First Draft

Must-see TV

I may have, on occasion, professed that I rather like Rachel Maddow, and I've more than once posted here about her.  This one, though, isn't just fangirl squee, trust me.

Maddow knocked it out of the park last night with this Tom Ridge interview. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth your attention. The clip below is one of three, the other two are on her show site. She devoted over half the program to the conversation with Ridge, starting with the topic of whether politics influenced DHS terror alerts, whether Ridge has  backtracked on statements to that effect made in his new book, then moving on to Iraq intelligence and the failured FEMA response to Katrina.

It's a remarkable bit of broadcasting, not just for what Ridge says or doesn't say, and not just for Maddow's tenacious questioning. What really struck me as I watched it was that something real was happening here, something we don't see very often. By "real" I obviously don't mean Ridge is telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. Rather that, as the interview unfolds, there's a palpable sense that we, along with Ridge, really don't know where it's going to end.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

There Is Something Sick About Us

That we tolerate this kind of filth on our televisions.

For all the wankery about TV ratings, about strong language and sex and violence and nudity (or as it's known in the A household, Tuesday nights with Denis Leary) I would submit Neal Boortz's kind of thing does far more damage to impressionable minds than all of the above.

Time for the next advertiser boycott.

A.

Scout's Farewell

Back in August of 2005 I was blogging at my little blog and had decided I was going to quit blogging. Then Katrina hit. I was compelled to continue blogging. After more than 3 years of blogging primarily about  the recovery in New Orleans, I have come around full circle to that decision to quit political blogging. I find I don't have much to say anymore...at least I wouldn't say it any better than many others do.

I am not a writer, or  pundit, or journalist (citizen or otherwise). I am just an American who felt strongly about the necessity of this country to right the wrong that had been done to the Gulf Coast and in particular New Orleans. I believed and still do believe that it is a moral imperative and that in not doing so we, as a country, as a community, risk losing our soul. I would submit that as a society we lost our moral compass when bodies were allowed to remain in the streets of N.O. for days and weeks, or in homes for months and even a year in some cases, as the powers that be argued over who would foot the bill to recover the remains of the victims of the flooding of New Orleans. There is something very wrong when such a thing can occur in a great nation. It is that issue that kept me blogging about New Orleans when many had moved on and moved  me to question and look deeper, for if we were failing at such a basic level, what other failures were occurring I wondered. Of course time would reveal many failures and limited successes on our part as a nation and that is what I attempted to chronicle.

After a year I realized that chronicling was the word that best explained what I was doing. Early on  I admit I had hoped my blogging could perhaps bring change but after a year I knew that was folly, hubris and naivety on my part. I had wanted to do more, always more. But as is so often the case when we seek to give, we find we receive so much more than it  would even have occurred to us to be possible. That was the case for me and I am forever grateful to so many for that.

I made many trips to New Orleans over the past years.  I was given the opportunity to witness the people of New Orleans lift their city from ruin...out of love.  Because it has been their doing...when often they waited and waited for help, fought against the misunderstanding and falsehoods, became the pawn in political fights, faced the sting of abandonment and worse. They taught me so much about what community is and that it is worth fighting for.  I unabashedly admire them and I came to love their city.

I was in New Orleans a few weeks ago and this trip was purely for pleasure. As I rode the St Charles Avenue street car line for the first time I thought ...this was what it was for...to have this moment, this experience, one so rich in history and so unique in the  American experience. I was relaxing and enjoying  New Orleans for perhaps the first time post Katrina. I thought though my work hadn't come close to achieving what I naively had once hoped for, I hoped now that in some small way  my work could be seen as an attempt at support of what they have done.  I hadn't changed anything but I hoped that perhaps my blogging efforts had helped them feel not so alone.  If I achieved that I guess that is pretty good.

Witnessing their love for their city made me look anew at my own. I realized how much I had taken for granted here. I find myself now falling in love with my own local and am better for it. I had wanted to move to New Orleans yet this journey instead brought me home.

Finally I have been graced with wonderful friendships which will last a lifetime. It was lb0313 who invited me, a stranger, into her home. I can never thank her adequately for the many experiences and all she has shown me, but thank her once again I will. Thank you dear friend.

As another anniversary approaches, focus will once again turn to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It is my fervent hope that such focus will last more than a day. If one were to ask me what to blog on that day, I  would say post the simple yet poignant graphic the NOLA bloggers post, seen here. Then write about New Orleans on the day after and the week after and in the months after the  anniversary. Because it is not over, they are not OK yet. I hope we can make them and us OK once again.

I want to thank all of the great readers and commenters here at First Draft. You're the best.  I have so much gratitude to extend to Athenae for bringing me here, for her editorial guidance over the years and especially for her friendship. You have been so supportive, words can not do it justice but Thank You A!

As for my future, I plan to do some bike blogging at this site--Bike Scout. Stop by anytime

Thank You ALL and if you will indulge me one last time....I always found writing to be painful but I did so enjoy making my little videos. So here are a few of which I am particularly proud:

Scout...Peace

Formaldehyde: Good for You!

Bathe in some today!

A.

Zombie falsehoods

With each disaster there inevitably comes an email or blog comment like this (scroll down) comparing the new terrible event to Katrina and the flood of New Orleans and I doubt it will ever end.

What we dont see with the flooding
Just a personal observation...as I watched the news coverage of the massive flooding in the Midwest with the levee's about to break in Fargo, ND, what amazed me is not what we saw, but what we didn't see...
1. We don't see looting.
2. We don't see street violence.
3. We don't see people sitting on their rooftops waiting for the
government to come and save them.
4. We don't see peop! le waiting on the government to do anything.
5. We don't see Hollywood organizing benefits to raise money for
people to rebuild.
6. We don't see people blaming President Obama. (Except for Don Marchant, post #30)
7. We don't see people ignoring evacuation orders.
8. We don't see people blaming a government conspiracy to blow up
the levees as the reason some have not held.
9. We don't see the US Senators or the Governor of North Dakota crying on TV.
10. We don't see the Mayors of any of these cities complaining about the lack of state or federal response.
11. We don't see or hear reports of the police going around
confiscating personal firearms so only the criminal will be armed.
12. We don't see gangs of people going around and randomly shooting at the rescue workers.
13. You don't see some leaders in this country blaming the bad
behavior of the North Dakota flood victims on "society" (of course there is no wide spread reports! of lawlessness to require excuses).

This was emailed to me for comment by Athenae and a blogger at North Decoder who was disturbed by it. At the end of this post I have posted my email response outlining the falsehoods contained above and if nothing else please read the last paragraph of it.

(St. Rita's/USA Today)

But for now I'm going to focus on another comment (scroll down further at above link) which is completely false:

Points well taken
But if there is a flood, and the levees don't hold, and the city gets flooded, I will bet that the staff of the nursing homes all leave the residents to die on their own either. Do you remember that? Everyone that works at the nursing home took off and left all the people there to die! You can make up excuses all day long for that type of behavior, but I am not buying it.

This is a falsehood. The staff stayed and helped. People don't realize when those levees broke the flood waters came in fast and furious. That nursing home was in St. Bernard Parish. A couple I interviewed were from St. B and they said their home was flooded in minutes. They barely escaped  with their lives...I mean literally. At one point the guy was almost swept away. He only lived because he grabbed the protruding  antenna of an already submerged truck. So imagine those waters sweeping into a nursing home and overwhelming elderly folks and the staff. If you can't imagine it, well here is an account of the horror:

"We were like in a sinking ship," says Gene Alonzo, a retired fisherman who stayed at St. Rita's to be with his disabled brother, Carlos, a resident. "I never did see water come up like that."

