheney: "I can't."

I wrote yesterday about Bush's recess appointment of three controversial officials including Sam Fox, whose nomination to be ambassador to Belgium was opposed by Democrats on account of his 2004 donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Limbaugh called Fox "a great American" and praised the White House for making an end-run around Democratic opposition.

Limbaugh: "This is the kind of move that garners a lot of support from the people in the country. This shows the administration willing to engage these people and not allow them to get away with this kind of -- well, my term -- you don't have to accept it -- Stalinist behavior from these people on that committee."

Cheney: "Well, you're dead on, Rush."

The two also chuckled about the White House move.

Limbaugh: "You go on vacation, this is what happens to you."

Cheney: "If you're a Democrat." They both laughed.

Okay, then.

Interesting Flag

Last weekend, we were at the Cabildo and my husband noticed this flag. He knew what it was, the Flag of the Independent Nation of Louisiana.

A little later, we were out with our grandson and my husband wanted to see the old Mssrs Marigny and Almonaster's tombstones in St. Louis Cathedral. So I showed him where they were and we noticed the same flag flying among all the others in the Cathedral.

This flag really was called the Flag of the Independent Nation of Louisiana. It was flown when Louisiana seceded and before it joined the Confederacy. (Once they joined the Confederacy they flew the Confederate flag.) Thus the above flag was only flown for about two months, officially, but is still flown among all the other flags at both the Cabildo and St. Louis Cathedral.

Thought it was interesting. Might have to buy one. No doubt Ashley will want one.

Also an interesting idea. Perhaps we could set up some new rules for insurance companies and file charges against them, while we summarily execute pirates. Okay, so I'm really anti-capital punishment, but still, the idea of setting up the gallows on Jackson Square while flying this flag was a cool image. Get the Corps of Engineers out there too, maybe? Just to watch? Lord knows we don't want them constructing the gallows.

Just sayin'.

Katrina  NOLA  New Orleans  Hurricane Katrina  Louisiana  levee  flooding  Corps of Engineers   We Are Not OK   New Orleans Slate   Katrina Refrigerator   Rising Tide   Insurance Companies   Meffert

Louisiana Oil in the Backyard

No, not the oil rigs in the Gulf. A guy in Lake Charles literally found high grade oil and natural gas in his backyard. Watch this at CNN

Opens up a whole bunch of questions about the slowness of the rebuilding here, but then maybe I'm just a cynic.

Ya know, this just doesn't seem fair

Higher fees for second lines than for krewes? What are we doing?
Read this article
This is just wrong.

I was trying to stay out of this but I'm a BITCH

I live in the Marigny, just two blocks from Esplanade. One day two weeks ago, we heard a lot of clunking and banging. Everyone on my little street went outside, and thinking it was a film shoot we didn't know about, (hey we're easily entertained over here!) peered into what we thought was a grip truck. No. It was two guys in an open huge truck tossing out 96 gallon trash "carts." Up and down Burgundy was a sea of black, HUGE black carts. One building with four units and a nice porch had four of the damn things tossed in front of it. The next day they did our little street, which is only about 2 blocks long. We all stood there astonished and had a de facto block meeting right then.

First we looked at the sheer size of these things, big enough to hide a couple bodies in easily, and after the expected jokes about that, we started talking about how much actual trash we put out each week. We are not huge families over here, and we figured on a really busy week of spring cleaning or yard work, maybe we'd fill it up, but mostly we were all talking about maybe two kitchen size trash bags per week. One of the neighbors called the head of Sanitation, as she had talked to her earlier in the week about the FQuarter bins, explaining patiently that there simply wasn't anyplace for her to put the albeit smaller FQ trash cart at her place of business. Madam Sylvia told her, "Well then, just put it in your living room." Our neighbor dialed the number as she was telling us the story, and asked upon getting connected with the office, whether we in the Marigny would have the option of asking for smaller carts. We were told NO. PERIOD.

At that, the rest of us were incensed. (BTW, we have a different trash company than the Quarter does, part of the "new improved three company-costs three times as much as it used to" contract Nagin signed.) Some of us decided that perhaps we should all just use one or two for the whole block. That seemed more reasonable, then one of our number, a very astute guy said, NO. If they're going to make us have these, then put your one little plastic bag of trash in it, don't use anyone elses and make them pick up every damn one of them every damn time.

Most of us over here are fairly ecologically minded, and we thought that combining would make sense, send the rest of the gigantic petroleum product carts back, but another of our neighbors thinks that they're expecting us to do that and that in five years or less there will just be one big dumpster on every block to make it more expedient for the mechanized trucks to pick it up. It's possible I suppose. Speaking of the mechanized trucks, the parking situation here is very dense, short of putting our carts out IN the street, the guys are still gonna have to come get them off the sidewalk, take them to the mechanized arm for emptying and return them.

So we've decided to decorate ours. We are going to have a get together, come up with a theme, and decorate all our damn carts with slogans asking HOW MUCH DID THESE COST? WILL OUR PARKING TICKET PAYMENTS COVER OUR TRASH BILLS? THINK WE COULD GET SMALLER ONES? and of course, lots of pretty flowers.

I know Varg has weighed in on this, and there's a piece over at Suspect Device. And yes, I do understand that bitching about this when some people can't get trash pickup seems ridiculous. But what we see is what appears to us to be an overpriced, overkill approach that's costing too much, and offers no room at all for compromise, at least when it comes to the Sanitation Department head. And all the talk about "Hey I live in the French Quarter, up yours" that I'm seeing is ignoring the very REAL issues business owners are having. The place where we go to get our hair cut has no place to put these bins, at all, period, finito. He will have to leave his bin out in front, put it IN the shop, or eschew the cart altogether and take the trash from the shop home, which is what he's thinking of doing. Another little shop on Royal has no alley and a very narrow sidewalk in front. She has no room inside for this cart, and if it's on the sidewalk, people will have to walk single file to get past her shop. Her concern is that they will do just that--walk PAST the shop which is barely squeaking by anyway. Oh yeah, and she's in her late 60's, takes a cab home and can't take her trash with her.

