Scuzzbucket of the Week

Between the holidays and much O/T at work, I haven't had much time to post, but this story could not be ignored




from the Weekly Vice website :

Shannon N. Cooper, a 21-year-old Louisiana woman was arrested Tuesday after fracturing her 3-week-old son's skull twice by throwing the child across the room.

According to the Parish County Sheriff's Office, deputies first learned about the abuse after staff from Ochsner Medical Center contacted them last Thursday about a newborn boy that was in intensive care.

The child was rushed by ambulance to the hospital's pediatric intensive care unit after the child's grandmother called 911. The grandmother told authorities that the child had fallen off a sofa and hit a wooden coffee table, according to the arrest report.

Doctors however told authorities that the child had suffered two skull fractures, resulting in internal bleeding at two different locations. Doctors told police the evidence suggested that the two injuries occurred at two "distinctly separate times" because the injuries were at different stages of healing.

Investigators say Burke admitted to throwing the child across the room on two occasions because she was frustrated that the child wouldn't stop crying. She said the incidents occurred within a few days of each other.

Cooper was booked into the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center on two counts of second-degree cruelty to a juvenile. No bond has yet been established.

Cooper's son and 13-month-old daughter are both currently in protective custody, according to the sheriff's office.


Oh, my god, what is wrong with these young women? They allow their pregnancies to go full term and then turn around and abuse their newborn babies. I'm all for sterilizing this ignorant bitch immediately and anyone else that treats a human being - their own flesh and blood - in this fashion. I never threw my child across the room because she cried! In another recent case a babysitter put a baby in the dryer because it was crying .

Screw the NAACP, People's Rights groups and anyone else that fights for the rights of these obviously ignorant, horrifically bad parents.

On this day

On an historic day for the United States with the swearing in of Barack Obama and the FINAL exit of the worst president ever, all I can say is



God Bless America

Baby Steps

From New Orleans City Business dot com

The state of Louisiana will use $101 million in hurricane protection money for a long-awaited levee project in Terrebonne Parish.



The state dollars, combined with $94 million in local money and federal block grant aid, will go toward the Morganza-to-the-Gulf project — a system of levees, floodgates and a lock — that was first proposed 16 years ago to protect Terrebonne Parish and parts of western Lafourche Parish.



Authorized by Congress in 2000, then again seven years later, the project has been mired in red tape. Jindal called delays by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers unacceptable.



"For too long the federal government has been sitting on their hands while our coasts remain vulnerable," Jindal said in an address at the Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum. "The time for studies, the time for waiting is over."

Only one section of the Morganza, levee, a three-mile levee in Pointe-aux-Chenes has been built since the project was proposed in 1992. Under the local plan, the remaining levees will be built from Dularge to Pointe-aux-Chenes along the alignment approved by Congress in 2007 and will be built to corps standards when feasible and cost-efficient.

The interim levees can be bolstered later, proponents have said. Several pieces of the alignment are in the design phase and work on various sections will proceed simultaneously, Terrebonne Parish levee board President Tony Alford said.

The Morganza package includes $101 million from state surplus money, state construction dollars and funds set aside for the Coastal Impact Assistance Program. The rest will come from a special local tax dedicated to the project and federal Community Development Block Grant money.

About $7 million of the money will be used immediately to build a three-mile section of levee in Chauvin. Workers were expected to break ground this month on the dirt levee, which will provide storm-surge protection to east Houma, Chauvin and Grand Caillou, all communities that experienced unprecedented flooding during Hurricane Ike last year.



Terrebonne Parish had twice the damage of any other parish in Louisiana from the twin blows of hurricanes Gustav and Ike in September, Parish President Michel Claudet said.

Hurricane Gustav blasted through Terrebonne Parish on Sept. 1 after making landfall near Cocodrie, knocking down trees and utility poles by the hundreds and shearing apart roofs and homes. About 10 days later, Ike, which made landfall in Galveston, Texas, pushed up to 9 feet of storm surge into lower Terrebonne Parish, flooding an estimated 2,500 homes and businesses from Dularge to Pointe-aux-Chenes.

The destruction from the 2008 storms came three years after Hurricane Rita flooded about 10,000 homes and businesses in the same area.

Jindal praised residents' resilience in rebuilding, noting the federal government has paid out millions in storm claims.

Decades of wetlands loss and coastal erosion have also made the parish more vulnerable to Gulf storms.

"We've got to get this done," Jindal said of the levee project. "Time is not on our side.

Some National Guard to become Police

Fromthe town talk dot com word that 17 National Guard troops who have been patrolling the streets of New Orleans began a special session of the police academy on Monday.



Most guardsmen have been in New Orleans since the storm, a good number of them arrived in June of 2006, as shown in the photo above.

The guardsmen will finish the class in 12 weeks, instead of 20. The experienced troops will be able to step into the job quickly and provide a real boost for the department.



Too bad someone with as much experience couldn't take over Riley's spot. Then we'd see some positive leadership from the NOPD.

WAMA Reopens

The Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, Mississippi is now reopened.

