I'll cut to the chase: I love New Orleans. It's a beautiful city, rich in culture that no other American city can dare replicate. Nothing beats a NOLA spring day at about 74 degrees with a slight breeze. Maybe grab a snoball from Plum St. Take a ride on the streetcar and people-watch from the neutral ground, letting the breeze hit your face from the windows of the car. Maybe head down to the Quarter during the day and listen to some street musicians battle it out back-and-forth, or wander down Magazine St. to grab a Gutter Punk from Juan's.

There's so much to do here. I love this city and I can not even begin to imagine living anywhere else. Every time I try, I start feeling homesick, so I've given into her and I'm staying in New Orleans. Of course, I've written a few love notes to NOLA in the past, so I needn't drone on and on about my love of this fantastically unusual city.

I do, however, feel the need to drone on and on about the fact we need to take this city back. Look, I'll be up front with you: I live in Metairie and have my entire life. My paycheck comes from an organization in New Orleans proper, Downtown and I spend the majority of it back in New Orleans. This is not a typical Jeffersonian attack on New Orleans or its people. Finances permitting, I'd be living in NOLA in a heartbeat and plan (and hope) to. No, I could never attack New Orleans or its people. Wouldn't dream of it in a million years.

But facts remain: there are flaws and they are flaws we all know but to which most of us turn blind eyes. The crime in New Orleans is steadily increasing every day. That short period after Katrina (well, after after Katrina) where crime was down because so many people weren't here (and, really, who's going to break into a house that had 11ft of water in it?) is over. It's been over.

The first mistake that any New Orleanian can make is that typical "Not in my neighborhood. I live in a good area." No, you don't. Ask the people of Lakeview how they felt after the string of burglaries back in February. That feeling of living in a walled garden suddenly dissipated. There are gorgeous parts of this city. There are better parts and worse parts, but thinking that the crime in New Orleans doesn't or won't affect you is the biggest mistake anyone can make. I don't say that to alarm anyone or make them scared to live here. I'm saying that apathy will get you nowhere. Even if your house doesn't ever get broken into or your car never gets its stereo yanked out of it, the crime in New Orleans affects you. It affects you because New Orleans has always been built on a sense of community. While K-Ville may have stretched a truth by referencing a "gumbo party", the fact is: that happens. People will, as they do in many Southern homes, cook huge pots of food and invite their neighbors over to have some. Heck, when I was living in Old Metairie, my neighbors brought us lasagna and stewed cabbage and stuff like that all the time, just as they always came over whenever we had a big BBQ or crawfish boil going. That happens in the Lower 9th just as often as it does in Lakeview.

Your skin color or zip code does not single you out nor does it exclude you from the effects of crime in New Orleans. This is a city that has and needs to again thrive on creativity and hospitality. "Mardi Gras Mambo" doesn't say this is "where the blues was born" just because it sounded good at the time. Tourism isn't listed as our largest industry because it looks good on paper and we're certainly not the 8th most visited city yearly because we don't know how to treat guests.

That original heart and soul — that creativity and hospitality — is still alive in New Orleans. Businesses keep starting up here. Artists and musicians and actors call New Orleans home more and more. Hollywood is taking an interest in using us as their sets. Hell, we've got the best football team in the league, to boot! Speaking of, what happened after those home games and the opposing teams fans went and hung out in the Quarter, win or lose? We welcomed them. Of course, we chanted a few "Who Dat!"s in their faces first, but after, we bought them drinks, we thanked them for coming here. We treated them like we treat family when they visit us here. Because that's what being a New Orleanian is about.

So why does a city so rich in creativity and hospitality struggle with violent crimes and corruption? Honestly, I think it all boils down to one thing: education.

Consider this: studies (and common sense) shows that education and crime are inversely proportional. The lower your education standards are, the higher your crime rates will be. The opposite is true as well. Hell, a newspaper from 1936 even knew this. Louisiana consistently ranks in the bottom percentiles on every education ranking. In 2009, the National Report Card ranked us at 47th in the nation. In case you're a product of our school system, that's 47 out of 50 states. This is only a slight increase from our rank as 48 a few years prior. This is despicable. Why are our area youth being given such terrible educations? Well, for starters, they aren't.

Every school has its problems, this is true, but there are so many amazing teachers at even the worst ranking schools. I can't speak for other schools, but as a UNO student, I can emphatically state that UNO is rife with amazing teachers that should be making a Drew Brees salary. So what's the problem if we have great teachers? Well, for starters, it's hard to teach without books or projectors or computers or chalk. Yeah, some teachers have to bring their own chalk because the school doesn't afford them that luxury. If you need to staple something, be careful with it because if it breaks, there probably won't be a replacement. (A teacher did say this, perhaps half-jokingly.) UNO and colleges and high schools and elementary schools across the state of Louisiana are having their funding cut. And not little trims here and there — over $300 million has been cut from education and health by Governor Bobby Jindal.

Here's the deal: Jindal touts himself as a fiscal conservative. I agree with that view and it's one of the pillars of my political ideology. But therein lies the problem with having ideologies: most people don't stray from them for fear of being called a "flip-flopper". (See: John Kerry). See, I see myself as a Libertarian. Libertarians have some pretty radical viewpoints (to some people) and I do believe in them, such as privatizing pretty much everything and leaving the government out of our daily lives. Some Libertarians tout privatizing the police and fire departments. On paper, it makes a lot of sense because it does create competition and leaves government corruption out of it. But in addition to being a Libertarian, I'm also a realist. Obviously in our world, privatizing the police and fire departments just wouldn't work. This is one area where I stray from typical hard-core Libertarian beliefs.

This is where Mr. Jindal fails. He refuses to stray even the slightest bit from his Republican views for fear of being chastised by the rest of his party for being too soft or, god forbid, liberal. Jindal is emphatically against raising taxes as he feels the government should try to cut its spending before even thinking about passing costs on to citizens. I applaud Mr. Jindal for this and I agree 110%. However, in his endless quest to never be even remotely mistaken as anything even sorta, kinda resembling a liberal, he has decided to cut one of the most important budgets: education (and health).

Now, since Mr. Jindal received his education from Oxford and Brown and not any Louisiana colleges or universities, I suppose I can see why he's not worried. I'm willing to bet that his children will have no problems getting into either of those schools, or any other excellent university in any of the other 49 states. So why should Mr. Jindal care about Louisiana education? Well, for the very reason I wrote this post: crime and corruption.

See, if kids spend more time in school, they spend less time in the streets. If we get to kids at younger ages, there's a better chance they'll have sense not to get involved in events and people that bring down the greater good of society. If kids are educated, they will feel empowered and they'll feel that, yes, even they can find a job and have a family one day. A lot of teens turn to crime because they feel like they have no direction or goal in life, so, what's the use? If they feel destined to end up in jail one day, why bother fighting it? Giving kids a goal and a chance will, in many cases, give them reason to avoid the temptation of crime or drugs.

So how does education help fight corruption? Well, New Orleans (as well as Louisiana on the whole) consistently has a poor voter turn-out. The reason most people don't vote is because they don't think their vote counts or they just assume that whomever gets elected will just be useless anyway, so why bother? Some people also will just vote for the incumbent because it's the only name they know. This is why criminals like William Jefferson got re-elected. People hear a name and just hit that button because they don't know any better. If you have an educated public, however, they can spot bad eggs easier and they'll feel more empowered to research a candidate before voting. In time, this would weed out corruption and, as a result, crime, too.

Obviously, nothing is flawless and this wouldn't eradicate crime and corruption, but I'll be damned if it doesn't curb it.

Mr. Jindal, I urge you to rethink your position on education funding. It's necessary to keep Louisiana a viable place for people to live and work.

People of New Orleans, I urge you to want this. I urge you to want this city to be amazing. It'll never be done overnight. It'll be years, I'm willing to bet, before noticeable changes happen, but things like Saturday night's shooting on Canal St. should never have happened. Here's the city, on the coattails of the Treme premiere and French Quarter Fest and right on the edge of the Quarter, seven people get shot. I'm tired of reading these stories about violent crimes. There have been 219 murders in 2010 so far. That's a little over 2 murders every day this year. This is a problem that needs to be handled and turning our backs on it is not going to fix it.

Tags: Liberty Life Pursuit of Happiness Rants  

I've uttered the words "Saints" and "Super Bowl" in the same sentence plenty of times in my life. "The Saints have never been to the Super Bowl" is a popular one. It's truly remarkable. This city has become electric. This city has become one. NOPD announced that there were no violent crimes before, during, or after the game last night. It's sad that that has to be news, but it truly is amazing. For half a day, we put aside everything and rallied around the same thing.

New Orleans is a one-of-a-kind city. We've got more than our fair share of problems, that's for certain, but we've got a charm that no other city in the world can begin to imagine. And no matter what adversity we've faced, there's always been one thing that has tied the fabric of this city together: our Saints. As far as I see it, there is only one type of Saints fan, and that's the diehard. Even during the bag-head days, the fans were still at the games, hoping for the best. Even when we called them the Ain'ts, we watched the games, hoping for the best. When it took 20 years for them to make the playoffs, the fans watched and hoped for the best.

And last night, we watched the game and hoped for the best, all while biting our nails and checking our pulses. And for the first time in history, our hoping and wishing finally paid off.

People exploded in joy when Hartly so casually put the ball through the uprights. People hugged complete strangers. Tears were shed. Fireworks for launched. People lost voices. A constant tone of horns honking resonated throughout the city as people honked with joy.

Last night was something that not only the team deserved, but something New Orleans deserved and needed. This win, this joy, has nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina. This win and this joy means so much to the city of New Orleans because after 43 years of waiting, we finally got our first Super Bowl appearance.

The city has been blanketed in Black and Gold (capitalized, out of reverence) for over a week. Professionals walk through the CBD with Brees and Colston jerseys with their sport-coats on over them. Schools and business have forgone uniforms and dress codes to allow people to wear anything Saints. "Who dat?" has replaced "hello" as the preferred greeting.

Before the game Sunday, the city had a friendly vibe about it. It felt like Mardi Gras. The city was crawling with New Orleanians and visitors alike, wandering the streets and enjoying the gorgeous weather and our fantastic city.

No, this win didn't signify the struggle this city went through after Hurricane Katrina. To say that winning this game helped heal the Katrina wounds would belittle exactly what Katrina did to this city. The Saints have done so much for this city — from player-run charities to boosting our economy, to boosting our emotions — but reversing such a horrible event is not one of them. This win may be a band-aid to make us ignore the fact that we're missing 15% of our population, or that there's 1000s of empty lots where homes once stood, or that our local politicians are some of the most corrupt in the country, or that our school system is lackluster (to say the least).

We love our New Orleans Saints. We love this town. Nothing can take away the excitement and happiness we feel today.

Not Vikings fans claiming the officials were on our side, despite our 100+ yards in penalties.

Not Vikings fans saying that we only won because of their failures, despite the fact that that's how ever game is won.

And not the national media focusing on Favre almost making it to the Super Bowl, despite the fact that we actually have made it to the Super Bowl for the first time in history.

And not even if we lost the Super Bowl in February. The fact that those boys finally brought us an NFC championship and are taking us to the Bowl is more than enough for the lot of us.

Of course, that Lombardi trophy sure would look great in Drew's hands in Bacchus.

Tags: saints new orleans super bowl who dat 

Four years is a long time — the length of a US presidential term, the amount of time we spend in high school, and the average lifespan of a computer. This Saturday will mark the 4th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. In a lot of ways, it feels like it was just a few months ago, but in other ways, it feels like it was a lifetime ago. I'd venture to guess that for those not immediately affected by The Storm that it feels like it was longer, perhaps a distant memory, if even that.

And I get it. I don't think about the California wildfires often. Or the 2004 tsunami. So, yeah, I understand that when something wasn't your problem, you tend to push it back. You've got your own stuff to deal with.

While I "got" that idea, I never did understand the negativity that was directed toward us. "Why should we rebuild?" "New Orleans was a cesspool to begin with." You know what? New Orleans is a cesspool. We have ragingly high violent crime rates, laughingly corrupt politicians, and a school system that makes South Park Elementary look like Harvard. But living in this cesspool (and surrounding areas) are over a million people — over a million people that have grown up here, lived here for generations, started businesses here, and graduated college here. It's our home.

This past weekend Rhea and I took a trip down to the French Quarter. I head down there every so often for short trips to a bar, or to Canal Place for an indie film, or to see a band play at the House of Blues, but rarely do I actually go to the Quarter. We spent the Saturday walking through the French Market and gawking over the crafts and trinkets for sale by dozens of people. One table caught our eye early on — coasters and magnets made of photographs of numerous New Orleans landmarks, some still standing, others long gone. They were put together by the folks at Milk Studio on Decatur. I wish I could remember the guy's name, but he was a great guy to talk to. Upon opening our mouths, he realized we were natives and we spent a good half hour talking about all the locations in his pictures. Stories about getting real sodas from K&B; the smell of Crystal hot sauce brewing. Seeing images of things I saw all my life, things that made New Orleans New Orleans. The businesses were (and are) the heart and soul of this community that have left lasting impressions on all of us. Seriously — who's ever described a color as "CVS red"? No one, that's who.

After passing through the French Market and then through the Farmer's Market where a gentleman was cutting a fresh watermelon open, we stopped for a drink at the Gazebo Café. Now, this being a mildly warm August day in New Orleans around 2 in the afternoon, that drink, of course, was a daiquiri. We sat at some tables right on the sidewalk and watched three middle-aged men play some typical New Orleans music. A little boy danced excitedly. I of course tossed a single into the tip jug, for I don't believe there is such a thing as free music.

We continued our walk around the entire Quarter, glancing at various street performers, popping in and out of small shops selling everything from antiques to trendy (handmade) clothing, and even lighting a votive candle in the St. Louis Cathedral.

A typical August in New Orleans is somewhere between 100 and infinity degrees, but this Saturday was a cool 88 or so. This gorgeous weather brought out the best in every New Orleanian we passed. Everyone was smiling. Shopkeeps talked to customers about anything and everything, without pushing even the tiniest of sales upon them. Someone even bet me he could tell me where I got my shoes.

After our walk through the Quarter, we moved the car to the other side of things and grabbed a bite to eat at Rock-N-Sake on Fulton St. in the Warehouse District. While not traditional New Orleans food, it was definitely traditional New Orleans hospitality. Servers were friendly, but not overly friendly. The sushi chefs at the sushi bar were fun and constantly encouraging us that we should eat more. After washing down some mochi with a Kirin, we hopped in the car again and took a drive down Magazine St. just to kill some time. Even when you're not walking down it, Magazine St. is still fun to go down. After our drive, we went and had drinks at the Bridge Lounge on Magazine and Clio and wolfed down some watermelon mojitos and NOLA Brewing's brown ales with some friends. We left there to grab a late night bite to eat and some Abita's at Lucky's, practically around the corner on St. Charles. A quiet, slow night for the bar was just the environment we needed, allowing us free reign of the Internet jukebox. Our bartender even joined in our silly, irreverent conversations.

And our night closed. An entire day spent in the heart of the city that was actually some of the most fun I've had in a long time. And on top of that, we threw some cash into the city as well. I'd highly suggest anyone in the New Orleans area to take a day and just enjoy it in the city, if you hadn't already planned on it. It'll do both you and the city a world of good.

My simple day is just one of many amazing days that people have in New Orleans. A list recently came out detailing the best cities in which to grow up. New Orleans was absent from the list, and while I'm sure the top places are great in their own rights, no city is like New Orleans. Truth be told, I've always had a Metairie zip code, but I still always call New Orleans home. It's where I spend my time and where I work.

This city is full of amazing qualities that immensely outweigh the negatives. I rarely feel unsafe walking through the city. I've occasionally left my car doors unlocked and my alarm off by accident and when I returned, nothing had been touched. And you know what, even still, it wouldn't deter me. I love New Orleans and will gladly spend my entire life here, through corrupt politician after corrupt politician, through crime after crime, through hurricane after hurricane — this will be my home.

Tags: Global Katrina  

So, Gustav ended up not being the big "Mother of All Storms" as C. Ray prophesied. Baton Rouge is still dealing with power outages, and the coastal parishes have a lot of cleaning up to do, but things could've been worse.

It's funny how even though this time there were "publicly assisted evacuations" that used buses and trains to get citizens without the means out of the city and into shelters elsewhere, people still found things to complain about their free room and food. I get it, it wasn't comfortable or private and the food might not have been something Emeril whipped up, but at least no one was left to die like in 2005.