Not all of us who live in this area are a bunch of "up yours the rest of NOLA" snobs, nor are we all monied property owners. (Our block is half renters, half owners.) One commenter on Suspect Device's blog said, "at least the black plastic bags were picked up and GONE, the carts will stay out." And yeah, it WILL change the look of the French Quarter, and YEAH, that is a problem. I've already heard tourists asking if they can move the damn things to take a picture. No kidding. I mean, hey, they wanna show the folks back home the lacy iron work, not the behemoth trash bins. But some of what I'm hearing has a tinge of screw the tourists and the business owners who exist thanks to them. Lupin called her a bitch, how petty, how typical of all those snobby FQ/Marigny folks.

Well ya know, he was RIGHT. He could have been more politic, but my guess is he's heard more stories about "keep it in your living room" than the rest of us have, and I know he's been trying hard to find a compromise which apparently is impossible even though the Sanitation Dept originally said they'd give waivers to people who couldn't accomodate the carts, and now they're evidently taking that back.

Those of us living here care deeply about the problems of other parts of this city, things like no garbage collection, or the gigantic hole on Magazine Street. Ya know why? Because we LOVE New Orleans, all of it and cuz WE are the ones on our bicycles riding through the bewildered tourists, being asked, "Hey you know a good place to find. . . ." Know what we do? We send them to Uptown, we send them to Magazine Street with lots of praise for all the fabulous shopping they'll find there saying, "There's way more to New Orleans than just the Quarter." We patiently look at their maps with them, we explain that the street names change once they cross Canal, we tell them about NOMA, we tell them about City Park, we tell them they'll love the city. We're also the ones who have to move the damn carts out of the way while they hand us their cameras to "take a picture of us, will you?"

Oh yeah, and for the record, I loaded up my cart for its first pickup: All the trash I could find, including an old vacuum cleaner and all its parts that had been sitting around here for a year. (Yes, the entire vacuum, its parts and three bags of trash fit with room to spare and the lid went all the way down.) The following week there was one bag in there. What a waste.

Quick list of things overheard, seen, experienced

In the last couple weeks, there have been little weird things showing up in various ways in my life. Thought I'd just give you a quick list:

1. A knock on the door last night about 9:30PM. Sheriff's Department. The car had been left unlocked and someone had rifled through it stealing all my CD's but leaving the registration, for which I was grateful. Cops had seen the light on in the car, waited to see if we were coming in and out, and after seeing that we weren't, knocked on the door and checked it out with us. I thanked them. Still mourning the CD's.

2. Went to the Maple Leaf on Sunday, via cab. Got caught in the glorious colors of the Mardi Gras Indians that I had so wanted to see, but couldn't fit in. Found out that Taxicab Medallions are running at nearly $500K/per and are considered property that can be inherited.

3. Overheard at a parade, spoken by someone who has been in meetings with our Governor: "She has a DINNER bell that she rings when she wants to say something." Laughter all around, along with the question "DINNER BELL?? NO SHIT????" "Does it work?" "Yes, people are so shocked that they all get silent." "Is this done to get the meeting kinda called to order?" "No, she just rings it when she wants to say something, even if it has nothing to do with what we're discussing." That's discouraging, ain't it? Or would that be the Army Corps of Engineers and the PUMP/LEVEE situation? What if she stands in St. Bernard and rings it REAL loud? Will that help?

4. Our Mayor, stating the obvious in incendiary terms, while being one of the "thems" that he's talking about. Nothing more to say about this that can be said in polite company (not that that's ever stopped me before.) He needs to do something about the housing situation here, and I don't mean having the developers polish his, um, head. (No, you dirty minded people, the OTHER one.)

5. Learned a new term, "Going Bare" and thought maybe someone knew of a cool swimming hole or something. Found the term in an article here about people unable to afford insurance. I can hear the population of the upper 47 clucking about irresponsibility right now. Too bad they're not talking about the insurance companies. Wonder how many of those folks would do the same thing in the same situation? Um, ACoE, PUMPS??? LEVEES?

6. Having my hair cut, guy says, "Oh yeah, I talked to my homeowner's guy. Was told that if I rebuild on a slab, I can't get flood insurance, but if I raise the house like they want, I can't get wind insurance. No way to get both." Yoo Hoooooooo, blink blink, raising my shirt so my saggy boobs at least get their attention: ACoE guys, yeah, you cuties! PUMPS???? LEVEES????

7. Mortgage brokers in a panic. No insurance, no mortgage, no mortgage no commission. The insurance companies will shortly put mortgage companies out of business if they can't close loans. Having my daughter raise her shirt, that oughtta do it---Hey, sweetie, I'll show you a GOOD time (hey, kid, you're still my daughter, don't get out of control here, geez, you were raised up better than that!) if y'all give me some good PUMPS and LEVEES! (Still no response, but her father is having conniptions.)

8. Haven't actually counted them yet, and remarkably the Sheriff's didn't say anything as they peered into the interior of our car with flashlights last night, but have gotten maybe 20-30 parking tickets while parked in front of my own house. Don't have the "Marigny" sticker yet, was waiting for the registration, which finally came two days ago (thus my relief at finding the thieves hadn't stolen IT.) Lately the Ticketmeisters, not to be confused with Ticketmaster, have been out in force, even ticketing beer trucks and UPS or FedEx delivery trucks in the Quarter. The passenger side floor of my car is a really cool red/orange sea. I'll have to deal with all that here at some point. A cop friend said "Just go to court and get it all over with at once." Hey there, Officer, if I PAY them will the money go for PUMPS OR LEVEES? No? That's too bad.

9. Am hearing the spring birds and seeing yellow pollen all over, so for all of you sneezing from morning til night, it's time for the claritin, or the zytec or whatever you take.

10. And finally, if you're feeling old, fat, in need of a facelift, or something, please buy makeup and a copy of Photoshop instead. This will make your day:


Oh yeah, and I've had to breakdown and put the Comment control thing on the blogs. I really don't need spam for Asian porn or some of the other stuff that's been dumped en masse into the comments sections lately. I don't have time for that. I have tickets to pay.

And maybe a raft to build:::::::::muttering::::::Fix the PUMPS::::::::::Fix the LEVEES:::::::::Hey, am I talking to myself?::::::::

___________
EDIT: Governor Blanco isn't running for re-election so may have to retire her dinner bell. And most of my CD's are still in my possession, but my husband can never again holler at me for not putting them in their cases. The cases were gone, but my lax CD storage techniques saved most of the discs.

