HumidCity

Recently, I had the pleasure to see International Singing Sensation Tony Clifton live and in person at Pittsburgh’s Rex Theater in a Comic Relief sponsored benefit for New Orlenians displaced by Hurricane Katrina. It was bliss. I was born too late for the Beatles and the Sex Pistols played Baton Rouge before I hit town, but through some twisted strand of kismet, I found myself in the right place at the right time and I must confess, when the Man Himself, Tony Clifton took the stage, I peed myself a little.

For over three hours, I was captivated by the deft showmanship, the sheer animal magnetism and brute force of wit of the world’s most consummate entertainer. From the opening strains of the plaintive ballad Lonely Girl to the grand finale spectacle of God Bless America, complete with not one, not two, but three statuesque Lady Libertys, Mister Clifton held his audience spellbound as he shared not just the greatest hits of yesterday and near-today in his own inimitable style, but wisdom and philosophy from the Tony Clifton Book of Life. As he stated early in his show, “You ain’t gonna b’lieve tonite!”

Without giving too much away, Clifton performed a veritable gamut of classics including old chestnuts such as Volaré, Lightning Strikes and Goldfinger and added some newer staples to his ouvre with stunning renditions of Black Magic Woman, Paradise and Synchronicity II, all backed by the incredible Katrina Kiss My Ass Orchestra, a rag-tag collection of extraordinarily talented musicians all displaced by that bitch who came to New Orleans three years ago. Their soulful rendition of Gordon Lightfoot’s Sundown moved the audience to tears as Tony and his entourage roasted marshmallows over a can of Sterno. That’s entertainment!

I used to fall into an angry sulk when thinking of the foot of water Katrina brought inside my home, but after hearing the KKMAO, I now feel that’s a small price to pay for bringing these devotees of the Euterpean muse together. Add in the Cliftonettes, sprinkle liberally with the Burly-Q troupe Fleur de Tease and top it off with an exuberant hitcher, Keely, (whom Mister Clifton has taken under his meaty wing,) and you have the recipe for an entertainment cocktail that goes down smooth, slams you into the wall and leaves you breathless, spent and begging for more.

After the show, the lovely Peggy Di Gioia, Goddess of All Trades, hostess divine and wife of the shows executive producer Mauro Di Gioia, (a demon of a sax player himself,) was able to sneak me past the formidable security team and into Tony’s dressing room for an interview. (And yes, I peed myself a little more, but I anticipated this and managed to stuff some napkins down my trousers beforehand!) So here, in a Humid City exclusive, are a Dozen for Tony Clifton.

M Styborski: Why a benefit for the displaced people of Hurricane Katrina? There are Wall Street CEO’s suffering from the financial implosion, hundreds of cruise ship victims are getting sick every day and Hollywood’s collective box office receipts are dwindling from internet piracy. With all this recent suffering, why do a benefit for a three year old disaster?

Tony Clifton: Fuck those sons of bitches. I could care less. I got sucked into this shit when I was down in New Orleans and some bartender on Bourbon Street slipped me a Mickey Finn. When I came to, I went back to my hotel and somehow my keycard opened the wrong door. Some seventy year old broad started screaming and the cops arrested me. When I went before the magistrate, these guys from Comedy Whatsis… Comic Relief told the judge to give me community service, so here I am doing sixty hours of this shit. It’s fucking Liberal bullshit, is what it is.

MS: The Bush Administration has just taken North Korea off the Terror Watchlist. Might we see a North Korean Tony Clifton tour in the near future?

TC: Yeah, I heard about that. Can you fuck underaged girls there? I guess so, It’s a third world country, huh? I’ll tell you what someone told me about New Orleans: It’s a little town disguised as a major city stuck right in the fucking middle of a third world country. Is that something, or what?

MS: Has the recent financial upheaval affected your portfolio? If so, what can the public do to help Tony Clifton?