I have to say, things were handled much better than Katrina. Evacuations went very smoothly, comparatively speaking. Jindal had things planned ahead of time, even though we didn't need them. This is how it should be done. He was calm, but assertive. Even Aaron Broussard and Bob Breck were calm. Nagin started to flip his lid, but his heart was in the right place. If Gustav had not made his slight eastern jog, the westbank probably would've been the new wetlands.

Things could've been better, but seriously, no matter how much you plan something, as long as the general public is involved, it will never go 100%.

People are somewhat nicer after hurricanes, I've noticed. Trying to buy some necessities (read: beer) at the Rouses on Airline, a woman in the parking lot offered up her cart to us saying that they were in high demand inside. The woman behind us asked the woman behind her if she could put her two items in the other woman's basket so she wouldn't have to hold them. The first woman obliged and they ended up chatting the whole time in the lengthy line.

Of course, drivers are still very self-important. I think I've been cut off in traffic more in the past three days than ever in my life.

Some people argued that they called for the evacuations too early, but the thing people don't realize is that a fraction of the 1600 people who died in Katrina died in Gustav. If more people had stayed, that count would've much greater. There are some areas in the city that probably won't ever have anything worse than some wind-blown water and some tree limbs. The people who live there know this and if they want to deal with it, they can. But the majority of the metro area lives in flood-prone areas, and a lot of these areas aren't just the poor people that Wolf Blitzer spotlighted — your million dollar homes are at risk too.

But even with people's stubbornness, 95% of the metro area evacuated. That's impressive. I tell you what though — if we have to evacuate for Ike later this week, expect that number to drop to about 50%. People are already broke from missing a week of work and paying for gas and hotels. If I hadn't have had a free place to stay, I'd be broke too.

But even Bobby Jindal during his state of emergency press conference the other day for Hurricane Ike said so-called "hurricane fatigue" shouldn't stop people from evacuating. He added "We are likely going to have to become accustomed to evacuating more frequently than when we were younger.”

He's right. The environment isn't what it was 40 years ago. Storms react different. This isn't just because of global warming — it's fact. I'd never evacuated in my life (save for going 3 miles away to my grandmother's) until Katrina and I just did it again last week and will likely do it again if Ike poses a major threat. My personal rule is: high level Category 2 storm or above, I leave. Mid-level Category 2 and below, I stay.

So hopefully things go smoothly if there's a next time soon. And hopefully people who should will heed the warnings and get out if possible.

By the way, avoid the spicy chicken at Wendy's for a while. Not nearly as good as pre-Gustav. Also part of the bun is a little crunchy.

Tags: Katrina new orleans gustav ike hurricane 

So, Gustav is on his way toward us. It'll probably be a Category 3 when it makes landfall, somewhere on the Gulf Coast. That "somewhere" seems to be more and more likely Louisiana and specifically, New Orleans.

Friday will be the three year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. And here I am, staring a a 5-day forecast of Gustav that looks eerily similar to the one I was looking at almost three years ago. The Army Corps of Engineers claims were safer this time. I doubt that, what with the Army Corps stuffing holes with newspaper this past spring. Governor Jindal, with all his faults, at least sounds like he has a plan. Friday we start evacuating the coastal parishes like Plaquemines. Saturday or Sunday we enact contraflow and begin getting the areas around New Orleans out of here. There are bus companies that have state contracts to bus people to Baton Rouge.

Jefferson Parish says that once the mandatory evacuation is given, people with no means of evacuating can go to any bus stop and be bussed to Baton Rouge. Elderly and those that are home-bound can call and be shuttled from their homes. Sewage and Water Board employees are cross-trained in pump house operations should the pump house operators not be able to do their jobs for whatever reason. Not only that, giant, strong safe houses have been built for the pump workers to stay in during the storm. They'll be able to operate the pumps remotely from those safe houses even during the storm.

Nagin's hanging out at the Democratic National Convention. I'm sure if this thing comes toward us, he'll pop up on TV and talk a big game, as if he's your old college buddy at the bar talking about how "One day, man, we're gonna finish school and we're gonna just drive to the beach and just live, man. We don't need jobs! We just need some sun, some brews, and some babes, man." And then he'll hop on a plane and go hide in Dallas. Then in about four days we'll hear him whining about Bush on Garland Robinette's show on WWL again and how "we need the support, man. And these people in Washington just, pardon my French, don't give a DAMN what happens down here.”

He's a little right.

Broussard's a wacko. Nagin's a wacko. Blanco's a wacko (still). Bush is a wacko. Yet, when there are local and national elections, I still know people that never vote . Seriously! How can you look at any of those leaders and say "Yeah. We pretty much did our best. Glad we made these collective choices."?

I'll probably never win the fight to get people my age to vote.

Anyway, I don't think we're safe physically. I think the city is effed again. But I think the evacuation will go better this time. And even if this is a false alarm, we should treat it like a fire drill. Remember those in school? At least now we'll know if the new plans work or not.

This New York Times article makes New Orleans sound like we're living in the middle of the Iraq War. It fails to mention about the reason we have any military presence still in the city is because we have no cops! The crime to cop ratio in New Orleans is very high. Before Katrina, we had about 1800 officers. As of last July, we had 1400. Finding numbers of officers immediately after the storm is tough, but I estimate we were around 1200. Our police force isn't what it was and we need that help. It's the State's job to help the local government. The State can deploy the National Guard. Lots of non-New Orleanians think they shouldn't be paying for this with their tax money. The problem is, since local government is at the bottom, State helps it. Federal helps the State. These larger governments are funded by other taxpayers' money. The reason other taxpayers' money is funding this is the by-product of a 232-year-old system.

Honestly, I don't feel any less safe in New Orleans than I did August 28, 2005. It's not like the media is making it out to be. Yeah, the crime rate sucks, but so does a lot of cities'.

“It's taking 3 years! You guys are failures. We shouldn't help anymore." We're doing a lot down here. It might sound like we're just throwing our hands up in the air and saying "Fuck it, you guys fix this" but that's not it at all. The media likes to sensationalize things to get a story out of a non-story. If everything you know about the situation down here is from the media, you can't possibly know the half of it. I'm not telling you to "spend a week down here and then you'll know" like a lot of people say. Hell, I honestly don't care if you blow off everything I'm saying. The short and skinny of it is, things aren't as bad as people are making it out to be, but we still need some outside help, at least for a while until we get back on our feet.

And three years for an entire city to completely rebuild its infrastructure is not absurd. Not to sound like a dick, but there's still an big empty space in NY. If people can't ban together to form a plan to rebuild a small section of a huge city after almost 7 years, I don't see how 3 years to rebuild almost an entire city and its outlying areas is unreasonable. Hell, on 3 days after Katrina hit and the water was everywhere, analysts said it would take a minimum of 10 years to be back 100%. I'd say at about 45-50% in 3 years, we're making good time.

Anyway, it's almost 3 years. It's time to remember the people we lost, but also think of how we'll keep moving forward.

And let's hope Gustav stays away.

Tags: Katrina hurricane Gustav 

Why is it that it took 2 days for MSNBC and CNN to even mention that Dennis Kucinich (my former vote for the Presidency) submitted 35 Articles of Impeachment for FOUR HOURS on CSPAN Monday? Why are the antics of Britney Spears or "Crew Misspells 'Stop' on Roadway" considered "Breaking News" when there are motions to impeach the President? Why are other news outlets such as Fox News not even mentioning it?

A lot of people are sitting there saying "Well, come on, he only has six months left. It's pointless.”

Is it?

So, if a guy murders someone but he has 6 months to live, we should just let him go? Someone breaks into your house and steals all your stuff but he has 6 months to live, he can just roam the streets?

The point of impeaching Bush is not so much to punish Bush, but to prove a point and send a message to the next and future Presidents: You can't pull shit like this anymore.

Why is it so difficult for people to grasp this? Why do teachers still give seniors in high school detentions? Because a lesson must be taught to them as well as the juniors: you can't do stuff like this.

Bush has caused a lot of problems for the US. He's lied over and over and sat on his ass while major cities (NY and NO) got destroyed.

I urge everyone to read the 35 Articles (pdf) that Kucinich has put before the House. And if you live in New Orleans, pay attention to article 31. Kucinich points out the fact that Nagin and Blanco both were doing the state of emergency thing, but the federal government was just sorta like "oh, okay, right, right.”

I think one of the reasons people don't understand why this impeachment is important is because too many people think impeaching just means to pull someone out of office. It doesn't. Impeaching is just the accusations and trial. He has to be convicted after that. And only if he's convicted will he be removed from office.

Clinton was impeached, but he wasn't removed from office. The point isn't so much to get him out of office. In fact, it'd be impossible. It will take longer than six months to even have a trial. Which, really, is good. If he were impeached, convicted, and removed from office before his term was up, Cheney would assume office. And I'm positive Cheney would pardon Bush.

So we want this to drag on past his term. We want him to have to deal with all of this after he's ready to hang out at Crawford eating pork rinds.

If you can't see at least ONE reason why we should impeach Bush, it's possible you haven't paid attention to the world around you in seven and half years. Why is is that so many people don't watch the news, or, hell, log onto Fark once a day — you'll find links to all sorts of relevant news. The point is, you should care. You should want to argue to impeach Bush or to not impeach Bush. Anyone that has ever bitched about Bush should be behind this impeachment and should get off their asses and vote in November.

This is slightly unrelated, but what is it with people in my generation not voting? Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? I'm not asking you to read the paper every day or watch CNN 24hrs a day. Hell, you don't even have to watch Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Just give a damn about the world around you. When you're in your 50s or 60s and you're retiring, you're gonna whine and complain about Social Security or property taxes or something and then you'll realize why you should've voted when you were in your 20s. If politicians get in office today and set a precedent for future lawmakers that they can do whatever they want and screw all of us over, then our future is destroyed and we'll be living in a dystopian America in 30 years. Your kids will be restrained from having fun because everything is "dangerous" and they'll be stupid because teachers will be making $8000 a year.

I've voted in all my local elections (save for the governor because I had to go to Houston for work and found out a day before the election and couldn't absentee vote). I even look up (or call my parents) to find out what each proposition is for. I also drive 5 miles to my parents' neighborhood to go vote because I'm still registered out there. My girlfriend and I do this together. It takes all of 15 seconds to sign your name and push 3 or 4 buttons. So what's your excuse for not voting?

“I don't care.”
“It doesn't affect me.”

Bullshit! You don't care? Get out of my country. Doesn't affect you? Get out of my country and then it really won't. How can you possibly say it doesn't affect you? You're the same dumb assholes complaining about red light cameras and high gas prices. Guess what: vote for people who won't do that kind of stuff and MAYBE you won't have to deal with it. How many New Orleanians didn't vote for governor in 2004 but sat on their asses and bitched about Blanco after Katrina? Guess what — if you had gone and voted for Jindal or someone else, maybe she wouldn't have been the governor in 2005.

Honestly, if you don't vote, you're worthless. You're a leech. You do not deserve to be in America. Yeah, sure, democracy isn't 100% perfect. Well, guess what: it's what we've got and it works enough. Maybe if more people voted we could have decent lawmakers that could fix the democratic system.

But until that happens, I guess we're stuck with more and more Bushes.

Have fun paying $5/gal next month and watching that bright white flash behind you while you cross an intersection.

Tags: Global Katrina Liberty Life Pursuit of Happiness Rants politics 

I received this e-mail today. Sounds really good. If you give half a damn about New Orleans, please read it and follow the links.

Greetings!

I work with a DC-based human rights group, RFK Center for Human Rights that has been partnering with ACORN Louisiana, one of the largest orgs. of working families in New Orleans and the region, since Nov. 05 on human rights issues in the Gulf Coast. I also blog at HuffingtonPost.com, FacingSouth and other places from time to time so I wanted to reach out to a fellow blogger. I wanted to let you know about an effort we’ve launched with ACORN, the online advocacy group ColorofChange.org and a 50 campus strong network of students, the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project, to bring the issue of Gulf Coast rebuilding back into the national spotlight, focusing on the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act, a bill just introduced in Congress we are hoping the Presidential Candidates will be asked about in the California Democratic and Republican Debates (see forwarded email below).

As a New Orleans blogger who may not have heard of the effort I wanted to shoot you a short note on it, see if its something you’d like to learn more about, link to it or support.

You can find out more about the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act here: http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1102-03.htm

Basically it’s a plan to let communities in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama hit by Katrina , Rita and the levee failures decide what infrastructure they need to rebuild with federal funding (be it schools, hospitals, fire and police stations, roads, flood protection, wetland restoration, etc) and to create jobs and training opportunities for local residents and displaced worker, helping communities rebuild and displaced families to return and participate. The bill is supported locally by grassroots Gulf Coast coalitions such as Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation's Equity and Inclusion Campaign, New Orleans delegation of Marguerite Casey's Equal Voices Campaign, and others. Basically it will:

Create 100,000 living wage jobs and training opportunities
Rebuild schools, police and fire stations, hospitals and flood protection and restore the wetlands
Promote local businesses and improve economic and social conditions
Help displaced families to return home and participate in rebuilding with safety and dignity
Give residents a voice in how their communities are rebuilt

The hope is that the bill will help fill in where the Stafford Act and FEMA Public Assistance (see http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-10-gulfcoast-funds_N.htm ) have failed to allow communities and residents the resources to rebuild. It’s partially modeled after US efforts in foreign countries post-disaster to address human rights (see http://solvingpoverty.blogspot.com/2007/03/human-rights-for-displaced-iraqis-but_02.html )

So far the bill has been sponsored by Rep Charlie Melancon (D-LA), Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and we are working to get it hearings and build more support for it but since getting the bill through Congress will be admittedly difficult and really need Presidential support, we hope to make the bill and Gulf Coast recovery into an election issue with the help of supporters.

So far the Republicans haven’t been asked a single question about Gulf Coast rebuilding through 15 debates and the Democrats have devoted a fraction of a percent of their debates to the topic. Since New Orleans was also denied a debate in the general election we hoped to make an effort to bring the Gulf Coast to the upcoming debates with the help of supporters from the netroots.

You can read about our first effort with the NH Debates here: http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2008/01/lets-get-gulf-coast-on-campaign-agenda.asp

Now for the California Presidential Debates Jan 30th and 31st, Politico.com, a co-host of the debates, accepts user submitted questions and allows users to vote for questions, so we sent out an urgent action to some of our supporters yesterday and we’re able to move a question to potentially be asked the Presidential candidates to the #1 and #2 most popular questions for Democratic and Republican candidates respectively among thousands of questions posted.

If we can keep driving people to vote for these questions we can finally see all the candidates go on record about Gulf Coast rebuilding and supporting human rights in Gulf Coast communities. Since Californians like the students with the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project (www.solvingpoverty.com ) and Rep. Lofgren have been so supportive already it makes sense to ask the candidates in CA, since the candidates won’t be making it to New Orleans.
Any chance you could do a post on your blog about Gulf Coast Civic Works Act and the question for Politico.com? If you direct people to http://www.colorofchange.org/gccwpolitico it has really simply directions with graphics to explain it since the voting is a little confusing. At least check it out yourself. Below is an email ColorofChange sent out about the effort. Feel free to forward it around to folks or post portions of it.

Anyways it would be great to hear what you think about the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act. Let me know if your interested in updates or finding out more. It would be tremendous if you could post some info and a link about the Politico.com effort. Hopefully come the California debates we start to hear questions on Gulf Coast rebuilding!

Regards,

Jeffrey Buchanan
Information Officer
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial

Tags: Global Katrina Liberty Life Pursuit of Happiness , 

So, I went to the midnight showing of Cloverfield last night. I was following up with the viral marketing of the whole thing from the day I saw the trailer before Transformers when I saw it in new York. The whole backstory of everything was awesome and fun, too.

****Minor spoilers be present below.****

The movie lived up to the hype and my expectations. While Godzilla and King Kong are fantastic movies in their own right, Cloverfield might well be the best monster movie I've ever seen. Some of the dialog could use a rewrite (although, who would be able to do that in this day, eh?), but the dialog seemed plausible. I mean, these are 20-somethings living in Manhattan. I'm assuming it was an accurate portrayal, although I probably just offended 8 million people. The acting was pretty solid and the camera work was really awesome, even if a bit shakey. The intersplicing of old video footage in the movie when the tape gets rewound is awesome and quite realistic.