Within 20 minutes, the water inside rose almost to the ceiling and nearly three dozen residents were drowning, some in their beds, in one of the signature scenes of horror wrought by Katrina.

Alonzo's account of the ordeal, together with new details from government officials, survivors and the Manganos' attorney, James Cobb, paint the most complete picture so far of what happened at St. Rita's before and after Katrina struck — and shed light on why the Manganos did not evacuate.

Their descriptions also debunk some of the myths that grew out of the chaotic aftermath of the hurricane, including reports that the Manganos abandoned their nursing home during rescue efforts there.

SNIP

Alonzo, 55, says he put his 52-year-old brother onto a mattress, then grabbed Carlos' roommate, Harold Kurz. Alonzo recounts the frantic effort by nurses and others to save as many as possible:

"You can't get out a door, so they're kicking out windows to float the residents out on mattresses to put them on the roof. In every room, people were hollering. They were screaming like somebody was murdering them (and) ... for God to help them. It was a horror scene."

SNIP

Alonzo returned to St. Rita's a month after Katrina to get belongings from his ruined car. He calls the place haunted, and says he will never go back.

"Can you imagine being in your wheelchair ... and that water came up over your head? I guess that's why people are so mad."

He tears up, and then says quietly he wasn't strong enough to hold onto both his brother and Kurz. "You can't swim with two people. I had to let Harold go. I still think about that when I fall asleep."

That story is from USA Today in November of 2005. The truth was set forth over 3 years ago yet the falsehood remains.

I wish the people who wrote the above comments seen at North Decoder would have to spend one night falling asleep to the horrific screams filling their head and the sight of their hand letting a human life slip away, for I think just one night of that would put an end to their writing comments which perpetuate the  falsehoods....at least I hope

Allowed To Live

This is a horrifying story, start to finish, as horrifying as it is recognizable, but there are parts of it that stood out to me:

Things quickly got ugly. Pervel remembers aiming a shotgun at a random African-American man walking by his home--even though he knew the man had no connection to the theft of his vehicle. "I don't want you passing by my house!" Pervel says he shouted out.

[snip]

Apparently thinking they'd caught some looters, the gunmen interrogated and verbally threatened Collins and Alexander for ten to fifteen minutes, Alexander says, before one of the armed men issued an ultimatum: if Alexander and Collins left Algiers Point and told their friends not to set foot in the area, they'd be allowed to live.

[snip]

Janak, who was carrying a pistol, says he grabbed one of the suspected looters and considered killing him, but decided to be merciful. "I rolled him over in the grass and saw that he'd been hit in the back with the riot gun," he tells me. "I thought that was good enough. I said, 'Go back to your neighborhood so people will know Algiers Point is not a place you go for a vacation. We're not doing tours right now.'"

He's equally blunt in Welcome to New Orleans, an hourlong documentary produced by the Danish video team, who captured Janak, beer in hand, gloating about hunting humans. Surrounded by a crowd of sunburned white Algiers Point locals at a barbeque held not long after the hurricane, he smiles and tells the camera, "It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it." A native of Chicago, Janak also boasts of becoming a true Southerner, saying, "I am no longer a Yankee. I earned my wings." A white woman standing next to him adds, "He understands the N-word now." In this neighborhood, she continues, "we take care of our own."

Jackass could have stayed in Chicago and learned the real "meaning" of the N-word just fine. The sentiments expressed in this story could have been expressed by any one of a hundred people I've talked to in my years living here. This isn't about the South. This is about America, as it always has been, as we keep saying here: Our fate is your fate, and it was, and it is. Our own.

I mean it, how often do you hear this? Every day? My house, my block, my neighborhood, I live here and you don't. Moreover, I BELONG here and you don't. Our lives are a crazy quilt of safe areas and danger zones, in which we make snap decisions about who "looks" like they belong here and who doesn't. But for the outright violence, but for the semi-official nature of the "militia," is there anyplace in this country this couldn't have happened? Neighborhood Watches and community meetings and everybody on the lookout, all the time, for what's coming after them. It's no wonder, no wonder at all.

And I don't know if it's our inherent paranoia or a constant drumbeat over 25 years that government is useless and offers you no protection so you'd better go arm yourselves to the teeth and put grates over your windows, I don't know if it's a sign of shallow hatred or a sign of feeling abandoned by everybody around you, that we have no responsibility for each other, that makes people feel like they have to create borders and defend them. I don't know if it's simple human nature or bullshit wish-fulfillment, make yourself a king in the new world after the old one, in which you were a boring loser, burns down. I don't know if it's some of that or all of that or a little of each of the 31 flavors of crazy going on here.

I do know it's almost Christmas, and the story we're going to tell on Thursday is about people on the road, seeking hospitality. Seeking that which is most valued, anywhere: a safe place to rest, to make a family, to feel at home. The story is about the Christ Child, yes, but also about the knock at the door, and the innkeepers who turned those travelers away. It's about the stranger who arrives in the night and needs you. Will you give him a bed, even if it's in your garage, next to the cat box, surrounded by bikes and basketballs and junk? Or will you aim a shotgun out the window, string a barricade across the street, and scream go away, and you'll be allowed to live?

A.

Extreme makeover, FEMA edition

During his campaign, President-Elect Obama repeatedly promised to overhaul FEMA and now those promises have apparently become a plan, as reported by  Washington Post's Al Kamen. 

Back in February, Obama spoke to the residents of New Orleans:

If catastrophe comes, the American people must be able to call on a competent government. When I am President, the days of dysfunction and cronyism in Washington will be over. The director of FEMA will report to me. He or she will have the highest qualifications in emergency management. And I won't just tell you that I'll insulate that office from politics - I'll guarantee it, by giving my FEMA director a fixed term like the director of the Federal Reserve. I don't want FEMA to be thinking for one minute about the politics of a crisis. I want FEMA to do its job, which is protecting the American people - not protecting a President's politics

Per the Wapo article, the most likely plan is " to break off the agency from the Department of Homeland Security, a move that would in itself help restore the pride FEMA folks felt when it was an independent agency."

As for FEMA director, the likely pick is former FEMA head James Lee Witt, though he may only be brought in for a short time to help "whip it into shape," much like he did post-Andrew back in 1993.

After Witt runs the first lap, it's hypothesized he will hand off the post to his deputy administrator, Mark Merrit, who worked with Witt in his private, and highly lucrative, disaster recovery consultancy.  This is where things might get a bit dicey.

Witt is likely to be grilled about his work on Katrina relief. Witt and Merritt began their work in the days after the hurricane, when Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco hired their disaster recovery firm in an open-ended, no-bid contract.

An NBC News investigation of Louisiana state records found that James Lee Witt Associates was paid more than $40 million for its recovery work. Merritt, who had been the firm's top manager in Louisiana, tallied $506,000 in billable hours over the 10-month span from September 2005 through June 2006, NBC News found in its July 2007 report.

Witt Associates allegedly billed the state double what it actually paid its subcontractors, the report said. For instance, the firm subcontracted an Indiana company to manage recovery grants. That company's workers were paid $19 to $20 an hour, but they billed Witt Associates $37.50 an hour, and Witt Associates billed the state $75 an hour, according to the NBC News report.