From their website
A visit to the Walter Anderson Museum of Art (WAMA), opened in 1991 in historic Ocean Springs, MS, is an enchanting and unique experience. WAMA is dedicated to the celebration of the works of Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965), American master, whose depictions of the plants, animals, and people of the Gulf Coast have placed him among the forefront of American painters of the Twentieth Century; and to his brothers, Peter Anderson (1901-1984), master potter and founder of Shearwater Pottery; and James McConnell Anderson (1907-1998), noted painter and ceramist.
The watercolors, drawings, oils, block prints, ceramics, and carvings by the three Anderson brothers are all represented in the museum’s permanent collection. Diverse changing exhibitions, many featuring the work of other significant artists, occur throughout the year.



The museum’s sky lit interior of warm southern yellow pine includes a main galleria and two additional galleries, which echo the natural beauty and simplicity of its setting. Adjacent to the museum is the Ocean Springs Community Center, home of Walter Anderson’s largest mural.



I found the link to Walter Anderson's life fascinating yet tragic. The work he did in the last years of his life are beautiful. Wikipedia has an extensive article on him as well. /
And yet another interesting piece here

Recovery in Ocean Springs

Ocean Springs' popular nature and recreation site marked a milestone in its rebound from Hurricane Katrina with the official opening of the William Colmer Visitor Center.
The William M. Colmer Visitor Center, named for a veteran Mississippi congressman, is located at the end of Park Road.


Presentations covering all aspects of the Gulf Islands National Seashore in Mississippi are available. An exhibit area that incorporates the art of local artist Walter Anderson explains the different ecosystems and features local plants and wildlife. An exhibition of work by other local artists changes on a quarterly basis. The twelve minute film " Tides, Winds, and Waves" is shown daily in the auditorium. Administrative Offices, restrooms, water fountains, and the Eastern National Bookstore are housed in the building. Park Rangers are available at the information desk to answer questions.

Inside the center, an open house Saturday gave visitors a chance to test out models of future educational displays on local plants and wildlife.

Amaze Design Inc., who designed the interior of the center, brought in another company to evaluate how people responded to the models, looking for ways to make the displays accessible and easy to use.

At a display about aquatic bottom-feeders, guests were asked whether it was easier to slide a handle or turn a knob to reveal a pic ture of a clam. Opinions were also gathered about the height of the displays, particularly for people who use wheelchairs.

The park used about $1 million to restore the building and decking, said Gail Bishop, chief of interpretation at Gulf Islands National Seashore.

Park officials were not able to make drastic changes, because the federal money was designed to pay for restoring what existed before Katrina, Bishop said. Park rangers had been working out of a trailer since Katrina.

Gulf Islands National Seashore offers recreation opportunities and preserves natural resources along barrier islands in Mississippi and Florida. The Davis Bayou area in Ocean Springs consists of more than 400 acres, according to the National Park Service.

The visitor center is open 8:30 to 4:30 daily.

I can't believe we survived this moron

WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush is defending the government's record in responding to Hurricane Katrina, even while admitting once more that some things could have been done differently.

At his last formal news conference, Bush at one point said, "Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs" not long after the hurricane passed over the Gulf Coast.

He said it was "a devastating storm" and that hard work remains to bring New Orleans back to the kind of life people had before the hurricane that hit in the summer of 2005.

Bush said, "More people need to have their own home there, but the systems are in place to continue the reconstruction in New Orleans."•


Reactions from locals:

Spoke the cat

Schroeder

Cliff

Eli

Mark Folse at Humid City

Katrina Recovery

From the Clarion Ledger dot com:



After a hurricane, putting Humpty Dumpty back together again is no simple task.
But now that federal relief funds are beginning to flow, Hancock County has a long list of recovery projects already under way, in the application process, or on the drawing board.

It all stems from damages done by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

It has taken us a while to get to this point, county Supervisor Steve Seymour said. "But knowing how the wheels of government move, it's a slow process."
Most of the recovery projects are being paid with federal money. That means county officials have had to deal with multiple federal and state agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Mississippi Development Authority.

Then, supervisors have waded through requirements for each project, including environmental assessments and screening and hiring architects, engineers and construction firms.
Recently, supervisors reviewed an updated list of projects and their status. Some are in the funding application process, while others are awaiting environmental review. The projects range from the courthouse and jail to a new fire station, a county government complex, community centers and a series of hurricane shelters to be built above I-10.



One major project, a $4.8 million reconstruction and addition at the historic courthouse on Main Street in Bay St. Louis, is well under way and scheduled for completion in April. And a project to build a new county government building in Bay St. Louis is awaiting a wetlands delineation from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Officials are hoping to break ground for the 28,548-square-foot complex early in the year.
Supervisors acknowledge it seems like forever since Katrina came and went, taking so much with her. But they think the county is turning a major corner now.

Having a bad day?

You ain't had a day as bad as this guy

Scene in Slidell

Click on image for larger version.

Crosby Aboretum

On a recent trip to the Crosby Aboretum in Picayune Mississippi, hubby and I snapped several hundred photos. Here's a small sampling
click on photos for larger versions


The entry pathway



The Savannah trail



Winter "blooms"



A pitcher plant, similar to a venus flytrap



The Pinecote Pavilion, which is the centerpiece for the "pond walk" AND is available to rent.


A plaque along a trail



A rest stop



Moss by the pond



the Pavilion across the pond.