This isn't any day special for New Orleans bloggers. They don't need to remember Katrina's effects. They're still living it, and paying the price. They are tired. New Orleanians angrily blast zealots and bigots who blame local politicians for the failure to rebuild public infrastructure, pointing out that a) local politicians haven't gotten anything other than a couple of small loans from the federal government to rebuild with, loans that, unprecedentedly, the feds are requiring to be repaid (disaster loans to cities for rebuilding infrastructure have traditionally been forgiven by the federal government), and b) the problem isn't corruption because New Orleans government is now cleaner than is the norm for U.S. politics thanks to a vigorous and energetic reform movement that has thrown the bums out and put in vigorous safeguards. New Orleanians are angry. They were flooded out by flawed levees designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which were not overtopped (and we have video to prove it) but rather collapsed due to design flaws, and now are being required to pay the whole price of a disaster created by the U.S. government and its incompetence and penny-pinching. And to add insult to injury, Dear Leader showed up in New Orleans and caused traffic mayhem in order to perform his little stage-managed photo-op where he lied his ass off about the amount of money given for rebuilding to the City of New Orleans (which is $0 -- ***ZEEEEROOOOO***, folks, just those two small loans which have to be paid back).
Yessiree, just an other day in New Orleans. And, for that matter, on the rest of the Gulf Coast, which, outside of the casinos, is just as much a shambles as New Orleans, but with one important distinction: The very survival of southern Mississippi isn't dependent upon creaky levees designed and maintained by the provably incompetent U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, thus more rebuilding can be done there. In South Louisiana nothing could be rebuilt until the incompetent U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released new floodplain maps, and even then the maps they eventually released were completely bogus -- New Orleanians complain that in some places the maps will require them to elevate their homes ten feet above the high water mark, while in other places the maps have them underwater if the levees break again. And to add insult to injury, Mississippi, which at least is above water without the need for levees, got far more money to rebuild than Louisiana...
Anyhow, enough ranting. Today, we're all Louisianians. And we're all just as fucked as Louisianians if we rely on our federal government, which we pay money to in order to protect us, but which apparently prefers to send that money to Bush cronies instead of giving us what we pay for.
-- Badtux the Louisiana Penguin
yeah tux, i've so far avoided going back to visit. my love for the city is wrapped up in memories of people and places that aren't there anymore. there are a couple of places like that for me. instead of finding a comfortable nostalgia it makes me even more homesick for the place i used to love. my new orleans is gone. i don't think that it will ever be anything but the sanitized disney ride "new orleansland" built by epcot center and run by walmart. i've done a few benefit concerts, and am still an easy touch for people who ask for money to help displaced musicians. . .i don't know what will climb finally out of the slime and the muck. i doubt it will be anything that i recognise.
ReplyDeleteNa, the way I see it is that they expect the whole country to bail them out when they insist on living in a place that they are not supposed to be living in.
ReplyDeleteI say the town should be relocated. Can't expect everyone else to keep bailing out stupid and stubborn people.
Nature is going to keep whipping their butts until they give up and move anyway.
As I mentioned before, New Orleans is not where it is because of the perversity of its people. It is where it is for the same reason it was built there in the first place -- because the nation needs a seaport at the mouth of its mightiest river in order to transship goods from river-borne barges to ocean-going ships. The nearest "high ground" is Baton Rouge, but the river is too fast-flowing there for most large ocean-going vessels to get up there. Between New Orleans and Baton Rouge is the Bonnet Carre Spillway, which is completely underwater -- there is nothing higher than New Orleans there.
ReplyDeleteIf we get rid of New Orleans, we get rid of the ability to transship between barges and ocean-going ships, and a *lot* of people will be screaming. Especially Midwestern farmers, since their corn is the biggest export through the Port of New Orleans.
Face facts, BBC. If the nation did not have an economic need for a port there, the place would have long ago dried up and blown away like the town of Rhyolite, Nevada, which had a population of 10,000 in 1907 and a population of... uhm... ruins... today, because its economic reason for being (the local mines) played out. Given that, they deserve protection as least as good as the Dutch get.