Free Beer, and stuff

Louisiana in Words Book Release and Book Signing

Forwarded to me by someone near and dear to me, Sam Jasper. Sam contributed a very small piece to this book, and so I am broadcasting it. This is from the email she received:

Please join us for a very special event.

The book release party for LOUISIANA IN WORDS will be at the Maple Leaf
(8316 Oak Street) on Sunday, March 18, 3 - 6 pm. It's totally free!

Artist James Michalopoulos’ New Orleans Rum and Abita beer will sponsor
the event, so there should be plenty of free libations, plus a cash
bar, as well as the live Dixieland Jazz of Some Like It Hot. Come spend
the afternoon with us and have some fun!

Please see http://www.LouisianaInWords.com for info on the book, or
keep reading.....


“I have those flying dreams--cruising low over the ground. In
Louisiana in Words I can finally hear the voices that rise from the
land. Joshua Clark has tapped into the soul songs of Louisiana.”

--Judy Conner, humorist and author of Southern Fried Divorce

READ THE REAL LOUISIANA

Although there have been plenty of “day in the life” picture books,
never before has a book sought to capture a single day in a state with
words like this. Created from submissions received from the world over,
this anthology offers an authentic diary of Louisiana. One hundred
twenty nonfiction selections from known and unknown writers run
chronologically from dawn to dawn, each one minute in time. From
Tallulah to Thibodaux, Shreveport to St. Martinville, New Iberia to New
Orleans, together these minutes provide a mosaic of the landscape,
heritage, speech, and traditions of Louisiana unlike anything before
them.

“A clever, revealing, earthy collection, as spicy as Louisiana home
cooking, this book is a must for lovers of unquestionably the most
hilarious and unselfconscious state in the union.”

--Ken Wells, Wall Street Journal Front Page Editor

“Louisiana in Words is a Book of Hours for a place that’s more like a
religion than a state. Witness within the worshipful attention to
sunrise and sunset, the madness of LSU football on Saturday, and the
calm of Ash Wednesday on St. Charles Avenue. From Caddo Parish way down
to Plaquemines, Louisiana is like no other state in the union, and
Louisiana in Words offers up minute-by-minute proof of that fact.”

--Josh Russell, author of Yellow Jack

For all of you who have asked me WHY, or what's UP with me. . .

. . . . here is your answer. I can't possibly express it better than American Zombie, a fellow NOLA blogger did in this beautiful post.

He says what I'm feeling, why I feel it, and why I stay. It's an important piece.

And yes, I hope he's wrong about the inevitability of another Federal Flood, yes, I hope he's being overly pessimistic in terms of the long term sustainability of this city, but when he explains the draw of this place, the reasons we stay, our responsibilities if we stay, he nails it. He GETS it.

I've been sick for three weeks, now on a course of some perfectly awful and incredibly expensive antibiotics. The other day I had to run some errands, so got on my bicycle and resentfully went off to do them. Within a block of riding, my attitude changed. I still felt terrible, and the peddling was hard, but my heart was happy and I was grinning. After an hour, with most of my errands complete, I stayed out, going around on my bicycle, watching people, taking in the smells, watching history go by, feeling a connection to the centuries old footsteps that had walked the corner I was locking my bike up on. For me there is no where else in the United States where I can truly feel that way.

The Zombie put it perfectly. If the Gulf reclaims this land a century from now, it will reclaim my ashes with it.

I'm not leaving.

I love Henry Rollins

Someone Else's Pie Hole--CPAC 2007

On Being AWOL and Schizophrenia--a Purge

I know I've been remiss. I haven't posted a damn thing in days. (Here ya go, Ashley! You told me to POST something so this is on you!) Here's the problem:

First, I had spent the week before Krewe du Vieux reading posts with comments that made NOLA seem like the Seventh Circle. Certainly it was a place that should be nuked immediately, clearly more threatening than Iran, which it appears Beavis is determined to nuke. Let's put that aside for the moment.

I was miserable. I read my usual blogs and news, read the comments. Everywhere were comments about how NOLA folks were a. drunk (sometimes, that's true), b. stupid (also sometimes true, hell Nagin and Jefferson got re-elected), and c. should be wiped off the face of the earth for various reasons ranging from our ineptitude, to corruption, to the murder rate, to some nebulous moralistic "you guys are having way too much fun" thing. (Please forgive the lack of links in the following text.)

I had had it. I love New Orleans. I was beginning to think I was insane for loving her as much as I do, me being a staunch heterosexual. I couldn't understand the insensitivity, the just flat out mean views of people outside of here. I was down and trying to find a way out of the sludge of negativity. I am the eternal optimist, I believe, I really do, just like the Saints' tshirts say. ::::::::::::freaking idiot:::::::::::maybe::::::::::maybe a pioneer?::::::::::::are we all pioneers?:::::::::::maybe:::::::::::::Hey, I really believe Blanche Dubois' comment about deliberate cruelty being the one unforgivable sin, and I was seeing what I thought was deliberate cruelty, or at least deliberate ignorance. (Case in point, Ashley's info on the signs at the Saints/Bears game. What the hell are these people thinking?)

Oyster posted an article by some amazingly shallow mall seeking moron, Derbyshire. BANG. Polimom wrote a beautiful, heartfelt piece on New Orleans, recovery and levees. Cross posted it at The Moderate Voice. I read the comments. BANG. State of the Union Address. BANG. Democrats 100 day plan. BANG. And the hits kept coming. Everywhere I looked I was informed that we shouldn't exist for whatever reason. It was 3AM one night and my brain wouldn't stop and I was done. What else could I write? Talk about abandonment issues. Where the hell is the rum?

This was followed by a string of crime reports. Murders all over the place, stats that make my skin crawl, and thoughts of hiring a sniper to sit outside Jordan's office (I'm basically a pacifist for crying out loud!). Did these people really go to law school? Of course, then, me being me, I started wondering what is the SOURCE of the problem. I've always been an advocate of what I call "peeling back the onion." Let's find out what the layers are covering. Hell, I do it with music, I do it with life. (Uh, kids, you hear that Zeppelin song you love cuz it's so retro? Ever heard of Robert Johnson? Listen to THIS! Yes, I really did that to some 16 yr olds years ago. They were flabbergasted.)

I posted a comment about gun control, and predictably, was put on the rack by Second Amendment folks. 3AM--DONE.

