Shouldn't Labor Day be the day everyone works twice as hard? How do you celebrate the spirit of labor by taking the day off like our future supreme court justice is doing above? Someone should spank his bottom.
Not me. If I had decided to take Labor Day off, you'd be reading something else right now, so my labor day task of getting more people to pay attention to me is paying off nicely, at least as far as you're concerned.
The Battle of New Orleans
New Orleans Mardi-Gras mid-70s
Sometimes I dread going to the computer because I know I've got to write about something that's just too painful to face. Writing about the death of a friend initially feels ludicrous, as though their presence could be adequately replaced by mere words. The amount of outraged e-mail I've received this week about Hurricane Katrina actually exceeds the amount I received in the week following 9/11, I've barely scratched the surface, and it's strangely understandable. Response to 9/11 was immediate. Imagine your reaction if you had seen the buildings on fire and NO FIREFIGHTERS showed up. If the buildings collapsed and there weren't rescue workers ON THE SPOT. Your outrage would have immediately switched from the perfidy of the perps to the neglect of the responders. It took weeks for the rational among us to understand the depth of the lies in the party line concerning 9/11, the blatant shifting of blame, but it took no time at all to see that people were dying in New Orleans simply because somebody wasn't doing anything about it. Guess who?
That very question has turned into a shell game of such infinite complexity and magnitude that your brain will never stop hurting if you try to figure it out. Okay, I understand it takes time to mobilize the rescue effort, but wouldn't it have taken less time if they'd prepared a week earlier?
The parallels to 9/11 are uncanny. They knew a disaster was coming, they had the opportunity to mitigate it but did nothing, the death toll will remain unknown until they dig through the rubble, it's being used as an excuse to gouge more money from the public through pleas to give to charity and through escalating gas prices, and those responsible not only won't get fired, they'll get promoted. Oh, and the federal government is blaming everyone but themselves. For the Whitehouse to blame the heroic mayor of New Orleans in any way for this clusterfuck is like a brain blaming the foot for not taking care of an ingrown toenail. It's the foot's job to register pain in order to get the brain off it's ass and tell the hands what to do about it. I apologize to brains everywhere for using them in a metaphor for George W. Bush. The response to Hurricane Katrina hit the trifecta of greed, selfishness, and indifference. Never have I seen a man trying so desperately to look like he cared when he'd clearly rather be golfing.
The enlightened among us see only people, poor, desperate, in need of aid, and we want to help and damn those who don't. But then we stop for a second and realize its not just people, it's black people and only black people. Surely there are poor white people in New Orleans. I know there are. I saw them. How come they're not packed in the Superdome? Common knowledge seems to indicate that those with enough money to get out, got out, but it seems that somehow all the poor white people got out too. In a country as diverse as the United States, how did a meteorological disaster become a matter of race?
Why is everyone calling them refugees instead of evacuees? I always thought a "refugee" was someone who fled to a foreign country to escape danger or persecution, but I guess the definition has just been stretched to include people whose homes have been destroyed by a natural disaster but whose government has a definition of "homeland security" that doesn't include natural disasters or black people.
"By this it appears how necessary it is for any man that aspires to true knowledge, to examine the definitions of former authors; and either to correct them, where they are negligently set down, or to make them himself. For the errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds, and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see, but cannot avoid, without reckoning anew from the beginning."
- Hobbes: Leviathan -
This feels worse than 9/11, not politically or morally but personally. Among the words you may use to describe my feelings towards the WTCs, you would find admiration and respect, but not love. I loved New Orleans more than any city I've ever visited, and since I've never traveled abroad, I considered it the finest city on earth. It was our Paris, our Venice, our slice of old world tradition. I grew up in Los Angeles where a building was considered ancient if it was built in the 50s, a schizophrenic city with a million personalities, but New Orleans had actual history and a unique personality that is irreplaceable, now washed away like a dream sandcastle.
This whole event raises questions of enormity impossible to fathom. I can't wrap my head around the death of a city. If I were to mourn the death of Disneyland, I'd have to unleash dozens of childhood memories of unrestricted joy, of particular reactions to particular stimuli. I'm going to leave most of the news to the people I've quoted below and get on with what happens at the best funerals, when friends gather to tell outrageous stories of the deceased, to exorcise their pain in sharing their love for the recently departed. I'm just going to testify about the life of the city I love.
New Orleans Sidewalk mid-70s
In the mid-seventies, I was lucky enough to have a place to crash in New Orleans during Mardi-Gras season. The first year the offer was made I had no way to get there but that didn't stop me. I checked with an agency looking for drivers to deliver cars and found a U-Haul full of furniture that needed to be driven to Nashville. A quick look at a map told me Nashville was just north of New Orleans. All I'd have to do is hitchhike through Mississippi. Why not?
Turned out the guy with the U-haul full of furniture also had a Lincoln Continental. I swear to God he wouldn't trust me with all his furniture, so he drove the truck and I drove the Lincoln all the way from Los Angeles to Tennessee. I did indeed hitchhike through Mississippi to New Orleans. I was smart enough to show up three weeks before Mardi Gras so I got to see the city change from normal to outrageous and back again. Loved it so much I went back for four years in a row.