I had two minor qualms with the movie, and it's really just my geeky side showing. One, running a Handicam for 90 minutes of filming seems possible, but using the light and night vision features would run the battery down some. Could the battery have lasted long enough to film the whole ordeal and use those battery draining features? Maybe, but, one can assume that when Rob ran in the electronics store to swipe spare cellphone batteries that he could've grabbed a camera battery as well.

My second issue was, when Rob et al were in the subway station he received a phone call. Now, when I spent my week in NY over the summer, my phone dropped to zero bars once I went underground. Also, during Katrina, even though I was in Alabama and Florida, my phone still didn't work because switchboards in the 504 area code were down, regardless of whether I had tower signal. Now, you mean to tell me that a 50-story beast is knocking skyscrapers down left and right and cell phone still get signal? Not being a New Yorker, I'm not aware of the cell tower infrastructure in the area, so I might be wrong, but I don't see that working out too well.

But those two minor possible inaccuracies are easily forgettable because the movie, for lack of a better phrase, kicks a lot of ass.

The monster is by no means cheesy. It was far more awesome than I expected. Only catching glimpses of it here and there at first kept you on the edge of your seat. Then, the added surprise that little tiny spider-like spawns were dropping off of the monster was genius. Think about it: a HUGE monster can only be in one place at a time. And in NY with an intricate subway system stories below ground, one would presume they'd be safe there. If it were just the big monster, yeah, probably you would be, but not when these Labrador-sized creatures come out of no where. The first time you see the big monster (and even the little guys) a general feeling of "what the fuck was that?!" comes over you, which sorta makes you feel like one of the characters.

The way the movie looked like found footage was great, with the intersplicing of vacation footage I mentioned earlier, along with government watermarks at the beginning and end saying "do not duplicate.”

They never tell you where the monster came from or why it was there. The main characters ask some military personnel and they don't even know. All we know is what the main characters know. I like that.

But all the reasons that the movie is awesome are the same reasons that worry me about sequels. I know they'll be one because at the end you hear radio chatter on one of the military guys' radio that says "target is still active." So we know the thing isn't dead. But can a sequel be as entertaining? The "found footage" schtick was done perfectly (better than Blair Witch did it), but can another monster movie done like this work? I don't think it could work any other way. Standard ways of filming would cheapen it and make it less realistic. But would it be boring? Would it feel over-used?

Would the monster stay in the NY area and terrorize the other four burroughs, or move on to nearby DC or Philly? Will it hit Chicago or Cincinnati or go westcoast and hit San Francisco? JJ could do anything. Make the next one pick up the next day, or even a year later like the monster just slowly makes it way destroying the country. Or maybe it dies and the little spawns grow up into big huge ass monsters and the next movie will have like 200 big ass monsters in major cities across the world, Independence Day style.

I just worry that a sequel will cheapen the overall experience. However, Lost has only gotten better with every season, so I could see this doing well. The only problem is, viral marketing won't work well on the sequel, unless it starts on the web before there's a teaser trailer. Perhaps a website (like 1-18-08.com) would crop up and hint to an attack of some kind and people would speculate it being the Cloverfield monster, but no one would know until a teaser trailer appeared. I imagine with each installment of the series, we'll learn a bit more about the origin of the monster. I'm assuming it came from the ocean, and I'm basing this on the viral marketing clues and the fact that in the movie Hud mentions how scientists found an organism recently that they thought to be extinct for millions of years, but because the ocean is so vast that there's a lot of unexplored areas.

And as much as I'd love to see the story develop more, this one was so awesome that if a sequel was never made, I'd feel satisfied.

Tags: Movies  

So this past weekend — Friday through Sunday — I was in Houston for work. Playing technician and running wire, turning a screwdriver, etc. Prior to this past weekend, the furthest west I had ever traveled was Lafayette, and that was during Katrina when my family was looping around Louisiana to get to Morgan City. I had never been to Lake Charles or even Texas for that matter. I've never really had a desire to go to Texas. The main reason being that Texas is located in Texas.

We stopped in Iowa, Louisiana for gas and Hardee's. By the way, there's an Iowa, Louisiana. If your city is in the middle of nowhere and is named after one of the seemingly most boring states in the union, you have probably the most boring city in the country. The burgers were good, however.

After a few hours of driving and me crossing the Texas state border for the first time in my life, we made it into Houston. Can I just put this on the table? Houston sucks. Why anyone from New Orleans would ever decide that Houston is a viable alternative, I'll never understand. Granted, I didn't go downtown, but from what the locals were telling me, downtown blows.

We spent most of our time at work at an office building, but we had our nights free and spent those cruising around Westheimer Blvd. Westheimer is sort of like the Veterans Blvd. of Houston. Only, with WAY more pawn shops, nail salons, porn shops, and dentists.

There were no less than 8 dentists and 6 porn shops between our apartment and the building where we were working.

Let me take this time to get a few more random hits to my blog: porn, porn, porn shop, porn, nails, porn, dentists, porn.

Thanks.

I noticed that places were simply named there as well. Pet Store, Hair Salon, Texas Bank, Dentist. No need to guess what these places are. In Texas, this are simpler.

One of the guys with us had never been to a strip club, so our boss back in New Orleans basically made it an order that we make this guy experience such an establishment.

I love my job.

We flipped through the Yellow Pages in our apartment and found a strip club that would let us in with jeans (that's all we had with us since we were planning on just working). We figured with a $10 cover and a dress code like that, it'll probably be a hole-in-the-wall kind of place. We were wrong. This place was huge, like a palace. Valet parking, fountains outside with palm trees: the works.

We all walk in, go through the metal detector. We pay our cover and show our IDs. Then, one of our guys disappears. Turns out, our 19-year-old coworker had a fake ID. He told us this and he was very confident and said it has never given him a problem since he got it 2 years ago. Until now. Apparently, it was a fake Texas ID, so obviously someone working at an over-21 establishment in Texas would be able to spot a fake Texas ID instantly.

We tried calling the guy over and over and after about 30 minutes we got in touch with him. He took the bus back to the apartment. He's a brave guy. He later told us that when you've been kicked out of as many clubs as he's been, you become resourceful and find alternative ways home.

So the three of us remaining hung out and drank $7.50 drinks that were mostly ice and whatever mixer we had. The music selection of the dancers was actually really good. One girl used two Rammstein songs and another did Rage Against the Machine and Nine Inch Nails.

Apparently it's law there that you can't smoke in public places. This forced me to have to walk out of this sketchy looking fire exit door on the side. I expected it to be a door to an alley with me and like four 70-something guys out there who were longing for the good ol' days when they could smoke in hospitals and churches. Turns out, it was a decent little patio area where a bunch of guys and a handful of… entertainers were coexisting and having cigarettes. They weren't naked, Mom.

One of us was asked several times if he was a cop. One of the girls flat-out said to him "We have a little brothel going on back here." But, being both a faithful husband and a guy with half a brain and a love for his disease-free genitals, declined the offer. We wrapped things up at that point and headed home for a couple hours of sleep before we had to get up for work. It was a classy place, I must say, though. I didn't feel like the chairs would infect me or that the drinks were ruffied.

The next day when we were discussing the night with the other guys that came to Houston with us, the under-age guy asks the guy who hadn't been out before, "So, how'd it feel to be in a place full of beautiful women that were interested in everything you had to say?" I found that comical.

So we worked Saturday for about 12 hours. It wasn't bad at all and I learned a lot about what goes into installing our products.

The guy who hadn't been to a strip club before, had been bitten by the bug. When we got home Saturday night, after watching the LSU game at Fox & Hound and having a couple of drinks, he wanted to go out again. So this time, to get our underage co-worker in, we decided to give the guy who hadn't been before the other side of the stripper spectrum: the bottom, disgusting side.

We found this one place that was in a strip mall (fittingly) that had fake palm trees and black lighting out front. This was our place.

We parked in the communal parking lot and were approached by a bouncer. "This your first time here?" We all hesitated. Should we say yes so he fills us in on protocol so we don't get beat up for breaking a rule but possibly get taken for a ride? Or, do we say no and hope he charges us proper prices and whatnot?

We played it safe and said yes. "$5 bucks to park, $20 cover, BYOB.”

Wait, $20 cover? BYOB? I gotta pay $20 then go buy my own beer? We did the math. I paid $26 the night before for 3 whiskey sours that didn't even get me buzzed, plus the $10 cover. Here, We split 2 six packs and pay the $20 cover and get a good buzz for the same price or less. So we went to the corner store that was conveniently located 2 doors down and bought some beer. We paid our covers with no problem and got frisked by a rather large gentleman. And not fat large. Like, huge Andre the Giant large.

We find a table and sit down and crack open some beers. We take stock of the club and the women. We now realized why it was BYOB — you can't have a liquor license and be all-nude. Now, normally, having a beer and seeing a couple of completely naked women would be fun and entertaining. Hell, it's combining two of our primal cravings. Yes, cavemen drank Red Stripe.

But not these women, my friend. There's a clear reason why they were working at this club and not the one we went to Friday night. If the Friday night club was the Ruth's Chris of strip clubs, we were at Bud's Broiler Saturday. This one girl, whose name escapes me because I couldn't care less, sat on one of our coworkers's lap, making all of us awkward. Like Linus, she was carrying this blanket around with her and draped it on the railing next to the same coworker before she sat down. She took a beer from us and then he inquired about the blanket.

“It's so I don't get bumps on my ass.”

We all let out a sarcastic collective "Ooohhh…." and then his expression changed, as if to say "Wait, she's sitting on me !"

The women there looked unhappy, but would pretty much do anything for money. No, Mom, I gave no money to any strippers at either club. Anyhow, we left after I had about 5 of the 12 beers we brought, making me the winner of the highest BAC contest that no one knew we were having except for me.

Overall, the trip was fun. I liked the work I was doing as it was something different and while I wasted a lot of money with nothing to show for it (at least until I go to the doctor), I had a good time hanging out with my coworkers and getting to know them better and in a different environment. I'll say this again though, why anyone would voluntarily go to Houston is beyond me.

Tags: Weekend Update Work travel 

Just a quick note.

My sister has a blog that as of August 29, 2005 became a Katrina blog. It's documented her experience staying in the city during the storm, escaping the city to Baton Rouge and later Morgan City, and every bit of work put into coming back home and cleaning, getting loans and insurance, and buying a new home. She still updates it periodically. You can check it out at auntmae.blogspot.com .

Anyhow, through some word of mouth of a friend of hers that works in Indiana, she landed an interview on Wednesday, the 2 year anniversary, where she got to tell (some) of her story. They only had 5 minutes alloted, which sucks, but you can't expect them to devote the whole show to her (which, she could easily do). The interview was conducted on WIBC radio in Indiana.

To give it a listen, download it here . It won't take long and it's worth the listen. If you get intrigued, visit her blog from the beginning and give it a read. It's fascinating.

Tags: Family Katrina  

So, on the National Hurricane's Website, they have this link on the front page that says "NEW! Experimental Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook.”

So here, you'd expect there to be some Adobe Flash (that still feels weird to say) widget with like animated 3D visual effects of the status of the Atlantic's hurricane activity.

But instead, you have this:


(Click that bad boy to get a better look.)

It looks like a scan of a page from the newspaper weather section on the back of the classifieds that the webmaster got his niece to draw on with MSPaint.

It's good to see that nearly two years after Katrina we've stepped up our ability to track and warn people about hurricanes.

And take note, that tropical wave 800 miles off of our coast, encompassed by that yellow circle, could get crazy. How do I know this? IT'S NOT A PERFECT CIRCLE. This thing isn't playing by the rules. The Danger Zone is oddly shaped which means it could possibly morph into something more sinister, such as an ellipse or, heaven forbid, an octagon.

Seriously, I know that the NHC lost it's main guy a few months back, but, can't we afford some more high tech system? I mean, we're pretty much the richest nation in the world. If we can afford to use science to give old men hard-ons, I think we can afford to display tropical activity in a more elegant manner.

Tags: Global Internet Katrina Technology hurricanes 

The last vacation I took was roughly 3 years ago. I went with Calie and her family to Navarre Beach. It was a blast. I've not taken a vacation since then. Partly because of Katrina, partly because of cash flow, and partly because my old boss, Adolf Stalin, didn't give me paid vacation time until right before I quit.

So after my first year at my new job, I finally have vacation time. Paid. I decided that since my cousin Kate comes in town from New York so often to see all of us, I should go up there and visit her. So on July 2nd, I hopped on my first airplane in 13 years. Now, for you seasoned travelers that complain that the airport has made changes since the last time you flew a month ago: try waiting 13 years between flights and have a terrorist event like 9/11 happen in the meantime. Also the last time you flew you were 10 years old. Yeah.

I had no idea where to go or what to do. I followed some signs and hoped I was going in the right direction. I made it through security alright. Only, they don't have signs or people telling you want to do. I just sort of looked around and followed the lead of the 4 year old kids in front of me. They seemed like they knew what they were doing. So I took off my shoes and emptied my pockets and all was fine because, despite my beard, I'm not a terrorist. They had to check out the laptop Tourné lent me. All the TSA guy did was don some rubber gloves, open the laptop, then close it. Didn't even run the bag through the x-ray by itself. The city that care forgot, indeed.

I had heard so much about having to get to the airport like 2 hours early, so for my 10:20am flight, I got to Louis Armstrong International around 8am. I was sitting by my gate by 8:25. And since I was traveling, I only had large bills on me, and I wasn't about to buy a bag of chips with a $100 bill. So I sat, hungry, by gate D, watching Delta's planes taxi in and out. This made me glad I was flying JetBlue because those pilots seemed clueless. Maybe I just don't know how planes work, but it seems like you'll want to get the door of the plane lined up with the opening of the jetway.

I boarded the plan and immediately scoped out the flight attendants. You hear so much about hot flight attendants, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I still don't see what all the fuss is about. I suddenly stopped being depressed about not hitting on the flight attendants when I saw that because JetBlue is partnering with The Simpsons movie, channel 41 on the free DirecTV in the headrest in front of me was playing nothing but Simpsons episodes. This also took my mind off of the fact that I was 10,000 feet in the air and traveling 400mph. On of the coolest features of JetBlue is, on the screen, it shows a Google map with an airplane icon that shows where you are on the map, plus, your speed and altitude. For a statistic fiend such as myself, this was pretty much the Mile High Club.

Kate met me at the airport and we hopped aboard the AirTrain at JFK where we would circle the airport for 40 minutes because Kate had us on the one train that didn't go to our stop. After making it to the terminal, I bought my one week unlimited MetroCard and we got on the subway. Which was creepy. There was an old guy sleeping on the subway with 4 trash bags of stuff. I had the feeling he wasn't coming from the airport since those bags were certainly not TSA approved.

When we got to Brooklyn, we ate authentic Brooklyn pizza from an authentic Brooklyn pizzeria, complete with Italian accents and every thing. We walked five blocks with my luggage to Kate's apartment and hung out there for a little bit, then we took the subway to Manhattan and walked from 14th St. to 54th St. Forty blocks in my first moments in the city. It was fun though. We went to the Toys R Us and the Hershey store. We went back to the apartment and Kate made this awesome grilled chicken salad for dinner.

Tuesday around 10am, Kate yells to me "Wake up! You're in New York!" After getting dressed we went back to the city and we went to the Top of the Rock, which is the top of the Rockefeller Center. It was 69 floors up with an amazing view of Central Park, and really, all of downtown. Seeing the Empire State Building from high up was really cool. A trip to go see "Live Free or Die Hard" was also made.

Later that day we went to dinner at this sort of southern restaurant with her friends Mark and Amber. Mark reminds me of the tall skinny guy from "Freaks and Geeks" and "How I Met Your Mother." We had a couple of beers there and then we walked down to Daddy's, which is their bar of choice. There was a patio area in the back where I could drink and smoke, so that made me feel at home. After Daddy's we went stopped at a little store to buy cigarettes. Those bad boys set me back $7.50, as opposed to the $3.50 I pay here. We went to this other bar that was having drink specials. From 8-11, free Pabst Blue Ribbon and 11-til was dollar well drinks. They were out of Pabst when we got there, so they were serving Bud Light. Frankly, piss is piss to me. After the free beer I had 2 or 3 whiskey and Cokes. It was odd being in a smoke-free bar.

After that bar, we met up with some of Kate's friends at this metal bar. This place was pretty cool, for a metal bar. They had a patio area and NO ONE was inside the bar. We hung out there for a while, I went on some tangent about Phil Anselmo and fun was had. We walked back to Kate's apartment, both drunk off our asses, for like 12 blocks or so. A fantastic welcoming to the city.