TC: I don’t need no fucking help. I’m doing great and I’ll tell you why: All my money is overseas! This financial shit is a ruse. They cause a panic on Wall Street so no one will put their money into stocks, then the FDIC comes in and says, “OK, we’ll raise the insurance from a hundred grand to two-hundred and fifty grand, put your money in the banks,” but they don’t tell you the fine print! Read the fine print! You’re insured, but they can dole it out to you a little at a time, say a thousand bucks a year for the next 250 years! So they get to keep your money as long as they want! I take fucking travelers checks to other countries and stick ‘em in their banks. I travel the world! I got no financial worries!

MS: We all know that Tony Clifton is the Pablo Picasso of Family-Style Las Vegas Entertainment. What do you consider your Guernica?

TC: My Guernica? Jesus, that’s a good question! I’ll tell you my philosophy: Andy Kaufman died for my fucking sins, and I will not besmirch his memory by not sinning!

MS: Speaking of Kaufman, have you communicated or communed with him since his mysterious disappearance so long ago?

TC: Mysterious? Bullshit. He’s fucking dead, twenty-five years. No. Next question.

MS: No matter who wins the upcoming presidential election, Obama or McCain, either is almost certain to implode under the stress they will be facing in the next four years. Could we see a Tony Clifton run for the White House in 2012?

TC: No, no, I stay out of politics. Only 33% of the country ever bothers to vote and only about 12% of those votes ever get counted, or go to anyone with a chance of winning. You’re a smart guy, you know the numbers.

MS: So you have no interest at all in politics?

TC: Well, I tell you, I’d fuck that hockey puck bitch. Yeah, I’d fuck her like a pitbull.

MS: During your stay in New Orleans, did you meet any of our fine political figures such as Mayor Ray Nagin or William Jefferson? Do you have any ideas that could help them to rebuild the city?

TC: No, I didn’t get to meet those guys, but I’ll tell you what that city needs to do. Corporate sponsorship! You guys got that Mardi Gras down there, load up all them parades with corporate sponsors, get some money coming in! Follow what the mayor of Vegas did. He’s tied to the mob, everybody knows it. Vegas went with that Disney family shit and the real money disappeared. The mayor came up with those “What happens here stays here” commercials and that hints at sexual pleasure. You see? You need to sell New Orleans as Sin City. Get my good friend Dennis Hoff, you know him? No? He owns the Bunny Ranch in Vegas, they got that cable TV show going. Get him to reopen that Storyville area and get some good whores in there and I can’t tell you the revenue you’ll see. You need to have at least two brothels for the women, too, they go for that stuff, don’t let ‘em kid you.

MS: Since the release of the film “Man In The Moon,” you’ve been thrust like a sharp stick back into the public eye. Has this resurgence in fame and success changed the man behind the shades, or is Tony Clifton still the same man he was twenty-five years ago?

TC: I haven’t fucking changed. Andy Kaufman came to Vegas in 1969 to see Elvis Presly and he found me. What did that Jew kid know about Elvis? He found me working there and I’m still the same guy I was back then.

MS: When people see you at a bar or club, what type of cocktail should they send over to you in order to show proper reverence? Jack Daniels?

TC: Fuck no, that’s piss! There are three Jacks: the Tennessee Whiskey, Gentleman Jack and the Single Barrel. I drink Gentleman Jack, the one in the middle. I went to Lynchburg and toured the distillery and you know what? Well, first off, it’s a dry fucking county! You can make whiskey there but you can’t buy it! What the fuck is that? But in the distillery, they don’t have machines to put those labels on. It’s all done by six old fucking ladies that sit there and lick the back of each label and they stick ‘em on the bottles! I tell you, when those caves run out of water there gonna have a problem. We’re trying to get them signed on as a sponsor.

MS: Well, if you’re looking for sponsorship, you might try Aleve. With your signature song being “I Will Surveeve” that might make a good tie-in don’t you think?

TC: The pain pills? Lemme see… I will surveeve, da-da-da-daaaaa… as long as I have Aleve… yeah, that might work at that!

