Tag: New Orleans

This past Mardi Gras season found us with some city mooks that were actually trying to get sponsors to pony-up monies in order to hold the parades of Carnival. Here is my answer to these poops, my diatribe, my damned rant.

Crossposted from GentillyGirl.com

It seems that our “wonderful” invisible Mayor was trying to sell out OUR traditions to the Corporate Pigs.

Mr. Nagin, OUR city’s gov’ment ain’t no freakin’ company: it belongs to the citizens. You are not a fucking CEO, you are OUR servant. Same holds true for anyone who works for OUR city gov’ment. You work for US.

The Social Contract states that we help each other, that we care for each other, and that we arrive at a common scheme of governance. Those who are part of that governance structure obey US. Get that one you jerks?

Not one of you fuckers have the right to sell our culture, our souls, our lives to the highest bidder. We will not allow any company’s “Brand” on us. We are not serfs.  And you and those misfits you have placed in City Hall are not overlords. (Remember the term “Civil Servants”?)

There will be no “Muses, sponsored by Monsanto” or “Proteus by Phillips”. Or “Comus provided by Chevrolet”.

Here is another look back at the first few months post-Federal Flood here in New Orleans. At the time Betts and I were in SoCal, and the only way for me to “be with” Gentilly was to use an e-list.

This letter started a movement to build a community association, and ultimately it did. (Just not exactly my version of the dream.)

I’m going back and looking at the last few years, and like many others here, I’m bringing back past posts because they are still relevant.

This is from July of ’06:

This song has been driving me crazy all night… won’t go away:

GentillyGirl

LAND OF CONFUSION- Genesis 1977

This is the world we live in

And these are the names we’re given

Stand up and let’s start showing

Just where our lives are going to.”

If you want to donate to the tornado survivors in Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, a better bet would be to make your donation to any charity other than the Red Cross. Other info can be found in this diary.

Because the Red Cross is actually an organization which, per a commenter under the above-mentioned diary,

is thoroughly politicized, the Bush hacks who aren’t competent enough for government work are corralled there.

There are too many worthy charities to waste money on that quasi-governmental mess.

by lgcap

I’m putting the creole and the red beans on to heat,

I’m diggin out my beads

I’m heading to the polls

and then I’m going to the Mardi Gras!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

warning: high graphic content

       

Oooooh….shiny!

Note: Originally I’d planned on posting this Friday, but the library was closed due to bad weather. But it’s still current…

Below the fold is how Politico screwed Katrina/Rita/flood survivors in Louisiana and Mississippi, and their supporters, out of having a question relevant to their plight asked during last Wednesday’s and Thursday’s debates.

On Saturday, Jan. 26, on Daily Kos, I diaried a way, per colorofchange.org, to vote on Politico for the following debate question:

Two years after Katrina and Rita and Gulf Coast schools, hospitals, police stations, roads and flood protection still lie in ruins, keeping displaced residents from returning and communities from recovering. Will you support H.R. 4048, the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act, as President to rebuild community infrastructure and create job and training opportunities for residents?

“25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50…

Ready or not, here I come!”

Remember the game?  Hide ‘n Seek?  Well, that’s how we began the game in “the Circle,” the name for our neighborhood.  We ended the game with the chant, “Ally ally outs in free.”

There have been, and will continue to be, essays written here and elsewhere about the devastation on America’s Gulf Coast. Eloquent, heart-felt songs and words written by and about American people whose lives will never been the same after Katrina hit and the levees failed.  Lives marked today by neglect; plain and simple neglect. Some say this neglect isn’t benign- but designed.  I’m not going to delve into that subject today; I just see what I see and it isn’t good.

What I see on the Gulf Coast is just one example of the neglect that so many Americans experience here in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Our veterans, our homeless, our children– far too many Americans suffer from neglect. Sadly, there are far too few of us with the time, energy, money and inclination to put them back together.  I’m one of those strapped Americans.

But, I’ve got an extra $5. In fact, I’ve got extra $10.  And today, I know where to send it.  NENA (The Lower Ninth Ward Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association). If you have an extra $5, $10, $15, $20… maybe you could send it on as well.  It might buy someone a meal.  It might buy them nails to repair what’s left of their home.  It might send them hope.

And then maybe we can whisper, “Ally ally outs in free.”

And imagine the day we can yell it as loud as we did when we were kids.

Thanks.

NENA’s priority needs are:

1.) Building Materials: nails to studs to wire.

2.) Money

3.) Gift Cards: Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot, Win Dixie Food Stores, Dollar General, Family Dollar  

Send to:

NENA

PO Box 3920

New Orleans, Louisiana 70177

504-373-6483  

In Can You Help? NOLA’s 9th Ward Needs Us! the excellent ikrisarus starts the big challenge:

A group of bloggers over at Docudharma have been actively writing about NOLA after Hurricane Katrina and we have decided to do a week-end marathon fund-raiser for the 9th Wards’ NENA (Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association)

The Lower Ninth Ward Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association (NENA) was established in the aftermath of Katrina to play a lead role in rebuilding New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward.

Organized and controlled by residents of the Lower Ninth Ward, NENA addresses not only the immediate recovery needs created by the storm’s destruction, but also the institutional neglect and disinvestment that plagued the neighborhood long before Katrina. NENA works with current Lower Ninth Ward residents, displaced residents living in other parts of New Orleans, and the broader diaspora who want to return to the neighborhood.

Well, fuck, I guess he got bored dancing exclusively on the graves of New Yorkers.  Time to deface New Orleans once more before he goes!

          –Yours truly, reacting to Bush’s SOTU announcement to hold this year’s North American Summit in New Orleans

Normally, I’m not the kind to start a diary of any sort out this way, especially with an lead quote from myself.  But when Meteor Blades tells you to start a diary with it you don’t ask questions.  You just do it.  So I did.

This State of the Union is perhaps the most valuable of Bush’s reign.  Why?  Well, they’ve all been so entirely worthless, that the fact that this one has had a single lone happy side effect makes it by default the best.

It got people talking about what I thought they’d forgotten: the crime against humanity committed in New Orleans in the last days of August and first days of September 2005.

I’m not claiming any moral superiority.  I had moved on in my own thoughts as well.  Sure, when it would come up, I would feel disgust and outrage.  But between the business of living and the neverending tidal wave of horrors that have come since, it hasn’t been in the forefront of my thoughts.

I was, perhaps, just ahead of the curve.  I had what happened to New Orleans brought home to me not long ago.  And I wanted to share the experience with all of you.

In last year’s State of the Union address (which I’d taken to calling his State of Denial address for this very reason) Bush had never said a word about New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, or Katrina–as if he’d written off an entire area of the country. So I didn’t expect them to be mentioned Monday night.

You could have knocked me over with a feather when Bush first mentioned “armies of compassion” on the Gulf Coast, then announced that NOLA will be the venue of the next North American Summit with Canada and Mexico.

What is this–NOLA’s “not ready” to host a fall presidential debate, per the site selection commission–yet she can, per Bush, host a summit of three world leaders in April?