Wednesday was the Fourth of July. We were supposed to go play frisbee with her friends in Central Park around noon, but, uh, I sort of slept till 3:30 in the afternoon due to an insane hangover (that yielded no vomit, however). So we stuck it out in the apartment for the day and that night we went by her friend Jay's place. It's a commercial space that he turned into a loft and he has rooftop access, so we went on the roof at night and watch New Jersey's and uptown and downtown New York's big fireworks displays. It was amazing, especially with the Empire State Building in the middle of it all with its red, white, and blue lighting. So here we are, in New York, drinking beer on a roof, watching fireworks, and eating apple pie. It was the most patriotic thing I've ever done.

Thursday we went to the Museum of Modern Art and checked out the Richard Serra exhibit. It's these huge steel structures he makes mostly by balancing them against each other. It's really intense. We checked out the rest of the museum, which was fun. I hadn't been to a museum in ages. And I prefer modern art to classic art anyhow, so it was more interesting to me. We also went and saw "Transformers" with a bunch of Kate's friends and ate at a little diner.

Friday morning we stuck around the house and then met her friends Colleen and Lashandra for drinks at a little trendy place in the East Village. We sat outside on the sidewalk which was really nice. The weather all week was amazing.

Saturday we met up with Amber again at PS1, which is an old public school that MoMA took over. They were having this huge event with DJs and musicians and food and beer. So we hung out there for a good while and got drunk again. After that we went and got sushi, which was probably the only thing in New York that actually cost less than it's New Orleans counterpart.

Sunday morning was my flight out. My plane was leaving at 7:55am. Kate said she never has a problem with JetBlue at JFK, so if I get there by 7, I'll be fine. My $40 cab pulls up to the JetBlue Terminal at 7am to the sight of literally 800-1000 people inside and lined up outside. I skipped the outside line because I'm not a chump and I had shit to do. I take my computer print-out to the self-service kiosk and print my boarding pass. Now for step 2: figuring out which line was for people getting boarding passes and which was customer service, and which was baggage drop. This was difficult because they all oozed together into one big pile of flesh and luggage.

Luckily, I was in the baggage drop line. By the time I got to the ticket agent at the counter, it was 7:35. I had 20 minutes to get through security, get to my gate, and get on the plane. I'm nervous, but I'm thinking I can make it. She tells me I have to sign a voluntary separation thing for my bag because they already started putting luggage on the plane. She informed me my bag might not come with me. But what else was I to do? I couldn't check it, it was too big. So I signed and she says "Now, run — RUN — to Gate 19.”

So I go to the concourse and there's a preliminary security check point where they check your boarding pass. I ask the girl, "How far to Gate 19?" "Not very. Follow those ropes, take a right, go down that hall and go through security. Then get on the shuttle to take you across the airport to Gate 19." Me: "Shuttle? Can I make it?" She says I could, if I hurry.

So I run to security put my shit through the x-ray machine and I set off the metal detector. I remove my change. Still beeps. Chain on my beck. Still beeps. "Sir, please step to the side. I NEED A MALE ASSIST PLEASE!”

So this big dude walks up and his putting his rubber gloves on. He waves the metal detector wand over me, stops near my crotch. Asks if I have a belt on, I say yes, and he makes me fold out the waist of my pants so he can look behind the belt and all. Waves again, beeps on my side pocket. "Oh, so whatcha got in your pocket?" "Um, a pack of cigarettes." So I give them to him, he waves it again, beeps on my back pocket. "Oh, ho ho. Now what's back here?" "My wallet…" I give it to him and he runs it all through the x-ray machine and all is fine. Apparently the foil liner in a pack of cigarettes sets off metal detectors. And, unlike New Orleans, they inspected the hell out of the laptop, dusted it for bomb residue, and really scrutinized it.

So now it's about 7:48. I have 7 minutes to run to the shuttle, ride it, then run to Gate 19.

I find the shuttle and luckily, it was there waiting. I hop on, it takes me across the tarmac and I start running in front of people and a guy I pass yells to his wife "Honey, let him pass, he looks like he's in a hurry!" Kind of in a pissed off tone and I turned around and said "Thanks, I have… [looks at cell phone] … 3 minutes to get on my plane." He apologized because I was legitimately being an asshole about running. I get to Gate 19 and the guy looks at me, tears my boarding pass and says "You just made it." and shuts the door to the jetway behind me. It was close, but I made it.

They had the same Simpsons episode son the way home, so I put on MadTV and the next thing I hear is "Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our final descent into New Orleans, please fasten your seat belts." I had slept the whole flight.

All in all it was an amazing trip. New York reminds me of New Orleans in a lot of ways, but one thing sets it apart: no one talks to strangers there. Passing people on the street is as if you're walking alone. New Orleans, everyone smiles and nods or says hello to everyone. I finally got some time away from everything and I went through a lot of stuff, mentally, and now I'm more relaxed and stress free than I've ever been. I'm in a good place now.

By the way, I'm sure I'm on some sort of government list now that this post is riddled with "TSA," "airplane," "New York," "terrorist," and "bomb." And I'm sure putting them all next to each other made it even better.

Tags: Family Life Pursuit of Happiness vacation trip 

Welcome back, Me.

I discovered Barack Obama's announcement of running for Presidency. His speech is really good. Here are some key points:

• Acknowledges that his announcement is somewhat audacious because he hasn't been in Washington very long, but as he says, he's been there "long enough to know it needs to change.”
  
• Says that it's not absence principles or politics that have stopped us from achieving goals, but a lack of leadership:
   

  For the last six years we've been told that our mounting debts don't matter, we've been told that the anxiety Americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnant wages are an illusion, we've been told that climate change is a hoax, and that tough talk and an ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy, and strategy, and foresight. And when all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq mounts, we've been told that our crises are somebody else's fault. We're distracted from our real failures, and told to blame the other party, or gay people, or immigrants.

  
  
• Wants to set "high standards for schools and give them the resources they need.”
  
• Wants new teachers and better pay for them as well, in exchange for more accountability
  
• Wants to make college more affordable
  
• Wants to invest in scientific research
  
• Wants to "lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America”
  
• Wants better employee benefits from large corporations (for the little guys)
  
• Wants every person willing to work to have a job that has decent pay that can pay the bills and afford child care so their kids have a safe place to go while at work
  
• Wants to control costs of health care by using better prevention of health issues and wants universal healthcare in America "by the end of the next president's first term.”
  
• Wants to explore alternative fuels like ethanol (and he didn't mention it, but I hope water fuel too.)
  
• He's on the "fight terrorism" bandwagon like the GoP, but doesn't sound like an assbag with a gun and a bottle of Jack when he says it.
  
• Wants to pull out of Iraq by March of 2008, but not just pull out. Achieve our goal there, whatever that may be. I don't know if I think that's possible, but if he has a plan to mkae this work and not make us look like a bunch of pansies, I'm for it.
  
• Said this and made it believable:
   

  know there are those who don't believe we can do all these things. I understand the skepticism. After all, every four years, candidates from both parties make similar promises, and I expect this year will be no different. All of us running for president will travel around the country offering ten-point plans and making grand speeches; all of us will trumpet those qualities we believe make us uniquely qualified to lead the country. But too many times, after the election is over, and the confetti is swept away, all those promises fade from memory, and the lobbyists and the special interests move in, and people turn away, disappointed as before, left to struggle on their own.

  
  

Now, before I start backing Obama, I want to check out everyone else. That's what America's about: finding the candidate that best represents you, not just blindly voting for your party. First off, I'm a Libertarian, and sadly, this country will never break away from a bipartisanship, so a "third party" candidate doesn't get the same air time as a Repub or Democrat. Which, in and of itself, is a load of bullshit. Why can't a third party runner be in the debates with the other two parties? Anyway, that's a rant for another time.

I'm sure no Republicans will vote for Obama, no matter how good he is, because of this: He's (half) black, and his name is one letter away from "Osama."

Tags: Global Internet Katrina Liberty Life Pursuit of Happiness Technology politics obama president 

So, I finally have some plans for 2007. I half assed them in the last post, but here's something concrete.

Eat Better
Lord knows I won't cut out fast food altogether, but I seriously want to eat a little better. All I eat is shit.

Go to New York
This is all contingent on my raise/vacation kicking in this summer, but I haven't taken a vacation in at least 3 years. Katrina doesn't count. Plus, Kate always comes down here and I wanna return the favor. That, and, the last time I went to NYC, it was for like 4 hours… not a lot of time to take it in.

Get Snorq off the Ground by March
Snorq is my social networking site based off of your zipcode. It'll be extremely unique. I keep dragging ass on it, so I want it to at least be beta testing by March 1st. I better get rolling.

Work on Colonel Panic
Colonel Panic is my nerdcore hip-hop alterego that I was going to work on with Greg and Chris but I keep not doing it. Another project left unfinished.

Save up money for a projector
I want to have an HD projector in my room instead of a TV. The setup will be great. Just need the cash.

Whittle down credit card balances
I have two cards. I want to get the small one (sub $700) cleaned and paid off and I want the bigger one to be at least 60% paid off. An achievable goal if I manage to…

Manage my finances better
I waste money. I want to stop.

Learn that being a single guy is okay
I've been in a relationship for nearly 8 years straight with three or 4 girls, save for like 4 months or so. I have no idea who Geoff is. I started at 15 and haven't stopped. Here's to me trying that… Greg, you know I'll fail this one. When was the last time I listened to your advice?


That's what I have right now. I may tack on more, but that's a solid list. And it's nothing crazy like "Lose 40lbs!" or "Visit Paris!" or "Get published!" Everything here is attainable.

Set 'em low, so when you achieve them, you feel better.


Tags: Internet Katrina Liberty Life Music Pursuit of Happiness Relationships Work  

As I've mentioned in the past, I read about 10 different news sites a day so I can keep up with world around me.

Nearly every day CNN has an article or two up like this one here detailing how difficult it is going to be to rebuild New Orleans. They usually spotlight one or two families from one end of the spectrum: they busted ass and rebuilt quickly or they haven't done anything because of building guidline sor insurance money.

Now, as a native, I love my city and never plan on leaving, even if they invent Category 6 to measure the next storm that comes through here. But I have to agree with Mississippi: where's their coverage? Gulf Port has like no buildings still standing. Granted, our buildings may as well be demolished, but the fact remains, they got effed up too.

Secondly, I'm just tired of seeing articles saying "It looks like Katrina just hit last week instead of last year." We get it. It was a mildly clever line when CNN used it 6 months ago. Let it die.

Now, I know I've said I want the rest of the country to always be aware that we need a lot of help here, and I still stand by that. But I think desasters should be handled like political campaigns: equal time for all parties involved. MS needs a lot more help still too.

Granted, they've received 20% more FEMA trailers than southeast Louisiana did, so they're on their way. And, they also didn't have to wait three weeks for water to drain before starting their recovery and rebuilding efforts. But the fact is, because our local and state government can't get along for 5 minutes to hatch out a plan, we're all sitting ducks.

Which brings me to another point. Federal government said yesterday: New Orleans is ready for another major storm surge. Later that afternoon the Army Corps said: We don't think the levees are ready.

Now, tell me again why the federal government is confused on this really major issue? So we have the feds confused with each other and we have Nagin and Blanco playing a round of who-hates-who-the-most.

God bless America.

Tags: Global Katrina Rants  

I stumbled upon this article via Fark today. It's a list of the best cities in America to find a job.

New Orleans and Denver are the two worst cities.

Which is quite interesting. There's literally thousands of jobs available, and nearly all are paying much more than they were pre-Katrina. One would assume that finding a job around here would be like trying to find a MySpace user under 18. But the "study" included a bunch of different aspects, like cost of living, crime, and other such statistics. Which totally makes New Orleans suck in terms of job hunting.

Let's face it: NOLA's got two broken legs and our doctor's going to be out of town for a while. (Well, it's hurricane season. After Foti's performance, I'm not expecting many doctors to stay in the area during hurricane season so they won't get trapped in a hospital.) Hell, he didn't even set the breaks yet. He sent one of his nurses over to look at it, but all that guy did was mumble something about chocolate and then started coming up with the grandiose plan to fix the legs, but he ended up spending 6 hours picking out a color for the cast.

These legs aren't going to heal anytime soon.

And lists like Forbes' aren;t going to help them heal any faster. What we need are articles coming out saying "Yes, the cost of living is high right now. Many restaraunts aren't open late. The crime picked up, but dropped after the Guard came in. But we have thousands of jobs available. Come down here, get a job, and take solace in the fact that you're helping to rebuild one of America's greatest cities.”

According to Monster, there are over 1000 jobs available in the New Orleans area. And the only reason I can't give an exact number is because it only returns 1000 listings maximum. And that also doesn't include probably hundreds of jobs that aren't listed on Monster, but are in the classifieds or on phone poles.

My point is this: NOLA needs money. NOLA needs residents. NOLA needs you.

Tags: Global Katrina Life Pursuit of Happiness Work  

Disclaimer: Because of personal ties with one of the "suspects" this post may contain some bias. Also, due to my rage that incident is being handled how it is, I'll refrain from a Podcast because I think the many expletives you'll read will more than cover your daily allotted dosage of "fuck."

In case you haven't heard, three people — a doctor and two nurses — were arrested Monday night in connection with possible euthanasia taking place at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans immediately following Hurricane Katrina.

If you need more information, read this article

Here's the problem: Foti's guys arrested these women in the middle of the night last night and busted in their homes like they were hardened criminals and took them from their families. Women that, if requested, would've cooperated and gone in for questioning without having to be arrested.

Secondly, how many of the prosecutors were in that hospital that week? How many of them braved the 100+ degree heat, rising water, decreasing food and water supply, lack of electricity and dying patients and those screaming in agony for it to end or for help they couldn't provide? The one guy who says this happened, one Dr. King, bailed out early and didn't stay through it all. He also says he "heard" discussion of putting people out of their misery but didn't witness ANY wrongdoings, according to EVERY article I've read.

So, all we have is hearsay.

But we also have a question of ethics, assuming this actually happened the way Foti claims it did. Foti claims these three decided to kill these patients to speed up their own evacuation. Which, if true, sounds criminal to me.

How many of these patients asked to die?

How many were close to dying and would've suffered until losing all life left?

Considering ONLY 45 patients died in a hospital with a 300+ bed capacity, I'd say everyone in that hospital did what they could to make everyone survive as long as possible considering the dwindling resources, like food, water, and medicine.

WWL had a quote from Dr. Steven Miles, a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota's bioethics center. Here's what they have from him:

[… I]nstead of trying to kill, it is more likely that those charged were trying to relieve patients' pain "in a resource-poor environment and were doing the best they could.”

He said that there are documented cases where patients have required seemingly lethal morphine doses to relieve extreme pain, and that he doubts the charges will be proven.

“I'm inclined to believe this was palliative sedation that's been misread," Miles said.

Mercy killings would be "not only highly frowned upon, but also rare," Miles said. "It's highly unlikely that's what happened here."

I think I'd like to look at his theory as a good place to start. And until the toxicology reports from the tissue samples from the alleged victims return, there's no real telling.

In fact, their is NO real telling. I know one of the nurses personally and I don't even know. Her family doesn't even know what really happened that week.

If they had like, eight hours after the storm passed, started administering drugs to patients to euthanize them, I'd say there's a possibility. This all took place a minimum of four days after the storm when the medical personnel wasn't even sure if they were going to survive. They had no outside communication. No one knew.

According to an ABC26 poll 75.6% of voters disagree with the arrests and only 24.4% do.

And on NOLA.com every single forum post is on their side and bashes Foti for the fucktard he is. I agree with one of the posts I linked to: if he's going to pursue this, is he going to pursue the rapists and murderers at the Convention Center? What about the looters and other true thieves? If not, then, why? Why, Mr. Foti, is one crime lesser than another in your book?

Tags: Global Katrina Liberty Life Rants  

I was thinking about next month being August already. 2006 is kinda zooming by. August brings with it an interesting date. August 29th. That'll be one year since Hurricane Katrina made landfall over New Orleans. I'm going to reflect more on the anniversary as it looms closer, but I was just looking at a ton of pictures (read: 130 pages worth) on Flickr and just got to thinking.