First of all it's not "Noo Or-Leens," it's "Nwaluns," or "Noir-luns" if you're a film buff. People in Nwaluns know you're a newbie if you pronounce it wrong, and they have other tricks up their sleeves. In downtown there's a street called Burgundy, but beware asking directions. Pronounce it like the wine and who knows where you'll get directed because its pronounced BurGUNdy and if you don't know, fuck you. There is no rational explanation for the pronunciation of Burgundy Street other than as an easy way for locals to pick out the tourists and send them places they didn't want to go.
I can't separate it from the food. New York has great pizza and hot dogs, L.A.'s got great burgers, the salmon and morel mushrooms in Seattle are magnificent, the cheesesteak in Philly, the BBQ in Texas, I've had 'em all, but for depth and variety of tasty treats, nothing in the United States even comes close to New Orleans. I can't imagine anything more selfish than mourning the death of a waffle, but I didn't actually eat any of the other victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Hummingbird Cafe off Canal Street had the best waffles on the planet earth, loaded with pecans, so I pray the Hummingbird survived.
And it's not the only place with only one thing on the menu. Buster Holmes is a place in the middle of the ghetto that served red beans and rice and only red beans and rice, for less than a dollar at the time. Yeah, if you were rich you could order a piece of meat with it, some chicken or catfish, but the red beans and rice were the entrée and the meat was the side dish. It was spectacular and there was always a line.
When you ordered coffee at the Cafe du Monde, they would give you an empty cup, then fill it simultaneously from two giant hand-held kettles, one filled with dark roasted chicory coffee, the other with steamed milk, and the two streams of black and white liquid would mix in the air before filling your cup. And you'd have to be insane not to order a side dish of freshly fried beignets covered in powdered sugar (to call them doughnuts is to sully the word) as a side dish to your entree of coffee. (I like the one in Metarie better than the one in the French Quarter.)
Ever had a muffaletta? Not likely unless you've been to the Central Grocery on Decatur off Jackson Square. All I can say is Google it and you'll find to your horror that it's a magnificent sandwich that's also spelled muffuletta, muffelatta, muffeletta, muffalata, muffaleta, muffalatta, muffalotta, muffaletto, muffelata, muffuletto, muffeleta, and muffeletto. There are more than 7,880 online recipes, but since the Central Grocery has never revealed the secret of their olive relish, I'm afraid you're just going to have to wait till it reopens and go there yourself.
Someone's got to explain to me why the rest of world, even Boston, boils their crabs in plain water, when the crabs in New Orleans, boiled in spices from a "crab boil," clearly put the rest of them to shame. There's a place on Bourbon Street in the Vieux Carre where you order a tray of a dozen of them and though you're stuffed to the gills, you go back for a dozen more.
It was the 70s and the only place in the world you could get Barq's root beer and Popeye's fried chicken was the south. Popeye's made the Colonel's taste like fried socks, and every year I'd bring back a couple six-packs of Barq's in their trademark embossed bottles as souvenirs for my friends.
Okay, I'll stop. The gumbo, the pralines, the Zapp's potato chips, the mint juleps and hurricanes, the eggs Hussard and eggs Sardou (how come it never occurred to me while making breakfast to simply place a poached egg in an artichoke heart on a bed of spinach and cover it with a mixture of bordelaise and hollandaise sauces?), the crawfish étouffé, (I attended a crawfish race where they ate the losers, then ate the winners), the king cakes, the bouillabaisse roux, the alligator sausage - one of the great disappointments of my later life is that I got fat off the wretched food of Desert Hot Springs instead of the magnificent taste treats of New Orleans, where getting fat is a blessing.
In part two of Issue #166, food for the stomach was nothing compared to the food for the soul. I get grabbed by Mississippi cops in a journey to the heart of Mardi Gras in search of gris-gris. Coming soon.
Dr. Hollywood Predicts!
Within a year, there will be a network sitcom about a white middle-class family who take in a couple of black New Orleans "refugees" who turn out to be non-stop Mardi-Gras party animals. Hilarity ensues.
Internet Joke of the Week
Rumor has it that the only reason President Bush offered money and aid to rebuild the Katrina-damaged coastal areas of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana is that he misheard on the news that there was "major damage and flooding all along the Golf Course."
Quiz of the Week
"While the people are still without water, electricity or security, authorities are focusing their efforts on getting the oil flowing again." What is the dateline for this news story?
"This is not 'just politics' or blaming for political advantage. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do about their responsibilities. And about who winds up paying the price for those policies...
"It is a fact that the Clinton administration set some tough policies on wetlands, and it is a fact that the Bush administration repealed those policies - ordering federal agencies to stop protecting as many as 20 million acres of wetlands...
"In June, Bush took his little ax and chopped $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. As was reported in New Orleans CityBusiness at the time, that meant 'major hurricane and flood 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.
"The levees of New Orleans, two of which are now broken and flooding the city, were also victims of Iraq war spending. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, said on June 8, 2004, 'It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq.'
