Screwing the Victims

Good Ole Boy Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is misusing Katrina Recovery funds meant for housing to rebuild the port of Gulfport. Or, as he puts it, he's "redirecting" the funds meant to provide permanent housing for those who lost their homes to the storm .




Mississippi civil rights and housing groups sued the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development yesterday to stop the distribution of nearly $600 million in Hurricane Katrina relief aid to expand the Port of Gulfport, as sought by Gov. Haley Barbour (R).

Filed in federal court in the District, the lawsuit alleges that the money is part of $5.5 billion approved by Congress for Mississippi after the August 2005 storm — emergency relief that was supposed to pay largely for affordable housing. But HUD granted waivers allowing the state to use 21 percent of the money for low-income housing, instead of 50 percent as required for Katrina aid channeled through the Community Development Block Grant program, plaintiffs charged.

In a January letter to Barbour, then-HUD Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson wrote that he shared concerns that the port expansion “does indeed divert emergency federal funding from other more pressing recovery needs, most notably affordable housing.”

Congress, however, “allows me little discretion,” Jackson wrote. He approved the funding shift before resigning in April.

Barbour’s office released a statement saying the port project is part of the state’s recovery program that was vetted by Congress. “It’s always been in the plan,” Barbour said. “Restoration of the Port of Gulfport is critical to recovery of the Gulf Coast from the worst natural disaster in American history.”

Found at New Orleans News Ladder.

RIP Michael Jackson

They're dropping like flies



I admired Jackson's music before he got weird. May he rest in peace.

RIP Farrah Fawcett

Farrah Fawcett succumbs to cancer at 62.

Scuzzbucket of the week

This week's scuzzbucket is nominated on two charges: perversion and spamming.




A Slidell man known as one of the most prolific spammers in the country is accused of raping one teenage girl and handcuffing and molesting another, authorities said Wednesday.

Police arrested Ronald Scelson, 36, after seizing computers, servers, marijuana and drug paraphernalia during a raid on his home and office Tuesday afternoon, Slidell Police spokesman Capt. Kevin Foltz said.

In May, the mother of a 14-year-old girl told Slidell Police that Scelson, who was considered a friend of the family, had molested her daughter during Mardi Gras week, Foltz said.

The teenager told authorities she was at Scelson's business address, at 1831 Third St., when she saw sexually explicit material and open chat rooms on several monitors, Foltz said. Scelson started "playing around" with her, eventually handcuffing and fondling her, he said.

A 2003 Times-Picayune profile on Scelson said he was once one of the 10 most prolific spammers in North America or Europe and quoted him bragging about sending out hundreds of millions of e-mails a day. At the time, Scelson claimed he distinguished himself from other spammers because he did not hide the identity of his company and did not market pornographic sites or "get rich quick schemes."


ewwwww

The Heat

It's not even noon and it's 96 degrees outside. This is the second straight week that the heat has been incredibly unbearable. I feel sorry for anyone who has to work out in this stuff. Here are a few links that describe this heat

Spoke the Cat

Mark Folse describes his lunchtime walk from his job to the riverfront

Aaron, over at Iced Coffee and a Bagel

Roads are buckling all over

RIP Ed McMahon

Former Johnny Carson sidekick Ed McMahon has died at the age of 86.



The man had a wonderful laugh and seemed to have lived a good life until recently.
RIP, Ed.

Back home in Lake Catherine

A recent article in the Times Pic tells the story of a family who've rebuilt in Lake Catherine.

Excerpts

Although plenty of folks might scratch their heads about the decision to rebuild on the waterfront, it wasn't a hard one for Bourg, a born and bred local who attended Jesuit High School. After buying a camp on Lake Catherine in 2002, he became enchanted with the area and became an ardent convert to fishing.

"When my parents bought the camp," said Becky Bourg, the couple's grown daughter, "at first it was meant for weekends and getaways. It wasn't their primary residence at first; that was in Mid-City. But by the time the storm came, they were spending almost all their time out here. It had become their permanent home."

The Bourgs' camp was one of about 500 that lined the shores in the Lake Catherine community before Hurricane Katrina.

"After the storm, when I could get back in to check it out, there were no more than 20 buildings still standing, and only 16 or so of those were sound," Bob Bourg said. "Our house was gone. All that was left was the foundation."