It's been almost a year and there's been little progress. Sure, some houses have been fixed up, knocked down, etc. Levee repairs are nearing "completion" (I use quotes because, they're pre-K strength. Um… isn't pre-Katrina strength what didn't work?). But there's still SO much to be done around here. Hell, fast food restaurants in Metairie, which didn't get flooded, aren't staying open late because they don't have the staff. Everything's changed in the world of Katrina, but, is it all temporary?

America seems to think so. There's still relief groups coming down here to help every so often, but, honestly, unless Nagin is saying something stupid at a press conference, the media's been keeping quiet about New Orleans.

I've got several FEMA trailers on my block alone. And I live in a wealthy neighborhood (I stick out like a sore thumb, trust me). Imagine the poorer areas, or even the lower middle class areas. FEMA trailers at every other house. Businesses still boarded up. No street lights. Some people still aren't back in the city yet. My father's business just reopened less than two months ago.

We still need a ton of help. Donations of time and money and resources are so needed in the lower portions of Louisiana and Mississippi, yet no one's making mention of it. Stories about whoever Jennifer Anniston's dating/breaking-up with trump Katrina relief these days.

So, maybe this summer, take your family or your crew down to the Gulf Coast and help out. Or throw some dollars at something like the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. Or, you know what? Just tell people how fucked up it still is around here. Just don't forget about us, if you can't/won't help out. And if you're down here: buy local. Get your gas at a locally owned station. Get your food from a neighborhood sandwich shop. Buy your groceries from that corner store by your house. Go spend some money down in the Quarter or the French Market. We need to pump some money into the area.

The waters may have receded, but we're still drowning.

Tags: Katrina Life Pursuit of Happiness Rants , 

June 1st marked the start of the 2006 hurricane season, and we've already had one named storm. I'm willing to bet this year won't be unlike 2005.

So, I'm going to start making plans. First, I'm going to decide when I'm going to leave.

I'm staying for tropical storms and Category 1 storms. I haven't decided on Category 2 yet. I'm definitely leaving for a Category 3+, since Katrina was only a 3 when she went over NOLA.

The next step is, where to go if I do leave? Last year I went to Florida, but that didn't go over too well. Then we went to Alabama, and that was nice, as long as there isn't an Auburn game the weekend you're in Auburn. I think it depends on the storm. Northern Alabama worked out for Katrina, but they could get smacked by a storm just as easy.

I'm also doing what I did last time and am taking everything of value to me and all my clothes. It worked out very well.

If I stay, well, even if I don't end up staying for a storm, I think Im going to start stocking up on some crap now before the rush hits. I'll buy flashlights and batteries over the next week or so, some gallons of water, canned goods, that sort of thing. Just in case. It probably wouldn't hurt.

Maybe a small boat. Like a raft or something. You know, because of this:




Tags: Katrina Life hurricanes 

Tonight, I made this:



No, it's not a narcotic. It's a big bag of my hair from my face and my head.

I decided to trim my beard since it was getting pretty long. Shaved it down and then I looked like Joe Dirt. As a result, I shaved the mustache off and cleaned up the edges.

I still looked like an idiot.

I called Calie. She came out. I wet my hair. She grabbed an orange pair of Fiskars and started hacking.

“So, it's going to come out okay, right?" I ask.
“Um. Sure!”
“You've cut hair, right?”
“Well, girl's, not guy's hair.”

She made a few more snips and then started laughing hysterically. I stood up slowly to look in the mirror. Flock of Seagulls.

I cringed and settled down into the chair again.

She snipped some more and the grabbed the electric trimmer. She buzzed and buzzed, snipped and snipped.

And now, we have this:



I'll tell you guys ina couple of days what sparked this. It's good news, I swear.

But alas, I killed nearly 1 year of no haircut. I last had my haircut the July before Katrina.

Overall, I'm leased. In a couple of weeks when it grows out, I'll go to Calie's cousin Lynn (she usually cuts my hair) and get it all cleaned up. Calie did an awesome job though for never having done it before.

Oh, the level of trust I have for that girl.

Tags: Life Work haircut 

So, Fark had a link to an article about a Houston cop who said the people from New Orleans that he's met are "wiseasses." I find that pretty accurate, actually.

See, my opinions on the whole Katrina matter have changed greatly since August 29, 2005. I originally said that the state and local governments were kicking ass and it was all the federal government causing all the problems. While it's still apparent that the Federal government is all but moving quickly, I've realized how much the local and state governments have really just sat around and said "Well, nothing else we can do but sit around and cry about it." My feelings about my local goverment has been explained numerous times on my site with all my anti-Nagin propaganda. I've never liked Blanco and have always thought Bobby Jindal would've done a better job. She's too much of a politician. Nagin's not enough of a politician to handle himself in these types of situations. He trys entirely too hard to be "Average Joe" but genrally fails miserable and makes us all look like fucking morons. So, final note on government involvement: Blanco's, Nagin's, and Bush's people and themselves are to blame for any slow responses.

I also have always tried to ignore the race card that the media continually played. They kept making it look like only blacks were affected and that because they were black, they weren't getting help (Wolf Blitzer: "These people are so poor, and so black."). It isn't because they were black. It's because they were affected by Katrina. All of us got fucked one way or another, white, black, brown, yellow, red, green, what have you. Then there were other race cards being played saying that the reason crime went up in Houston and other helpful areas because the refugees were black. That is pretty accurate. And before you call Jesse Jackson on me, let me explain. The reason I say that's accurate is because the majority of those brought to Houston were black and poor. And because New Orleans (pre-Katrina) was 65% black, the majority of its poor population was also black. Statistics for decades have proven that poorer areas of cities have higher crime rates. So, basically, I'm saying that the problem isn't that they're black, but it's that they're poor.

See, New Orleans is an amazing city with an amazingly fucked up and corrupt government. Most of the people you hear about in other cities that are from NOLA and are causing problems were the same ones that caused problems when they were here. They flipped out after FEMA cut them off now Houstonians are screaming "Get a job!" at all these people. And while I know that's what these people should be doing, the same people bitching and whining and not making an effort to restart their lives are the same ones who were using food stamps for groceries, housing projects for homes, and public transportation for transportation. They've always had Uncle Sam helping them out, so why should they feel any different now?

New Orleans has (well, "had") a high crime rate. What people fail to notice is that in 2004, crime was down in almost every area of the city, except for the projects, which were up an astonishing 257.84%. (proof ) This just goes to show you that the majority of the city was actually doing well before Katrina hit. The poor project areas of the city were doing worse, and those are the people who got bussed to other cities.

While I feel for Houstonians who are complaining about the increased crime and traffic (I work in LaPlace, a mere 25 minutes from New Orleans, and its population nearly tripled after the storm, and its crime and traffic has gone up as well), you can't just go around saying "New Orleans is a shit hole. It was never safe before Katrina. All New Orleanians are robbing my family at gunpoint" and other outrageous accusations. New Orleans, while not the safest city in America, was improving (from that link above, you'll see that while crime was signifcantly up in the projects, citywide it went down nearly 1%, which is a lot, considering our track record). I only felt unsafe in one area of the city: at Nick's bar, off of Tulane. That neighborhood is very unsafe, but very feel regular neighborhoods actually make me feel nervous. Anyway, back to Houston, I have to tell you guys this: pick a random city in the United States. Now, find the poorest area of that city. Take all of their citizens and move them to another city and tell them they can't go back home for at least a year, but the government will pay their way for about 6 months. Watch what happens. The same thing that happened with New Orleanians going to Houston.

Wanna see something funny? Compare Houston's 2004 Crim Rates with New Orleans' 2004 Crime Rate . Keep in mind that Houston is bogger than NOLA. So, look at the per capita column. In every category but murders, Hoston's per capita crimes were higher than New Orleans'. Try the opposite before Katrina. Take Houston's poor people and stick them in NOLA. I guarntee similar results.

It's funny that Houston (and the media) make it look like Houston was this squeeky clean city with no crime, then Katrina comes in and now it's the worst city in America. Bullshit. Houston's crime was higher than New Orleans before our citizens arrived and it'll be higher than New Orleans' when they leave. What you have now is networking. You have Houston's assholes hanging out with NOLA's assholes and they're pooling together resources.

According to this article, Of Houston's murder's between September 2005 and January 2006, 20% involved New Orleanians as either suspects or victims. That "or victims" part is important. They don't break down what percentage of the murders had New Orleanians as victims, but I'm sure it's something like 25% are victims, 75% are suspects. Now, 2005 crime stats aren't in yet, but, I'll bet you that crime is up in nearly every state in 2005 over 2004. I read another article (can't find it) that said Houston had 336 murders in 2005, 18 of which were involving New Orleanians. That means New Orleanians accounted for 5% of their murders last year, either as suspects or victims. If we go with my assumption, that'd mean that of those 18 murders, about 13 were commited by New Orleanians. That's less than 4% of their murders last year. I'm not trying to say that's great, but the problem isn't nearly as great as everyone's making it out to be.

So, my message to my fellow New Orleanians in other cities not doing anything about trying to survive after FEMA cuts you off: flip some burgers, pump some gas, and come back home. To those of you committing crimes, get caught before you come back here. I only want you here in OPP.

To Houston: thanks for helping out. But, if I hear another Houstonian say "It's been six months! Move on!" I'll be more pissed than I've ever been. Yes, there are more people in your city. Yes, crime is up. Welcome to every other city in America.

Tags: Katrina Rants 

For this O'Reillymas Season, here's some things I want, a mere 109 days after Katrina:

• I want Ray Nagin to not be the mayor of New Orleans but be the mayor for New Orleans.
  
• I want George Bush to come through with his "better levees" promise
  
• I want my Dad and Uncle's gas station to reopen in February as planned
  
• I want my sister and brother-in-law to be able to find a home that won't get destroyed next August
  
• I want people to no longer have to live in tents on their lawns in lieu of FEMA trailers
  
• I want Parish and City Councils to take the sticks out of their asses and just let FEMA make trailer parks wherever they want. (If I owned my property, I'd let two trailers sit on my lawn)
  
• I want everyone to shut the hell up about whether more blacks or more whites died in Katrina
  
• I want (while off-topic) everyone (well, okay, since it's only FOX News perpetuating it… ) I want FOX News and Bill O'Reilly to shut the hell up about this supposed "war on Christmas”
  
• I want the grass to grow green again
  
• I want insulation under my house
  
• I want tile in my kitchen
  
• I want the fence on Kurt & Alicia's side fixed
  
• I want New Orleans on top of the world again
  
• I want beuracracy to quit and the government (federal, state, and local) to cowboy the fuck up and just do whatever is necessary (Like Nagin saying he's gonna have the FEMA Trailer parks made anyway, even thought the Councils opposed it)
  
• I'd say I want snow again this year, but since so many people are living outside in tents I'll skip that one this year.
  

Tags: Katrina Liberty Life Pursuit of Happiness 

There was a time when blogs existed for one to place their thoughts out in the open. A digital journal, if you will. That's why services like LiveJournal came into existance. Recently, "blogging" has become a term we use to describe any website that has periodic updates, or, "posts." Blogs, short for weblogs, have existed for years before the term blog or even the term weblog ever existed. That's what Frobba.com (formerly The 9th Layer) was created for. A place for my thoughts. Which, essentially, it still is, generally my takes on current events as any good moderate or liberal would do.

But I have somewhat strayed from the more personal entries recently. This could have something to do with my relationship status being concrete, or the fact that I don't live at home anymore, or the fact that the government has just been so newsworthy lately.

Whatever the case, I want to take it back a few months, Christ, almost a year now.

I guess this is my obligatory "2005 Re-Cap" post.

The year started off really shitty. Calie broke up with me which sent me into a world of frequenting Nick's Bar and drowning my sorrows and pretty much everything else in Coors Light, Jager, Red Bull/Vodka's, Camel Lights, and a single instance of promiscuity. (Which is a total contradiction if you're paying attention.)

I missed a lot of work (unbeknownst to my friends and family because I'd pretty much just sleep in and not go, then go to Nick's). I missed a lot of family time. I missed a lot.

I met new people, made new friends, most of whom were bartenders.

I watched a lot of movies, most notably, Garden State and High Fidelity which both furthered by depression of the fact that I was alone.

So I set out and tried to find someone to spend my time with. And I succeeded via that waste of bandwidth, MySpace. Yeah, say what you will, it worked and she wasn't an ax murderer. Anyhow, we pseudo-dated and enjoyed each other's company. Perhaps we just cured each other's loneliness.

I got a new car in March. A gorgeous 2005 "impulse red pearl" Toyota Corolla that I'm paying for with my own money (for the next 7 years).

That May (or was it April?) it got broken into at Nick's while I was doing another first ever, working the door at Nick's Bar.

I got a promotion at work sometime before that. Got promoted from Web Site Director to Director of Technology, which gave me an amazing increase in income of 50 cents an hour and twice as much work!

I discovered the importance of friends and how you can never have too many, no matter how close you are to any of them.

I became closer to my sister than I had been in the past, which is something I longed for.

Later in the year I became closer to my father which, to this very second, still brings a tear to my eye with joy. I know how hard it was for him to be close to his father at times and I know it always killed him that I — whether conciously or subconsciously — distanced myself from him. I love the man with all my heart and he's one of the most honest men I've ever come across in my 21 (almost 22) years on this planet, but I think that there was always a small part of me that didn't want to turn out exactly like him, so I distanced myself. And the fact that I can admit that and talk to my father like a friend and always give him a hug, and even as a 22year old man, kiss the 54 year old lug that is my father, is quite possibly the greatest achievment of mine of 2005.

May was a wicked month for me — both good and bad. May was the month I got my first speeding ticket. That same night, after the gut wrenching feeling of having a State Tropper pull me over at 3am on a Monday morning and praying he wouldn't smell the beer on my breath, everything that had happened in the previous 5 months came into focus.

I thought about going to Nick's everynight. I thought about never being home with my family. I thought about skipping out on work. I thought about this relationship I was in. But mostly, I thought about Calie. Brad, after seeing me pulled over on Airline, called Calie to tell her what happened. After I talked to her, it poured out of me like a gallon of water coming out of an 8 ounce glass. I, no, we realized that we needed each other. Our lives only got more complicated when we were apart, though at the same time, we learned more in those 5 months than we could have learned in a lifetime. That was the night we gave our relationship a second shot. And no matter what either of us said or did during our time apart, it was the single best decision I made all year and haven't looked back once.

Of course, it was weeks later that I ended my other relationship, which, in hindsight, was a horrible thing to do, but, I didn't do a lot of thinking around that time period.

Anyhow, May also saw me move into my own place with Kevin, and, starting Thursday of this week, Alex.

This summer brought something I never thought I'd have to do. I spent almost a month away from home, hell, outside of New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina came through and virtually destroyed my beloved city. I saw parts of Louisiana that I had never seen before while making the slow trek to what would be home for a few weeks: Morgan City.

I also put more miles on my car than I ever thought I would in the first year of owning it.

In addition, I also paid more for gas than I ever thought I would: $3.009 at one point.

I never thought I'd ever go kayaking and this September, I did: down my street. I also never thought I'd ever smell venison that had been rotting for 3 weeks, and this September, I did, cleaning out my parents' refridgerator.

I went to Gulf Shores after the storm with Calie and her family and had a blast. Made a fire on the beach where we were later told to put it out by the beach cop because some killjoy called and complained.

October was about the time I started getting disgruntled at work and started looking around for an alternate job and still am to this day. I'd like nothing more than to be happy and paid adequately. To be honest, I love my job. I love what I do and who I work with and, for some strange reason, I have faith in the company to prosper. I just feel so exploited for my talents and feel that somewhere else would recognize what I bring to the table is worth more than the chump change I'm being given every hour.

A few days ago, last week, I damaged my new Corolla by driving to work in LaPlace and running into a truck tire tred.

Which brings us to the present. What's up for the remainder of 2005? Aside from a very different Christmas than usual, I'm not really all that sure. I'll still be at the same job, that's for sure. I'm less sure of my 2006 future. I might still be working for 3-4 dollars an hour less than I'm worth, I might be rolling in the dough. I might… I might… shit. Nothing's really going to change, is it? I mean, I'm living on my own and that's going well. I', back with Calie and that's going extremely well. I'm closer than ever with my family. I have a new car (albeit slightly damaged). I have my health (well, as far as I can tell). Damn. Really, everything will probably be the same. I just may or may not have a new job. And to be honest, I hope I don't I hope I'm just getting what I'm worth and not less than some asshole store manager.

So, that's my '05 wrap up. Comments, suggestions, dinner recipes, anything's welcome.

Tags: Life 

So, I heard about this earlier today. It's pretty bad ass.

