The Violence Worker!

Bulldoze New Orleans

I'm tired of New Orleans.  I'm tired of paying for it and I'm really tired of Nagin's and Blanco's whining.

NEW ORLEANS (CNN) -- About half of New Orleans' residents have returned since Hurricane Katrina, but red tape and race and class issues have held up recovery efforts, Mayor Ray Nagin said Monday.

"I'm not asking for more money," Nagin told a Senate panel. "I just want the money you've already allocated to my citizens to help them."

He and other officials involved in reconstruction efforts appeared before a Senate "field hearing" on Gulf Coast reconstruction efforts, 17 months after Katrina devastated coastal Louisiana and Mississippi.

He said analysts at the University of New Orleans and a private research firm estimate the storm-ravaged city's population at between 230,000 and 250,000 -- little more than half its pre-Katrina population of about 455,000.

Those who have come back face a shortage of inhabitable homes and a spike in violent crime, which Nagin said police are working to address.

He said Katrina exposed "an ugly underbelly" of poverty, particularly among the area's black population, and he questioned whether the country had "the will to fix it."

"I think it's more class than anything, but there are racial issues associated with it also," Nagin said.

It has nothing to do with race or class or any other lame-assed excuse the incompetent Mr. Nagin can come up with. 

Katrina didn't expose any "ugly underbelly".  It's always been there.  NOLA's problems have been a matter of record.  It has boasted one of the highest murder rates and one of the worst gang problems in the country.

You can't blame this stuff on Bush or the Republicans.  At some point, the fingers have to point right back home.  New Orleans is a Democrat town and Louisiana's governor has been a Democrat since 1877 with two exceptions - 1980-1984and 1996-2004.

Nagin suggested the war in Iraq, which has now cost about $400 billion, has drawn money and attention away from hurricane relief.

"I hear all these numbers, the hundreds of billions of dollars that are flowing. I hear the arguments about why they're not flowing, and then I look what we're doing in Iraq and how we can spend money at an unprecedented level there," he said.

Landrieu, who has been appointed to lead a subcommittee that will oversee the pace of reconstruction work, said that when the administration submits an expected supplemental spending bill to pay for the nearly 4-year-old Iraq war, "there better be funding to rebuild Louisiana and Mississippi."

Why?  So another storm can blow in and give a repeat performance?  I'm sorry, but I'm tired of the whining.  Why should we throw good money after bad?  As far as I'm concerned, you can bulldoze the whole damn town.

Let private development rebuild the place if they want to, but leave my money out of it. 

And what guarantees do I get, if we spend billions more, that it will be any better than it is or was?

VW

UPDATE:  Before you write your hatemail or comment calling me a racist, read this:

http://www.violenceworker.com/my_weblog/2007/01/hate_mail_over_.html

When Do They get It?

It’s already started.  Like Texas getting a three week warning to get their act in order, the news media are all over the poorer areas of Houston, already looking for bodies.   People, who for whatever reason could not leave, are being interviewed.  Brace yourselves for another round of “Bush is killing poor people!”

From KOMO TV news in Seattle:

HOUSTON - Wilma Skinner would like to scream at the officials of this city. If only they would pick up their phones.

"I done called for a shelter, I done called for help. There ain't none. No one answers," she said, standing in blistering heat outside a check-cashing store that had just run out of its main commodity. "Everyone just says, 'Get out, get out.' I've got no way of getting out. And now I've got no money."

With Hurricane Rita breathing down Houston's neck, those with cars were stuck in gridlock trying to get out. Those like Skinner - poor, and with a broken-down car - were simply stuck, and fuming at being abandoned, they say.

Ms. Skinner thinks it is someone else’s problem that she is stuck.  She takes absolutely no personal responsibility for her situation.  I understand her car is broke.  That happens, but I read the reports of buses being available and the locations where people could get on them.  Why did she wait until the last minute with a broken car?

Now she thinks it is Bush or Perry or the mayor’s responsibility to get her out.  The thrust of the article is that just like New Orleans, poor people are being left behind.

I know poor.  It wasn’t that many years ago that I was down in the dirt poor. I know what it is to have nothing.  I’m not rich today.  I have a good job and am buying my own home.  I’m doing OK and compared to where I was at about ten years ago, I’m doing great!  The fact is I didn’t stay that way.  I made it on my own and without taxpayer help.  I didn’t have a fancy new car or nice clothes, but I had my pride and I knew how to work.

I understand that Ms. Skinner has a job.  Why couldn’t she salt a little away in case of an emergency over the past few years?  It doesn’t even have to be much.  Ten bucks a week would net you 520 dollars.  Five would get you at least 260. It would be enough for a bus ticket or to buy gas and some food – Maybe even fix the car.  At the very least, it might buy a taxi and a plane ticket to further inland.  If you had the money, you could leave on your terms, not waiting for someone to give you a ride.

Then you have the illegals:

On Bellaire Boulevard in southwest Houston, a weeping woman and her young daughter stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by plastic bags full of clothes and blankets. "I'd like to go, but nobody come get me," the woman said in broken English. When asked her name, she looked frightened. "No se, no se," she said: Spanish for "I don't know."

Her daughter, who appeared to be about 9, whispered in English, "We're from Mexico."

“…but nobody come get me.”  There she sits with a kid and most likely here illegally.  Who is to blame?  The government or the woman?   It doesn’t matter; you know who will get the blame.

I’m not trying to say that we shouldn’t try and evacuate all who want to get out, but realistically, we won’t get everyone and people have to know that they have to take some personal responsibility for their lives and their families.

My sincere hope and prayer is for everyone to be safe and be able to return to some semblance of normalcy after the storm.  In my earthquake prone area, I won’t have the luxury of a three day warning.  I have to be responsible and plan ahead.  If you live in a hurricane prone area, you face this possibility every year. There shouldn’t be any excuses why individuals aren’t at least a little prepared in case government fails them and there is no doubt, government will fail some people.

VW