Naturally N'awlins

Craig Giesecke over at Metroblogging talks about his interesting week, from actually SEEING RAY NAGIN in public to his wacky, trash-can stealing neighbors.

Worth the read.

Scuzzbucket Trio

Who

the fuck

cares

about these talentless, self-centered whores?

did you realize that the AP put a blackout on stories of little Paris?
A whole seven days.

Here's America's reaction

Taking a break from Katrina

My commute into N.O. east takes me thru Irish Bayou every day.
Sights like this



I admire the gumption of the folks of Irish Bayou for rebuilding bigger and better.

But it's nice to get away......even if it's only thru pictures.....

We took a vacation Thanksgiving week, 2004 on Dauphin Island, Alabama.
This was two months after Hurricane Ivan split the island in pieces, taking away the west end. Katrina finished it off. Thanks, Katrina.

Anyway, here are pictures that make me think back to better, simpler, more relaxing times.
click on pictures for full-size images

for Mr. A

Random Thoughts

Riley & Jordan on "same page" (just two different books) How long will this last?

Mother Nature may delay the next Shuttle Launch. Why couldn't these errant hail storms hit Hillary Clinton on the head and put her in a 45 year coma?

Would we really lose anything if Dick Cheney were killed in this rocket attack? I think not.

Nancy Pelosi and her ilk are just another bunch of lousy politicians

For the second year in a row college kids are coming to the Gulf Coast to help in the rebuilding process Thanks to all of you!!

Chicago not only has horrific fans and crappy weather, but crooked politicians ...... like us!!!

Even though I do most of my communication via email and epay, I will be one of the first people in line to buy a forever stamp.

The rest of the country must be moving faster than us ....Katrina "happened 2 1/2 years ago!!"

Feels like spring

(click on photo for larger version)
Despite the damage brought by the storm, Bayou Liberty is still beautiful this time of year.
Taken February 15, 2007
While all you yankees were under lots of cold snow!!!
Yup, that's why we live here!

Sunday

Seen in Bayou Liberty, February 2007. (click on photos for larger sizes)

Nothing much happening. Well, yes a lot's been happening, but I just don't want to write about it at this time. So I leave you with a pretty site. Most folks won't consider this pretty, but in light of how things have looked since the storm, I think the fact that the swing is still there is a beautiful thing.

Well, there is something I want to write about, but not today....too many chores to be done.

An article about the historic Louisiana Forts in disrepair since the Storm

Fort Pike, eastern New Orleans

But that's for another time.

St. Genevieve

I've noticed several hits on this blog with the search term "St. Genevieve" lately, so I decided to create a web page dedicated to the rebirth of the physical church in the Bayou Liberty area.here is the link. I will be updating this page as time goes on.

As usual, click on the small pictures to view full size.



The church has been completely destructed and a new one will be built on the same site, just 18 inches higher.

Mardi Gras

The experiences of Mardi Gras, told by local bloggers

Blogging New Orleans

Ashley Morris

Humid Haney

Pictures taken while riding in a float

Maitri's words and pictures

Oyster's blogs about New Orleans' contradictions (do you get it?)

Eddie Jordan

I don't live in NOLA, so I really can't speak from experience about the NOPD. However, the recent explosion in violent crimes tells me that it can't all be put on the NOPD.

Listening to the New Orleans City Council grill Warren Riley (NOPD) and Eddie Jordan (D.A.) on the radio earlier this week, I get the feeling the Jordan is inept and full of whining and excuses.

Now I'm no college educated PHD or anything, but I am a believer in my instincts and they tell me that Jordan is hiding something. Perhaps it's his ineptitude. I KNOW it's not his extreme dislike of Warren Riley.

Hell, just thing morning it was made public that Jordan's office decided not to go forward with prosecuting some little scumbag that has an extremely long arrest record . But he sure has time to go after a doctor and two nurses who stayed behind to be with patients during Katrina for murder even though the coroner found no evidence of homicide.
from the Times Picayune earlier this week:

During this week's City Council hearing, Council members were particularly interested in "701s," shorthand for Article 701 of the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure. It states that no one can be held longer than 60 days on a felony arrest without an indictment. Prosecutors may refile charges against 701 suspects if they get complete police reports, but often 701 cases fall by the wayside.

In the eight months before Hurricane Katrina, the city released 187 people on a 701, including eight murder suspects, prosecutors' records show. In 2006, the number of releases soared to about 3,000. Last month alone, 580 people escaped legal custody of either jail or a bond obligation only because prosecutors couldn't pull together a case ahead of the deadline imposed by law.