The Bush Administration before, said "Hey, New Orleans, here's $1.6billion — now, that's with a 'b' fellas — to make your levees better.

So, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, New Orleans is like "Hey, thanks, B.A. We'll put this to good use.”

One to look a gift horse in the mouth, Senator Mary Landrieu says, "Mr. President, first of all, I'd like to thank the makers of this microphone for allowing me to use it. I'd also like to thank Benjamin Franklin for discovering electricity so that this microphone will work. In addition, I'd like to thank Congress and yourself for giving Louisiana, my home state, the money it deserves to protect its beautiful land and its equally beautiful citizens.”

Then the camera guy got tired of hearing her thank people so he started punching her. She mumbled something about wanting another $1.5 billion.

So Bush, not one to know what "look a gift horse in the mouth" means, said, "Hey, Congress guys. It'd be pretty cool if we gave Louisiana another billion and a half to Louisiana and that cold and annoying, yet strangely attractive Mary Landrieu.”

So Congress is like "Fine…" and fed Bush some pretzels in hopes he'd choke again.

At least that's how I heard it happened.

Anyway, we're getting $3.1 billion dollars to rebuild the levees. They'll be as high as 17 feet in some spots and be fortified with rocks and concrete. You know, like they should've done 150 years ago.

This, I hope, says to everyone, "Hey, look, New Orleans is effed right now, but I don't think this will happen again. I mean, it could but at least now you can't bitch at us about the levees being inaddiquate.”

So, I'm happy about this. Although, the "Category 3 strength" levees we used to have didn't do their jobs, either. LSU and the NWS both said Katrina was only a Category 3 when it moved over New Orleans and the levees still broke. Which means we didn't even have Cat3 strength levees. Which also means all that bullshit we got fed about how "the levees failed because they were only for cat3 and this was a cat5" were, well, bullshit.

Anyhow, maybe NOLA won't suck in a few years.

Tags: Katrina 

Victims: Racism was factor in slow Katrina response

Okay, maybe I can:

The US Government sucks ass. The New Orleans mayor is black. So's the police chief. The government has been poorly prepared for EVERYTHING in the past 10 years — just like Katrina. Race did not play a part.

That aside, who the fuck are these people to liken this to a concentration camp? I mean, yeah, fearing for your life is the same no matter what, but at least the military guys with guns in New Orleans were there to help and not kill you based on religious beliefs.

Katrina was handled poorly on all levels: Federal, state, and local. Blame the Bush administration for cutting the already miniscule budget of the Army Corps of Engineers. Blame Blanco for not getting off her high horse and asking for help sooner. Blame Nagin for running around like a chicken with his head cut off instead of Rudy Guiliani-ing it and staying cool. Blame the NOPD officers that bailed and didn't stay to help.

But don't blame racism. Racism is prevolent and is the result of ignorance, but it did not make decisions. Bush needs black Americans supporting him just as much as white Americans. He'll do whatever to make both races happy.

Except, you know, actually get elected.

Tags: Katrina 

I read this article on CNN's website just now summarizing New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's town hall meeting in Atlanta for the 44,000+ evacuees living there.

I like this part:

Nagin told the audience electricity was available to 70 percent of New Orleans and the rest would be online by January. He said the drinking water was safe and that emergency services were again available. He added that 1,100 businesses were operational, with more than 700 food establishments open.

Where are these establishments? Downtown? In the Quarter? That's awesome. So for people in Lake Vista and in Gentilly (well, the parts that are liveable), they have to go all the way in town? What about New Orleans East residents? I mean, so, what, go to Metairie or in town? Screw that. Metairie is a cluster-fuck as it is. Hell, I live here and can't find a restaraunt open past 8pm on a weekday, save for Taco Tico and Raising Cane's, which get really old after a while.

So after my boy Nagin says "Hey, come one. Come back. It's kickin' in the 504!"…

He cautioned, however, with debris still lining roads and yards, and the city facing a critical budget shortfall, returning residents faced at least another six months of adversity.

“The Big Easy is not very easy right now," Nagin said.

“Seriously! Come back! I mean, it's gonna be a bitch, I know, but living in a city where all the grass is dead, more than 50% of businesses aren't open, having limited services, limited 911 service, limited police force, and pretty much limited everything is WAY better than living in that hotel or friends' house in Atlanta where they have electricty, garbage pick-up, a full police force, emergency response, and those pesky restaraunt things.”

Yeah, right, Naggy.

What he really means by "Come back home" is "Come back to New Orleans and spend some money. We're pretty much broke right now.”

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: untill Lakeview, Gentilly, and the 9th ward have electricity, stay wherever the hell you are.

I mean, he says 70% of the city has power. Come back home! What he fails to mention is that NONE of Lakeview and less than or exactly 50% of Gentilly have power. Online by January? Yeah, right. Didn't Entergy say 2 months ago that it would take 4-8 months to get Lakeview up and running? And didn't Entergy say they have to rebuild their substation on Fluer de Lis? And didn't they file bankruptcy? So how the hell are they going to not only rebuild their Lakeview substation, but get all the lines and poles back up and running in Lakeview in less than 30 days?

Nagin is horrible with numbers.

“10,000 are feared dead.”
“It will take almost 6 months to drain the city.”
“We'll have power in 30 days.”


Riiiiight. Someone needs to take over speaking for Nagin and Bush. Those are two guys that just need to say "Look, I don't really know what the hell's going on. Shit's pretty fucked right now, and it's gonna take time, but I have no earthly idea how long till we're rollin' again." and then just shut the hell up untill everything's okay.

Tags: Katrina 

As you can plainly see, I've redone the website.

It's a bit different than usual. I used more images than I normally do. I also didn't use one single <table> tag. It's all <div>s. I also went ahead and moved up from HTML 4.01 Transitional to XHTML 1.0 Strict. A few really old posts might not validate if you try to validate the site just because I don't feel liek going through hundreds of posts to make them compliant. What you are seeing on this page right now is 100% valid, as is each sub page (rants, poetry, etc).

I've changed a few things as well. I took down my gallery because no gallery I ever make could ever amount to anything similar to what Flickr already does for me.

I also got rid of my list of video games as it was never updated.

I decided to do away with the traditional navigation bar (you know, a strip of links at the top or on the side of a page). I looked at the previous design and there were way too many links on a single page. So now, the blog archives are on a page by themselves. The categories, now known as tags, are on their own page as well.

I made little boxes at the right that display 5 random rants and 5 random poems depending on the box. The random formula needs work, as you can tell by the almost certain-to-be duplicate links.

I figured this was better than 100 links down the right side in two columns.

My Flickr RSS feed box is now thumbnails instead of text links. This adds some more color and looks better than a ton of links.

My Netflix RSS feed box is still there, just organized better.

I 86'd the "Give Props" link under each post mostly because search engine spiders were driving up my number of "props." I also did it because it was fucking lame.

So, tell me what you think. I'm personally in love with my new design.

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

I also want to note that the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machine that we obtained is now functioning. Kevin sent the gameboard off to get repaired. After I messed with it for a long time, all I could get the thing to do was light up the marquee and display some vertical red lines on the monitor. After doing some research, I went and checked the power supply with my multimeter. I can't believe I didn;t realize this:

The arcade machine is much like a computer: motherboard, software, power supply, monitor, input device. I should have realized that, like a computer, the monitor runs off of the mains power and not the power supply. So when the monitor was coming on, the system was not.

And as I suspected, my multimeter showed me 0 volts were coming out of the power supply. The solution? The arcade power supply outputs +5VDC, +12VDC, and ground — the very same voltages that a computer's power supply outputs. So, I replaced the arcade power supply with a spare PC power supply I had lying around from some computer Kevin found in some Katrina trash.

Let's just say we played a bit of Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga tonight.

Tomorrow, I'll make the solution more permanant and seal the cabinet back up. We're going to put it in the house, just not 100% sure where yet.

Tags: Art & Design Site Update Technology 

I didn't take these pictures. I had heard about them from my aunt, but because of the horeendous amount of people in the mall this time of year, I've tried to avoid them except when I have to work there.

My dad sent me this e-mail with these pictures in it.

This is Lakeside Mall's Christmas Village. They set it up every year where Sanata Claus is. They gave it a post-Katrina twist this year.



This is an overshot of the village. Note the blue tarps on the rooftops.



Military helicopter rescuing citizens trapped on their rooftops.



Close-up of the blue tarp on a house. Note the search team markings on the house as well as the pile of debris by the curb.



And my favorite, the Broussard pumping station. If you're not from around here, you might not get this one. Aaron Broussard is the Jefferson Parish President. Jefferson Parish is adjacent to New Orleans. It has a president and not a mayor as each city in the parish has it's own mayor.

Broussard has been receiving a lot of criticismm after Katrina because he sent the pumping station workers home because he said the weather was too dangerous for them to stay. As a result, areas of the parish that normally wouldn't have flooded did because the pumps weren't running. I'm not saying I agree with my fellow Parishoners, just wanted to give some back story to that one.

Anyway, this shows you how we are down here. We can everything taken from us — homes, jobs, family — and still have a twisted sense of humor about it.

That's Naturally N'awlins.

Tags: Art & Design Katrina 

So, Mayor Ray Nagin announced today that they would be launching free city-wide WiFi internet with download speeds of up to 512kb/s, pretty much awesome.

I like this idea. Now, granted, that speed is illegal abse don state laws so it will probably drop to 128kb/s once the state of emergency is lifted.

Which reminds me — hwo long will we be a state of emergency? I'm not saying it should be lifted because we're fine. I wanna know how long it'll be untill we are fine.

The city, in a word, is fucked.

We have people living in tents outside their homes in 50degree weather. We have thousands of people without electricity, thousands more without natural gas.

But we'll have free WiFi!

Where the HELL are our priorities? I mean, yeah, I'm totally for this WiFi thing. Other countries have already started doing this and it's a great idea. But, instead of using this money for the handfull of people that are back in town, why not, say, help out Entergy and get some damn lights turned on in Lakeview, Gentilly, Chalmette, and the 9th ward?

Or maybe throw FEMA some of that money to buy some more trailers for people who don't have any money left to live away from home.

Which reminds me as well: why do we still have people in tents? I mean, the guy across the street from me bought his house for $1.4million and owns a large company. The guy has money. Where is he living? In a trailer from FEMA on his front lawn. Why did he get a trailer?

Why are people who are living in houses that didn't get affected or living in areas where not much happened like parts of Metairie and Kenner getting phone calls from FEMA asking if they need trailers?

Seriously. Shouldn't they start dialing numbers in certain zip codes first? Call some Lakeview families. Call some Chalmations. Call some Ninth Ward guys. Get these people set up and ready to rock first. Most of Metairie and Kenner is living at home with high speed internet (like myself).

Why is it that our Mayor is working on free internet and our Governor is worried about 3 days of not state sales tax? Um… isn't the state pretty much poor right now? I'm sure it could use those sales taxes especially since it's the weekend before Christmas . That'll be a ton of money the state won't ever see, unless Congress is footing the bill, which is retarded. Why not just get Congress to funnel the money to us to fix up the lower portions of the state?

A point that many have made is that it costs the US roughly $69billion a year to occupy Iraq. Congress themselves has said it will cost far mroe than that to successfully rebuild New Orleans. Great! Pull the fuck out of Iraq and rebuild our homeland before we spread (flawed) democracy over there.

If we can't even elect our own President, how do we expect Iraqis to elect one? But I digress…

All's I'm saying is that, pardon my French, "clusterfuck" does not even begin to describe the situation in New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana.

I wish I could point at Nagin and Blanco and say "You and you. Get your shit and go. I think you've done enough.”

It's times like these I wish Schwarzenegger was our Governor. He would've picked up every Congressman up by the collar — at the same time — and said "Rebuild my state, you pussies!" and he would then throw them down on the ground, spit, and walk off. We'd have New Orleans and its levee system rebuilt in 10 months.

Tags: Katrina Liberty Life Pursuit of Happiness Rants 

I have a few topics to cover, but this one struck me as interesting.

The Hummer.

It's an offroad vehicle that 1 in 10 Americans own and that 1 in 10 of those actually need them.

They're gas guzzlers. Hummer states 13 miles per gallon, but real world reports state closer to 10mpg. Now, this sucks for them since gas is almost $3/gallon so it'll cost them at least $70 bucks to fill up.

Herein lies the problem: the reason gas is high is because the demand is outweighing the supply. When the rigs in the Gulf were shut down because of Katrina and Rita, gas shot up because of this.

Now, why are we in Iraq?

No, not to spread democracy, you right-wing asshole. To secure oil for the US. We have soldiers dying in Iraq for oil. Now, it's a war, so dead soldiers will happen, I understand that. What I don't understand is why are you Hummer owners wasting our gas? My '05 Corolla gets 31mpg in the city and 33-36 on the highway. That's 3 times more fuel efficiency than a Hummer. That means that for every three miles I drive, a soldier gets to live!

Explain to me why you can't fit all of your groceries into a sedan? Why do you need a vehicle twice as tall as you and twice as long as my car? I'm sure gas prices mean nothing to a person who can afford a $55,000-$80,000 car, but think of what your're wasting.

I'll bet you recycle your Coke cans, don't you?

Or worse, have one of those yellow ribbon magnets on your Hummer. Way to be a hypocrite.

This website called FUH2 aims to bring awareness of the Hummer's deathly and dumb aspects. They ask people to — now get this mature idea — take pictures of them giving the finger to a Hummer! The funny part is that all these people are like "Stupid gas guzzling bitch!" and "Way to waste our gas, asshole!" in the captions of their pictures — pictures of PARKED Hummers. Hummers that don't have owners in them. What does this do?? How does that do anything?

One guy on this page says "First attempt not so successful…worried someone would see me… Next time will be better." Oooooh! You're hardcore! Worried someone would see you? Isn't that the whole point ?

Why not print up fliers that explain why owning a Hummer makes people in Iraq die or how it wastes our gas and cite the facts and place the fliers on the windshields of the parked Hummers? That seems more effective than giving the bird to an automobile with no one in it.

If you're going to be proactive about a cause, put your weight into it. Don't half-ass it.

Tags: Global Rants 

As you may or may not know, the 21st named storm of 2005, Wilma, is tooling around Cuba right now. Only once before, 1933, have we ever had 21 named storms. In her first 9 hours of being a hurricane, her winds went from 75mph to 100mph. Then, within two hours, the winds went from 110 to 150mph.

You read that right — in less than 12 hours, Wilma went from Category 1 to Category 4.

They expect it to hit Florida. You know, like Katrina.

I tell you what though, I'm psyched about TS/hurricane Alpha. Man, that'll be cool. New record. Oh, wouldn't it be even better if they get up to Gamma? Hurricane Gamma sounds bad ass. They need to replace some of the crapier names with cooler names. Like use Gamma instead of Gert. Or Optimus Prime instead of Otis.

Hurricane Optimus Prime. Bet no one would ignore evac orders for that one.

EDIT! After posting this just 4 short hours ago, Wilma is now a CATEGORY 5 with 175mph winds. It now has the lowest pressure of all 2005 storms. That ties the Labor Day 1935 hurricane. Which, if I'm not mistaken, has/had the lowest pressure in recorded history.

****

Here's an interesting story about David Copperfield and not that God awful Dickens' novel. He plans to impregnate a woman on stage without touching her. That's right. David wants to be God. Either that, or he fucked around on his wife and is trying to explain why her best friend is pregnant.

****

This is one round of Jenga that I want to lose. Man, that guy would be pissed.

Tags: Global 

My dad, uncle, and their mechanic made it into Orleans Parish today via an escort from their NOPD friend Eric. They went to go check on the family BP Station in Lakeview.

The newest pics in my Katrina set in my Flickr photostream show you how it looks inside the station now that the water has receded.

On top of the destruction inside, his pumps are ruined and the three underground fuel tanks are filled to the top with water — 22,000 gallons worth. It'll cost a fortune to pump that out. May even need new tanks. And that's not any cheaper.

All in all, he and my uncle may have lost their 25-year endeavor. I pray that that isn't the case.

Tags: Family Katrina 

A lot of people got affected by Katrina. Some lost some shingles or a tree, some lost their homes or lives.

My sister and brother-in-law went through a lot by riding out the storm in the destroyed Hyatt Hotel downtown and ultimately losing their home to the 17th Street Canal breach.

She's been documenting the whole thing on her blog in a 5 part series.

Here's a link to part one. You can follw the remaining parts from there.