MS: Lastly, we all know that Frank Sinatra didn’t make a move without the approval of Mel Tormé. As an entertainer, you surpassed Frank a long time ago, but have you surpassed Mel Tormé?

TC: That’s true, you got that right, Frank didn’t do shit without Mel’s say-so. No, I don’t think I’ve surpassed Frank, but Mel? Yeah, he’s fucking dead, I’m still here and I’m still going strong.

And going strong he is. There are still two dates on the current tour: Oct 12 at the Lakeshore Theatre in Chicago, IL and Oct 19 at the Sunset Strip House of Blues in Los Angeles. I strongly advise you to catch either, (or if possible, both,) of the remaining shows. If you don’t you do a disservice to yourself, to Tony Clifton, and to the spirit of good old-fashioned, red, white and blue entertainment. God bless America, and God bless Tony Clifton!

More photos can be seen here!

Ouroboros, the mythological snake that eternally consumes its own tail. Circularity of this nature is very much on my mind right now. You see I am back in Dobbs Ferry, NY, the village north of the Bronx where my wife and I (and our cats) spent six weeks in exile from New Orleans after Katrina and the leveee failure. Yesterday was my first time not working madly from before 6am till late in the night while on a business trip up to Manhattan. It was only after the workload ended that the bizarreness of being back here at exactly the same time we sought refuge within these walls has begin to hit me.

The picture above is of our last night here, a week before Halloween in 2005, when I cooked up a vat of my jambalaya as a thank you to all of the wonderful people who kept us together and vaugely sane during those times. (Lto R: George Rodgers, Mrs. McQue, Jim McQue, Collen and her husband, my friend Sean Hastings who put us up, Cynthia and Molly Rodriguez, and in the foreground my lovely wife Alexis who was at the time my finacee) Today I have another pot of jambalaya on the stove and am waiting for them to arrive once more.

It is surreal to walk these streets at this time of year again. So much is the same, yet seen through different eyes. I am not nearly insane with depression and fear for the future as I was then. I know where my family and friends are and what the status of my home is. I’m not glued to the internet, radio and telecasts trying to average out a rough idea of what was actually the reality of the situation. I am not out of work with a strained bank account.

No. This time I am visiting Sean and his lovely wife Jo taking a day to say thanks. Three years have gone by and the kindness and help of these people has loomed large in my mind ever since. I do not think I can ever properly express what those weeks meant, or how different so many things would have been had we not ended up here.

As we battle the corruption in our government, protest the Mayor’s self aggrandizing pompousness, and dodge the flying lead of the Crescent City streets I still find that it is the simple kindnesses of people like this that provide me the strength to keep going.

I love these people and I can never thank them enough. The food is a mere token of the feeling that come to the fore as I sit here in Dobbs Ferry.

this generation of refugees and evacuess is an odd lot…. most of whom have never heard of betsy or camille. AND mention of the great flood of 27 or noah or even gilligan gets a few blanco stares.  don’t dare mention nash roberts. should I ask if they know who ike is? or why we even like him? no, he’s not the guy who owns ikea! duh!

tonight i won’t stand on my soapbox too long… too sick to be tired, too tired to be sick - although the katrina crude (or is that gustav guck) is quite busy wreaking havoc on my lungs with a death rattle that could make many a bipartisan elephant go looking for pasture out on highway 61.  but i’m too manic to stay depressed and too depressed to be suicidal… i think i just want peace of mind.

so i will step down and leave you with the words of dwight d. “ike” eisenhower: “though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and co-operation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

peace indeed, my friends…. and remember to BLOG THIS! 

ph “freddy” fred             

well KATRINA III was definitely a disappointment… (rita was KATRINA II for those of you  keeping score) but wait there’s more on the way:

HANNAH the attack of the palindromes!

IKE: dewey winds

JOSEPHINE: the storm that set bones apart!

and KARINA: don’t let the spelling fool you!

coming to a cable station near you… heck the RNC is f’n boring except for the McCain ~ Palin love connection… have you noticed how he leers at her butt while he fiddles with his wedding ring?