Jordan put the blame for some 701 releases on a lack of lab-tested evidence and incomplete police reports. He said police use probable cause to make an arrest, a lesser standard than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard required for a conviction. The council asked Jordan why his office doesn't accept the results of field testing kits, used by officers to test for drugs. He said the field test is not admissible in court even though the federal government has used the field tests for nearly 20 years.

It just seems like the D.A.'s office is not doing their job. Perhaps I don't have all the background, but that is the way it seems to an outsider.

Here is a post from someone who does live and work in New Orleans regarding Mr. Jordan's performance.

Is there anyway that this elected official can be recalled?

There is a petition to "ask" Jordan to step down at the American Zombie website

Thanks Ray & Eddie

From todays NYT, an article about NOLA residents leaving in despair, thanks to the inaction of our mayor and D.A.

from this article

As a city in flux, New Orleans remains statistically murky, but demographers generally agree that the population replenishment after the storm, as measured by things like the amount of mail sent and employment in main economic sectors, has leveled off. While many poorer residents have moved back to the city, the “brain drain” of professionals that the city was experiencing before the storm appears to have accelerated.

Scuzzbucket of the Week

Due to the fact that a lot of us were paying attention to other things - namely surviving - in September of 2005, I missed this class act.

So I am crowing Miz Renee Holcombe of South Carolina as the Scuzzbucket Bitch of this week.

From the "Myrtlebeachonline" website Law suit settled over college official's "yard apes" comment about Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
Miz Renee Holcombe, formerly an associate vice president for student services at Greenville Technical College in South Caroline , told employees in two separate briefings last week that the school's aid for the mostly black hurricane victims staying at the Palmetto Expo Center would include sending yellow buses to pick up the "yard apes," said Barton and senior vice president Ben Dillard.

Dillard said Wednesday that Holcombe was referring specifically to the children of evacuees, who were provided separate transportation.

Reached at her home this afternoon, Holcombe said she was "numb and shocked." She declined further comment. She submitted her resignation to Dillard and there was no financial settlement, Barton and Dillard said.

She had been employed at the college for 19 years, Dillard said.

"Renee believed in her own mind that the best thing for her and the institution was for her to separate from us," Dillard said.

From: foxcarolina.com
Now Holcombe has filed an appeal with the State Budget and Control Board Office of Human Resources to get her job back. Renee Holcombe says the term wasn’t meant in a racial way. Holcombe says yard apes was used in the book “Ramona Quimby Age 8” by Beverly Cleary. In one passage the book reads “she yelled again, tears of anger in her eyes, yard apes!".

from Greenville online:
Greenville Technical College said Tuesday (2-12-07)they had settled a lawsuit she filed against the school.

Neither side would discuss details and whether a monetary payment was involved. The settlement was announced at the Greenville County courthouse by Circuit Judge C. Victor Pyle Jr., who later dismissed a jury hearing the case.

In a joint statement, attorneys representing Greenville Tech and Holcombe said Greenville Tech believed Holcombe's comment in 2005 "was unfortunate."

Through its investigation, the college believed that "she did not intend the statement to be derogatory," the joint statement said.

"Unfortunately, the situation was such that Ms. Holcombe could not effectively continue to serve in the position that she held," it said.

The statement said the settlement was reached so Holcombe "can pursue other endeavors" and Greenville Tech "can pursue its mission."

Well isn't that special? She's still a scuzzbucket in my book. You shouldn't even have terms like that in your vocabulary, Miz Holcombe.

The Feb. 13th Tornadoes

The two tornadoes that touched down around 3-4 a.m. in New Orleans caused a great deal of destuction on both sides of the Mississippi River. To date, there has only been one fatality: an 85 year old woman who was living in a FEMA trailer while her Katrina-damaged home was being repaired. She was close to seeing her home completely finished. Instead, the storm picked up her FEMA trailer and tossed it and also completely destroyed her home. In Westwego over 100 homes were damaged and the roof was torn off a hotel that housed families who were living there after being displaced by Katrina. The Bon Soir had just completed repairs from Katrina.

The T.P. has two slide shows detailing the destruction:
Pictures and an eyewitess account of the sights and sounds.

The path of the tornado

Bloggers discussing this event are linked below:

Jack Ware on metroblogs
Prytania Waterline
b.rox
Pictures at howieluvsus
Now Public
Laureen has pictures here

Please keep the victims of this tragedy in your prayers. In many cases, these people are just rebuilding their lives post Katrina and now this.