On the other hand, Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal is reported to have been most pleased the with firm's work there and has said he intended to keep them on.

As for other matters, such as the levee situation and what bodes for the Bush-created Office of Gulf Coast Rebuilding, no detailed plans have been announced. I'm sure our NOLA correspondents can bring us those details as they take shape.

Feds to Investigate Katrina Bridge shootings

This probably should have been done long ago. From The Guardian:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Federal officials will investigate the fatal shootings that took place on a New Orleans bridge following Hurricane Katrina.

The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's office in New Orleans announced Tuesday they will investigate.

The announcement comes after the dismissal of charges against seven New Orleans police officers accused of gunning down two men on a bridge in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Religious and civil rights groups in New Orleans had called for the district attorney to refile charges against the officers.

The family of one of the men shot had also asked for the Justice Department investigation.

Wind...Gone with the Bailout

It was going to be a hard sell anyway but now there is no time or money for this.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Gene Taylor's relentless two-year campaign to secure wind coverage as part of the federal flood insurance program is on the verge of failure, a victim of vicious opposition in the Senate, of suspicions about a new government program and ultimately, of bad timing.

"It looks like there will be an extension of the present program," said Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, in an interview. The National Flood Insurance Program expires Sept. 30 unless Congress acts and lawmakers, anxious to help victims of hurricanes Ike and Gustav, are looking for a simple extension - with no policy changes - while they focus on the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

Ike Aftermath

Help slow in coming:

A massive effort was under way across Texas to get food, water and ice to people who had no power. It could be weeks until the more than 2 million without power have their lights turned on again. Lines snaked for blocks down side streets at gas stations that had little fuel to pump, and thousands packed shelters looking for dry places to sleep.

"Quite frankly we are reaching a health crisis for the people who remain on the island," said Steve LeBlanc, the city manager in Galveston, where at least a third of the community's 60,000 residents remained in their homes.

A line of at least 30 cars formed early Monday at a strip mall in Orange, a Texas town on the Louisiana state line east of Beaumont, a day after food and water were distributed there by the National Guard. But the line dispersed after state troopers told the gathering that supplies would be passed out elsewhere.

Wanda Hamor, 49, of Orange, was fifth in line with her 21-year-old son William. They were trapped in their house by floodwaters until Monday morning before they could venture out. They had run out of food Sunday night. They left for Hurricane Gustav on Labor Day and say they couldn't afford to leave for Ike or buy any more than $60 in food.

"He's diabetic and he has to eat four times a day," she said of her son.

Mary Shelton, 71, and her neighbor Letha Wilson, 78, sat in their sport utility vehicle waiting to get supplies at a distribution center in Houston. "We need some ice. What are going to drink? Hot water?" Shelton said.

Racymind, Internet-less, is Twittering the sitch from Houston.

A.

Ike

Readers in the path, readers with loved ones there, please take care, and check in when you can. I know we've got some peeps who've evacuated but I don't know where everybody lives, so if you need something, you give a shout.

A.

Please

Americans not living along the Gulf Coast,

Americans who aren't seeing your homes on satellite radar covered in white squall and red and orange rain,

Americans who, like me, have the luxury of watching Hurricane Gustav from a place of clear blue skies and warm, calm air,

Americans for whom the Hurricane will be a story on the news and not a story you tell your children,

Please.

Please think before you say something you'll regret.

Please think, not of others, but of yourselves.

Think of your lives. Look around you, at your daughter, at your son. Think of the school they attend. Think of their friends there, their teachers, their parents' friends, their coaches and janitors.

Think of your home. Think of the birthdays and holidays, first steps, memorable dinners, laughter and love those walls contain. Think of every inch of it, containing every single thing you've ever known that ever mattered to you.

Think of elderly woman down the street, who wheels her little metal cart to the grocery store each Monday afternoon, who calls a cab to take her to the doctor and pays the driver from a little clutch purse, and doesn't own a car. Think of how you never see her children or any younger relatives at all; think of how you've often wondered if she has any. Think of how she would get in a car and drive 10 hours to safety, all by herself.

Think of the man who sweeps the sidewalk outside the coffee shop. Think about how he's earning the minimum wage, think about the kids whose pictures he keeps in his wallet. Think about the house he might rent, for less than market rate because he fixed it up, and how every month he might have a dollar or two left over from buying food and paying the electric bill, a dollar or two. Think about how he might pay for a week in a hotel somewhere on the road, how he might fill his car with enough gas to keep going. Think about if you can lay your hands on $500, $600, $1,000 right now without any trouble at all. Then think about whether he can.

And yes, think about the drunks and the drug addicts and the lazy and the so-called undeserving. Think about them, too. Think about the people who do wait for someone to come and save them. Think about what you're saying when you say it's eh, too bad, whatever, you don't have to feel it when they die. Then think about watching them do it, not on your TV screens but in person, right there in front of you, and if you're uncomfortable, even the slightest bit, think about it a little more.

Please think before you say, "We should never have rebuilt that city if it's just going to get hit again and again."

Please think before you say, "I'll bet the same people will refuse to leave, so screw 'em."

Please think before you complain about how "your" tax dollars have been "wasted" in the past three years. Please think before you say, "Anyone who stays there deserves what he gets." Please think before you talk about how you took a vacation there once, and Bourbon Street was gross, think about the difference between visiting a place as an outsider and inhabiting it so that it shapes you, as running water tempers rocks, until you are indistinguishable from the stream that rushes over you.

Please think about the good and bad in your own lives, and try to sort out for yourself what you'd like judged by someone else, what you'd like to lose, what you'd like to see die, what you'd like to overhear someone casually dismissing as unnecessary.

Please think before you talk about what parts of America you think America can live without.

Please, please, please think.

A.

Hurricane Gustav....

It is different waiting and watching Gustav, than it was to do such three years ago with Katrina. Then I sort of knew one person in New Orleans. Now that one person is a dear, dear friend. In three years I have made many more friends. I know what they have been through the past 3 years. I know how hard they have fought to rebuild their homes and save their beloved city. It has been a long struggle in which they have been patient and brave and angry and determined and always still of good humor. The are New Orleanians. Three years ago I didn't know what that means. This time I do. And so I have a sick feeling in my stomach and a sadness in my heart knowing  they must once again drive away from home, not knowing when they will return or what they will return to. To unbelievably have to face that terrible unknown, once again, all too soon.

Keep New Orleans and the people of New Orleans in your heart and thoughts and prayers and let's hope.....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are some links:

Kevin Allman of Best of New Orleans blog writes and has pics of his evacuation to and arrival in Jackson.

Loki of Humid City is audioblogging (First one here and second one here) Follow at Humid City blog for more updates.

Ray in New Orleans is twittering updates. Can be read at his blog.

Maitri has a photo of an empty Bourbon Street on Decadence Saturday Night.

Grandmère Mimi has evacuated and appears there will be updates at her blog.   

You can go to our NOLA blogroll in the right hand sidebar to read more and leave some love in the comments.

Nauseating

No words.

How to help.

Realize that someone, whether they are your friends or not, is going to get hit. Realize that Jamaica and the surrounding islands are being torn up by Gustav as you read this, realize especially that Cuba is almost sure to suffer a devastating storm surge, no matter what. Realize that after that, Gustav will sit and recover, then keep on coming and wreak more damage, closer to home.