"A cargo ship loaded with frozen chickens ran aground during Katrina, spewing the chickens onto the beach-front property near Long Beach and onto the property of Tom, a news reporter. 'The smell of chickens rotting under 93-degree sun is unbelievably bad,' Tom said.
"Other sights are more grim.
"A writer told of counting 30 bodies in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Another, whose own home was completely demolished, could think only of others. There are people just wandering around, trying to find food in all this mess, she said. It's so sad."
"Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.
"Nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness- suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis."
"I've talked directly to the pResident. I've talked to the head of Homeland Security. I've talked to everybody under the sun. I've been out there. I've flown these helicopters. Been in the crowds. Talking to people. Crying. Don't know where their relatives are. I've done it all, man!
"And I'll tell you, man: I'll keep hearing that it is coming. This is coming. That is coming. And my answer to that today is: BS! Where is the beef? There is no beef in this city. There is no beef anywhere in south-east Louisiana and these goddamned ships which are coming: I don't see them!
"I basically told [Bush] that we had an incredible crisis here and that him flying over it on AirForce One does not do it justice and that I have been all around this city and I am very frustrated because we are not able to master resources and we are outmanned in about every respect.
"Do you know the reason why the looters got out of control? Because we had most of our resources saving people, 1000s of people that where stuck in attics, man. The old ladies. When you pull off the ventilator vents and look down there and standing there in water up to their fricking neck. They don't have a clue what is going on down there. They flew down here. One time. Two days after the doggawn event was over with TV cameras, AP reports, all kinds of goddamn - excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed...
"I need reinforcements. I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man and we are talking - one of the briefings we were talking about public school bus drivers and come down here and bus people. I'm like you gotta be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggawn Greyhound busline in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans. That's them thinking small, man and this a major, major, MAJOR deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy...
"We are getting reports and calls that are breaking my heart from people saying: I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out and that is happening as we speak. "And you know what really upsets me? We told everybody of the importance of the 17th Canal Street issue. We said please, please take care of this and we don't care what you do figure it out. [We said it to] everybody! Governor, Homeland Security, FEMA, you name it - we've said it and - you know - they've allowed that pumping station next to pumping station 6 to go under water. People to stay there and endanger their lives. And what happened was that when that pumping station went down, the water started flowing again into the city and it started to get to levels that probably killed more people. "In addition to that, we had water flowing through the pipes of this city. That's a power station over there. So there is no water flowing anymore on the East bank of New Orleans Parish. The critical water supply was destroyed, because of lack of action...
"There is nothing happening! And they are feeding the public a line of bull and it's spinning and people are dying down there "They are showing all these reports of people looting and doing all the weird stuff - and they are doing that - but people are desperate and they are trying to find food and water. The majority of them. And you've got some knuckleheads out there and they are taking advantage of this lawless, this situation where - you know - we can't really control it and they are doing some awful, awful things, but that's a small minority of the people. "Most of the people are looking to try and survive. And one of these things. Nobody talked about these things. Drugs flowing in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me and that's why we had the escalation in Murrays. People don't want to talk about this, but I want to talk about this. "You had drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They are looking for something to take the edge off their Jones if you will and right now they don't have anything to take the edge off and they've probably found guns, so what you see is drug starved, crazy addicts - drug addicts that are wreaking havoc and we don't have the manpower to deal with it. We can only target certain sections of the city and form a perimeter around them and hope to God that we are not overrun. "But... we authorized eight billion dollars to go to Iraq. After 9/11 we gave the pResident unprecedented powers to take care of New York and other places. You mean to tell me where most of y'all is coming through, a place that is so unique. When you mention New Orleans all over the world, everybody's eyes light up. You mean to tell me that a place where you probably have 1000s of people that have died and 1000s more that are dying everyday - that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? "C'mon man. I'm not one of the those drug addicts - I am thinking very clearly and I don't know whose problem it is. I don't know whether it is the governor's problem. I don't know whether it is the president's problem. But somebody needs to get their ass on the plane and sit down - the two of them - and figure this out right now!
"The Bush/Cheney and the Illuminati gang and their connected associates all stand to benefit financially from Hurricane Katrina to the tune of hundreds of billions and over the long term, TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS. They will reap the huge profits from higher oil prices. They will get the billions of dollars in contracts to rebuild New Orleans and all the other areas devastated by this "storm". They will be able to buy the devastated property for pennies on the dollar. Their banks will receive huge amounts of interest on the loans that will be made to the U.S. government, corporations and individuals who will need the financing for rebuilding. Their similar horrific insane 'destroy and rebuild' plan 'for profit' was used in WW l and WW ll. and is currently being used in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Lie, cheat and murder on a global scale>>>this is the sick, insane, satanic Illuminati way, unfortunately for humanity."
"If one has to choose between the head and the heart, one should choose the heart, because all the beautiful values of life belong to the heart. The head is a good mechanic, technician, but you cannot live your life joyously just by being a mechanic, a technician, a scientist. The head has no qualities, capacities for joy, for blissfulness, for silence, for innocence, for beauty, for love, for all that makes the life rich: it is the heart."
