10/2/2005

There were few marks spray-painted on homes into October. They appear to have been return visits where there might have been an effort to check back on pets or people who hadn't been evacuated earlier. I was back in New Orleans living temporarily in my former in-law's house in Algiers by the time the 10/2 was painted on this house. The floodwater must have been originally about four feet deep in this Mid City block. On the first pass, houses were spray-painted higher up -- in this case, as with every other house in the neighborhood, on the porch overhang.


The chairs on the porch were placed there more recently by what I think are squatters. Neither side of the house has been gutted, but the door to the right side was forced open -- the door lying on the floor in two halves -- and there was a pile of recently=worn clothing lying next to a mattress just inside the doorway. There are a lot of questionable occupants in the neighborhood. I'd say that most of them are hispanic contract workers.


In this Hollygrove neighborhood, there are a lot of beat up American flags. I wonder if it's just lack of care. Something about it, though, conjures in my imagination the thought of whole neighborhoods taken over by a foreign power, and the occupants scattered to safe havens. Would our government tolerate citizens being chased off of their land by a foreign power? Why should a flood be any different?

The people in this neighborhood are still far from hope. Why? Why should they have to wait any longer? Who's overseeing the welfare of Katrina victims? Where's the leadership of the conservatively compassionate man in Washington who couldn't proclaim himself a "compassionate conservative" enough when he wanted to get elected?

Money's been allocated, but where is it? It won't be near enough in the end.

Getting New Orleans rebuilt ought to be the number one priority of the mush mouth in the White House!

It ought to be the number one priority of Clarence Ray Nagin as well. Anyone seen "our" mush mouth lately?

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