Realize that right now is the time to make your online donations, buy groceries for the food bank shipment, look up who in your community is putting together the truckloads of clothing and food and water, and if no one is, then maybe you could start.

A.

Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 3 Years

"Karmic Payback"...just saying it may not be the bitch they think

As our friends in New Orleans face the excruciating wait to see where Gustav will go, there is much talk of the possible political effects of Gustav hitting the Gulf Coast during the GOP Convention. Politico writes that it could "swamp" the GOP and the NYT's editorial board writes of possible "karmic payback" for the Republicans. Just as, much caution is advised in forecasting what Gustav will do, I would advise the same caution in predicting the possible political outcome. Because there is another political scenario far different from payback. It could be payoff.

One of the important lessons of Katrina was... don't count on the feds. And the feds have been pointed and clear--you're on your own for the first 72 hours.  As a result the state of Louisiana and So. La. parishes know they are responsible for taking the lead for evacuations and have worked on their evacuation plans the past  years. FEMA has a support role but the onus is on locals:

These plans focus on two things. First, it is the responsibility of each citizen to develop their own individual and family plans to evacuate away from potential hurricane damage and sustain themselves for 3 days. Second, disaster response starts at the local level. The cities and parishes along the coast are the driving force behind determining what assets they have and what assets they need from the state to protect their citizens.

Of course they must implement those plans and problems will occur but I think given numerous changes we could see a rate of evacuation even better than the remarkable 90% for metro N.O. prior to Hurricane Katrina. If those plans go well (and I hope that is the case if it comes to that) it's less likely that we would see the repeat of the terrible scenes (people awating rescue, food, water on rooftops,Interstate overpasses or shelters of last resort) as during Katrina.

If  that occurs I predict we will see the mighty Wurlitzer spin faster than a Cat 5 hurricane. Bush, McCain and the GOP will work to spin this as their Redemptive Moment. They will  claim credit  for improvements as hard as they spun the blame last time on Democratic officials at the state and local levels. The credit would more rightly belong to the State, Parishes and citizens but that won't be the story except in the case of the inevitable touting of a Republican Governor--Bobby Jindal. It will be said they delivered on the promise of Never Again. "Karmic Payback" could turn to GOP Payoff.

My point is...forget the politics. There is not an upside or downside, to Payback or Payoff, worth the pain and misery that could be wrought upon our fellow Americans.

We need to remember what happened and hope and pray and act so it never happens again....(h/t for video to Toulouse St)

(Caveat: If the levees fail then it's a different story. Hopefully that wouldn't be ignored as it has these past 3 years.)

Pushing you away from me

I'm not the NOLA expert around here, so I won't say anything...

was my first thought after reading Scout's excellent post but goddamn if I wasn't committing one of the Stupid Liberal Tricks* that chaps my ass more than almost any other:

"I'm not a woman so my opinion on abortion or birth control doesn't matter."

(alternate version: "I'm not straight so my opinion on  abortion or birth control doesn't matter" or "I'm 87 so my opinion on abortion or birth control doesn't matter.")

"I'm not gay, lesbian, bi, trans, queer so my opinion on GLBTQ issues doesn't really matter."

"I'm lucky to have a comfortable job and benefits so my opinion on poverty issues doesn't really matter."

"I'm only 17 so my opinion on political stuff doesn't really matter."

(fill in the blank, rinse, repeat)

All of those are just another way of saying "I don't want to get involved."

The thing about not wanting to get involved is not really that it's almost always a morally bankrupt cop-out, not really that it's a luxury progressives can't afford in this day and age,  it's that it's a complete and utter refutation of reality.

We can say it, and we can even think for a bit that we're getting away with it, the way we can look at pictures in a magazine of a hole in the ozone, pick up our coffee cups, take a sip, and turn the page. 

We are involved.  We were born involved, remain involved even if we are unconscious of it, and we'll die involved even if we never wake the fuck up.  We are involved with other Americans and with every other person on the planet.  We are involved with the rest of that big family in the same way that our each individual hand is involved with our each individual kneecap and they both are in turn involved with all the fingers and toes.

If my hair catches on fire, my hand doesn't have a choice but to reach up, my feet no other choice but to run for water, a blanket, help. To say I would do otherwise in that situation is ludicrous. To believe I would do otherwise in that situation is insanity.  To do otherwise when the situation actually happens is symptomatic of something even graver:  catatonia, quadriplegia, a persistent vegetative state.

What's our side, our party, our country's diagnosis folks?  When it's so easy to think that way, when it's the norm, when the words come out of our mouths without even thinking. When a Will Bunch looks at the track of Gustav and just sees the bright colors, lines and arrows, just sees a hypothetical, a  scenario, a good opening paragraph for a story about the Republicans he could have written a month ago, that doesn't fucking need another disaster to make it real?

And about that paragraph?  When you say "I hope, for the sake of those, you know, airquote people airquote it will overwhelm, injure, maybe even kill, that this humanitarian crisis doesn't happen, BUT..."  see, already, there's a problem. You're not just saying you don't want to get involved, you're saying there can be a context wherein involvement is irrelevant.  And that, Will, is some fuckmookery.

And the diary over at Kos?  Already a DNR.

 *Stupid Liberal Tricks-No, I'm not saying liberals are stupid, or even that liberals are the only ones that do this, but I sure do keep seeing this stuff lately in all the old familiar places.

Wrong reminder

More than just a few NOLA bloggers have ripped Will Bunch and a Kos diary for writing how Hurricane Gustav hitting the Gulf Coast at the time of the Republican Convention could be a "nightmare" for the Republicans. The NOLA bloggers find it insensitive and callous to be speaking of "a realpolitik point of view" as they possibly face another disaster.

I hadn't thought of Gustav in terms of the Republican Convention. Rather I have been thinking of how my friends in New Orleans may be packing up their important papers, family photos, children's favorite toys, placing beloved pets in their carriers, gassing up their cars, making hotel reservations and readying their homes for what only knows may be headed their way. I was thinking what a nightmare this must be for them to have their lives completely disrupted and to wonder will those levees hold this time.

But having read the many above linked posts, I find I have very hard time with Kos diarist DigitalApoptosis describing Gustav as

"this perfect reminder of the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina."

Is Katrina not perfect enough as a reminder for us?

Are not 1720 dead enough of a reminder?

Are not Hundreds of Thousands of destroyed homes enough of a reminder?

Are not the destroyed schools and hospitals, many forever gone, reminder enough?

Look at this Katrina Pain Index and I ask is this not enough of a reminder?

Do we really need another disaster to remind us of the terrible last one which occurred only 3 years ago? I can guarantee you the people on the Gulf Coast don't need a reminder as they are still living it each day.  And if the rest of us need a new disaster as a  reminder of Katrina then what the hell is wrong with us? 

We don't need a reminder, we just need to fucking Remember.

Katrina Anniversary--3 Years Later on Tennessee St in the Lower 9th Ward

After filming the video below, it struck us that John McCain owns more homes than have been rebuilt on Tennessee Street in the Lower 9th Ward. The street lies 2 blocks from where the Industrial Canal levee broke 3 years ago. News networks once frequently broadcasted from this street, Brad Pitt's pink houses once lined it and First Draft has chronicled its progress in previous videos (6 months and 2 years after the flood).