BLOG THIS!

phfred@notthat.com

I do not have the energy to write a new post here on this subject so please go over to Katrina: An UnNatural Disaster and read what I wrote for them. Comments are hugely appreciated, leave them on the actual post not here.

Here is an exceprt to get you started:

A few days ago my wife and I evacuated from New Orleans, piled into a friend’s car with our four cats. Thus began a series of events that simultaneously evoke the horrors of three years ago and put a vicious post-Katrina spin on them. I am going to tell you what this kind of evac is like. Be ready, because it is not pleasant.

First comes the mad packing. What can fit in your car? What can be left behind to make room for neighbors? There is always something to be secured around the house no matter how complete your prep may have been.

The soundtrack to this is the panicky, fearful misinformation coming from our political class. Despite claims by the mayor, Gustav was not the “Mother of All Storms,” a phrase whose use was hardly conducive to anything other than panic. Neither was the storm 900 miles wide; its hurricane-force winds only reached 50 miles from its center (note Katrina stretched 105 miles from its center).

Katrina was more than 50 percent stronger than Gustav. Panic and threats that anyone found on the street would go directly to the state prison at Angola, something I believe is usually against the law, constituted the majority of the official voices on the airwaves. At the time, we had none of the facts handy about this “Mother of All Storms,” just a litany of fear voiced before a backbeat of polemic. I am honestly surprised I did not hear the phrase “run for your lives.”

Read the rest here.

Loki, HumdCity Founder

Remember the promises to rebuild infrastructure, promises that three years later remain unfulfilled.

Remember us in your thoughts as Gustav and Hanna approach.

7AM CDT — KATRINA MAKES LANDFALL AS A CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

7:30 AM CDT — BUSH ADMINISTRATION NOTIFIED OF THE LEVEE BREACH: The administration finds out that a levee in New Orleans was breached. On this day, 28 “government agencies, from local Louisiana parishes to the White House, [reported that] that New Orleans levees” were breached. [AP]

8AM CDT — MAYOR NAGIN REPORTS THAT WATER IS FLOWING OVER LEVEE: “I’ve gotten reports this morning that there is already water coming over some of the levee systems. In the lower ninth ward, we’ve had one of our pumping stations to stop operating, so we will have significant flooding, it is just a matter of how much.” [NBC’s “Today Show”]

11:13 AM CDT - WHITE HOUSE CIRCULATES INTERNAL MEMO ABOUT LEVEE BREACH: “Flooding is significant throughout the region and a levee in New Orleans has reportedly been breached sending 6-8 feet of water throughout the 9th ward area of the city.” [AP]

MORNING — BROWN WARNS BUSH ABOUT THE POTENTIAL DEVASTATION OF KATRINA: In a briefing, Brown warned Bush, “This is, to put it mildly, the big one, I think.” He also voiced concerns that the government may not have the capacity to “respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe” and that the Superdome was ill-equipped to be a refuge of last resort. [AP]

MORNING — MAYFIELD WARNS BUSH ABOUT THE TOPPING OF THE LEVEES: In the same briefing, Max Mayfield, National Hurricane Center Director, warns, “This is a category 5 hurricane, very similar to Hurricane Andrew in the maximum intensity, but there’s a big big difference. This hurricane is much larger than Andrew ever was. I also want to make absolutely clear to everyone that the greatest potential for large loss of lives is still in the coastal areas from the storm surge. … I don’t think anyone can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but there’s obviously a very very grave concern.” [AP]

MORNING — BUSH CALLS SECRETARY CHERTOFF TO DISCUSS IMMIGRATION: “I spoke to Mike Chertoff today — he’s the head of the Department of Homeland Security. I knew people would want me to discuss this issue [immigration], so we got us an airplane on — a telephone on Air Force One, so I called him. I said, are you working with the governor? He said, you bet we are.” [White House]