Stopped in time

The following scenes have not changed in the 1 year plus since Katrina.
click on photo's to view larger size


Bayou Liberty Road


Irish Bayou


Irish Bayou This camp was blown out there in one piece!


LA433, Pirates Harbor, Slidell


Levee, New Orleans East


Boat Launch, Chef Pass, New Orleans East


Levee, New Orleans East


Pontchartrain Drive, Slidell


Hwy 90, by Textron Marine, New Orleans East


Fort Pike, Rigolets


Bayou Liberty, Slidell


Waveland, Mississippi


Waveland, Mississippi

Unmasking Our Pain

An article written in the Washington Post
by Times Picayune Lolis Eric Elie. He writes about the REAL people recovering from Katrina:

Somehow, when people look at us and our city, they don't see my mother. They see the desperate brown faces at the Superdome or hear the otherly accented voices from St. Bernard Parish. They don't see the old man in the Lower Ninth Ward, gutting his house by day and sleeping in it by night because he has nowhere else to stay. They don't see the families cramped in trailers because they have nowhere else to live. They don't see the fishermen in Plaquemines Parish begging to get back to work. Those men need government help to move their boats from the land, where the floodwaters left them, back to the bayous, where they can again ply their trade. That's not the kind of work the Federal Emergency Management Agency is allowed to do.

He goes on to explain the real reason New Orleans was flooded:

Hurricane Katrina was no more than a Category 2 storm when it hit New Orleans. The levees and floodwalls were supposed to be able to withstand a Category 3 storm. The Corps acknowledged that the flood-control system was badly designed and badly built. "For the first time the corps has had to stand up and say we had a catastrophic failure with one of our projects," said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the commander of the Corps.......earlier this month the Corps released the locations of 122 levees that are at risk of failing. They are located in 27 states and the District of Columbia. We New Orleanians have suffered much in the past 18 months. We wouldn't wish such devastation on anyone. But I would like to remind my nation that according to this list, the problems of my home town are not so foreign after all..

Read the entire column here

Scuzzbucket of the Week II

Been a busy week for bad parenting in this area.

According to a Times Pic article this morning, this piece of shit mother

told her darling 17 year old son, pictured here

to go kill another teen he had an argument with.

From the TP article: Seventeen-year-old Clarence Johnson lost a fistfight, and he walked away. Then he went to his mother's apartment, police said, where she kept a home with cocaine, a gun and a picture of her young son smiling, holding a pistol and a wad of cash.

His mother sent him back out with the gun, police said, and clear instructions: Get revenge.

Now THIS mindless, animalistic behavior is why crime is so prevalent in New Orleans and probably country-wide.

What kind of parent would do this? I am at a loss for reasoning here. Just can't do it.

God help us all.

photos of n.o. east

Hubby & I took a bikeride along the levee in New Orleans East (Highway 90) to see what we could find, close to 18 months post Katrina.

Here are a few pix (click on pix to see full-size versions)

New Orleans from the Hwy 90 Levee

A Katrina-created "outhouse"

A barge that came to rest between the levee and Hwy 90

More big boats washed in from Lake Borgne and possible a result of the MRGO's affect on the tidal surge

The levee that runs ~ 3 miles from Textron Marine to the Chef Pass bridge. It was pretty muddy that day and I almost got a mud bath in this mess of puddles. :)

One of many camps sitting alone in Lake Catherine

I intend to update my Chef Hwy/Hwy 90 website, the Orphaned Boats and Katrina Recovery websites with all the pictures this weekend.

Scuzzbucket of the Week

A man who caught his girlfriend's 3-year-old son playing with a lighter allegedly burned the boy's hand on a stove in her Slidell home to teach him a lesson about playing with fire, police said.

The boy, whose name was not released, suffered third-degree burns on two fingers, wounds that festered for several days before he received medical treatment, Slidell police Sgt. Brian Nicaud.

Joseph E. Trotter, 37, 19 Brown Court, Laurel, Miss., is charged with second-degree cruelty to a juvenile after the boy's grandparents discovered the burns and took him to a hospital, Nicaud said Tuesday.

The boy's mother, who was not there at the time, put bandages on her son's hands later but did not seek professional medical help, Nicaud said.

The child's grandfather discovered the burns several days later, on Jan. 31, when he stopped by to visit the boy. He took his grandson to a hospital, and his wife called police, Nicaud said.

"The grandmother said the boy's mother would do anything to keep Trotter out of trouble," he said.

During questioning by detectives, Trotter allegedly admitted burning the boy's hand.
If convicted of second-degree cruelty to a juvenile, Trotter could face up to 40 years in prison.