This time, 3 years post Katrina and flood, we found 4 homes have been rebuilt and 6 are under construction. Of the nearly 100 homes which once stood here, one remains, gutted and empty. The rest were demolished. Much of the rebuilding  by the Brad Pitt Make it Right Foundation is being done on Tennessee Street. However the vast majority of the street is a desolate landscape of empty lots, some overgrown, others neatly mowed.

Here is Tennesse Street 3 years later......

New Political Crush

Scott Myers-Lipton.

He spoke this morning in the Tent about Katrina recovery and his project, which actually takes up something we talked about over at the Crack Den in the immediate hurricane aftermath, the New Deal analogy.

A Gulf Coast Authority, similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority will oversee the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project to ensure transparency. This inter-state agency will give final approval to local project proposals in a timely fashion. The Gulf Coast Authority will also be charged with working with the local communities, the city, and the state to expedite matters and to create a smooth process between agencies to ensure that what the local communities want comes to fruition quickly.

Myers-Lipton said the bill currently has 16 cosponsors, and the official word from Pelosi's office was that it would need 75 to 100 before she gave a shit.

"When Speaker Pelosi wants something done, she gets it done," he said. "Leadership has to start with Speaker Pelosi."

He organized an effort with three college students where they called Pelosi's office, all day, until the staff started hanging up on them, to even get that far.

"There's gonna have to be a movement," he said. "And it has to be nationwide. We have weak levees in Sacramento. If those levees fail, Sacramento is under water. It has to be all of us."

He said he'd talked to people in Mississippi, and they were angry at government every step of the way up the ladder. His students have a chant, that they have to keep updating. First it was "Two Years, Too Late." And now it's three.

"The WPA and the PWA put people who needed work to work building their own communities," he said. "We need that all over the country."

A.

In New Orleans at Rising Tide III Now!

Scout here in New Orleans at the Rising Tide. I don't have a laptop so won't be live blogging But the wonderful Maitri is letting me borrow hers for a moment so I could give you a link to her live blogging..LINK.

Go check it out and I'll try to put up more links including YouTube videos of the conference.

Caption this...Asshat backwards Edition

The lovely and wonderful watertiger has this pic up of Bush in NOLA ....

...and one of her astute commenters, wanger71, notes that W appears to have his hard hat on backwards.

Caption away.....

The Last Flyover

Schroeder at People Get Ready has an excellent post mortem on Bush's speech and visit to New Orleans yesterday. It starts with:

I was outside washing my car this evening when Air Force One flew overhead out of New Orleans at just that moment when the sun falls off the horizon, and the sky begins to glow.

It’s fitting that George W. Bush should leave New Orleans the same way he first came to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina — in a flyover without touring the city to really assess the situation.

Schroeder then proceeds to do the analysis of "Dubya’s last stand in New Orleans" and it is well worth reading.

Bush in NOLA: "No promises"

No shit

Bush has arrived in New Orleans. He helicoptered from Louis Armstrong Airport to Chalmette where he will give his speech. And he had this to say prior to that...

"I make no promises," the president said. "This isn't a chance for me to be a typical politician and make you a promise that I don't intend to keep."

Bush's New Orleans speech released

Bush will be in New Orleans tomorrow and also in Orlando to speak to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The LA Times Countdown to Crawford blog reports:

Clearly, White House officials want the focus of the day to be the formal remarks Bush is delivering to the veterans and the message he will be sending to Russia about Georgia.

At the same time, they don't want to suggest that Bush is giving the brush-off to New Orleans and other Gulf Coast regions.

SNIP

So, in a step that avoids putting out dueling messages, the White House, which rarely lifts the curtain on Bush speeches, let alone does so 24 hours in advance, took the unusual step of distributing this evening a text of the remarks he is planning to give in New Orleans after the Orlando speech to the VFW.

Bush's New Orleans speech on Gulf Coast Recovery  is after the cut

Yawn

Anniversary photo op time:

Wednesday, after leaving Orlando, Fla., the president will arrive in New Orleans in the afternoon and make an address before heading on to a undisclosed location in Mississippi for a dinner, said a statement from the Office of the Press Secretary.

Dinner at undisclosed location smells like a fundraiser

Charges against NOPD officers in Bridge Shootings Tossed Out

From the Times Picayune:

Murder and attempted murder charges against seven New Orleans police officers, accused of shooting unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina, were tossed out by Criminal District Court Judge Raymond Bigelow, who concluded that an Orleans Parish prosecutor tainted the secrecy of the grand jury process by showing a piece of testimony to another officer.

"The violation is clear, and indeed, uncontroverted. The state improperly disclosed grand jury testimony to another police officer," Bigelow said, reading his ruling from the bench.

The judge also dealt a blow to the prosecution on two other pending defense challenges to the indictment, providing further reason to quash certain charges against specific defendants.

He concluded former Assistant District Attorney Dustin Davis improperly gave immunity to three officers for their testimony before the grand jury, which subsequently indicted those officers, as well as four others. Bigelow also found that the instructions that Davis gave to the grand jury considering the attempted murder charges were flawed.

SNIP

The shootings on Sept. 4, 2005 left two men dead: Madison, a 40-year-old man whose relatives describe him as having the mental capacity of a child, and 19-year-old James Brissette. Four other people were severely wounded.

In civil federal lawsuits, survivors of the shooting have said they were unarmed and ambushed by the officers, who jumped out of the back of a rental truck and started shooting.

Police officials have acknowledged the officers shot people on two separate sides of the bridge, but said they did so only after first being shot at.

Lord David of Humid City blog describes recent activities of the NOPD in his post "I May Actually Vomit."

Concerns of a volunteer

(First Draft Krewe in front of ACORN office in NOLA--March 2007)

I went to bed troubled last night by something I had read. Amongst the news that contractors were paid for the work  volunteers had done in New Orleans was the information that ACORN would not release the addresses of the homes to which they sent volunteers to work. The press would like that list to cross reference it with the NOAH list. NOAH is the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership, a city run agency which used federal funds to remediate homes for low income and elderly residents. NOLA blogger Karen Gadbois first discovered irregularities in the listed homes and has been central to the story bring told. WWL reporter Lee Zurik then investigated and documented the discrepancies including:

• homes on the list which NOAH had not remediated
• homes on the list which did not exist
• homes on the list owned by individuals or businesses not qualified for the program
• duplicate listings, with the same contractor doing  the same work and charging the city the same price twice
• questionable ties between the executive director of NOAH and some of the contractors hired by NOAH to remediate homes

And now, as the Times Picayune reported, contractors were paid for work done by volunteers. As you know the First Draft Krewe gutted a home in NOLA through ACORN. The house we gutted was not on the NOAH list but I still found myself tossing and turning last night by what I read about ACORN. I was going to write about those concerns today but I see E at We Could be Famous blog, who along with Gadbois was instrumental in exposing this scandal, has it covered. He highlights what troubled me in the TP article...

Indeed, as the community nonprofit groups prepared in the spring and summer last year to receive thousands of unskilled volunteers, they were at a loss for properties. Several, including ACORN, a Catholic church group and the Episcopal Diocese program, solicited NOAH officials for some of their addresses, city officials have said.

E later says this.....

Now that's fascinating. According to Krupa, city officials are alleging that volunteer organizations specifically solicited NOAH officials for lists of properties. This after the NOAH home remediation program raised eyebrows throughout the volunteer community for being "silly."

Now Davis' organization seemed to make the same foolish mistake that ACORN and some Catholic charities made and will also have to go back into the books to provide more details. Who did they pick up their lists from? Why didn't they say anything even when they knew something weird was going on?