MORNING — BUSH SHARES BIRTHDAY CAKE PHOTO-OP WITH SEN. JOHN MCCAIN [White House]

11AM CDT — MICHAEL BROWN FINALLY REQUESTS THAT DHS DISPATCH 1,000 EMPLOYEES TO REGION, GIVES THEM TWO DAYS TO ARRIVE: “Brown’s memo to Chertoff described Katrina as ‘this near catastrophic event’ but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, ‘Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities.’” [AP]

LATE MORNING — LEVEE BREACHED: “A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new ‘hurricane proof’ Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina’s fiercest winds were well north.” [Times-Picayune]

11AM CDT — BUSH VISITS ARIZONA RESORT TO PROMOTE MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “This new bill I signed says, if you’re a senior and you like the way things are today, you’re in good shape, don’t change. But, by the way, there’s a lot of different options for you. And we’re here to talk about what that means to our seniors.” [White House]

4:30PM CDT — BUSH TRAVELS TO CALIFORNIA SENIOR CENTER TO DISCUSS MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “We’ve got some folks up here who are concerned about their Social Security or Medicare. Joan Geist is with us. … I could tell — she was looking at me when I first walked in the room to meet her, she was wondering whether or not old George W. is going to take away her Social Security check.” [White House]

8PM CDT — RUMSFELD ATTENDS SAN DIEGO PADRES BASEBALL GAME: Rumsfeld “joined Padres President John Moores in the owner’s box…at Petco Park.” [Editor & Publisher]

8PM CDT — GOV. BLANCO AGAIN REQUESTS ASSISTANCE FROM BUSH: “Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got.” [Newsweek]

LATE PM — BUSH GOES TO BED WITHOUT ACTING ON BLANCO’S REQUESTS [Newsweek]

To see the full Think Progress Katrina Timeline, click here.

On WTUL FM’s Community Gumbo tomorrow morning at 9am. I’ll be talking about Katrina, media democratization, and the social web. Go here and click “listen live” in the morning.

(For a complete and updated list of all Blog Carnival Posts visit this page.)

I follow Fay over Florida after watching her stumble past Hispaniola, Jamaica and Cuba, the mountainous landmasses that inhabit the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, all the while preparing for my upcoming trip to New Orleans to attend the third annual Rising Tide Conference; and I can’t help but remember August of 2005 and some of the intangibles since lost, perhaps greatest among them, trust. Watching television weatherpersons make their predictions, I see what I think are the prognosticators overestimating the possibilities of their science without adequately communicating the art within. Maybe they have it right this time, but there was innocence lost in 2005 and, well, among other things, I simply no longer believe in The Cone.

August 2005 was an unstable time for me. My family was in disarray. Recently separated and newly under-employed completely outside my field, I was desperately (in its most literal sense) trying to take care of my three sons, 23, 20 and 17. Craig Ferguson describes parenthood as spending the rest of your life with your heart outside your body. I can’t say it any better than that. It’s one thing when you can gather those little hearts of yours near you, keep their invisible leashes short enough to pretend you have some grasp; but there comes a time when the loving thing to do is to let go, to send your little hearts away to grow up, get educated in books and in the ways of independence. In late August of 2005 my 20 year old son was finally and happily among friends, celebrating the coming semester, looking forward to his sophomore year at Loyola University, having spent a miserable first summer in New Orleans, poor, unemployed and largely alone. Unlike so many others, the surface of my world, already well shaken, hardly noticed what happened next. While some college students in apartments, like so many New Orleanians, lost much, mine lived nestled safely up against St. Charles Avenue, and personally, his only immediate loss was some of the first semester of his sophomore year in college, managing to salvage nine hours of that from the generosity of Georgia State University. I guiltily enjoyed having him unexpectedly with me again, bonus time back in the nest, such as it was.