- Osho -
"If you get a chance, check out FOX News and Nazi talk radio spinning Bush's disaster. FOX says, 'There's plenty of food & water - why are people complaining?' Roger Hedgehog, subbing for the vulgar Pigboy, said 'The biggest problem is the New Orleans police force is busy looting the city.' They're not outright using the word 'nigger' but their tone of voice tells us they wish they could. "Pickles is on TV saying, 'The reality isn't anything like what we're seeing on TV,' so we need to find a way to stop those damn cameras from lying about Bush so much.
"Rachel Maddow on AAR said Rush asked, 'Why don't these people have cars?' Gee Rush, we don't all make $30M a year slurring blacks and gays. With Republicans, it's always, 'I got mine, so screw those who have less or nothing.'"
"[E]arlier this year the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country. The other two? A massive earthquake in San Francisco, and, almost prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York City. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario may be the deadliest of all. "In the face of an approaching storm, scientists say, the city's less-than-adequate evacuation routes would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water. Thousands of refugees could land in Houston. Economically, the toll would be shattering. "Southern Louisiana produces one-third of the country's seafood, one-fifth of its oil and one-quarter of its natural gas. The city's tourism, lifeblood of the French Quarter, would cease to exist. The Big Easy might never recover."
"That the Bush administration diverted funds from the rebuilding of the New Orleans levees to Iraq is by now well-known. What you might not have heard is that the people cleaning up the mess are really pissed about it. A tipster informs us that down in New Orleans, they have a name for the flood waters that have invaded the city: Lake George.
"Email attributed by tipster to 'friend at the EPA' after the jump. This is from a friend at the EPA: 'We're naming it Lake George, 'cause it's his frickin fault. Have you seen all that data about the levee projects' funding being cut over the past three years by the Prez, and the funding transferred to Iraq? The levee, as designed, might not have held back the surge from a direct Class 5 hit, but it certainly would not have crumbled on Monday night from saturation and scour erosion following a glancing blow from a Class 3. The failure was in a spot that had just been rebuilt, not yet compacted, not planted, and not armed (hardened with rock/concrete). The project should have been done two years ago, but the federal gov't diverted 80% of the funding to Iraq. Other areas had settled by a few feet from their design specs, and the money to repair them was diverted to Iraq.'" - Wonkette: A Tragedy By Any Other Name -
"Last week American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said 'no offer that can help alleviate the suffering of the people in the afflicted area will be refused.'
"The Swedish Rescue Services had been planning to send a military cargo plane with water sanitation equipment and experts on Sunday. But according to the Swedish Rescue Services, the American authorities say they are not prepared to receive international help."
"Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.
"Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: 'Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.'
"It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.
"When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.
"When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.
"We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA - we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. 'FEMA says don't give you the fuel.' Yesterday - yesterday - FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, 'No one is getting near these lines.' Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis...
"And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, 'Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he said, 'Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday.' And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.
"Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody."
"OK, dear friends. I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. Sorry, but if you voted for G.W. Bush and his lying band of neo-fascist corporate raiders, which I now refer to as the Republicons, because I consider them all 'conmen' who have and will continue to lie to the American people to stay in power and rape our nation - I want you to remove yourselves from my mailing lists. Just look at the response to the tragedy in New Orleans and consider the fact that you voted these bastards into office AGAIN because you trusted them to protect our great nation. I don't want to make you laugh any more. You don't deserve to laugh. Please write (right) REMOVE in the subject line and think about the damage you have done to our nation and the world. And if you believe in God, and are anti-science -- you're even worse. I mean it."
"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city. From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same. Let us pray for those ravaged by this disaster, however, we must not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long. May this act of God cause us all to think about what we tolerate in our city limits, and bring us trembling before the throne of Almighty God," - Michael Marcavage, director of Repent America -
"Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.
"What is Cuban President Fidel Castro's secret? According to Dr. Nelson Valdes, a sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, and specialist in Latin America, 'the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they are to go. Cuba's leaders go on TV and take charge. Merely sticking people in a stadium is unthinkable' in Cuba, Valdes said. 'Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. They have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know, for example, who needs insulin.'
"They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and refrigerators, 'so that people aren't reluctant to leave because people might steal their stuff,' Valdes observed.
"After Hurricane Ivan, the United Nations International Secretariat for Disaster Reduction cited Cuba as a model for hurricane preparation. ISDR director Salvano Briceno said, 'The Cuban way could easily be applied to other countries with similar economic conditions and even in countries with greater resources that do not manage to protect their population as well as Cuba does.'"
- Scott Lane -
"'If the People of New Orleans sued George Bush, FEMA and Homeland Security for Criminal Negligence during the recent Hurricane Katrina crisis, do you think that they might have a case?' I asked a top-flight civil class action lawsuit attorney.
"Chevron donates $5M to Katrina fund (Link). That's nice, but... Chevron gouged us for $3.7B in just the last 90 days (Link). $3.7 billion is 3700 million dollars - that's what they stole with Bush's help. And out of 3700 million stolen dollars - they give back 5? Look at it this way: Had Chevron given $37 million, that would be one percent of the money they stole from working Americans in just the last 90 days.