I put together in my head a piece about racism and classism. Kept thinking about EJ's comment to me about making sure I had a thick skin. I don't in some ways. (Still working on that piece, I think. . . . .) 3AM--DONE.

What wasn't done was my KdV float, costume, or throws. Too much fun. Too much juxtapositioning. I had wanted to be a member of KdV for nearly a decade after finding out what they were about. Finally it was here. Did I dare, DARE, enjoy it? 3AM--DONE, absolutely DONE:::::::::::::some sleep would be good but I have 30 blocks to dance through two days from now and an out of town dear friend visiting, and my daughter, her husband and my darling grandson living with me and my Entergy bill is from Mars, and money is tight and:::::::::::::hey with any luck I'll be tight soon too.

The week before the parade, I walked into the den after having planned on going there since the float creation process was first announced. Something always prevented it. So here I was, the rain pouring into the den, a paper mache C. Ray Nagin face down in a puddle in our space, cold as hell and knowing virtually no one in our krewe. I see Cathy Greenfelder, one of the officers of our sub-krewe. A brilliant, lovely and lively woman, we talk for a while and she puts me to work. Says, "Can you draw?" "After a fashion." "Can you paint?" "After a fashion." (I've been drawing and painting since I was nine.) Next thing I know I'm painting a shopping cart white to become a freezer and then am asked if I can paint William Jefferson's face in house paint on foam core in a mirror image. "Sure," I say gamely. (Shroeder, thanks, you have a great photo of Cathy's piece, and now I can see what dreadful job I did rendering the wide faced Jefferson for posterity!) Okay, now I'm jazzed.

I go home, set to work on our "Renters are roadkill on the Yellow Brick Road Home" shopping cart. My friend from out of town, bless his heart, takes a three hour nap while I paint and wire away on the thing. Clearly he thinks I'm crazy but having known me as long as he has, just puts this into his "par for the course" column and leaves it at that. I have my husband bring straw from the stables to jazz up our scarecrow costumes (which, of course is now ALL through the house and probably will be for a year.) I bleach my hair blonde as Harlow, exchange in a bizarre email conversation with fellow bloggers, dig out the 200 lbs of beads I've saved from last year for this very moment. Oh yeah, I'm ready. 3AM? I'm READY!

Day comes and we're gonna roll. As Adrastos said, we milled about forever it seemed, but damn the food next door to the den was spectacular. The den looked like something out of a Fellini movie---weird prisoners, strange doctors, people with Mad Hatter hats and lots of red stuff on, pink beauticians all over the place, a friend who's usually a soft sweet woman suddenly turned into a dominatrix FEMA inspector (downright scary she was!), people with neon lit collanders on their heads (yeah, I know, this sounds like I made it up!) I run into Wet Bank and his fabulous Uncle Sam wife, members of our sub-krewe. We spread out looking for other bloggers and checked out the finished floats. Never found half the people we were looking for but Wet looked great in white face as a poodle (although his tail was strangely missing). Our captain sees us pull a bottle of Myers out of our cooler and says, "I knew I liked you right away! Good taste in hootch!" We're doing okay. This is my idea of heaven---a grand leap from the Seventh Circle.

I hear that Dangerblond's krewe is behind us. So I head over there as fast as I could, miss seeing a bunch of bead bags and trip over them. Never found her. So very much wanted to meet her. Once I get headed back into our direction I find the parade has finally moved. Unfortunately our shopping cart has been left behind. I jog up to our krewe, find my husband pulling our float (no mule for us!), then jog back to find our cart. I run with the overweight cart over railroad tracks and through three other sub-krewes and catch up. Amazing. We're on our way.

The parade was fabulous. Danced for blocks to the sounds of the crowd and the great brass bands with us. Saw many friends on our way (had seen Maitri for 2 seconds as she was headed into the den and me out--never saw her again, but found out from reading her posts why that was!) and gave them our best booty. Had been warned that the State Palace was a dump (no pun intended) and that I should bring my own TP, so called my daughter and had her bring a roll to drop into our cart on Decatur Street near Molly's. (I shoulda charged for it! Everytime I headed up the staircase later that night, women in various costumes were begging me for a bit of it. I handed it out freely and was very glad I brought it.)

Got through the parade with nary a thought about being DONE. Had one of the best times of my life. Learned from Wet Bank's sister that it's okay to tell fellow krewe members to buy their own throws and not purloin yours. (Mark, your sister is a hoot! I love her!) Once at the State Palace I see Adrastos, looking like an acid burn victim convict (and yes, I DID say he looked "cherubic"), his forever lovely wife looking like he just beat the tar out of her, and several others, but lost my husband totally. Spent the first 45 minutes looking for him. He had the cooler (hey, SANDWICH in there!) and had told me on the way in that he was "really drunk." (Somewhere during a lag on Frenchman Street I find him slugging Myers straight out of the bottle telling me it's more "expedient.") I'm seeing him passed out somewhere. NO. He's just dancing at the front of the stage, at least that's what I found out when I found him leaned up against the wall on the once glorious staircase of the theatre. Loki shows up with his beautiful bride, we talk briefly and both at once, as we are wont to do, then he mysteriously disappears. Hours go by dancing and laughing and having a wonderful time. Humid Haney arrives in front of me, eight feet tall with wig, plastic boobs and some kind of Saints hardhat on and I hand him the rum and coke, which he liked but apparently the stuff made his plastic boobs sticky (like he CARED!). Met some others I've been wanting to meet, and there I am, flushed, probably slushed, bleached hair and scarecrow makeup. Oh yeah, it was my dream scenario for meeting the folks I seriously want to talk with!

We stay til the show closes. The next day my legs wouldn't work. My age kicked in and I wondered how I had managed to dance the 30 blocks AND dance til 4AM. 4AM--DONE.

Now I have to switch over into "Boba" (read "Grandma") mode, go to an elementary school and help out with the reading class, deal with a stomach bug that rendered our household useless for a day, AND think Streetcar Named Desire. We're doing Barkus on Sunday. I'm going as the Tarantula Arms and had to revamp the shopping cart to become a "Flowers for the Dead" thing. I've got everything done but my costume and my dog, Zola's costume (he's going as Shep Huntleigh, Blanche's never seen beau.) Hey, no problem. It's only the day after tomorrow.