But what this really must do is force ACORN and the Archdiocese to open up and help us figure out how this occurred. I'm sorry but citing "privacy concerns" of homeowners that may have been fleeced for their tax dollars or of individual volunteers who may have been unwitting slaves for the city's money laundering scheme seems a little bit inappropriate. These organizations have every interest in completely examining their role in the NOAH scandal.

What E says....all of it

NOAH contractors were paid for work done by Volunteers

This is infuriating. From the Times Picayune:

"There was David. You got Christopher. Then there was Jason. Oh, and Simon," Grandpre, 76, said this week, recalling the student volunteers who came from Boston and Seattle to tear out her plaster walls and save the few precious items the flood did not destroy.

"I call them my little angels," she said.

It appears, however, that another crew has taken credit for demolition work at Grandpre's house. City records show that Hall & Hall Enterprises, the highest-paid contractor in Mayor Ray Nagin's home remediation program, billed the city $7,830 for gutting and boarding up the house and cutting the grass at the St. Anthony Street property.

The house is one of at least seven addresses that appear on two lists detailing post-storm remediation. One list belongs to the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana's Office of Disaster Response, which organized volunteers from across the country to come to New Orleans and provide free home remediation services, such as gutting and boarding up homes, to residents in need of help.

Those same addresses appear on a list produced by the nonprofit New Orleans Affordable Homeownership Corp., which oversaw a remediation program that contractors billed a total of $1.8 million.

The homeownership corporation, also known as NOAH, billed taxpayers more than $25,000 for work at those addresses.

There is much more at the link. And photos and details of houses on both lists here (pdf)
 

Keep in mind this scandal involved federal dollars and volunteers from outside of New Orleans so this has repercussions beyond the city of New Orleans. Anyone in NOAH or any other city agencies as well as contractors who took part in this need to be held to account. It's just despicable to take credit and payment for work done by volunteers.

This story will eventually go national and think of the many volunteers who will wonder if a contractor was paid for their hard dirty labor done freely out of care, concern and  love for the city and people of New Orleans. As you know our First Draft Krewe gutted a home in NOLA in March 2007. For those of you in the Krewe and the other First Drafters who contributed financially please know I checked and the home we gutted is NOT on the NOAH list. If it were I'd be damn angry. Though it is not us, damn angry is how some volunteers out there will feel. As it is I'm just angry that when this story does break out, it likely will hurt the recovery and it is not the fault of the NOLA bloggers who discovered this scandal or the press who reported on it or the people of New Orleans who will be hurt by it. No place the blame with city employees/officials and contractors, who whether through incompetence and/or corruption, made this happen and the more that is learned it is becoming harder to believe it is the former.

NOAH paid to gut houses set for demolition

NOLA bloggers and WWL led the way on this story but now the Times Picayune is finally reporting on it.  Their latest article reports on what blogger Matt McBride found when he cross referenced NOAH (remediation program) records with those of a demolition program.

Contractors working for New Orleans Affordable Homeownership billed taxpayers at least $123,000 to gut 30 homes that records show were torn down shortly thereafter -- also at public expense -- raising further questions about a troubled city agency charged with a leading role in flood recovery.

Interviews with neighbors suggest that some of that gutting work was in fact never performed.

Whether or not taxpayers were defrauded -- a question that has drawn the attention of federal investigators -- the fact that city-financed gutting crews were followed in short order by city-financed backhoe operators suggests, at best, a City Hall management debacle.

SNIP

Matt McBride, a blogger and activist who has maintained a database of all properties granted demolition permits since Hurricane Katrina, cross-referenced that list with a remediation list provided by NOAH. He found substantial crossover.

Read the rest for details

Great Rude

NOLA bloggers have been serving it up this week at The Rude Pundit.

Check it out

Ray Nagin and The Mystery of The List(s)

Watch this Video. Seriously. It's laughable.

Contrary to what an angry Ray Nagin says I think WWL's Lee Zurik knows what he is doing. Investigative Journalism. The Mayor's problem seems to be Zurik is doing it.

Last week WWL aired an investigative report on possible irregularities in the list of homes remediated by the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership or NOAH. Mayor Nagin slammed WWL for their report claiming it was based on an old intake list.

“The list that counts is the list where we paid for services, and that list was provided to you,” he said.

This week, using that list, WWL aired another report which raised even more questions.

When I read that piece I jokingly thought to myself maybe Nagin will say there is another list. Nah he couldn't, it would be laughable. But as you can see from the video Nagin still claims WWL doesn't have the right list. No wonder Zurik at one point said this is humorous.

E at We Could be Famous blog has more. Jeffrey at Libarary Chronicles has a transcript of the portion of the video where Zurik asks about the 4th highest paid contractor by NOAH, Nagin's brother-in-law.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Again with the no Katrina oil spills and this time it's from the Secretary of Energy.

Whoa NOAH...new list raises more questions

Mayor Nagin had strongly criticized WWLTV's investigative reporting last week on the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership program. (see previous post) He had claimed that reporting was based on an old list of homes rather than a new list which  Nagin claimed was accurate. And thus there really was no problem or irregularities.

However WWL received the new list and continued its investigation which only raises more questions about the disbursement of almost $2 million in federal money by the city:

Homeowner Virginia Dean has lived on Hollygrove Street her entire life, but was stunned to find out a contractor received federal money for cleaning up her home.

“I'm shocked. I'm surprised to see this. I don't even know who these people are,” Dean said.   

When asked whether, in 2007, NOAH contractors had cut the grass and boarded up the home, as the list indicated, Dean said her nephew cuts the grass and boarded up the house.

Also on the list is a house that should be down the street from Virginia Dean, at 1632 Hollygrove.    

“There is no 1632,” Dean said, emphasizing that the address doesn’t exist on her block.   

On the new list, WWL-TV found many more properties that didn't appear to exist.  Right now, the analysis shows that number at 26.  There is no address in the Orleans Parish Assessor's system for those homes and a visual check by WWL-TV showed no available land where the house should be located.  But for the homes that don't exist, NOAH contractors charged the city, and ultimately the federal government, $86,625 for the work.

Homeowner Greg Hillman says the community group ACORN gutted his home on Arts Street.  But according to the city's spreadsheet, a contractor charged $6,000 for the work on Hillman’s home.  The contractor also claimed to board up the house and cut the grass.

Hillman said no one besides him has cut the grass at his home.   

“I'm the only one.”

And more questions.....

For example, according to city records, the owner of a double on Toledano Street is New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley.  NOAH charged the federal government for cutting his grass in the home remediation program, even though Riley likely would not qualify under the program which helped elderly and low income homeowners.

Supt. Riley e-mailed WWL-TV to say he “has no knowledge of the grass  being cut by the city."

Nagn had claimed there were files with photos that would "justify the charges" by contractors on the new list. However WWL found....

But the files raise even more questions.  Many of the properties detailed in this report didn't have any documentation.  The list given to WWL last week by the Mayor’s office had 870 different properties.  After removing duplicates, the number came to 838.  But Monday, Eyewitness News counted a total of 905 folders for properties.

Many of those folders provided little details.  WWL workers inspected about one-third of the 905.  60 of the folders did not even appear on the city's new list.  102 of the folders contained no pictures and only 15 of the ones inspected by WWL had both before and after home photographs.  WWL even found one photograph that was taken yesterday, yet the NOAH program has been defunct for a year.  One folder was for a street that doesn't exist: N. Conti Street.  The homeowner listed in the folder does have a home, however, on N. Tonti.