"Virtually everything in the Latin Quarter and the Garden District suffered some damage. Much of the turquoise-and-white facade of Commander's Palace in the Garden District is gone. So is one wall of Antoine's, famous for Oysters Rockefeller. The Cafe du Monde, home of smoky chicory coffee, did not appear to suffer extensive damage. Many of the city's oldest neighborhoods, including the Bywater and the 9th Ward on the east side, were lost under the floods. On Burgundy Street, a building that once housed slaves collapsed. At one historic above-ground cemetery, a lot in the Garden District known as Lafayette No. 1, uprooted magnolia trees destroyed part of a 200-year-old wall believed to contain human remains. The stately U.S. Mint in the French Quarter, once seized by the Confederate army, is missing part of its roof. No one knows what has become of the artifacts inside."
"Hurricane Katrina left the French Quarter battered but still ready to party Monday, with the first bars on Bourbon Street serving up drinks by mid-afternoon, and locals and tourists venturing out in droves to gawk at what the storm left behind.
"The hurricane ripped plywood from boarded-up storefronts, toppled brick walls built centuries ago into the narrow streets and sent slate-roof tiles flying as it battered the Crescent City Monday morning.
"Many of the ancient magnolias shading Jackson Square were badly mangled and a lush garden behind the St. Louis Cathedral was largely toppled into Pirates' Alley. Along Esplanade Avenue, the area's northern border, live oaks that once hung like a canopy were now in the street, blocking traffic.
"The residents and patrolling police voiced relief that one of the country's most eccentric and irrepressible neighborhoods and most of its famed tourist attractions survived relatively unscathed compared with other areas of New Orleans.
"'We fared,' said Jimmy Brennan, part-owner of the famous Brennan's Restaurant on Royal Street. 'I hate to say it, but it turned into a hurricane party. ... We've had a great time.'"
"Might I point out that if every building in New Orleans had solar panels instead of being connected to an electrical grid, everyone would still have electricity? Think they'll keep that in mind instead of just replacing the old electrical grid?"
- Crazy Bastard -
"No one debates the fact that the hurricane has done significant damage to oil rigs, refineries and delivery systems along the Gulf Coast, a region that accounts for roughly 10 percent of US refining capacity. But roughly 90 percent of US refining capacity remains fully functional and, it should not be forgotten, the US has not stopped importing oil.
"Additionally, the Bush Administration jumped to the aid of the oil companies long before the relief effort was in full swing.
"The Environmental Protection Agency suspended summertime anti-pollution measures, lifting the requirement that refiners lower fuel volatility and cut sulfur levels. At the same time, the Administration moved to release oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was created more than three decades ago with the precise purpose of boosting fuel supplies in order to keep a lid on rising wholesale gasoline prices in a circumstance such as the one that has now developed.
"Despite all the aid they are getting, however, the oil companies are not giving anything back. There is no evidence of a willingness on the part of these highly profitable corporations to sacrifice in a time of national emergency.
"Make no mistake: These corporations should be able to absorb a hit. Over the past year and a half, the four largest oil companies - ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, Royal Dutch/Shell Group and BP Group PLC - have pocketed close to $100 billion in profits. During the first quarter of 2005 alone, those firms pulled in a cool $23 billion.
"But instead of sharing the pain, they appear to be moving to squeeze every cent they can out of the crisis.
"With oil-industry friends in charge of the White House and the Congress, don't expect much of a response from the federal level."
"The whole object of the spiritual quest is to discover your own inner Self, experience the Truth within your own heart. You cannot find it anywhere but within yourself, but once you discover it within yourself, you can find it everywhere."
Want to destroy a city? Got a HAARP at your disposal? Want to become a wingnut who believes they purposely created Hurricane Katrina in order to deliberately destroy the south? Learn how to steer a hurricane.
Go to Google, type in anything, then click on "I feel lucky," because you damn well better.
dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is free and may be reproduced in any form, preferably parchment. It consists of information from dozens of sources, cut up, thrown in the air, and recycled randomly. It is sent all over the place, so I apologize if you're seeing the same thing twice. If you see a joke, graphic, or news item that came from or through you, thanks, send more, and please accept the fact that much of dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is unacknowledgeable, and if I sought permission from everyone whose bastardized material showed up here, I'd never get anything else done. Please note that I don't even put my own name on it. If you're still pissed off, hey, it's either satire or fair use.
38 years ago today, my brother, Bob, was killed in Viet Nam. Please keep him in mind as you contemplate the similar mess we find ourselves in today.
thank you,
Willow
Thanks, Willow!
Willow's brother Bob (or Bobby or Rio), was the first casualty in Viet Nam from our neck of the backwoods, but hardly the last.
Traditionally, more kids back there enlist than go to college, business school and beauty schools combined.
An 'economic draft' - where nobody ever ends up in a champagne unit.
Or, to the masters of war, a fodder farm.
Every one of them a son or daughter, a brother or a sister. Someone who can't be replaced, who will be missed as long memories exist.