As I'm re-painting the shopping cart, re-loading the shopping cart with another 200 lbs of beads and other throws, I'm reading about Vanessa Johnson sending her son out with a gun to kill them all after her son got beat in a fist fight (fist fights, in my view, are a damn better choice than a .38, but hey, I'm an anti-gun pacifist), a guy in Slidell who put a child's hand on a stove. I'm reading about how Robert Dawson had only been home for four hrs before he got shot down and his 54 yr old mother can't read or write. I'm getting emails about how we need to mobilize and others talking about tech stuff that I have no clue about. (WTF IS digest mode?) I'm reading about how one of our own close knit group is cracking under the strain. I'm reading about continuing corruption. I'm seeing Anna Nicole's death being front page news (yes, she was young, had a wee baby and it was tragic, but really---what did she actually contribute to this world? Or am I being a bitch?) I'm seeing possible lawsuits about the levee failures. I'm hearing my grandson telling me that thieves go to hell (he SOOOOO didn't get that from me!) and seeing money tossed into everyone's pocket but those who need it (I hope hell exists and that my grandson is right). I'm seeing articles about kids who can't get into school, estimates of 300 are probably more like 2000. I'm seeing tourists in the Quarter, which is a good thing. I'm seeing who's the grand poobah at what super-krewe parade. I'm seeing friends who work for Road Home with good hearts being skewered by the parodies and bad press. I'm seeing people who are being skewered by Road Home being upset, and rightfully so (btw, mominem's Road Home Math posts are brilliant and enlightening). I'm seeing Poppy Brite give up on public appearances but getting a new home. I see me, being totally schizophrenic---having a wonderful time and loving Carnival season but worried about our future and our schisms. I'm wondering if maybe they shouldn't just put Prozac in the water supply. I'm seeing Chris Rose turn into an apologist, and the Catholics, whose dogma spawned Mardi Gras, what with Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, having fits about Krewe du Vieux. I'm seeing Travelling Mermaid saying "Humanize the victims" and she's so right, but so many people won't be able to relate to the culture of the victim, so any humanization will become moot. I'm seeing joy and frustration and anger and angst and breakdowns and it's all so damn local. Forget about the larger set of issues, the national, the international, the corporations, the. . .the. . . .the. . .

So here's the deal. I'm gonna take my grandson to every damn parade he wants to see (his favorite is Krewe d'Etat--gotta love that! It really DOES skip a generation!) Then I'll get back to work. I'll find a way to fit American Zombie's oversight idea into my already overfilled plate. I'll get back to the writing I do other than the blog. I'll go back to figuring out what the hell Entergy is doing with my bill.

I'll put both sides of this schizophrenic situation together, in some kinda way. But since my sewing machine is gone, I guess I'll have to use Stitch Witchery and hope the fabric doesn't melt.

I'll be Blanche Dubois at the Tarantula Arms on Sunday and wonder why no one GETS that intentional cruelty IS the one unforgivable sin. Then I'll probably shut my pie hole for a little while, unless of course, as usual, I can't.

It's 12:35AM--DONE.

Tripod perform at a Comedy Festival

Aussie comedy group Tripod performing their song "Make You Happy Tonight" at a Comedy Festival

Please Wear Black

Not a Word. . . . .

. . . .not one word in the State of the Union address about New Orleans. So I will quote some other words:

THIS WAS ABOUT NEW ORLEANS

And tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again.---George Bush on Jackson Square, September 15, 2005

THIS WAS ABOUT IRAQ, (guess we're not "friends" that shouldn't be abandoned and I guess a "pledge" is not the same as a "promise.")

Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned and our own security at risk.---George Bush, State of the Union Address, January 23, 2007

THIS WAS THE DEMOCRATIC RESPONSE (might be lip service, but at least the words were in there, like hey, we might possibly be part of the "all Americans" thing.)

Let me simply say that we in the Democratic Party hope that this administration is serious about improving education and health care for all Americans, and addressing such domestic priorities as restoring the vitality of New Orleans.--Sen. Jim Webb, D-VA, Democratic Response to the State of the Union Address, January 23, 2007

This article about sums it up. Disappointment, not on the radar, etc.

Given how much time, money and focus is given to those countries holding our foreign oil supplies in their hands, i.e. infrastructure, schools, hospitals, job programs, perhaps we should follow Ashley Morris' advice and become a foreign power ourselves. Bush had a lot to say about domestic oil (um, US, we GOT it, George!) and how we needed to decrease our dependence on foreign energy sources, but still not a word about the Gulf Coast.

Is OPEC looking for any new members? Maybe if we join them we can get what we need here.

Oh yeah, but you would need a passport to come here to party.

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World Record Beads at Jackson Square

I'm so proud of him! My grandson, that is! He decided to do this project and so out we went in July to measure Jackson Square, only to find out that it's actually a rectangle. He became the librarian of his first grade class and decided that the school needed more books for the kids to take home for their reading assignment each night, and decided to do this project as a pledge drive. (The original idea owes its genesis to our dear friend, Stuart Johnson, of New Orleans, currently in exile in Houston.)

The original flyer had the photo between all the dimensions you see below, but the Word doc didn't translate well to blogger, so it is what it is. Below is the flyer. We just wanted to let you know that we'll be out at the Square on Saturday with a butt load of beads and his good little heart.

349'

349'

At 2PM on Saturday, January 27, 2007, William Oskay, a six year old student of Ms. McLaughlin’s First Grade class at McDonough 15, will attempt to connect Mardi Gras beads in one continuous strand around Jackson Square. William has collected what he calls “World Record Beads” for over a year in order to do this. (They are the old style clear plastic beads with connectors at the back.) He also decided that Mc 15 needs more “take home” books, so he will do this project as a pledge drive to raise money for Mc 15’s Green School library. The pledges are based on the number of strands it takes to go completely around the Square.

ALL MONEY RAISED GOES TO GREEN SCHOOL LIBRARY AT MC 15!!!

349’
329’ 329’
349’
TOTAL: 1356’ (approx.)
Yes, we really DID measure Jackson Square!

Please feel free to pass this around or just stop by to cheer him on!

HUD, Money and Martin Luther King Day

I really wanted to go to the march today, but it's not looking like I'm going to make it. I've been stashing this post for a while to post today, so am hoping that it will be a contribution to those who are marching.