However, amidst the colossal losses in the wake of the storm, came a loss of trust, subtler and more gradual. For me it started with the National Hurricane Center’s and the mainstream media’s placing protocol and standard practices above the safety of the citizens of New Orleans on the Friday before the storm and completely eroded with the overt abandonment of those same citizens by their government during the following week, watching the massive human suffering in the wake of the catastrophe that we now know was caused, not solely by Hurricane Katrina, but by the very government that left them there to drown in the catastrophic flood, a flood that occurred because the levees that were known to be doomed by the federal employees who built and maintained them, collapsed under an onslaught they’d been advertised as being able to withstand. It’s dizzying. Unfortunately, it was only the beginning.

It’s been an ongoing civics lesson, watching what’s passed in and about New Orleans, what appears even from here as the abandonment of the brave people and institutions who went back and picked up and started again, on their own and in their spare time. It still moves me to think of all those universities just opening in January of 2006, faculty, students and staff, returning to a profoundly injured city in what can only be described as a leap of faith and what was probably the single greatest moment of repopulation since the city emptied. For me, my country’s failure in New Orleans has become woven among all the other failures. It’s just a little more personal. They, the mythical they who govern, corrupted by the power of doing so, are counting on our not paying attention, or on our following their lead and lying to ourselves, trying to find pathetic comfort in denial of this growing list of horrors that, each alone, could be Our National Shame. New Orleans has been abandoned. The nation’s economy is in shambles. The war is set to go on forever. I’ve come to believe that everything is going perfectly according to plan, expecting the worst, while a culture built on rationalization blames the victims and looks away, easily distracted, petulant when called to attention, �What were they thinking, living there?� It’s the coward’s way of pretending that nothing like that could ever happen to them because they, well, won’t bring it on themselves. Perhaps, in some small way, it’s also an extension of that last acceptable prejudice: Southerners in general and New Orleanians in particular, alone, still the brunt of cruel jokes in genteel company. Three years on, once optimistic, I am jaded and embittered.

Mark Folse and Adrastos, before me here, have both said what I aimed to say about what’s been found in the wake of this flood, amidst all this failure and loss, and it�s a pretty remarkable silver lining. They�ve named the names, so I�ll spare you the obligatory links be brief. I simply can�t measure how enriched my life has been just from standing on these sidelines, observing this surge of citizen activism bubbling up on such a scale. These are the bravest people I�ve ever known, and I�m just grateful, grateful to have witnessed this, to have been included in the silver lining, this community, found.

-Sophmom | Dot Calm

(For a complete and updated list of all Blog Carnival Posts visit this page.)

Go figure, people are people warts and all no matter where you go. This one is the first of many dedicated to those who continue to excoriate us rather than assist. It is not a hand out that we want or need. It is a hand up.

In that spirit allow me to shout about whats going on in Iowa. For them it is a manner of weeks since their flood, not the years we have had to navigate the dilirium, for them the red tape and greed factors are only just rearing their heads.

Via Iowa’s Gazette Online (hat tip to the inimitable Karen Gadbois for the this first one):

CEDAR RAPIDS � Three more residents have been accused of fraudulently claiming to be flood victims in order to receive money from the American Red Cross � taking more than $3,000 in assistance.

Patrice Howard, 36, and Willie Morris, 38, both of 1200 First Ave. SE, Apt. 1, were arrested this week on charges of second-degree theft, police said.

On June 21, the two gave Red Cross officials their previous address of 1806 M St. SW and said they lost their home in the flood. Investigators later found that house was not damaged by the flood.

For those keeping count that make seven so far in Cedar Rapids. I really feel for them, even a pale spectral version of what happened to our Crescent City is more than I would wish on anyone. It is close enough however that I can see the same pattern of news stories developing: thievery, red tape, failure of infrastructure. Just like home in that respect.

Wait, did I say red tape? Lets check back in on the Gazette, different article this time:

I called up John Gillick, who was flooded out of his house on 10th Street NW two months ago this week. His home was trashed, his Ellis Harbor boathouse was smashed, and the cops had his flooded car towed before he could get back into his neighborhood. He’s given up trying to get it back.