Stephen Zunes: A Hurricane of Consequences (Foreign Policy in Focus. Posted on Alternet)
The Iraq war has cost the federal government more than $200 billion thus far, resulting in cutbacks in a number of emergency preparedness projects which appear to have lessened the ability of Louisiana authorities to cope with the hurricane, including providing charter busses to complete the evacuation of the city before the storm struck.
"One of the Worst Abandonments of Americans on American Soil Ever"
We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast. But the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history.
Broussard: "We have been abandoned by our own country." (Video)
...The guy who runs this building I'm in, Emergency Management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" and he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you." Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday and she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us
Videos to Break Your Heart and Make You Angry (crooksandliars.com)
As the General's Inner Frenchman (http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/) says: I hate that son of a bitch in the White House and everyone who supports him. He doesn't represent me. He's the embodiment of America's darkest side.
The best coverage of New Orleans is on the BBC. If you don't have cable/satellite, check your local PBS station to see if it's offered in your area. They aren't acting as cheerleaders with carefully worded talking points - it's called reporting, and they remember how to do it.
We watch it at 5pm on KCET, PBS for LA - but if running late, it's also offered at 6pm on KOCE, PBS for behind the Orange Curtain (and the station Paul Crouch covets).
Yes, there is music embedded on today's page. Seemed appropriate.
Tonight, Wednesday:
CBS is supposed to start the night with a RERUN'Still Standing', followed by a RERUN'Yes, Dear', then a FRESH'Rock Star: INXS', followed by a RERUN'King Of Queens', then a RERUN'CSI: The 3rd One'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Gwyneth Paltrow and Hootie and the Blowfish.
On a RERUNCraig (from 7/22/05) are Camryn Manheim, Elizabeth Banks, and Crossfade.
NBC is supposed to open the night with a FRESH'Meet Mister Mom', followed by a RERUN'Law & Order', then another RERUN'Law & Order'.
Scheduled on a RERUNLeno are Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, and Michael Bolton.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Samuel L. Jackson and Richard Lewis.
On a RERUNCarson Daly (from 2/15/05) is Green Day.
ABC is supposed to begin with a RERUN'George Lopez', followed by another RERUN'George Lopez', then a RERUN'Lost', followed by another RERUN'Lost'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Adam Brody and Kristin from MTV's "Laguna Beach".
The WB offers a RERUN'One Tree Hill', followed by a RERUN'Smallville'.
Faux has a FRESH'So You Think You Can Dance', followed by a RERUN'Bernie Mac'.
UPN has a FRESH'R U The Girl With T-Boz & Chilli', followed by a RERUN'Veronica Mars'.
A&E has 'American Justice', 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', followed by a FRESH'Inked', another 'Inked', then a FRESH'Criss Angel: Mind Freak', and another 'Criss Angel: Mind Freak'.
AMC offers the movie 'Two Mules For Sister Sara', followed by the movie 'Silverado' (not the Neil Bush story), then the movie 'Nevada Smith'.
BBC -
[2pm] 'I'm Alan Partridge' - Ep. 6 Towering Alan;
[2:40pm] 'Coupling' - The Girl with Two Breasts;
[3:20pm] 'Blackadder' - Plan A-Captain Cook;
[4pm] 'Jonathan Creek' - Wrestler's Tomb, The - Part 2;
[5pm] 'Monarch of the Glen' - Episode 2;
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Brown;
[7pm] 'The Benny Hill Show' - Episode 8;
[8pm] 'So Graham Norton' - Larry Hagman;
[8:30pm] 'So Graham Norton' - Phil Collins;
[9pm] 'Little Britain' - Episode 4;
[9:40pm] 'Blackadder' - Plan E-General Hospital;
[10:20pm] 'Blackadder' - Plan F-Goodbyeee;
[11pm] 'The Benny Hill Show' - Episode 8;
[12:30am] 'So Graham Norton' - Phil Collins;
[1am] 'Little Britain' - Episode 4;
[1:40am] 'Blackadder' - Plan E-General Hospital;
[2:20am] 'Blackadder' - Plan F-Goodbyeee;
[3am] 'So Graham Norton' - Larry Hagman;
[3:30am] 'So Graham Norton' - Phil Collins;
[4am] 'Little Britain' - Episode 4;
[4:40am] 'Blackadder' - Plan E-General Hospital;
[5:20am] 'Blackadder' - Plan F-Goodbyeee;
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'West Wing', 'Battle Of The Network Reality Stars', followed by a FRESH'Battle Of The Network Reality Stars', then the SEASON FINALE'Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List'.
Comedy Central has 'Distraction', 'Comedy Central Presents', last night's 'Jon Stewart', 'Comedy Central Presents' (Carlos Mencia', 'Mind Of Mencia', 'South Park', another 'South Park', and a FRESH'Mind Of Mencia'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Samuel L. Jackson.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'The Real Attila The Hun', followed by the FRESH'Julius Caesar's Greatest Battles', and 'Life And Death In Rome'.