It's a different type of story than you're hearing on the news.

Tags: Family Katrina 

I've posted and sorted all my Katrina pictures on Flickr. I threw in a few that Kevin took as well.

Katrina Photoset

Tags: Apartment Family Friends Global Katrina Liberty Life Pursuit of Happiness 

I moved back into the Cabin last night. Good to sleep in my own bed. Ac wasn't cooling off too well, but after a filter change and letting it run for a while, seems to be working fine.

Around 1:30 this morning, the power randomly went out. I called Entergy and they said they had an outage in the Metairie/Kenner area. So Kev and I jumped in my car and drove around Old Metairie to check things out.

Pitch black. Not one light was light in the whole city. It was crazy.

We went back to the house after seeing a bunch of cop cars and fearing being stopped for being out past curfew. When we got back, we sat on the porch. We're the only people home on our block, and one of about 4 houses on the street. It was dead silent. Nothing. Then we heard a helicopter. It was flying overhead and shining a spotlight down and scanning the area. Kevin grabbed his huge flashlight and shined it at them. They turned the chopper around and shined the light right on me. I jumped into the house after that.

After that, we listend to WWL to hear if anyone called in about the outage. Sure enough, people were calling in. Even Kevin called in, saying he was on Richland off of W. Esplanade and he "was in the shower and all the lights went off." It was awesome. We taped it. A while after that, Entergy calle din and said that they were aware of the outage and that it had affected "a very large area" but they were unsure what caused the blackout and where it originated.

It was back on around 8 this morning. Hopefully that's the last outage for a while. At least it was during the sleeping hours of the night.

We've got a new water heater and a mini-fridge for now. I want to keep the mini-fridge in the living room and them buy a cheapo fridge for the kitchen for food and just put drinks in the living room fridge. That'd be awesome.

I have updated pics of what Old Metairie looks like after the water went down. Expect those tonight on my Flickr account.

Tags: Apartment Katrina Pursuit of Happiness 

I want out.

I want to go back home.

I can't handle this anymore. I'm trapped. I have 6 cable channels, 3 of which air the same thing 75% of the time, all of which air news and Katrina updates, save for the Home Shopping Network. I have dial-up AOL internet. I'm not in my own bed. I'm not in my own home. I want to laugh on the floor while Kevin screams "KURT!" at the top of his lungs at 1am. I want to go to Olive Garden with Calie. I want to sit around my house and drink Coors Light with all my friends. Shit, I even want to go to work now.

And it's not Morgan City or Mark's family. Everything has been above and beyond what family is expected to do for family. It's just not my routine. It's not my normal day.

It's not home.

It'll be 2-3 weeks before Jefferson Parish is open again. And it'll be nearly another week before our house is liveable, what with no AC unit, washer/dryer, or fridge. Not to mention cleaning the toxic sludge off the house and out of the shed. I'll have to live in my parents' house for a shirt while. I won't be able to go to work for like 3 weeks from now.

Which equals poverty.

Guess FEMA won't touch me then. Zing!

It's also hard because of all the uncertainty. When can my dad check on his business or more importantly, when can he open? Will he ever be able to open up again? Will he have to drain 22,000 gallons of water out of the underground tanks at roughly $5/gallon? When can my sister and Mark check on their home? How bad is it? What can be saved? Will they have to move? When will my mom get her job back? How long will she have it? How long will I keep my job?

To break the monotenany, I'm heading down to Harhan (that's right – in the closed parish of Jefferson) to live with Calie for 3 or 4 days. Her dad, being a lieutenant, is going to escort me into the parish so that I can stay with them for a couple of days. This will be the first time I've seen Calie in over two weeks.

Keith stayed behind and has been hanging out with Calie since the two are like the only ones left in Harahan. Caroline is coming in on Tuesday. Hopefully the four of us can hang.

Breaux Mart and a few gas stations are open in Harahan. Maybe we can hang out there. Caro, if you're reading this, meet us by the cereal.

Tags: Apartment Family Friends Global Katrina Liberty Life Pursuit of Happiness Relationships Work 

Pat Robertson Blames Katrina on Ellen

How awesome is that article? I mean, first, Robertson says we should assassinate the Venezuelan President, and now he says Katrina hit Ellen's hometown of New Orleans because she's hosting the Emmy's. He also comments how the last time she hosted the Emmy's, in 2001, terrorists crashed planes into the towers in NY.

He also goes on to say that Ellen is to blame for the poor results of the Iraq War. A damned genius if you ask me.

I mean, clearly a lesbian has control over the universe. She's probably going to cause a space shuttle to explode next.

I tell you what though. The 700 Club is going to have some killer ratings now. I mean, when was the last time anyone did an article about that show?

Did Robertson ever stop to think the US got hit with Katrina because of his bad-mouthing of the Venezeuelan President?

Tags: Global Katrina 

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina we have many questions. One major question is simply “Why?” Why us? Why did this happen to the fine people of New Orleans, Louisiana? No one will ever know. That’s why it’s called a natural disaster. Sure, we could go into the science of hurricanes and how they redistribute heat evenly across the globe, but what my family and my fellow New Orleanians (and Mississippians and Alabamians) want to know is why it happened to them.

Unfortunately, that’s a question that can only be answered by the Almighty, whomever you feel that is (or isn’t).

The second question we want answered is “Why did it happen to this extent?” I’d be happy to offer up facts and hypotheses that I’ve come up with to try and explain the situation to myself.

My family, my self, and my friends have all been impacted by this storm. While my parents’ home suffered little to no damage, my father’s business suffered a submersion of roughly six feet. My home suffered little damage as it is approximately four feet above the ground, leaving the high waters in my neighborhood just below my porch. And while that isn’t so bad, I’ll be without a job for several weeks, perhaps even months.

But perhaps the worst victims are my sister and my brother-in-law. The two wedded nearly three years ago and have struggle financially since the two said “I do.” My father found them a nice little double in Lakeview, just past the Jefferson/Orleans Parish line. And while things weren’t unbearable, they were tough for the new couple. But they made the best of it. Sadly, their home was about six blocks from where the levee was breached at the 17th St. Canal. Their home was completely submerged in the dark, black, murky water that was a mixture of Lake Pontchartrain, rain, the Mississippi River, sewage, gasoline, oil, and Lord knows what else. They lost everything. Her car. Their photos. Books. CDs. Furniture. Appliances. Even the wooden chest Mark’s uncle made with his bare hands as a wedding gift for them.

They aren’t the only ones, though. So many thousands of homeowners and renters lost so many irreplaceable items. My roommate, Kevin, will never see his childhood home in the same condition he left it as the water in his parents’ neighborhood was up to the floor of the second floor of their home. My friend Greg lives in Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish, a parish that consists of 122,000 homes and had 90,000 completely flooded. My aunt Maureen and uncle Lance’s home in Gentilly has about 6 feet of water in it.

And while it’s great that we are all alive and have something or someone to live for in the end, so many more do not. The estimated death toll is around 10,000, and that’s before they’ve even started counting. In addition, several suicides have been reported. One man jumped to his death inside the Superdome which was housing 25,000 people. Two New Orleans police officers shot themselves in the head, one of which my father knew on a first-name-basis. So many of the people that didn’t make it out of the city even after the mandatory evacuation was ordered were poor and either didn’t have vehicles to travel out of the city, or didn’t have the money to stay in a hotel.
One sidebar to this tragedy is the national media’s deplorable coverage of this disaster. CNN and Fox News showed flooded homes and stranded citizens on rooftops around the clock. CNN and Fox News constantly commented on how they never saw the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, or the chief of the NOPD, Eddie Compass. CNN and Fox News repeatedly commented on how the people stranded in the Convention Center and Superdome we not being helped. How the evacuations weren’t being done well. But when I finally made it back to Louisiana from my “vacation” to Pensacola, Florida and Auburn, Alabama and could watch local stations, the view changed.

Where was Ray Nagin? Where was Eddie Compass? Why weren’t they doing press conferences every hour like the other Louisiana big wigs like Governor Blanco or Senators Landrieu and Vitter? Mayor Nagin was at the Convention Center wiping the faces of the elderly. He was yelling and screaming, asking where the National Guard and FEMA were. He was in rescue boats pulling bodies from the water and throwing an ax through roofs to reach the trapped living. Chief Compass was on the streets as a street cop firing his gun at would-be looters. He was coordinating rescue efforts because he realized that federal help was not on its way.

CNN and Fox News repeatedly played the race card, along with (convicted) Cleo Fields and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, asking why all the people left behind in these horrible conditions were black. They were saying that if these were white people, they’d be in 5-star hotels. Here’s a fun fact: 68% of New Orleans’ population is black. Any sophomore high school student can tell you that it’s not a case of racism, but of simple probability. Fill up a bag with 68 black marbles,10 yellow marbles, 10 brown marbles, and 12 white marbles and dump them on a table near the edge. Probability will tell you that the majority of marbles that didn’t fall to the floor would be black. This is not a case of Bush hating black people, as rapper Kanye West so eloquently put. It’s not a case of local government hating black people, as our Mayor and police chief are both black. If this disaster had happened in Kansas or Montana, the majority of poor people left behind would be white.

The federal government, particularly the W. Bush administration, has always done a poor job of giving two shits about the citizens of this nation, namely the middle class and poor citizens. The federal government is far too busy helping big business and the top 1% to cut the rest of us into groups of white, black, Hispanic, or Asian. If we don’t own a corporation, have more than $1 million in the bank, or aren’t attacked by terrorists, then we aren’t a top priority.

Let’s look at past events. Oklahoma City Bombing: federal aid immediately due to terrorism. September 11th: federal aid immediately due to terrorism, especially to federal buildings. The four hurricanes that hit Florida last year: federal aid immediately due to Jeb Bush being the governor. If this hurricane had hit Texas, you’d be damn sure that Bush would have taken Air Force One down there immediately and given some speech filled with rhetoric about how he wants to rebuild his home state.

I firmly believe that I know why Bush suddenly sent in federal aid. In 2004, Bush cut the Army Corps of Engineers of Louisiana’s budget by 21%, which translates roughly into $71.2 million. This budget cut directly affected the Southern Louisiana Urban Canal Reconstruction project that would turn Louisiana’s Category 3 hurricane protection levees into Category 5 hurricane protection levees. The reason my sister is homeless is because the 17th Street Canal breeched. The reason my friend Greg is homeless is because the Industrial Canal’s levee breeched. All because a Category 4 hurricane directly hit southeastern Louisiana.

Now, would the levees still have overflowed? More than likely, but once the storm surge passed, the water wouldn’t (and didn’t) rise any higher. Once the levees actually broke, water continually poured into the city.

And while it could be argued that this tragedy would have occurred regardless of the amount of funding the Army Corps of Engineers had, why was there no plan in place? I am 21 years old – a child when compared to the ages of the men and women who run this state, country, and various agencies tackling this problem. Why is it that when I heard of the 17th Street Canal breaching on Tuesday, I suggested to my father that they first seal off the mouth of the canal leading into Lake Pontchartrain to stop any additional rising of the tide from pushing more water into the city through the broken levee. They did not begin that project until Thursday. Maybe I should work for the Army Corps of Engineers. Maybe my sister’s house would have only 4 feet of water instead of 8 feet. Maybe my father’s business would only have 3 feet instead of 6 feet of water in it.

On Tuesday CNN and Fox News asked the Army Corps of Engineers this question: “Why only Category 3?” referring to the level of protection that the levees provided. Their response? “That’s all we were authorized to do.” Which I can clearly point out was due to the lack of funding, be it from Bush’s budget cuts, or cuts from previous Presidents.

The second thing that caused the death toll to reach what is believed to be in the 10,000’s is all of the political bullshit, for lack of a better phrase. Every hour since the storm hit Monday morning, I have seen press conference after press conference about minor, trivial triumphs. I have seen press conference after press conference where reporters ask officials questions and all they do is thank each other. Senator Landrieu was the one official I wanted to personally slap for avoiding every question asked of her by reporters and answering with “First of all, [reporter’s name], I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to the people of Louisiana. Most of all, I’d like to thank President Bush for all he’s done and Governor Blanco for her resilience and hard work in this crisis. We will work through this and we will prevail and we will rebuild New Orleans to the great city it once was.” This seemed to be her answer to nearly EVERY question asked of her. CNN’s Anderson from 360 called Landrieu on this during one of his interviews with her saying he’s tired of seeing politicians being politicians and just thanking each other. He wanted answers about why people were dying in her home state. She talked in circles for a while, not actually answering his question. I’m happy to report that I haven’t seen Landrieu at any press conferences since.

Mayor Ray Nagin had similar feelings. While talking to Garland Robinette on WWL 870AM, he said, and I am paraphrasing here, “I’m so sick of seeing press conferences. I’m sick of hearing about ‘red-tape’ and forms needing to be filled out. I have thousands of my citizens floating dead in the streets of my city. Thousands more are jobless. Thousands more are homeless. We gave $8 billion to fund the Iraq war lickity-split. We gave the President unprecedented power after 9/11, lickity-split. You mean to tell me that a city that handles almost all the world’s oil, a city that when you mention ‘New Orleans’ to anyone in the world, their eyes light up, can’t get some food and water delivered to it?”

And he’s right. Where was FEMA Tuesday? Where was FEMA Wednesday? Where was the food that it didn’t show up until Friday? Why is it that the poorest city in the country, in Kentucky, can fill three 53-foot trucks and a van with food, water, diapers, and supplies and get it to the West Bank within two days of starting their food drive and the federal government of the richest nation in the world couldn’t get food and water to the Convention Center or the Superdome?

Reporters and politicians alike are saying that this is no time to point blame. That we need to save the living and feed the hungry displaced citizens and start rebuilding before we point fingers. Well, I’m in a house with air conditioning, food, water, a toilet, and dry clothes, so I feel I have some spare moments to point fingers.

I blame the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, for not requesting federal aid sooner. I blame her for sending Bush a letter requesting help boosting the economy of New Orleans when there were still 1000+ people standing on I-10 under the Causeway overpass and not worrying about saving them before saving her precious economy.

I blame Senator Mary Landrieu for not speaking her mind. In the report I read about Bush cutting funding to the Army Corps of Engineers, she commented how much this would hurt Louisiana. When asked about the funding, she said she felt all that could be done, was done.

I blame FEMA for not listening to local government better. When heads of cities and parishes are giving exact locations (like addresses or intersections) of people trapped in homes or buildings and FEMA and those heading rescue missions couldn’t save them, especially an entire nursing home in St. Bernard where 30 elderly people drowned to death, including the mother of the head of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, I have to ask why.

I blame President Bush for not increasing the funding for the Army Corps of Engineers so that they may build a safer levee system. I blame him for having to take two aerial rides through the devastation before any real work was done.

Maybe it’s easier to point blame from an air-conditioned home when I wasn’t trapped on a roof, or pulling bodies out of the putrid water. Maybe I’m just an upper-middle class kid using his computer to sound like a bad ass. Maybe I should pat some backs instead of point fingers.

I applaud New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin for living in the same conditions as his citizens and for doing all he could to get federal aid.

I applaud Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard for speaking his mind and essentially getting Jefferson Parish under control before any other parish.

I applaud Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee for his organization skills and his no-bullshit attitude towards making his town a safe place.

I applaud the men and women of the Army National Guard, NOPD, JPSO, LAPD, NYPD, the Canadian Mounties, and all other military and law enforcement personnel that came down to help restore order in our affected areas.

I applaud the men and women of the Army, Coast Guard, and all the volunteers who helped rescue my fellow New Orleanians from their homes.

I applaud Wal-Mart, Chevron, Disney, and every business, city, and individual that made a financial or otherwise contribution to the efforts to save and later rebuild my beloved city.

But mostly, I applaud every New Orleanian (and that includes, Metairie, Kenner, St. Bernard, Northshore, Plaquimines, and anywhere else that suffered from this hurricane, including those in Alabama and Mississippi — you’re honorary New Orleanians in my book) that rode out Hurricane Katrina and lived with out water or food or modern conveniences for days on end in 95degree heat.

Tags: Apartment Family Friends Global Katrina Liberty Life Work 

As per Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard's promise, my mom, my dad, my sister, and I went back into Metairie to take a look at our homes and see what damage was done.

