Tag: New Orleans

Over at the NOLA blog Gentilly Girl, Morwen has a very disturbing story about an “idea” put forth by State Representative John LaBruzzo.

I didn’t watch Bush’s speech.  I can’t abide looking at or listening to him.

But from what I’ve read on the blogs, he is maintaining the Republican talking point of blaming this economic problem on homeowners, citizens, everyone but the big business monopolies who created this situation.

The old saying is that the fish rots from the head down.

So now we have a Representative from Jefferson Parish suggesting poor folks be sterilized.  That the solution to poverty is to just get rid of those pesky poor people.

According to Raw Story:

State Representative John LaBruzzo of Metairie said many of his constituents are tired of paying for children from poor families and that is why he is considering proposing legislation that would pay women on government assistance $1,000 if they choose to be sterilized.

“You have these people who are just fed up with working their buns off to try to provide for their own family and being forced by the government o provide for others’ families who just want to have unlimited kids,” he said.

LaBruzzo said he is studying voluntary sterilization for women whose sole financial support comes from the government in the form of welfare or other public assistance. His idea would be to give the women $1,000 if they had their tubes tied.

His proposal has come under harsh criticism by some civil rights groups.

The ACLU called it a misguided and mean-spirited attempt to eliminate poverty by eliminating the poor.

This is eugenics, of course.  Like … hmm … oh yeah, the Nazis did.  Because LaBruzzo finds the beauty part of this plan in the fact that once we get rid of all those undesirables, the “right” kind of people can repopulate the difference, huzzah!

I wish I could say that Hurricane Gustav refocused more national attention on Louisiana’s issues including vanishing barrier reefs and wetlands as well as the following, which I learned about this morning from a fellow Kossack living in the NOLA area who had evacuated when Gustav was on the way. Maybe it did–for only a few minutes.

For to put it bluntly, even in the New Orleans area even though the MSM gave out of state observers the impression that the area had escaped unscathed or was only lightly damaged, residents still have a major mess to contend with–and FEMA still doesn’t seem to have learned from Katrina and the flood. More below the fold…..

and its survivors across the wide swath of Louisiana which has been tortured by the devastation he left behind. Saying in last night’s speech that she stands behind our fellow citizens in the area would only have been right–especially were she to have called upon other Americans to donate to the Red Cross as has Obama. (Link below the fold).

Now for the “meat”–following is a poem I’ve written to commemorate the third anniversary of Katrina and the federal flood. It is in the voice of the mother of 8-year-old and 9-year-old boys who have a disabled grandmother. While it is fiction, it’s based on things people actually went through during Katrina and flood and in the aftermath.

As duplicative, repetitive diaries keep being posted about Sarah Palin on other blogs, the agonizing aftermath of Gustav in Louisiana is being ignored, if it hasn’t been forgotten already.

Don’t get me wrong–but there’s plenty of time to go into Palin’s issues between now and the election (though as Obama has said, we shouldn’t go into Bristol’s pregnancy because that’s a family problem of the Palins.) And those having to do with her work as a leader are important. But we should not lose sight of what’s going on in Louisiana as we focus on them. Because the disaster and anguish continue in Gustav’s aftermath.

The bloggers I am about to quote — and there are so many more in this group equally as good — have emerged as sort of a blogging coalition since Katrina hit.  They have, working together (even when they violently disagree with each other), gotten the real story out on what’s been going on in New Orleans, from housing to the recovery to the colorful politics that they are working hard to change from within and without.  I believe they are an excellent example of citizen journalists and activists.

From Adrastos, the first NOLA blog I ever read, his post The Tiers of A Clown, on Mayor Nagin’s “return” plan:

There’s rampant confusion about re-entry. Nagin has been nattering on and on (it’s the only thing he does well) about a four tiered scheme. LINK. Supposedly, some sort of placard exists that would help people re-enter. Unfortunately, C Ray and his inept minions neglected to tell us how to obtain said placards either before Gustav or subsequently. As a business owner, I should in theory be in the third tier and be able to return tomorrow. BUT all I have is my occupational license. And I don’t feel like waving that at some burly guardsman with an automatic weapon. I suppose the info about the re-entry placards is another state secret like C Ray’s schedule.

We’re used to incompetent and high-handed government in New Orleans. Most of the time, it doesn’t effect our daily lives but right now it does. Our city is “led” by a fool who couldn’t find a bathroom without a GPS and we’re supposed to believe that he knows what’s best for ordinary citizens. This is the same mook who screwed the pooch in 2005 and has given us the glories of the Jack-o-Lantern recovery. And we’re now supposed to trust in C Ray and in a Governor who is out to make himself look good to aid and abet his ambition.

While we’re waiting, these folks are waiting too, but many of them far from home.

So here’s the refugee edition.

Humid Haney Rant has a wild series of iPhotos taken while on the road, going towards Alabama.

Loki had a rough time evacuating but finally posts over at Humid City:

We are in MccComb, MS with friends (The Admiral is an excellent host!). More audio from the road tomorrow when we head up to Ohio.

Cats are much better.

Stay tuned.

Loki, Refugee Founder of HumidCity

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

Hurricanes aren’t the only things that spiral out of control.  Rethuglican politics spiral too.  They go round and round and round, reprising their greatest hits, trying to revise and rewrite and edit out their greatest failures.  Trying to help you forget.

Who doesn’t remember this as Katrina was destroying New Orleans:

Just a few quick links from the NOLA blogs.  Nice thing about these blogs is if you visit one, you end up linking to all the others, and they are all worth reading.

Oyster at Your Right Hand Thief:

I’ve been enjoying the professionalism of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s hurricane preparation updates during the past few days. He’s not afraid to lay a lot of detailed information on his audience. Yesterday he went on for about 10 minutes straight, in granular detail, citing all the numbers of buses, people, and provisions that are coming into New Orleans to help with evacuation and post-storm relief. Afterwards, he described the laundry list of statistical information as a brief “survey” of what is being done. His directness and command of the details was the key thing, throuout. He didn’t seem overwhelmed. He stayed on target. He instilled confidence.

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

It looks like Hurricane Gustav (it’s now a hurricane and not a tropical storm) is headed directly for New Orleans.  Weatherunderground gives us computer modeling that is not at all comforting:

Notice the uniformity of all of the computer models.  Notice that the computers bring Gustav extremely close to New Orleans as a category 3 hurricane.

Join me in the City that Care Forgot.

Cross posted from The Dream Antilles

Its name is Gustav.  And nobody is entirely sure where it’s going.  But the 5 day forecast map from Weatherunderground.com makes an alarming prediction:

And that prediction is that this storm could grow in intensity and travel to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Join me in the City that Care Forgot.