Though few of the files had "had any dollar figures in the documentation" the following information raises the very disturbing question  of whether it was a possibility that contractors may have received federal money for work done by volunteers. Though WWL did not explicitly do so, it is a question to be asked given this.....

WWL also found businesses, Habitat for Humanity, Bayou Title, and a few churches on the list. 

SNIP  

On Monday, Eyewitness News found a folder in the city’s files, for his [Gentilly homeowner Larry Dupont] mother's home on Sere Street.  His mother’s name was listed on a sheet of paper, with no signature, but the home is on the Mayor's list showing cleanup work done after Hurricane Katrina.

Dupont told a different story, saying a woman named Janet Jones with a North Carolina church group helped with the house gutting.

“Nobody from the city ever came to this property,” Jones said.

I hope (though doubt) Nagin will rush to call a new conference tomorrow just as he did after last week's WWL report because he has some explaining to do.

UPDATE: The FBI, HUD and the New Orleans Inspector General  have launched investigations into NOAH

A Week of NOLA over at the Rude Place!

Yay!

Also, anytime my spam filter wants to stop shunting everything straight into "bulk," that'd be awesome.

A.

Rising Tide III

The Rising Tide III conference will be held August 22-24 in New Orleans. John Barry, the author of Rising Tide, will be the keynote speaker.

For more information and to register

Why the NOAH scandal matters

Activist and NOLA blogger Karen Gadbois has a post up today related to a growing scandal in New Orleans. Now you may be thinking, oh another Katrina scandal, but I ask you ...Please  Go read what Karen has to say and Look at the photos of Miss Dolores and you will see why this matters.

Now that you are back I'm going to ask a bit more. Below is a brief description of what this scandal involves but I really hope you will follow and read the links to the important work being done by these NOLA bloggers.

Last month irrregularities were first found by Gadbois in a  program called the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership or NOAH. Blogger E at We Could Be Famous blog also began to look into this with a series of posts. (Link - scroll to bottom for first)  Both bloggers have had numerous important posts on this and this week WWL took up the story. Jeffrey at Library Chronicles offers this primer on what is involved and has occurred:

Yesterday afternoon, the Mayor escalated the controversy over the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership Corporation (NOAH) by taking the extraordinary step of holding a press conference to angrily refute the content of the previous evening's WWLTV report which alleged that NOAH may have misused federal community development block grant funds.

The agency's mission is to gut and clean up blighted or flood damaged property belonging to senior and low-income residents.  In the report, Lee Zurik takes a look at a list of homes NOAH had been charged with remediating. Zurik's findings are similar to Karen Gadbois' which reveal homes on the list that are owned by shadowy LLCs, or by absentee landlords, or by other city agencies, in other words, various entities other than "seniors and low income residents".  Some of the properties on NOAH's the list were not touched. Others appear not to exist at all.

The irregularities first came to light when Karen noticed this house on the city's Imminent Health Threat Demolition list. A brand new sign advertised the fact that it had been gutted by NOAH... just in time to be demolished with a different pool of federal funds provided by FEMA. And so folks started asking questions. E over at We Could Be Famous immediately asked 1) Who are the contractors involved in doing the remediation work? and 2) Can we call them? The results were mixed...

There is much more and I hope you'll read the rest because though this may be a city run program  it is using federal funds and thus involves all of us.  Nagin may not want attention brought to this fearing it will hurt the city's recovery, which may well be one outcome, but what recovery is there in contractors  apparently being paid and work not being done? What recovery was there for Miss Dolores? And how many others? If the Mayor didn't want our attention he should have paid more attention to his program.  It is as Gadbois says--No Transparency, No Recovery. Nagin needs to stop complaining and offer that transparency.....Now.

We're all in the same boat

Check out this new t-shirt from Dirty Coast

Holmes in NOLA

I'm a big fan of the Canadian TV show "Holmes on Homes." Now Mike Holmes, the "home-remediation superhero," is in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward for the summer:

"Make It Right, " in fact, is both Holmes' personal (and personally trademarked) motto as well as the reason for his summer-long job-site residency in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward.

When Brad Pitt announced his Make It Right Foundation's efforts to restore housing in the Lower 9th, Holmes' people called to inquire about the organization's use of the slogan, which is, after all, tattooed on Holmes' brawny right gun.

"We heard of the Make it Right Foundation coming out, with Brad Pitt, " said Holmes, before work commenced on a recent morning. "We were excited about it and we wanted to let them know we had a trademark on that. 'What are your intentions?' It was communication. It wasn't, 'You can't use it, ' or 'We're suing.' I would never do that.

"I wanted to get to know what they were doing here. So we started communicating to the point where I was so impressed with Brad Pitt himself . . . It was his idea, it was his push, it was his own time and actually some of his own money.

"We said,  'Well,  we can help.' That's what started this."

The plan is to build one of the Pitt group's sustainable green homes from scratch, and oversee the construction of two others. A two-hour TV special and several hour-long "Holmes on Homes" episodes will be shot at the same time (stateside air dates currently uncertain).

They Left Us All To Drown

Our fate is your fate:

Before the flood and after the flood: That is the demarcation that defines life in Cedar Rapids today. Much of what existed before the river swelled 20 feet above flood stage is gone for good. Cedar Rapids' citizens are gradually abandoning the idea that their city will ever be the same.

More than 2,000 homes in the flood plain likely will never be rebuilt. The Summit View mobile home park on the west side of town is one of several swelling with flood refugees who are moving in, probably for good.

A district of warehouses, offices and small manufacturers along the riverbank likely will lose many of the 818 businesses that flooded. A fragile economic revival, rare for a rural Midwestern city the size of Cedar Rapids (population 120,000), is at risk.

And all the while, Cedar Rapids knows that it will be competing for state and federal funds with dozens of other Iowa towns and cities that also were flooded.

The wait for information unnerves homeowners. Debbie Benson spent a hot morning last week tearing down walls and removing debris from her 88-year-old mother's home, which flooded up to the second floor.

"Nobody can move back in here," said Benson, waving her arm at a neighborhood in which each house is fronted by a parkway overflowing with waterlogged furniture, demolished plaster, toys, appliances and the detritus of life.

Frustration mounts

Flooded residents are complaining that information about buyouts and relief programs is slow in coming. Across the street from Benson, a neighbor has spray-painted across the siding of his home his frustration at the deliberate progress: "To: Cedar Rapids City Council & Mayor: Let us Move On."

The neighbor scrawled out other beefs too, against the gawkers and looters who followed the receding waters.

"This is Still My Home. Stay Out," was scrawled across the front of his screened-in porch. And, on the garage door: "Where's the Police When You Need Them?"

At times, crowds of flood tourists were so large that residents could not get to the parkways to dump the ruined contents of their homes.

A few nights ago, looters stripped parts from a sports car that sat in the neighbor's garage—perhaps prompting the spray-painting spree.

To all the ports of call and all the ships at sea: AMERICA IS UNMERCIFULLY FUCKED, PLEASE SEND SHOVELS.

A.

Less than half of fed rebuilding money has made it's way to where needed in Louisiana

After three years.....

Of the nearly $7 billion that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved, or obligated for Louisiana rebuilding projects, $3.5 billion has been paid to local governments.