We first went to my parents' house in the Elmwood Park subdivision in Metairie, just outside Kenner. The first thing we saw was a huge uprooted tree across from my parents' house.
Tree 1
Tree 2

The fence in their backyard was damaged.
Fence

My mom's car got about 3 inches of water in it. Thankfully, it runs fine.
Camry

The tree in their yard started to uproot as we could tell by the sidewalk buckling and holes appearing in the lawn.
Sidewalk

Some water came in from the back door and from the chimney. As a result, we had mold all over the floors. They'll need to be replaced.
Mold

After we did some cleaning of the refridgerators (which was disgusting. I almost threw up a few times) We went down W. Esplanade to go to my house in Old Metairie. Here's a couple of shots of the buildings on the way.
Damage 1
Damage 2

Bonnable was dry as could be, including St. Catherine. Here's a tree that fell right at the entrance to Glenwood.
Glenwood & Metairie Rd. 1
Glenwood & Metairie Rd. 2

I donned my waders and started my trek down to the house. I got about as far as the Glenwood Dam seen below and then stopped.
Glenwood Dam

I miraculously ran into my mom's cousin Timmy and he happened to have 2 pirogues and a kayak. He let me use the kayak to paddle down Glenwood to check on the house. This is how the house looks.
The Cabin
Alex's Truck
Kurt's Car
Kurt's Car with Gate on It
Our New Backyard Pool
Angel's Waterfront Property
Damaged Shed door
Side yard. Lights still hanging!

Here's a shot from the porch looking up Glenwood toward Metairie Road.
Bayou Glenwood 1

A shot from the porch looking at the 1.4 million dollar house that now has 1.4 feet of water in it.
If only water was currency…

This is on my way back to the car. Glenwood looks like a bayou.
Bayou Glenwood 2

This is the vacant lot down the street from us.
Vacant lot with a boat

The water was black. It doesn't look it in this shot, but you can see how opaque the water is. You can even see the shimmer from all the oil in the water.
Opaque Water

This is a tree that fell and missed two houses on the corner of Crestmont and Glenwood.
Fallen trees on the best street ever

Here's another angle of the Glenwood Dam. You can see how it really does act as a dam and keeps the water on the southside.
Glenwood Dam 2

This is between Crestmont and Metairie Road. The water is noticeably shallower.
Glenwood Wading Pool

After we left the house (which was in great shape. No water has gotten into the house and no windows were broken. The ACs are gone. Washers and driers are gone. But other than that, we're OK), we headed down Airline Dr. Here you can see some MPs directing traffic.
MP's

Here's a billboard on Airline that got bent in half. We saw a bunch of these around town. The steel girders were bent like someone bent a spoon.
Bent billboard

Enterprise Rent-a-Car on Airline.
Enterprise

Here are some military guys on the I-310. We saw these guys everywhere. Even driving down my parents neighborhood, which was creepy.
Military on 310

So, all in all, nothing horrible. Alex's truck has water up to the seat cushions. The gates have fallen on Kurt's and Alex's cars. The water is quite low near Crestmont. I was pushing my kayak by pushing the oar against the pavement around Crestmont, but as I got closer to the house, I had to actually start rowing in the street. I wish I had had a bigger vessel as I wanted to snag some more clothes, but, that water was disgusting. My parents' house actually had electricity and the water was trickling when we got there, but was flowing by the time we left. I have to say, that aside from the many disgusting, putrid scents I smelled today, we fared quite well. But the wind damage throughout Metairie and Kenner was amazing. The sad part is, that's the best part of the metro area in terms of damage.


Tags: Apartment Family Friends Global Katrina 

Here's my recent posts on MySpace, syndicated here:

August 31
I'm on dial-up via a free AOL disc from Wal-Mart.

We're in Auburn, probably till Friday when we'll trek to Morgan City to meet up with Mae and Mark.

I don't know if I have a job anymore. The Edgwater Mall in Biloxi is nonexistent. We had a store there. Slidell is very much under water. We had a store there. Clearview has 5 feet in it. STore there. Calie told me Esplanade mall's first floor is completely submerged… we have astore on the second floor.

I spoke with the owner via e-mail. He sounded optimistic about the business.

I hadn't talked to Calie since 9:30pm Sunday and talked to her finally around 11pm tonight (Tuesday). She's in St. Francisville, but with no power. She's in Angola right now ebcause her aunt's second in command there and is running the prison while Warden Caine is helping in new orleans. They're moving all prisoners from affected areas to Angola.

Calie's dad is a Lieutenent with the JPSO. He was in the Landmark with their dog. They haven't talked to him since noon. Harry Lee told his men that they had no more food available to them. He told them to start looting Whole Foods. He can't leave and may not ever get to leave.

I heard some VERY disturbing news about the 17th St. Canal breach and the neighborhood there through Calie, but I don't want to alarm anyone, so I'll wait for the news to spill it.

Calie's Aunt's boyfriend Fred lives in Eden Isles in Slidell. His backyard is Lake Pontchartrain on a normal day. No one can get in touch with him.

Since Calie's dad is in the know about everything going on, I should have some good updates, though she can't get in touch with him. He did go back to their house in Harahan (by the S-Turn near Colonial Bowling Alley and Droopy's) and their house was not damaged at all. I asked her to ask him about my parents' neighborhood near Power and W Esplanade and about Old Metairie. Hopefully he can give us some insight tomorrow.


September 1
I just talked to Calie for a while untill we lost the connection. Her dad is sick. Mentally and Physically. JP cops are quitting and bailing out. He said Jefferson is escalating to the point that Orleans is at with looting and restlessness. Gun shots are being fired out there. They're bringing all those people from Orleans to the Causeway and I10 intersection. These people are flipping out. These people are animals. They're halting rescue efforts because rescuers and officers are fearing for their lives.

He's working at Causeway and I10, but he's stationed on Metairie Road, which means more officers are on Metairie Road, so hopefully looting won't be horrible over there. The problem is that we're getting people from the Hollygrove coming to Old Metairie.

Her dad says he doesn't even want to live in this city any more. The whole geography has changed, he said. It isn't home anymore.

So my question is, when we're allowed to go back, how many of us are gonna salvage what we can and never come back?

I loved this city, but now, it's charm and culture is dead. I could very easily start over somewhere else.

September1
Talked to Calie again. Her dad seems to be feeling better. He has two cop cars at his house so when he isnt home, ones there.

He also said someone named Kevin rode his bike to Calie's house, asked about Mae and Mark, said he rode past my house and saw it was okay. He asked if Calie was home. Her dad gave him a gatorade. I have no idea who this was, but all I can think is that it might've been Keith, since he lives close to Calie and stayed behind. I'm thinking it was Keith and her dad, with all the stress, just remembered it as Kevin.

He said it's so hard out there. Lost pets are wandering up and down the interstate. She asked him why they don't just shoot everyone with guns. He said, you don't know who has a gun and who doesn't. If you shoot a guy with a gun, 5 people behind you might have one and you're usually standing alone.

JPSO is stationed, made home base, on Metairie Road. Looting is still rampant regardless. Harahan is completely sealed off. Looters were coming over the river levees. They have an entire force along the levee and at all entrances to the city.

Her aunt and cousin stayed behind because her aunt is a nurse at a hospital (forget which one). Her 16yo cousin was essentially put on staff there, helping with the patients that were left. Many are dying in her arms. They're euthanising the pets of the staff there because they can't take them on the helicopters. The helicopters are pulling patients out 2 at a time and leave for 2-3 hours before returning for more.

Calie also told me that nearly every city in the state is in trouble. Officers are moving south to help out NOPD and JPSO. People on the roads are being carjacked for their cars, and not just near New Orleans. Near Baton Rouge. Traffic is gridlocked near Baton Rouge and people stuck in traffic are being mugged.

She recommended that my family and I drive AROUND Louisiana to get to Morgan City. Go through Arkansas and Texas. Go as far north as possible and come back down. That's what I want to do, but STM doesn't want to drive that far.

I want to make it there safely. She asked if my dad had a gun. When I told her no, she suggested we change that. We're leaving around 8am. Everyone, please pray or whatever it is you do for us while we're travelling tomorrow.

September 2
Mark's family mapped us out a route that makes things easy and safe… we're gonna be west of lafayette, so we'll be FAR away from BR and NO.

Also, everyone, wherever you are, try and buy water and food and whatnot now. That way when we finally get to go home, you'll have some supplies. We bought some sub $10 canvas shoes from Wal-Mart in case we need to walk in flood waters. We bought rubber gloves for the clean up and salvaging trip. My dad's trying to locate a generator for when we go back for good.

So stock up away from home since nothing will be available when we go home.

And I've changed my tune.

I'm sticking with N.O.

Also, if you're pissed like STM and I about not seeing Nagin on TV, blame the national media. My uncle Dave is home in Covington (no power, but Phone and now real damage… the Sav-A-Center there opened at noon today) and he said on WWL that Nagin is at the convention Center with the citizens cursing and being pissed and yelling with them. He's just as angry as the poeple. The thing is, CNN and Fox are using the "these people are helpless and no one is telling them what to do" angle to make NO government look like they don't care. It also helps out with playing the race card too.

Ah well, that's the media.


Anyways, found a picture of my mom and dad's 'hood. dry. now, anyways. pools have dark water, so they had lake in them at one point. the water has all receded. the tree across the street from them was uprooted.

September 3
Parts of Kenner have power. Most of Jeff has water now. This is from Aaron Broussard.

We're safe.

The local AOL number here won't work because of the phones. I'm on the 800 number but that costs 10 cents a minute, so I wont be on much.

September 4
You get in Jefferson parish with ID between 6am and 6pm monday. Then 6am and 6pm Tuesday. Then 6am and 6pm Wednesday. Only during those times. There is a strict curfew in place in JP. After wednesday, NO ONE will be allowed in. Starting Thursday, Entergy and other utility trucks from other states will be coming in to restore power to ALL of JP, which they said could be done faster with no cars on the road. So, to honor that, Aaron Broussard said NO ONE will be allowed in or out of the parish after 6pm wednesday, with ID or Not.

I talked to calie tonight. Her dad got a day off and he went to St. Francisville to see everyone. He said the water in the city is black. Not clear. Not blue. Not brown. Black. The entire city smells of dead bodies.

He said there's talk of firing NOPD chief Compass because he's doing such a crappy job. He also said Nagin was caught at an exit trying to bail out. His car was packed with clothes and other stuff. He didn't tell anyone he was leaving. The NOPD spokesman, Paul Ar-something or other went to his house to check on his family. He found his wife and daughter dead, drowned. He went to his car and shot himself.

Her dad said that Nagin and these senators are saying that the cities aren't that bad. That the cases of violence and looting are isolated. He said it was bullshit. It's worse than you can imagine. His exact words: "All the time I was in the marines, I never faught a war. I imagine this is what it's like.”

I'm sure you've heard of all the arson? The Oakwood Mall, Sack's 5th. He said a large mob was coming for Lakeside Mall to burn it down and loot it. Harry Lee called for 2 SWAT teams to get on the roof of the mall. His quote: "This shit ain't happening in MY town!" The mall is still standing tonight.

He said that all the problems in JP are under control as of tonight, once the troops came in. They have LAPD, NYPD, Texas police, National Guard, and the Army (although the Army can't police anyone). This cannot be said for Orleans.

Goes to show you how much better Lee is than Compass. Lee's totally a Cajun Cowboy.

I imagine the parts of JP that have water and power are near hospitals as that's their priorites.

Calie's aunt is second in command at Angola prison (you wouldn't know it by looking at her!) She's in charge of the prison right now since Warden Caine is in NO helping out. She said every prison in NO, JP, and St, Benard is in Angola, male and female. She said it's a shame because some people charge with misdemeanors are now in Angola. DWI's, simple assault, because they were there the night before, but the system is down and they don't know who's in for what, so they can't let anyone out.

JP cops have full access to Sam's in Kenner. They have the doors guarded with armed guards. Only officers can get in for supplies and food. They're taking a tally of what they take so they can cut a check to Sam's. They want all the recuers in JP to healthy and fed and well rested so that they can rescue and fight to their fullest extent.

Is Orleans Parish doing anything like this? No. It's totally chaos in that city. Glad to see the Parish President and Sheriff on TV and the radio talking to us, at least in JP.


Tags: Family Friends Global Katrina Liberty Life 

New Orleans and Metairie are under seige. People have armed themselves and are shooting at officers and military. They're shooting at helicopters trying to rescue people. Rescue attempts have been halted because of these assholes. People rescued from Orleans Parish being brought to Jefferson Parish on I-10 under the Causeway overpass. These people are just as violent. Looting is rampant in both parishes. Violence too. JP cops are quitting and leaving because they fear for their lives. These are men that see death and violence every day. Some of them have faught wars. Not even they feel safe. Reminds me of the underground city in that Sylvester Stalone movie Demolition Man where Dennis Leary lived.

While National Guard is on its way, why did it take so long? Why is federal help just now arriving? Why haven't we seen any New Orleans officials on the news? I've seen Jefferson Parish officials. I've seen Federal officials. Where's the police chief? Where's Nagin? Oh, and don't get me started on Nagin. Why did he wait untill yesterday to declare martial law?

Our government is doing nothing. "Zero tolerance?" Hey, good idea Bush. Maybe they should actually enforce that.

Glad to see what great people inhabbit our city.

Tags: Global Katrina Rants 

Check out this article . Mr. Bush who seems to be so sympathetic for everything and is sending us help and whatnot and I'm tahnkful for that. But the asshole cut the Army Corps of Engineers funding by $71.2million in 2004 which would have benefitted New Orleans' levee system to support a Category 5 hurricane.

Here he is acting like Mr. Humanitarian and he's the reason our city is 80% under water. We might only have 30-50% under water or maybe only 2-3 feet and not 6-20 feet of water.

I'm thankful to be alive, don't get me wrong, but God! It's HIS fault! Here we are losing everything we own and in some cases, our lives, and Tuesday he gives a speech about how we need to stay in Iraq. Oh, and thank God he cut his summer vacation short to help us out. I couldn't take a summer vacation, Mr. Bush. I couldn't take a vacation because I couldn't afford to not get paid for 2 weeks.

There is an economic ripple effect, too. The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.

[…]

One of the hardest-hit areas of the New Orleans district's budget is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes. SELA's budget is being drained from $36.5 million awarded in 2005 to $10.4 million suggested for 2006 by the House of Representatives and the president.

[…]

The district has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. Those projects are included in a Corps line item called Lake Pontchartrain, where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. Naomi said it's enough to pay salaries but little else.

Thanks, Mr. Bush.

Tags: Katrina Rants 

This is my city. The city I just recently fell in love with. It's now gone.

Possibly 10 feet of water at my parents' house. Probably 5+ feet at my house. My sisters' house? Completely submerged. My fathers' business is probably gone as well. Everything my family has worked for is gone.

But you know, it's just stuff. It's hard to really put that thought into your head, but when you realize how lucky I am to be alive and how lucky I am that all my family is okay and the friends I could reach (cells and landlines are down) are safe, I'm happy. I might need new clothes. New furniture. New stuff.

Maybe even a new city after this.

That's the thing: we can go back home on Monday basically just to see what's up and take whatever is salvageable and not looted yet and then leave again — for a minimum of a month.

I've been keeping a video diary of my travels and my thoughts. I may transcribe some of it into text as a full feature on frobba.

I ask all those outside of the affected areas to do what they can to help us. Donate money to the Red Cross. Donate blood. Please, there are millions of people whom are now homeless and/or losing health. We need your help.

This is the most catastrophic natural disaster that our country has ever seen. What's hard is that all we know is what you know — what's on CNN and Fox News. We have no idea what our homes actually look like. We can only speculate based on images of neighborhoods nearby.

I'm not a religious guy really, but I ask anyone who may stumble across this page by searching for New Orleans or Hurricane Katrina to pray or whatever it is you do for us. There's looting, violence, flooding, fires, and leaking natural gas. I can only imagine what I'll see when I go home Monday. I'm hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

Also, if anyone I know is looking for me, e-mail me at waterandsolutions@cox.net and I'll get you the number to my hotel. I'm in Auburn, Alabama till Friday. I'll be in Morgan City Friday to Monday, hopefully, with Aimée and Mark and Mark's family.

Please pray for us.

Tags: Family Global Katrina Liberty Life 

So, this Katrina chick might be coming right to New Orleans. I may or may not remain in town. I'll probably stay, but either way, I know I'm losing power at my house as it goes out if we sneeze too hard, so I might be unavailable via the normal means (frobba.com, aim, warcraft) so as usual, tag my cell phone if necessary. I should answer it, unless I go too far from my coverage area.

Damn cell phones.

Tags: Global Katrina Life