New Orleans

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

On the second anniversary of the day Hurricane Katrina ravaged American homes, devastated communities and shattered lives, it is hard to forget the failure of the Bush Administration in responding to the disaster.

President Bush promised two weeks after the storm that “when communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm.”

That promise remains unfulfilled.

An estimated 189,000 children were dislocated in the aftermath of Katrina. As many as 100,000 children are still displaced.

Most of us have used Google Maps, either to find out how to get from point "A" to point "B", or just to take a look at a place we've never been. It seems that some how, the post-Katrina satellite pictures of New Orleans have been replaced with pre-Katrina pictures.

Brad Miller,NC-13, chair of the sub-committee on investigations for the House Committee for Science and Techology wants to know why.

"Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history," subcommittee chairman Brad Miller, D-North Carolina, wrote in a letter to Schmidt.(chair and CEO of Google, Inc.)

Friends, I have so much to share and so little time to do so, I thought I'd just pop in during my break and post an update on the the little campaign that could, thanks in no small part to BlueNC.

If you know anything about my 2006 campaign, you know we broke the mold, broke the rules, made our own support, and just about won in spite of all the odds.

So knowing me and the fact that I'm a school teacher now after 27 years in textiles, you shouldn't be surprised that when the DCCC invited me to DC this week to meet with them about 2008 I had to speak my mind, and I did.

Katrina has hastened the inevitable - New Orleans will wither on the vine faster than it was doing before due to Katrina.

"The new doubts, surprisingly, are largely not based on the widespread damage caused by the flood. Rather, crippling problems that existed long before Hurricane Katrina are mostly being blamed for the city’s failure to thrive.

In this view, the storm was merely a grim exclamation point to conditions decades in the making. Before the storm, some economists say, New Orleans may have had more people than its economy could support, and the stalled repopulation is merely reflecting that."

The scapegoats will certainly not be NO itself - this will be laid at the feet of the federal government and whites in general.

Recently, word leaked that Senator John Edwards would be announcing his candidacy for President in the 9th ward of New Orleans. There was much joy and rejoycing among those who support John Edwards. There were those who are either undecided or pulling for other candidates that thought New Orleans was a good choice for the announcement. Then, there were those who were....less enthusiastic.

This diary is simple, it describes why I "approve" of this venue choice.