A friend sent me an email with this link in it. I read it and sat screaming at my monitor. The author, Bill Quigley, is a human rights lawyer and a professor of law at Loyola. I am going to post the entire article here. You'll have to click the link if you want to comment on his post of this over at BuzzFlash, and please feel free to comment here as well.

Bill Quigley: Why Is HUD Bulldozing Public Housing Apts in New Orleans When It's Cheaper to Fix Them?
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 12/28/2006 - 3:14pm. Guest Contribution
Tale of Two Sisters: Why Is HUD Using Tens of Millions of Katrina Money to Bulldoze 4534 Public Housing Apartments in New Orleans When It Costs Less to Repair and Open Them Up?

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Bill Quigley

Gloria Williams and her twin sister Bobbie Jennings are 60 years old. They are two of the over 4000 families who lived in public housing in New Orleans before Katrina struck who are still locked out of their apartments since Katrina. Their apartments are two of 4534 apartments that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced plans to demolish. Demolition is planned even though it will cost more to demolish and rebuild many fewer units than it does to fix them up and open them. Ms. Williams and Ms. Jennings, and thousands of families like them, are fighting HUD, they want to return.

Gloria and Bobbie started working early. As children they picked cotton, strawberries, snap beans and pecans before and after grade school every day in rural Louisiana. "We were raised up to work," they said.

They moved to New Orleans after their father drowned. Their home was marked by regular domestic violence. A few years later, their mother was murdered by a boyfriend.

As teens they moved in with an abusive relative. They ran away, came back, and stayed with other relatives. They can even remember nights when they slept under their aunt's bed in a hospital while waiting for her to recuperate.

As young women they continued working. They worked in restaurants before starting careers as Certified Nursing Assistants. Then they worked for years in nursing homes and in private homes caring for the elderly and disabled. They fed people, cleaned people, bathed people, cared for people. Each married and raised children and grandchildren. Like 25% of the households in New Orleans, neither owned a car.

Both sisters are now 60. In the past few years, their years of physical work took its toil and they could not longer work. Ms. Jennings had back surgery and suffers with high blood pressure. Ms. Williams has heart and lung problems, high blood pressure, and clots in her legs that prevent her from standing or walking for long periods. Each lives solely on about $600 a month from disability. No pensions.

When Katrina hit, they had been living in the C.J. Peete apartments for years. Ms. Bobbie Jennings had been there for 34 years. Her twin sister, Ms. Gloria Williams lived there for over 18 years.

Their combined families, 18 in all, evacuated to Baton Rouge to ride out the storm. When it was clear they would not be going home any time soon, their host family told them it was time to move on. In September 2005, the family of 18 moved into one daughter's damaged home in Slidell, about 30 miles away from New Orleans - all sleeping on the first floor because the roof was still damaged.

One of their sisters, Annie, was in the hospital with cancer when Katrina hit. It took the family weeks before the finally found her in a hospital in Macon, Georgia.

When the city opened, they got rides into town and checked on their apartments. No water had entered their apartments at all. But their doors had been kicked down and all their furnishings were gone. The housing authority told them they could not move back in for a couple more months while their apartments were secured and fixed up. The housing authority started fixing up and painting apartments in her complex, but abruptly stopped after a few weeks.

Slidell was getting tight, so they accepted an offer to relocate to California. After a month, they returned. Being 3000 miles apart from family was too heartbreaking. A four day bus ride brought them back to Slidell in January 2006. After hitching rides into New Orleans, Ms. Williams found a subsidized apartment. The only way the landlord would accept her, though, was if she paid him an extra $400 under the table. Otherwise, he would rent it to someone else who would.

So Ms. Williams paid the extra money and moved in with her grandchildren while she waited for her old apartment to reopen. She used FEMA money to buy new furniture. In late February 2005, Ms. Williams was hospitalized for three weeks for surgeries on her legs.

In June 2005, HUD announced they were not going to let any residents back in her apartment complex and three others (Lafitte, St. Bernard and BW Cooper) because they were going to be demolished. Over one hundred maintenance and security workers for the housing authority were let go. HUD took over the local housing authority years ago and all these decisions are being made in Washington DC.

The demolished buildings would make way for much newer and many fewer apartments which would be built by private developers. The demolition and private development would be financed by federal funds and federal tax breaks designed to help Katrina victims!

Nearly $100 million in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds were designated for the private developers. Another $34 million in Katrina Go-Zone tax credits were also donated to the developers.

In July 2005, Ms. Williams apartment caught fire and again she lost everything. Her landlord did not want to let her out of her lease. He told her that she and her grandson could still live there, all they had to do was clean the soot off the walls and ceilings.

At this, Ms. Williams broke down and went back into the hospital.

Ms. Jennings got an apartment and allowed her daughter and her grandchildren to live there because they have no place to stay. She also took her in her little sister, Annie, who was dying of cancer. Annie died on August 17, 2005.

Both sisters have severe problems every month making ends meet. Utility bills eat up most of their monthly checks. With no car and their apartments across the river from New Orleans, they cannot get to the doctor.

Christmas was very tough. Ms. Williams said "We didn't have a Christmas. We didn't have food to put on the table." Her grandson went to her sister's house to get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Ms. Jennings cried as she said "Behind Katrina and my little sister dying, my life just stopped. This is the second year we didn't have a Christmas. It is so hard to try to start over. I let my daughter and her two grandchildren sleep on the bed. I sleep on a pallet on the floor. Before Katrina I was on blood pressure medicine once a day. Now I take 4 blood pressure pills three times a day. I also take pills for depression, nerves and stress."

"We just want to go home," Ms. Williams said. "People knew us in our neighborhood. They never messed with us. I could leave my back door open when I went to the grocery. People don't understand that was our home. We want to go home."

Why would people want to go back into public housing? Aren't the developments dangerous and crime-ridden? Isn't this an opportunity to start over and make something better?

Public housing residents know full well the problems of public housing, but still they want to return.

Why? Start with the fact that New Orleans is in the worst affordable housing crisis since the Civil War. Tens of thousands of houses still remain in ruins after Katrina. Rents for the rest have gone up 70-80 percent since Katrina. Even before Katrina, there was a waiting list of 18,000 families seeking to get into public housing - now it is much, much worse. HUD's demolition plans target 4,534 apartments of public housing in the community. They plan to demolish 1546 apartments in BW Cooper, 723 in C.J. Peete, 1400 in St. Bernard, and 865 in Lafitte.