Mr. Trotter should go to jail along with this child's mother.
Bastards.

source Times Picayune 2-7-07

Road Home

From a link found at World Class New Orleans, Seattle Times writer Eugene Robinson explains the reasons for the snail's pace of Louisiana's Road Home Project

He ends the article with this
.......If Gen. David H. Petraeus is as smart and tough as the president says he is, if he's good enough to save Baghdad, then the president should immediately send him to New Orleans instead — or explain why policing a civil war in Iraq takes priority over resurrecting a great American city.

Congrats Colts!!!

Kuddo's to the better team

Krewe du Vieux

Krewe du Vieux (pronounced crew da voo) rolls tonite. Here's the parade map. It's a marching parade in New Orleans and it is hilariously satirical. Last year, in Katrina's wake, there was plenty of fodder for this parade. You can watch some highlights of that parated at this link From their website, here's a rundown of this year's theme. Given that the whole damn city is foaming at the mouth mad … given that the inmates are obviously running the asylum (and the mayor obviously is not) … given that we gotta get our kicks before the whole nuthouse goes up in flames or sinks forever into the swamps … the only possible theme for the 2007 Krewe du Vieux parade is “Habitat for Insanity”. This year's king and chief warden is TP columnist Chris Rose.
Krewe du Vieux is composed of sub-krewes, each of which takes the main theme and develops its own spinoff. These subkrewes and there their themes are:

*CRUDE (Council to Revive Urban Decadent Entertainment) – CRUDE Flew into the Cuckoo’s Nest

*SEEDS – Follow the Yellow Brick Road Home

*CRAPS – HOME, HOME AND DERANGED

*PAN (Perpetuating Adolescent Naughtiness) – Edwards, Now More than Ever

*SPERMES – SPERMES Gets Its Head Examined

*INANE – Mystic INANE Asylum

*COMATOSE – Habitat for Hispanics

*MONDU – Chockfull of Nuts

*LEWD (Lewd Ensemble of Weird Degenerates) – Post Traumatic Sex Disorder

*MISHIGAS – Rebuilds the Tower of Babel

*KSAL (Krewe of Space Age Love) – Load to Recovery – A Cuming Event

*DRIPS – D & D Gets Hammered and Nailed

*UNDERWEAR - Alice in Underland

*TOKIN ((Totally Orgasmic Krewe of Intergalactic Ne'er-do-wells)
) - High Anxiety

*MAMA ROUX – The Beauticians’ Village

BOURBON – Always Time for Levee-Tea

* Here's the Krewe's website, with details of the parade.

More on the parade at Ashley's website (with pictures of the Krewe party)

So if you're in the mood to forget all the post Katrina bullshit in the Gulf Coast for a little while, go see Krewe du Vieux.

Insight for you

It's no secret that a good number of people are wondering why people in New Orleans haven't "gotten over" Katrina and move on with their lives. These people need to have a little insight into what gross negligence on the part of federal and local governments has done to the soul of the residents of the city. Especially those that experienced loss of home, loved ones and lately, the heart to carry on.

I suggest that everyone read both this post and the responses to it and then re-examine your feelings about us "getting over it".

But Katrina did not just hit the city. In St. Tammany Parish there are still 6,000 FEMA trailers being occupied

Pearlington, Mississippi is being rebuilt by volunteers due to some crazy government mixup.

Politicians are using this area to fuel their future plans or to cover up their bungling ways and save face for upcoming elections.
From All Headlines News, On Monday, January 29th, before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs regarding Katrina's devastation in New Orleans, Mayor Nagin testified that:
Hurricane Katrina was the largest and most costly disaster in American history. More than 1,400 Louisiana residents lost their lives. Katrina produced the first mandatory evacuation in New Orleans history, and the largest displacement of people in U.S. history, 1.3 million. More than 200,000 New Orleanians remain displaced.

New Orleans sustained 57% of all the damage in Louisiana. Of our 188,251 occupied housing units, 134,344 sustained reportable damage, and 105,155 were severely damaged. Residential damage in Orleans parish was $14 billion.

Statewide, 81,000 businesses were impacted. The City of New Orleans lost $168 million in annual revenue, 50 percent of its operating budget. City government was forced to reduce its employees by 3,000 - half its workforce.

With 80 percent of New Orleans under water for almost a month, the damage done by the moisture was extensive, but as harmful to our infrastructure was the damage done by the weight of the water. In all, 480 billion pounds of water poured into our city and sat for almost a month.

I guess what I'm trying to put across is that emotions in this area are stretched and people feel beaten, used and forgotton. Please keep all those people in your prayers.