IFC -
[6AM] 'Bodies, Rest And Motion' (1993);
[7:45AM] 'Little Dorrit, Part 1 and 2' (1988);
[2PM] 'The War Room' (1993);
[3:45PM] 'Kicked In The Head' (1997);
[5:15PM] 'IFC September Short Film Collection I' (2005);
[7:15PM] 'The War Room' (1993);
[9:00PM] 'The Shipping News' (2001);
[11PM] 'Glengarry Glen Ross' (1992);
[12:45AM] 'The Shipping News' (2001);
[3AM] 'Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1992);
[4:45AM] 'IFC September Short Film Showcase (2005);
[5:45AM] 'IFC in Theaters' (2005). (ALL TIMES EDT)
SciFi has 'Ripley's Believe It Or Not!', 'Ghost Hunters', followed by a FRESH'Ghost Hunters', 'Tripping The Rift', and another 'Tripping The Rift'.
Sundance -
[7AM] 'The Al Franken Show': (09/06/05);
[8AM] 'Ford Transit';
[9:15AM] 'Good Night Valentino';
[9:35AM] 'Pieces of April';
[11AM] 'The Al Franken Show': (09/06/05);
[12PM] 'And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen';
[2:15PM] 'Pripyat';
[4PM] 'It's All About Love';
[6PM] 'Slings & Arrows': Episode 5 - A Mirror Up to Nature;
[7PM] 'Keeping Time': New Music from America's Roots Episode 3;
[7:30PM] 'Pieces of April';
[9PM] 'The Piano';
[11PM] 'Tanner on Tanner: Dinner at Elaine's';
[11:30PM] 'The Al Franken Show': (09/07/05);
[12:25AM] 'And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen';
[2:30AM] 'The Al Franken Show': (09/07/05);
[3:30AM] 'Audition';
[5:30AM] 'Good Night Valentino';
[5:45AM] 'Ford Transit'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Rapper Kanye West is shown during a news conference for the NFL opening kickoff concert Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005, in Los Angeles. In his first public appearance since making inflammatory comments at NBC's telethon for Hurricane Katrina survivors, rapper Kanye West said entertainment would remain the top priority at this week's NFL opening kickoff concert.
Photo by Kevork Djansezian
Robert Redford, singers Tony Bennett and Tina Turner, actress Julie Harris and ballerina-teacher Suzanne Farrell will receive Kennedy Center honors this winter, the performing arts center announced Tuesday.
"We honor five extraordinary American artists whose unique and abundant contributions to our culture have transformed our lives," said Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Recipients of the 28th annual honors will be recognized at a gala performance at the Kennedy Center on Dec. 4, to be attended by resident Bush and first lady Laura 'Pickles' Bush. CBS will broadcast the gala later in December. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will host the honorees at a State Department dinner on Dec. 3.
US film producers Ethan Cohen, left, and his brother Joel Cohen arrive for the screening of their latest movie 'Romance & Cigarettes' at the 62nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice's Lido, northern Italy, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005.
Photo by Domenico Stinellis
The BET network has announced the artists set to participate in its primetime telethon to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina on September 9. The special, called S.O.S (Saving Ourselves): The BET Relief Telethon, will feature performances and appearances by artists with ties to the Gulf Coast area, including Wynton Marsalis, Master P, David Banner, Juvenile, Baby, and Lil Wayne.
Others set to appear on the telecast include Russell and Kimora Lee Simmons, Alicia Keys, Diddy, Jay Z, Kanye West, Island Def Jam Music Group Chairman Antonio "L.A" Reid, Common, Usher, Nick Cannon, Omarion, Pharrell Williams, Ciara, Ludacris, Keyshia Cole, Avant, Gerald Levert, Lyfe, Twista, Stevie Wonder, Brandy, Wyclef, Erykah Badu, Al and Star Jones Reynolds, and Chris Rock.
BET will air a special benefit episode of 106 & PARK: BET's Top 10 Live at 6 p.m. ET/PT, followed by the S.O.S (Saving Ourselves) telethon, which will air commercial free from 7:30 to 10 p.m. ET/PT.
Conductor Daniel Barenboim defended his decision Monday to deny an interview to an Israel Army Radio reporter, saying she was insensitive to have appeared in military uniform at a literary function attended by Palestinians.
The incident took place Thursday at the Jerusalem launch of a book on music Barenboim wrote with the late Edward Said, a Palestinian intellectual.
Barenboim, a Jew raised in Israel, dismissed as "nonsense" the suggestion that he dishonored Israeli national pride, the Israeli army or the Israeli people by refusing to grant the interview.
"For you, a uniformed soldier may be a symbol of honor and security and all sorts of very positive things that are necessary for your life in Israel, and I respect that," he said. "But the symbolism of a uniform for a Palestinian who has come here to celebrate the fact that one of their own wrote a book with me - I think that displays insensitivity."
Academy Award winners Tom Hanks, Hilary Swank and Michael Douglas will be among those contributing recipes to " Morgan Freeman and Friends: Caribbean Cooking for a Cause," publisher Rodale, Inc. announced Tuesday.
Proceeds for the book, scheduled to be published in 2006, will go to the Grenada Relief Fund, a charity Freeman helped set up after Hurricanes Ivan and Emily ravaged the small Caribbean island last year.