These are not the dense high-rise towers. Public housing in New Orleans is made up of development clusters of mostly two and three story buildings with six to eight apartments in each. New York Times Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, criticized plans to demolish these apartments, saying on November 19, 2006: "Modestly scaled, they include some of the best public housing built in the United States....Solidly built, the buildings' detailed brickwork, tile roofs and wrought-iron balustrades represent a level of craft more likely found on an Ivy League campus than in a contemporary public housing complex."

Most of the public housing apartments rented for very modest rents tied to the resident's incomes. Most did not pay separate utility charges. Leases were essentially for life, unless someone in the family was caught breaking the law.

HUD initially said they had to demolish because the buildings were so damaged they were dangerous to the residents.

That was not true.

John Fernandez, an Associate Professor of Architecture at MIT, inspected 140 of these apartments and concluded in papers filed in court that "no structural or nonstructural damage was found that could reasonably warrant any cost-effective building demolition...Therefore, the general conclusions are: demolition of any of the buildings of these four projects is not supported by the evidence of the survey, replacement of these buildings with contemporary construction would yield buildings of lower quality and shorter lifetime duration; the original construction methods and materials of these projects are far superior in their resistance to hurricane conditions than typical new construction and with renovation and regular maintenance, the lifetimes of the buildings in all four projects promise decades of continued service that may be extended indefinitely."

Residents promise to fix up their apartments themselves if given the chance. "I clean for a living," said one young woman resident at a recent public hearing where 100% of the residents opposed demolition. "I clean for a living and I am proud of it. I clean every body else's houses, I will sure clean up my own house - just let me back in to do it!"

After it the public understood that the buildings were not actually in such bad shape, the authorities then said it would cost much more to repair the buildings than to demolish and start over.

That too was not true.

The housing authority's own documents show that Lafitte could be repaired for $20 million, even completely overhauled for $85 million while the estimate for demolition and rebuilding many fewer units will cost over $100 million. St. Bernard could be repaired for $41 million, substantially modernized for $130 million while demolition and rebuilding less units will cost $197 million. BW Cooper could be substantially renovated for $135 million compared to $221 million to demolish and rebuild less units. Their own insurance company reported that it would take less than $5000 each to repair each of the CJ Peete apartments.

HUD suggests that less-dense "mixed income" communities are the way to go.

But residents and the community knows that if HUD has its way, only about 20% of the families who lived in these developments will be allowed to return.

New Orleans has suffered through the experience of HUD's "mixed income" policies before. The St. Thomas housing development, once home to 1510 families, was demolished with promises that people would be returning to a beautiful redeveloped community. Instead, there is now a Wal-Mart on the site and hundreds of cute gingerbread pastel houses. How many of the 1510 families who used to live in St. Thomas have been allowed to move back in? About a hundred. A few of these families have had to force their way in with litigation by the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center. The demolition of St. Thomas is hailed as a mostly-good outcome by nearby developers and some of the young professionals who moved into the surrounding neighborhood knowing what was coming. What do the 1400+ families who were moved out and not allowed to return think? Don't ask - no one else is.

HUD has the same plans for the neighborhoods where they are trying to demolish housing. According to documents filed with the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency: St. Bernard will go from 1400 apartments to 595 apartments, only 160 of which will be for low-income public housing residents. There will be 160 tax credit mixed income and 145 market rate units; CJ Peete will go from 723 units to 410, 154 will be public housing eligible, 133 mixed income and 123 market rate; BW Cooper will go from 1546 to 410, 154 public housing eligible, 133 tax-credit mixed income, and 123 market; And Lafitte will downsized in the same way.

As a result HUD plans to spend tens of millions of Katrina assistance funds to end up with far fewer affordable apartments.

The new Congress is looking into this. Representatives Barney Frank and Maxine Waters chair the committee and subcommittee with oversight of HUD. There is also a federal class action lawsuit filed by the Advancement Project, Jenner & Block, and local attorneys.

Residents of the St. Bernard housing development and their allies plan are not waiting any more. On Martin Luther King day, January 15, 2007, they are going in with or without permission. "What better way to celebrate Martin Luther King day than to risk going to jail for justice?" says Endesha Jukali, a neighbor who lived and worked in St. Bernard for years.

But the clock is still ticking. HUD, who has not "officially approved" its own announcement, says the demolition needs to get started to take advantage of the Katrina tax credits. Neither the Congress nor the federal courts have yet stepped in to stop the demolitions.

What do the sisters think about this? Ms. Jennings says: "I lived there for 34 years. That is my home. I just cannot afford to live outside the development. I don't know how else to explain it. I have the tears, but I do not have the words." Her twin sister, Ms. Williams cries and says: "That was my home for over 18 years. I never gave them no trouble. My home never flooded. I will clean it myself, just please let me back in. I wish I could make people understand. I just want to go home."

For more information about this matter see www.justiceforneworleans.org or contact the Advancement Project at (202) 728-9557.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Bill is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. Bill is one of the lawyers representing thousands of families who want to return to their apartments in New Orleans.

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Silence is Violence

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The Naked and the Dead

Thanks for the title Norman Mailer. In his novel, which I just finished, he writes of a group of soldiers in WWII fighting and clawing their way through jungles and up mountains in the Phillipines. He details sheer exhaustion and unbelievable human endurance to complete what is, in the end, a futile endeavor. I should have chosen something more upbeat to read this week, huh? Ah well, I'm probably going to piss some people off with this post, so upbeat isn't really important at the moment.

This week it seems apropos to have read that book as New Orleans' problems are all the more naked, and more of her citizens are dead.

Over twenty years ago, when my daughter was the age my grandson is now, my husband and I had long discussions as we watched the rise of gangs. We talked about how when we were in school, the baddest ass in the place was some guy with slicked back hair and a switchblade. They liked souped up cars and easy girls and knew where to get beer. They mostly worked in gas stations, maybe committed some petty crimes, maybe ran off to join a biker gang when they got out of school. They weren't a real threat to us as long as we didn't go where their turf was, and we all knew the boundaries. West Side Story had a guy like that who got killed, but killing was something that the kids I knew, even the baddest asses, didn't do. I was in the hippie group. We smoked our pot and talked about peace and listened to music at the Fillmore East. The killing in my teen years was done in the jungles of Vietnam, beamed into our living rooms at dinner time, and we protested it. Killing was NOT cool. No "juice" came from that. "Street cred"--not a term we knew by the way--was based on things like scoring an all access pass to a Led Zeppelin concert, or having gone to Woodstock.

