Tis The Season

Jun 1, 2008 by

Hurricane season is now upon us yet again, that first day when everyone walks around with a little extra tension in their stance. We all get a bit of a twinge at the 1st of June these days. There is a shadow behind people’s eyes.

Canned goods, and axe in the attic, and jugs of water still get stashed around the place as every year. The weather report trumps other news even though we know Nash Roberts was the only one who could really predict those swirling storm patterns. We act tough and say it doesn’t frighten us, even as our blood momentarily chills. Wind and rain are known quantities, but now so is rising water and the hint of that last is what gives you that little adrenalin kick.

The Dirty South Bureau brings us some quick notes on May 30, a snippet of life in NOLA prior to our third Hurricane Season sans effective flood control. To really get a guage of how we feel rolling into this new storm season you have to read this brilliant deconstruction of of our halfwit Mayor’s state of the city speech, that appeared in the Huffington Post. Water is not the only thing we are in danger of drowning in, especially when Nagin eludes his keepers and finds a microphone.

I truly wonder if the self proclaimed righteous might actually have something. You know the ones like Rev. Hagee, McCain’s albatros, who said that the levee failure was god’s judgement on all of the sinners (read as gays, dope fiends, and freaks) in New Orleans. What if Katrina and all the others following her are really god’s way of trying to tell C. Ray to shut up? Ray delivers aspeech, Tropical Storm Arthur forms (a full day before the season’s start). Makes sense to me.

Nah, on second thought that can’t be it. We would have been pulverized by nonstop winds and storm surges if it were a heavenly response to the towering imbecility of Mr. Verbal Diarrhea! Oh well, most arguments tend to fall to pieces once the divine angle is tapped. Sure fire way to rob a conversation of good sense and critical thinking.

Tis is the third one. The third season since the flooding. Where do things in the city stand now? I think Bayou St John David sums it up pretty well in part of his recent post about checkgate:

It doesn’t matter whether the mayor himself is completely honest or thoroughly corrupt, you simply can’t have a complete lack of transparency combined with a spendthrift attitude combined with ambitious plans to make everything bigger and better without having more corruption than the city can possibly afford. I’m not so naive as to think that we could possibly have a corruption-free rebuilding process in modern America or in any imaginable free world, but we can only afford so many cost overruns without the city looking like the Spanish Plaza before the World’s Fair or like the main library looked within twenty years of its opening.

So if the city is not doing so hot at least there should be improved flood protection and rebuilt levees, right Mr. Man? Right near all of those rebuilt homes, right? Sadly, no.

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