HumidCity

Well, I went to the protest against Bush along with Jac and D from Defend New Orleans. We met up with still and video cameras at an intersection just off Napoleon and Freret. Dissenters, as is usual Bush policy, were kept a good two blocks from the site.

Now there is a good side and a bad side to the efforts this afternoon. The bad side was the protest itself. I have seen high school classrooms with more people in them. There were a few people from the neighborhood, a smattering of random folks, a handful of media, several Common Ground kids, and a boatload of cops. The rain couldn’t decide if it wanted to attend or not.

There was a megaphone going around (yes, adrastos, I took a turn, you missed out), and there were a couple of old ladies going to town with it. Unfortunately a number of the kids got ahold of it as well. For the most part they engaged in taunting the police and saying “fuck,” repeatedly at top volume and in varying permutations. All in all not a lot was accomplished there, which is hardly unusual for protests.The good side of all this is the incredible spreading of the meme. The prior posting was picked up, thanks to Scout Prime at First Draft, by an incredible array of sites throughout the blogosphere. I can hear search engines ratcheting upwards even now. “New Orleans Rebukes George Bush,” is a meme that is spreading far and wide. I am quite happy with that.

I am also happy to see the amount of discussion this has generated. From Schroeder’s eloquent and constructive approach to some of the pro-Bush comments suddenly turning up in the original post’s comments (quite a dialogue going on there still, feel free to join in). I know to many this is a moot argument, polarizing at best and violently stupid at worst. I just cannot let the issue go.

There are 122 levees scattered across the US that the Corps has declared unsafe. After the past eighteen months I have come to feel that no one should have to go through what we have. No one. I don’t care if it is some bonehead who rails against us and is oblivious to the facts or not. The only way to prevent this is bring accountability back into the equation at the governmental level. The only way to do that is propogation of information and opening of dialogue.

Disclosure: I have run across a few that belive me to be the author. I am not. As far as I know I posted it first but it was a press release that was circulating through many local e-lists. Author unknown. Hat tip to Editor B. for sending it my way.

EDIT: pictures are here

This one is for our New Orleans readership, both here and in exile. I found it on Fofalex’s LJ where he said he had looted it and made it his own, I guess that means I get the pleasure of looting from a looter…

Anyway, if you are a New Orleanian please add your own answers in a comment to this post.

1) What are you drinking right now?
Coffee.

2) Where were you on 28 August, 2005?
Fleeing in a group with too many humans, too many cats, too few cars, and a snake.

3) And then where did you go?
W. Memphis, AR. We stayed in a broken down hotel until a friend of my fiancee’s rescued us (THANKS Chris & Woody!) and brought us to a trailer in the middle of the woods outside Bloomington, IN. After a few weeks there we stayed in Dobbs Ferry, NY in a vacant apartment that was undergoing construction work. (Thanks Sean and Jo! You really pulled our fat out of the fire!)

4) Did you come home?
Yes.

5) If so, when? If not, where do you live now?
Got home to NOLA a week before Halloween, got up the next morning and helped out at the NOLA Bookfair, then the MOMS Ball Halloween Party that night. We now live uptown again.

6) What do you miss most about ‘old’ New Orleans?
Our friends, the ethnic/racial mix, trash pickup, steady power and phone, and the lack of acre upon acre of decimation surrounding us.

7) What notable meals have you had lately?
Homemade macque choux made with shrimp right off the boat from De La Croix! (Yes, I was cooking)

8) In a word, what’s the worst thing that’s happened to you since August?
My grandmother’s death.

9) Now, inspire us with something lovely that’s happened.
Hansen’s snoballs reopened two weeks ago!

10) Who is your favorite bartender?
I don’t know anymore…

11) Where can we find you at 1am on Saturday night?
At home with my cats or out seeing local music at a club.

12) A word on G.W. Bush.
Colassal Incompetent

13) A word on Ray Nagin.
Long on heart, short on brains.

14) What have we learned?
The social contract between people and government is now void.

15) Where do you see yourself in 12 months?
I wish I knew….