As the gangs took over streets in California, we were living in San Francisco, and while there were some gang problems there, they seemed minor compared to what was happening in Los Angeles. We felt insulated from them in a way, but wondered a lot what was going to happen when we had a generation of kids, reared in the gang neighborhoods, in poverty, with bad schools, too many guns and a culture of consumerism and violence. "What's gonna happen in 20 years when we have to DEAL with these kids?" Well, here we are, twenty years later and it's as bad or worse than we had thought.

At that time we lived on 23rd Street in San Francisco, just up from SF General Hospital where we could hear the sirens going to the ER. Just over our 20 foot fence was the Hunter's Point Housing Project, originally built during the war to house shipbuilders for the Navy, it became it's own fiefdom with the cops afraid to go in. Too many guns, they said. There were children in there then, and probably still are now. Cops were the enemy in Hunter's Point, and these kids grew up hearing that and living in that environment. The San Francisco school system was such a shambles that we sat out in lawn chairs to get our daughter into an "alternative school," which roughly translates to the charter schools here in New Orleans.

This wasn't just happening in San Francisco, though. It was happening in every city in this country including New Orleans. My daughter is 27 and so are the those other kids who grew up in the Hunter's Points and the Ibervilles and mega-projects of Chicago and New York and in Compton. The poverty, the bad schools, the marginalization continued and nothing was done about it. The gun manufacturers made better, faster, more lethal weapons with fingerprint proof grips, and they're all over our streets, in the hands of kids and addicts and maniacs of every stripe. The guns stolen from that law abiding guy down the street are out there too. Every major city in this country is now reaping what it sowed for twenty years or more.

Am I making excuses for the killers out there? Absolutely not. They are lost to us now in most cases, I fear. I don't think we can undo the damage of twenty years anymore than we can undo the horror these kids are unleashing. I am only saying that we are all so shaken up, so SHOCKED by the recent spate of killings here in our city, and we shouldn't be. It's been coming for a long time. What the hell did we think would happen when these kids grew up?

I live in the Marigny, not far from where Helen Hill was murdered. Two blocks away is a place called Buffa's. One of the cooks in there, a lovely woman named Miss Brenda, lost her brother this week. Multiple gunshot wounds. One victim white, the other victim black, the grief is the same. I am not going to arm myself to the teeth, nor am I going to be too afraid to go out. Neither of those options is viable to me. Besides, it's not just my neighborhood that's being hit by this destruction of human life.

Mayor Nagin said in his press conference the other day that it's "black on black crime" and "unfortunate." UNFORTUNATE? Is he fucking kidding? That's the best he can do? Yes the city is strapped for cash, yes we're dealing with entire neighborhoods that would be better suited to a scene out of Blade Runner than a city in the United States. We have problems and more problems here in New Orleans, and evidently, as Ashley Morris says, we're on our own. Sinn Fein. (All of this, contributes more to the marginalization problems.)

I will make an admission here. I was lucky to be chosen by the film company I was working for in 1984 to cover the Democratic National Convention in Moscone Hall, San Francisco. I also voted for Jesse Jackson in the primary that year. (Keep your groans to yourself!)

As we approach Martin Luther King's birthday, I gotta wonder what he would make of all this. Is racism a problem in New Orleans? Oh please, if you're asking you're not living here. (Is it any better where you are?) Is crime a problem here? It's over the top.

This year the voters of this city re-elected Nagin and William Jefferson, both black men with power and connections. We have Oliver Thomas on the city council, a man for whom I have great respect. Our police chief is also a black man. Where is Jesse Jackson? Where is Al Sharpton? Where are the black leaders? Why aren't they here holding these guys' feet to the fire? "Listen, you guys, we fought hard to prove we could do the job, now DO it! You're making us look bad. Some of us died to get the respect we deserved, now you're letting our kids get left behind and shoot each other in the streets and calling it unfortunate? Show the world that you can rebuild New Orleans without handing out contracts to people who are your buddies. Show the world that you can educate the children, ALL the children, so that twenty years from now their blood won't be rolling down the gutters to the still clogged street drains. Show the world that you can get these guns and the criminals wielding them off the streets---um, no, New Orleans Judges, not just for three days, for GOOD. And try to hire some cops who aren't just as bad as the criminals. How can we help?" I think the black leaders of this country need to tell it like it is. I think they should hand Nagin's head to him on a platter for pandering with lines like "black on black" and "unfortunate."

And what about us white folks? We have to stop being so complacent. We need to reach out to our neighbors, whoever they are, and band together as a community and say ENOUGH. I don't want my black neighbors assuming that I view them as a threat or that I wouldn't open my door to them if they needed help. I want them to know that I don't care if the victim of a crime is black or white. I want us to work together as a community and tell our elected officials that "unfortunate" is an understatement of monumental proportions. I want us to band together to make sure that my grandson and theirs don't have to deal with the effects of another twenty years of neglect and idiotic judicial systems and corrupt politicians.

Katrina exposed a lot of the problems of this city, and some of those problems should be like the canary in the coal mine for the rest of this country, but our city has other spectacular problems in addition to rampant crime. The problems have left us naked. Too many of us are already dead. We have to open our mouths and scream loud and long. We must keen on the corners of Mid-City and Uptown and the Marigny with the families of the murdered.

We cannot allow ourselves to be forced out of our love affair with, our defense of, New Orleans. We also can't forget that for decades the neglect happened on white leaders' watches.

Maybe we need to blast "I have a DREAM" on loudspeakers all over the city, and into City Hall, on Martin Luther King day. Or "I can SEE the promised land" but I'd have to change his words to I expect to get there with you. But I will not allow you to kill this city, Mr. Nagin, Mr. Riley, with your inaction.

Twenty years goes really fast, you know. What will shock you in twenty years, and could any of it have been avoided? Please don't take our exhaustion and human endurance in the face of catastrophe and have history view it as futile.

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