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton (R) holds a child as he visits with Hurricane Katrina evacuees with Illinois Senator Barack Obama in Reliant Hall adjacent to the Astrodome in Houston, Texas September 5, 2005. Photos of children separated from their parents by Hurricane Katrina have been posted on a Web site by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in an attempt to reunite families. Photos of more than two dozen children found in Louisiana were posted on the organization's Web site (http://www.missingkids.com/), together with sometimes scanty information available about them.
Photo by Richard Carson
Michael Jackson has written a song to help raise funds for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and will soon record it.
Tentatively titled, "From the Bottom of My Heart," the singer plans to ask other musicians to join him in recording it, his spokeswoman, Raymone K. Bain, said Tuesday.
Jackson hopes to record the song within two weeks in the style of "We Are the World," which he co-wrote and produced in 1985 to raise money for famine relief efforts in Africa.
A local affiliate of the Fox television network has rejected a campaign advertisement for a Democratic politician that lampoons resident George W. Bush by superimposing his head on a naked torso.
The ad, produced by Brian Ellner, an openly gay candidate for Manhattan borough president, opens with a close-up of Bush's face and zooms out to show the torso from the hips up, with a voice-over saying, "New Yorkers know the emperor has no clothes."
A spokeswoman for Fox's WNYW/Channel 5 affiliate said the channel was not running the ad, but declined to say why. A spokeswoman for sister cable network Fox News Channel said: "The decision was made at the station level."
Ellner said WNYW representatives told his campaign officials that the ad was rejected because Fox viewed it as disrespectful to the office of the president.
U.S. producer Irvin Winkler, who produced 'Raging Bull', 'Rocky', 'The Right Stuff', and 'Good Fellas' waves as he arrives for a screening at the 31st Deauville Festival of American Film, Tuesday, Sept 6, 2005, in Deauville, Normandy, France.
Photo by Francois Mori
The original cloak worn by Alec Guinness in the blockbuster film "Star Wars" has turned up in a British fancy dress shop, where it had been hired out as part of a monk's outfit, the owner said.
The legendary British actor donned the famous brown robe for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the 1977 George Lucas movie, one of the most successful films ever made.
Once filming finished, costumes from the movie were stored by London costume firm Angels and Bermans.
The cloak was thrown in with hundreds of monks' robes and later rented out to customers, also being worn by an extra in 1999 film "The Mummy".
NBC News President Neal Shapiro has resigned after four years. His exit was widely expected, and he reportedly had been negotiating his departure for months.
Steve Capus was named acting president by NBC Universal Television Group boss Jeff Zucker, who in June promoted Capus from "NBC Nightly News" executive producer to senior vice president of the network's news division, which includes MSNBC.
A former producer of ABC's "PrimeTime Live," Shapiro went to NBC News in March 1993 to pick up the pieces as executive producer of "Dateline NBC" after that newsmagazine was mired in a scandal over a rigged report on the dangers of GM pickup trucks.
U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann, smokes in front of the niche of the Buddha that was blown up by the Taliban in 2001, in Bamiyan, central Afghanistan, Monday, Sept. 5, 2005. Neumann visit the central region to see the preparations for the upcoming Sept. 18 elections.
Photo by Daniel Cooney
A group of female hurricane survivors were told to show their breasts if they wanted to be rescued, a British holidaymaker has revealed.Ged Scott watched as American rescuers turned their boat around and sped off when the the women refused.
Mr Scott, 36, of Liverpool, was with his wife and seven-year-old daughter in the Ramada Hotel when the flood waters started rising.
"At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the hotel saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us what you've got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts," he told the Liverpool Evening Echo.
"When the girls refused, they said `Fine' and motored off down the road in their boat."
He added: "The American people saved us. I wish I could say the same for the American authorities."
Bob Denver, whose portrayal of goofy first mate Gilligan on the 1960s television show "Gilligan's Island," made him an iconic figure to generations of TV viewers, has died, his agent confirmed Tuesday. He was 70.
Denver's wife, Dreama, and his children Patrick, Megan, Emily and Colin were with him when he died.
Denver's signature role was Gilligan. But he was already known to TV audiences for another iconic character, that of Maynard G. Krebs, the bearded beatnik friend of Dwayne Hickman's Dobie in the "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," which aired from 1959 to 1963.
"Gilligan's Island" lasted on CBS from 1964 to 1967, and it was revived in later seasons with three high-rated TV movies. It was a Robinson Crusoe story about seven disparate travelers who are marooned on a deserted Pacific Island after their small boat was wrecked in a storm.
The cast: Alan Hale Jr.
, as Skipper Jonas Grumby; Bob Denver
, as his klutzy assistant Gilligan; Jim Backus
and Natalie Schafer
, as rich snobs Thurston and Lovey Howell; Tina Louise
, as bosomy movie star Ginger Grant; Russell Johnson
, as egghead science professor Roy Hinkley Jr.; and
Dawn Wells
, as sweet-natured farm girl Mary Ann Summers.