Still, Gillick is remarkably positive. I caught up with him Wednesday morning as he and his wife were moving into a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer in Hiawatha.

“It’s good and it’s bad,” said Gillick, who’s happy to have a place to live but laments how he got here. “At least it’s a place to stay.”

He figures the decision to pull out dozens of moldy FEMA trailers extended his wait for housing. “Tell Patty Judge thanks,” one of his moving helpers yells, referring to the lieutenant governor’s snap, late-night order last month to remove the tainted trailers.

Gillick’s house also has been on a bureaucratic roller-coaster ride. First it was yellow-carded. Then yellow turned to that infamous shade of purple. Then, for some reason, purple turned back to yellow. He’s weighing the costs of rebuilding or renovation or putting in a modular home. But for now, like a lot of people, he’s just waiting for the feds, state and city to make some key decisions.

Right now Katrina is on everyone’s mind (at least here on the Gulf where there is no choice), in the spirit of generosity shown to us by those who came from states away to help while the official effort floundered I would like to advise readers to remember all the victims of infrastructure failure across the country.

Levees are everywhere.

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

That is what John McCain called Senator Obama’s campaign staffers pointing out that he has not once, but twice voted against and 8/29 Commission. Now both Senators are politicians, which means I don’t trust either one of them. This is why I love the Annenberg Political Fact Check. A non partisan group that documents the realities behind the political posturing.

Today they addressed this one. Here is the summary, once you’re done click the link at the bottom for full documentation with sources.:

McCain was asked by a New Orleans reporter why he voted twice against an independent commission to investigate the government�s failings before and after Hurricane Katrina, and he incorrectly stated that he had “voted for every investigation.”

McCain actually voted twice, in 2005 and 2006, to defeat a Democratic amendment that would have set up an independent commission along the lines of the 9/11 Commission. At the time of the second vote, members of both parties were complaining that the White House was refusing requests by Senate investigators for information.

The McCain campaign accused the Obama campaign of “tired negative attacks” for pointing out and documenting McCain�s gaffe.

Read all the details at Katrina Kerffufle.

The video shows why we all need the 8/29 Investigation - a truly independent and complete analysis of the Katrina levee failures on August 29, 2005. Best if done by NOON THURSDAY JUNE 5.

Help launch Levees.Org to the top of the YouTube charts!

Want to do more? You can also:

1. Register at YouTube and rate the video.

2. View and rate our other videos on YouTube.

Help spread the word. Help show why New Orleans and people nationwide deserve the 8/29 Investigation. We have shown that the levee study done by the government is flawed and controversial. We also know that the review done by the ASCE was shoddy and biased.

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

A bill to find the truth about the levee failures is stalled in Homeland Security and YOU can kick this bill into action!

If you haven’t yet, please make two (2) important phone calls today:

1. Call Senator Landrieu at 202-224-5824 and tell her we need hearings on the 8/29 Investigation Act.

2. Call Senator Vitter at 202-224-4623 and ask for him to co-sponsor Senate Bill 2826 so we have a bipartisan bill.

It’s quick and simple - just start your phone call with this:

“I would like to leave a message for the Senator…. ” And leave your message.

Your Senators represent YOU; make sure your voice is heard!

Best if done by 6pm CST today Tue June 3.

Syndicated from the Levees.org email.

In the midst of the Jazz Fest Daily Deluge the following article snuck through between the raindrops:

A federal court judge cleared the way Friday for the Army Corps of Engineers to face trial on claims that defects in its Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet destroyed wetlands and turned the navigation channel into a funnel for storm surge..

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval’s 40-page ruling “paves the way for the first and only trial that will likely be held on how the Army Corps of Engineers drowned New Orleans” during Hurricane Katrina, said California attorney Pierce O’Donnell, who leads the legal team that filed the case two years ago on behalf of a group of plaintiffs that includes WDSU-TV anchorman Norman Robinson, who lived in eastern New Orleans.

