Shoulda Been

August 29th and the week following it should have looked like this.

Fuck you Bush, Brown, Chertoff. Thanks to all who cared then and
those who still care.

It still hurts a lot to watch this.




Thanks to Ashley & Oyster

Katrina's Lives Lost

When I started receiving the Times Picayune a few weeks after Katrina, I noticed a recurring article on the bottom of the front page. They named it "Katrina's Lives Lost" and each story was a short bio of people who died in the storm. I found these stories sad, yet I was fascinated at an inside look as to why these people stayed. The TP stopped carrying these stories a while ago and I was a little saddened that these stories would be available in the years to come. But I've found the the paper has created an archive of Katrina's Lives Lost at this site.

Thanks, TP and Legacy dot com.

The Corps don't get it

Though it is well over a year since Katrina made landfall in Mississippi, the Army Corps of Engineers still has not learned how important wetlands are for flood protection. The Corps is currently proposing to gut the rules that protect wetlands in coastal Mississippi. Under a new proposal, any development that destroys up to five acres of wetlands (almost 5 football fields!) would be exempt from the regulations that apply everywhere else in the country.

Destroying wetlands will only put coastal communities at greater risk for future flooding. Ironically, this proposal is being made in the name of hurricane rebuilding. Irresponsible developers, with help from the Corps, are hoping that nobody will notice as they rush to pave sensitive wetlands in the aftermath of Katrina. Luckily, we have citizens like you who are paying attention.

Help stop this disastrous proposal by taking action now. Communities working to recover from Katrina should not have to fight for their safety.

Help is still needed

Even though Katrina happened 14 months ago, there are thousands of people who still need the basic necessities.

From a blog in
Pearlington, Mississippi


WHERE IS PEARLINGTON, MISSISSIPPI ???????????????????
We Are The ForGotten Town !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DO NOT FORSAKE US!!!!!! WE ARE HERE, WE ARE NO FOOTNOTE!!!!!!!!! WE ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS, NOT A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY !!! OR WORSE !! WE LIVE !!!!!!!

Frustration is a daily chore. These people were overlooked from before the storm hit. The eye of the storm passed right over them.

Pearlington is a very small, old logging town
on the Louisiana - Mississippi border. It is an example of the lingering affects of Hurricane Katrina. The citizens of Pearlington, as well as hundreds of other small towns in Katrina's path, are having an extremely difficult time surviving. But as is said in the above blog, they are survivors.

If anyone out there can help in any way, please go to the following websites to see how to best use your time/money.


Presbytarian Disaster Assistance


Pearlington Relief
Relief information regarding Pearlington, MS - Located in Hancock County. This includes organizations assisting in the recovery effort and municipal needs.


The home of C.O.D.R.A - the Coalition of Disaster Relief Agencies - and the online journal chronicling the recovery of Pearlington, Mississippi from Hurricane Katrina.
C.O.D.R.A. is an association of INDEPENDENT relief organizations - each with its own agenda and direction - which exists to encourage Resource to meet Need, as its Member Agencies assist the once-forgotten town of Pearlington in getting back on its feet....


Volunteer Resources in Hancock County

Thank you from the bottom of all of our hearts for what you've done and what you've yet to do.

Nothing on the scale of Katrina has ever happened. People think that because they're not hearing about it on a daily basis that all is "normal". There is a new normal now and it ain't easy.

Katrina Victim Database

John Mutter of the Earth Institute has compiled a Katrina victims database. According to
his website
The purpose of this web site is to assemble a comprehensive list of all those who died directly and indirectly from the effects of Katrina and its long, tragic aftermath. We would like to compile as comprehensive a list as possible of the names, age, race, sex, cause of death, circumstances of death and way of life of all those whose deaths could plausibly be attributed to the hurricane or its consequences.

The list of all the victims is an act of remembrance. In addition, if we can obtain all the information we can about the way they lived and how they died, we will be able to better understand how natural disasters such as Katrina affect all levels of society and devise measures to save more lives in the future.

Thank you Mr. Mutter.

And thanks to Greg at Suspect Device
for the heads up.

Chris Rose

The Chicago Reader recently did an article
on Chris Rose
Here's an excerpt

The city has slowly started to recover, but Rose doesn’t see himself returning to celebrity gossip. He says one of the biggest battles New Orleans has to face now is restoring and defending its image. “I think there’s a great cross section of America that thinks we deserved it because we don’t castigate our gay citizens and because we embrace music and eccentricity and beer. We’ll always have that to deal with. It’s ludicrous to suggest that having Mardi Gras or going to a football game constitutes a moral affront. Survivor’s guilt gets you nowhere.”

Need Translation

Driving home from the airport last week, we had to detour from I-10 to Elysian Fields due to a wreck on the highrise.

While driving thru the 9th Ward, we saw numerous ruined houses with the same three letters on them.

Can someone tell me what the letters TFW
mean?

Thanks.

Update 12/15/06


mystery solved

Depression

Chris Rose penned an excellent article on dealing with depression in today's paper.


Early this summer, with the darkness clinging to me like my own personal humidity, my stories in the newspaper moved from gray to brown to black. Readers wanted stories of hope, inspiration and triumph, something to cling to; I gave them anger and sadness and gloom. They started e-mailing me, telling me I was bringing them down when they were already down enough.

Here's the link to the whole story if you haven't seen it

A chronicler of the storm is crushed by its sorrows. A skeptic on depression is consumed by a disease he doesn't believe in. A man teetering on the cliff finds his salvation in an unexpected place: modern medicine.

Hell and Back

Help Pearlington

Pearlington Mississippi needs your help.

Click here to see how you can help by donating money, time or materials to help house people STILL without homes since Katrina.

One House At A Time is building cottages for those people.

Thanks to Clayton Cubitt

Scuzzbucket of the week

I have been out of town for four days on business and come back to a "just-in-time-for-halloween" story. Wow.

I haven't read much on this story, but what I have gives me the impression that this Zachary Bowen guy was wacko long before what he did to Addie. What a selfish sick little boy in a man's body he was. Why couldn't he have just killed himself and rid the world of one more 'tormented' soul.

Just my opinion.