SNIP

According to the Louisiana Recovery Authority, FEMA has approved $482 million worth of rebuilding projects in Plaquemines Parish. But because of bureaucratic delays, funding shortages and disagreements about the real cost of rebuilding, so far, Plaquemines has only gotten reimbursed $127 million. That’s just 26 percent of available funds.

SNIP

Orleans Parish has only been reimbursed 41 percent of available FEMA funds; St. Bernard, 52 percent; Jefferson Parish, 58 percent; and St. Tammany has been reimbursed for 67 percent of available funds.

And just how exactly is that suppose to work?

Far too often I've read arguments that New Orleans should  be relocated rather than rebuilt. Of course there are many reasons to reject that argument but this goes to the point of the practicality of such...

ST. LOUIS -- Weeks after massive flooding in the Midwest, at least five states are considering federally funded buyouts so residents can move to higher ground.

SNIP

But FEMA expects more requests for buyouts than it can accommodate. (my emphasis)

Video Response to Conservative Mythmaking of Not a Drop of Oil was Spilled

Conservatives continue to justify off shore drilling by arguing there were no oil spills due to Katrina. Yet there were. I direct you to Oyster at Your Right Hand Thief who wrote...

Actually, there were at least 146 reported spills in Federal waters after Katrina and Rita, totaling over 700,000 gallons, the equivalent of seven "MAJOR" spills. Here are 43 satellite pictures of giant oil slicks in the Gulf of Mexico after Katrina, stretching for scores of miles.

Worse, EIGHT MILLION gallons spilled out of Louisiana oil facilities after the storms. (The famous Exxon Valdez spill totaled 11 million.)

How is this not causing "a single oil spill"?

Excellent question!

Conservatives want to remind us and ask us to remember there were no major oil spills, with some contending not a drop was spilled. Indeed let's remember.  I offer the video below in order to do such.  The video contains portions of video from photojournalist David Leeson of the Dallas Morning News who covered the aftermath and clean up of the Murphy Oil Spill in Challmette, Louisiana which occured when a storage tank was dislodged and damaged.

UPDATE: While conservatives try to argue there were no spills in the Gulf as proof that the off shore rigs are safe they ignore that there were spills in the Gulf. They of course fail to mention the vulnerabilties of pipelines and storage facilities which when damaged have consequences as shown in the video below.  But they don't mention that.

Replay video | Share video | Watch more videos

The Era of: Knowing is Irrelevant

OK just what do we know about what we have here?

Yesterday CBS News reports that workers from Gulf Stream Coach relate the company knew it had a problem with formaldehyde in the trailers they were manufacturing for Katrina evacuees and one worker stated, "We were instructed to open the doors and windows so that the odor wouldn't be as strong when the FEMA inspectors got there."

Also yesterday  the GOP tried to get ahead of Congressional hearings on the issue with their talking points, the short version being.....Heck don't blame the manufacturers, Blame the government.

Then today at the hearings  the chairman of Gulf Stream admitted they knew "formaldehyde in some units exceeded a federal health standard by as much as 45 times in 2006" but didn't disclose that to FEMA (much less Katrina evacuees) because FEMA already knew about the formaldehyde and so it was "irrelevant information".

OK before I use caps let's recap: Everyone knew but because everyone knew it was irrelevant.

WTF!!!!!

WTF is wrong with these people. They all knew but didn't DO anything. They went ahead and built toxic tin cans in which people were to live.   And  no one bothered at any point to say "Houston we have a Problem" and then get out their slide rules and hoses and toasters and Solve the Motherfucker.

No Gene Krantz announcing that Failure is not an Option! on this baby. No, nowadays we get --Yeah we know, So What?!?

And for even more pitiful go read the WaPo article to get a load of how the Republicans blamed...wait for it...the federal government. Oh NOW they want to blame the federal government. They say that as though they don't know they are the federal government. I guess that is irrelevant as well.

But here is a quote from Rep. Dan Burton which will make you throw up a lot in your mouth.....

"Instead of beating up manufacturers, we ought to give them a little vote of confidence," he said.

Wow--let's all hug it out--- that from the party that rails about responsibility. 

I've seen it all now I think. Well unless we can shoot the whole damn lot of 'em to the sun in a Katrina trailer. Of course I know that wouldn't work and you know that wouldn't work but if we don't say anything who knows what may occur.

Did manufactureres know FEMA trailers were toxic?

You may want to watch CBS evening news tonight as they will be airing a story on the companies that built and supplied FEMA  trailers and whether they knew that they had a formaldehyde problem.

I'll have more later

478 pallets of warehoused Gerber food intended for Katrina Children must now be destroyed

From Government Security News:

FEMA issued a one-sentence solicitation notice last week indicating that it needed to dispose of 478 pallets of "contaminated food products" sitting in a warehouse in Fort Worth, TX.

But, when pressed by GSN for more details, FEMA eventually said its original description of the food as contaminated was "inaccurate" and that a large quantity of Gerber finger foods and snack packs originally intended for the children of Hurricane Katrina victims had been "exposed to infestation hazards" and would be "destroyed through our normal GSA disposal process."

FEMA said, "No one consumed the food."

Exhibit shows how 9th Ward children are coping post-Katrina

From Chris Rose of the Times Picayune:

The Memory Boxes are remembrances of Hurricane Katrina made by students at the Martin Luther King Jr. School for Science and Technology in the Lower 9th Ward -- still the only school that has opened in that beleaguered neighborhood, almost three years after the storm.

They are story boxes, each with its own narrative, almost like time capsules. They are 2 feet by 2 feet, and generally decorated with paint, clay figurines and faces, shapes and objects made from wire or cut out from paper plates, and random indigenous accessories such as Spanish moss and Carnival beads.

But it is the narratives written on note paper or painted inside these boxes that hit home hardest.

"I lost my trust," one of the displays says. "I lost my faith. I lost my confidence. I lost my dad."

It's a far cry from the Dr. Seuss exhibit, to be sure.

Those words were written by a third-grader. For folks around here who insist that everyone should just move on from this thing -- and their numbers seem to be growing -- try telling that to this kid.

Read the rest

AMEN

Go read Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans

FEMA to give some of supplies back to Louisiana

Not sure what "some" is but...

(CNN) -- Some of the $85 million in hurricane relief supplies given away as federal surplus will be sent back to Louisiana and given to nonprofit agencies for distribution, the state's hurricane recovery office said Tuesday.

"Today we can report that we have been notified that some of the surplus property has been located in Texas and will be coming to the state of Louisiana for distribution by Unity New Orleans," said Paul Rainwater, the executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

A CNN investigation revealed last week that FEMA gave away the supplies as government surplus, even though agencies like Unity -- which works to resettle hurricane victims -- were still seeking the kind of supplies given away.

David Simon pays tribute to Ashley

Via Suspect Device is Maureen Ryan's Chicago Tribune column on how the creator of "The Wire" will pay tribute to NOLA blogger Ashley Morris this weekend:

Simon, the creator of “The Wire,” will be in the Chicago area Sunday to receive an honorary degree and to deliver the commencement address for DePaul University. Simon’s appearance at the ceremony, which will take place at Rosemont’s Allstate Arena, sprang from his desire to pay tribute to Ashley Morris, a DePaul assistant professor and “Wire” fan. Morris recently passed away at the age of 44.

For the rest 
Thank you Mr. Simon