The Bourg's house is the one on the right

The house is manufactured Deltec, an Asheville, N.C., business,which designs hurricane-resistant circular (technically, polygonal) homes and produces kits for assembly. The company trains contractors in various locales to ensure that kits are assembled according to company standards. Locals who follow "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" were introduced to the company when Ty Pennington and crew landed in town last spring and replaced the storm- and tornado-damaged home of a Westwego first responder and his extended family using a Deltec product.

Still Not Okay

BBC journalist James Coomarasamy interviews two Katrina survivors four years after the storm.

found at Voices of New Orleans website.

Time Wasters

At a time when there are so many important things to take care of in this state, with precious little time left in the session, I cannot believe the Louisiana Legislature wasted so much time for
this bill. House Bill 44 bans gunfire at parades and jazz funerals.

I thought this was already against the law!

Dan Baum

Writer Dan Baum, who fell in love with New Orleans Post Katrina when he was sent to cover the aftermath in 2007, has penned an editorial in the NYT about the city's laizzez faire lifestyle. Excerpts:

While the rest of us Americans scurry about with a Blackberry in one hand and a to-go cup of coffee in the other in a feverish attempt to pack more achievement into every minute, it’s the New Orleans way to build one’s days around friends, family, music, cooking, processions, and art. For more than two centuries New Orleanians have been guardians of tradition and masters of living in the moment — a lost art. Their preference for having more time than money was at the heart of what made that city so much fun to visit and so hard to leave.


Americans will probably continue to use economists’ numbers to measure recovery from the current recession. But as we debate what to do for the millions of homeowners who are “under water” — owing more on their homes than the homes are worth — we could learn from a city that knows a thing or two about being under water. New Orleans can teach us that the life we build with our neighbors deserves at least as much attention as our endless thrust towards newer and bigger.

Here's a link to the blog Dan kept while he was down here.

To those who look down your noses at message of the article, which does contain some untrue facts (such as the 9th Ward being reconstructed), here is an explanation from Mr. Baum
I have this disagreement with friends who live in New Orleans all the time. I come in for a weeklong visit, and all I see is the progress. I see places that I thought were dead, dead, dead forever — like big swaths of the Lower Ninth Ward — and I see a place that is, as I put it, “a lot more live than dead.” Perfect? Of course not? But Jesus wept, give yourselves some credit. What you’ve done in New Orleans in four years — with minimal help from the government or the insurance companies — is amazing. Compare it to the seventeen square blocks, in the middle of the richest city in the world, annihilated on 9/11, four years earlier than your entire city was flooded. Again, I don’t live there. I’m not putting up with the challenges on a daily basis. I’m not feeling the losses you’re all feeling. But my perspective is no less skewed than yours. You’re right and I’m right.
As for the cliches, they’re only cliches to you because you’re used to New Orleans. Spend some time out here, where nobody makes eye contact, where everybody’s on to the next thing at every second, where the dollar and the clock rule every goddamn minute of waking life, and be reminded of what a weird and wonderful place you inhabit. I was writing for the New York Times — for an audience outside of New Orleans — trying to explain, in a thousand words or less, what your city has to teach the rest of us. You don’t like what I wrote? That’s fine. But I’m really (really) tired of having my intentions, my character, my credentials as a New Orleans-lover questioned by everybody who thinks I wear a silly hat. I’m just some guy who came to town for a while and wrote a book; I’m not claiming to be anything else. As for my ill-considered comment many, many moons ago on Marketplace, for which I’ve amply apologized: How nice it must be for y’all never to have misspoken.

Teeming with Scuzzbuckets

I think the heat is bringing out the sickos this week.



There's a crack ho who brought her child along while she went on a crack binge and apparently the three year old ingested some crack.

In Lafayette, the "father of the year" was arrested after he allegedly forced his child to eat a whole crawfish, including its shell.

Brandon Javon Arceneaux began to slap the child Sunday night when the child could not swallow the crawfish. Cpl. Randal Leger would not release the age of the child or more information about the incident because the victim is a juvenile.

Arceneaux was booked with cruelty to juveniles. Arceneaux was released from jail on a $2,500 bond.