Forgivable Sins?

I grew up in an AEMC church. The notion that we are all sinners was prominent in the weekly sermons. Coupled with the whole sin thing was forgiveness and redemption. Ok, fine. What is too often lost in the land of forgiveness is accountability.

Putting Ray Nagin back on the government payroll supports this attitude. His fingerprints were all over the mess what happened after the storm. Shit happens. How you deal with shit happening speaks to one's character.

He was given an opportunity do what he could have done to manage the situation from his level. It is well documented what he failed to do. By no means am I giving that silly woman Governor or our fearless leader in DC a free pass.

To forgive Nagin his sins is wonderful, not to hold him accountable is just silly

BTW, they should have thrown William Jefferson under the bus, too.

Toxic Relief?

"On the eve of yesterday's hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, FEMA reversed course on the issue and said it has asked federal health officials to help conduct a new assessment of conditions in trailers under prolonged use. But revelation of the agency's earlier posture -- in documents withheld by FEMA until they were subpoenaed by Congress -- attracted harsh bipartisan criticism.

Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) decried what he called FEMA's indifference to storm victims and said the situation was "sickening." He said the documents "expose an official policy of premeditated ignorance" and added that "senior officials in Washington didn't want to know what they already knew, because they didn't want the legal and moral responsibility to do what they knew had to be done."

It's bad enough these folks were ignored during the Katrina fiasco, then FEMA put them in toxic trailers. Those who knew what happened and failed to act should be sentenced to life in the still unrebuilt 9th ward. The only shelter is those lovely trailers

Too poor to stay, too poor to move

“I was born poor; I’m probably going to die poor; and before the storm came through I was doing pretty good,” Ms. Anderson said. She and Mr. Evans paid $325 a month for half a duplex in the Uptown section of New Orleans, with “a little porch watching the laundrymat,” she said, “and a backyard.” The streetcar took her right to her job at the Columns, an elegant 1883 hotel in the Garden District. Mr. Evans built cabinets and countertops.

Now they live in a monochrome apartment complex. An empty swimming pool bakes in the Memphis heat, and frayed ropes dangle where the swings should be. FEMA pays the rent. Their social life consists of church on Sundays. For the first time in their lives, they are on food stamps, and to make them stretch, Ms. Anderson shuns the nearby Kroger in favor of a distant Save-a-Lot. Without a car, she trudges home from the bus stop with frozen turkey legs in a canvas bag over one shoulder."

All this couple wants to do is work for a living wage. How dare they?

This is the America we dare not face or talk about. These people were poor in a community that poor educationally and economically. For years they managed to make a life for themselves. Onethat many of us can't even begin to wrap our brain around.

But instead employers will import/exploit immigrant labor. Is this the cornerstone of our repbublic?

Alexander H. Stephens one opined "the democracy's worst defect, demagogues rousing the poor against the rich, never occurred where the poor were nonvoting slaves"

Furthermore, black serviles SPARED WHITE CITIZENS FROM DEGRADED MENIAL WORK.

Sound familiar?


Who was Alexander H. Stephens? The Confederacy's Vice President.

No Passport Required

New Orleans was a mess before Katrina. High incident of crime and corruption plagued the city. After Katrina, things have gotten worse. Many survivors simply left and started elsewhere. There was an outpouring of time and money, we witnesses and celebrated the best in human nature. Of course there was fraud because there are humans involved. The media focuses on the individual fraud but what about the millions wasted or diverted to no bid contract?

The gang at all things democrat make a good point. Maybe the Lady Speaker should lead a delegation to the forgotten city?

No Mardi Gras for the Ninth Ward

The second post Katrina Mardi Gras is upon us. I guess the measure of how New Orleans has recovered from the storm and the post storm is how large Mardi Gras will be. They are expecting a quarter of million visitors. This is an increase from last year but well below pre-storm levels.

New Orleans was rich in history but was primarily a tourist spot. What seems to be lost on the MSM is the devastation that remains. There is a section of the city that is vacant. Crime is running rampant, far worse than before the storm. Those who survived the storm have rebuilt their lives in different parts of the country. Their return is unlikely. The money did not seem to reach the folks who really needed it. But as with everything else this administration has touched, fraud was a problem.

No one is in a hurry to rebuild the Ninth Ward for a couple of reasons. The first one is this section is below sea level. As a risk manager by training, for those folks to return to area that is just not safe. The other is, the storm did what folks tried for years to do, rid the city of those people in the ninth ward.

Get a bulldozer and call it a wrap.

Consensual Sex: War Profitteers

Haliburton has been raping the government coffers with permission for years. Their tour in Iraq has been very profitable giving a new name to war profiteering. Since that wasn't enough they turned their sights on Katrina.

Instead of FEMA going after the big boys, they are targeting college kids. Why do I think any abuse that may have occurred is minor compared to the contracts blindly handed over to Cheney's pals?

Since the government consented to this nonsense I guess it is not rape.

I hate these people.