The suit alleges the controversial shipping channel flooded thousands of homes in eastern New Orleans, the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish.

After the way previous suits against the Corps have gone this is a lovely breath of fresh air. In order to engender respect from the community there needs to be responsibility, accountability and some from of pennance besides. Accountability has been evaded because of decades outdated immunities still on the books. Need I remind the world yet again that the winds that hit New Orleans were Cat 2, we were on the weaker backside of the storm. The levees were certified for Cat 3.

Now the Corps is using newspapers to seal the gaps in the levees? Drag them through the court system and enforce accountability.

Without proper flood protection the world will lose a lot, not just the residents of New Orleans. Newsweek said it very well recently:

This subtropical port, which looks to the Mediterranean, Africa and the Caribbean for inspiration, has always marched to the beat of a multitude of different and very funky drummers. Which city has more beguiling street names - Abundance, Beaujolais, Cupid, Desire? Other places have the Rotary and the Elks. New Orleans has Social and Pleasure clubs and the Mardi Gras Indians - African-Americans masquerading as Native Americans in a tradition dating from when Indians and slaves were natural allies. A Mardi Gras Indian designs and sews a new costume every year: one chief put the cost, in time and materials, at $100,000 each. There are secret rituals, songs and chants; even parade routes are classified. Masking is crucial - disguise, misdirection, all in the service of nutty, impractical, unclassifiable mystery - and it’s one key to understanding the city and its culture. New Orleans elevates the chores of daily life to a high level of culture. Porch railings are wrought into sculpture. In the kitchen, the humblest food becomes piquant. Even the funeral procession is an art form.

In the wake of Katrina, New Orleans is doing what it does best: making something extraordinary out of next to nothing. There’s no Marshall Plan here - just small miracles in individual neighborhoods. “The culture of New Orleans emanates from the bottom up, not from the top down,” says Ellis Marsalis, pianist, composer and patriarch of the musical clan. The resurrection of the neighborhoods is doubly important because thousands of residents are still trying to come back, and because the city’s culture - particularly its music - is anchored in the neighborhoods. Unless they are revived, “the music won’t have a home anymore,” says saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr., who is also the Big Chief of the Congo Nation, a Mardi Gras Indian tribe. “New Orleans needs the neighborhoods, because it’s the only city in America that retains its traditional styles.”

In the increasingly mobile and digital age the world needs places like New Orleans. This is the last true American bohemia in so many ways, a place with a rich and vibrant (and yes, in many case unfortunate) history.

This is one of those rare moments of sanity over the past three years, I hope it goes the distance!

Now back to my foul weather Jazz Fest Blogging…

Loki, Founder and Cat Herder, HumidCity

The following is a small post from The Unfathomable Dr. Mongoose on the New Orleans LiveJournal Comunity dated Jan 8, 08. I only just got permission to syndicate it so it is a few days late. Take it away Doc:

Katrina general retiring from the Army.

As Lt. Gen. Russel Honore gets ready to retire from the Army and hand over his command on Friday, he says he wants to spend the rest of his life creating a “culture of preparedness” to prevent another post-disaster disaster.

“There’s an attitude everywhere else that people are smarter than they are in New Orleans and in Mississippi. They’re not,” the 60-year-old general said at his office at Fort Gillem, just outside Atlanta. “What happened in New Orleans could have happened anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard…A vast part of America still thinks, `That couldn’t happen where I live.’ And they are dead damn wrong.”

Right now, I live about 40 miles outside of Chicago, and each week there have been anywhere from one to almost two dozen people in the tri-state area over the past six weeks that have died from tornadoes, ice storms, or snow-related accidents. And yet, there are people who think that they’re safe just because they’re nowhere close to a major body of water or place that gets earthquakes.

So the next time someone makes a crack about “well, they shouldn’t be living in a disaster-prone area,” please point them to the buffet line at Dick’s all-you-can-eat.