The Katrina and Rita “Hope and Recovery Summit” in New Orleans hosted by US Senator Mary Landrieu on Monday had an almost surreal texture to it.
Aside from the mixture of University Presidents, law enforcement agents, housing advocates, business leaders, President Bush’s Gulf Coast Coordinator, Don Powell,participating in the all-day event, it included an element of political show business—rock star Presidential candidates running for the top position in the land, and yes, talking about Katrina.The Presidential discussion was peppered with questions by Soledad O’Brien of CNN.
Without doubt, the Presidential forum was not the sole substance of the program but, indeed, was the crown jewel.
Throughout the day, the experts discussed Katrina-plus two.Wednesday will be the second anniversary of Katrina engulfing New Orleans.There was plenty of business on the table such as high crime, low housing, weak levees, and questionable federal commitments.
But, the fireworks and the glamour really started when the Presidential candidates—Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Republican Duncan Hunter took the sole stand facing O’Brien.
Former Republican presidential hopeful, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee had spoken earlier during the day and was not a part of the Presidential candidate face-O’Brien evening discussion.Huckabee argued that Katrina could occur anywhere in the United States through the form of many types of natural disaster and was not limited to New Orleans or the GulfCoast.He mentioned that Arkansas had its own disaster risks and the universality of disaster and response mechanism was critical in American government.
Without doubt, the Presidential focus upon New Orleans was a show full of spice and hot sauce.
.
Candidates Clinton and Edwards were somewhat predictable in their responses since they have presented them recently at different forums in New Orleans.Both candidates were substantially critical of President Bush, his administration and the Republican Congress for their responses post-Katrina.The GOP had been in power of the federal government since the beginning of 2007.
Unquestionably, Hunter took the most heat as he attempted to focus upon the importance of self reliance and de-emphasized the need to rely upon the federal government.That philosophy obviously did not sit well with the moderator, O’Brien or with the audience.
In many respects, there was a dichotomy between two republicans, Huckabee and Hunter, two individuals who personally provided service to the Katrina victims.While Huckabee focused upon the devastation quality of nature, Hunter, to the dismay of many in the crowd and seemingly to Soledad O’Brien--engaged in a debate with the CNN moderator over the philosophy of rebuilding New Orleans and the type of hurricane protection needed.Hunter implied that the federal response should be dependent upon the number of people needing protection and said that government, in general, was incompetent.
In many ways the Presidential candidate discourse underscored the division among Republicans in Congress and the total disdain that the leading Democratic Presidential candidates have for President Bush and his Katrina policies
The superstar forum also underscored that-- like Iraq--New Orleans has no easy answers.The political volley, in many ways, might define the Presidential debate and Primary season over matters dealing with homeland security, natural disasters and infrastructure.
Hillary Clinton implied that New Orleans needed “hope, recovery and results”.In this very political season, it is obvious that the solemnity of Katrina anniversary of 2006 has evolved into the politics of begging for solutions and needed money during this second year post-disaster.
The Hope and Recovery Summit provided solitude to some and questions to many.It also established a format where New Orleans, disaster recovery and US infrastructure gets greater light--even in a venue that was under murky water, for weeks.
Where will it go? Nowhere...but feel free to continue your whining.
Written by LT
on 8/31/2007
Here, L.T., the Atlantic Free Press has picked up the story. http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2286/81/
Let's see where it goes from here. This was published TODAY.
Written by Heidi
on 8/30/2007
No Anthony...GOD is a merciful GOD. We all should be humbled before him. HIS blessings can anyone's...just understand that when people pray to HIM...sometimes HIS answer is no. HIS will for us is simply beyond our understanding. If it is my family or friends or me that is next...HIS will be done. Having that faith to believe what cannot be understood or explained by mere mortals is what sustains people. I am sadden that when there is an opportunity to use the free will that HE has granted us...it is wasted by pointing fingers. The opportunity is to rebuild NOLA/LA...to make it better is slipping away. Waste...is what saddens me.
Written by LT
on 8/28/2007
To mr.l.t. the almighty God is a humbling God, my wife, my son, and one of my daughters and one of my grand daughters were missing for four days - it could be your family next. 7th ward 4-life
Written by anthony
on 8/28/2007
You're right...I have no business caring...or being angry on how your state is being mis-used. I won't bother anymore
Written by Lt
on 8/28/2007
Because ... T W or Tee Dub ... you are wasting taxpayers' money. The constant whining and griping...but you are, you are right...why in the hell should anyone outside of LA care? It is clear that you don't. Yet...Mary will get re-elected...that nitwit Jindal will get elected...and so it goes. After all the decades of fraud, waste and corruption...you have perhaps your last real opportunity to show the entire country that you can fend for yourselves. It is a chance for your state to be something that you can point to...and tell the rest of the country...that the actual healing and rebuilding in 2007/2008 elections. That you stopped being political useful idiots. But never mind...I'm a rightard...a hate-monger...
Written by LT
on 8/28/2007
LT, I've said it before - if we're a lost cause, then why don't you leave us alone? You live in friggin' Texas, for God's sake. Why do you spend so much time here castigating us?
Written by Tee Dub
on 8/28/2007
This blog proves that LA is a lost cause.
Written by LT
on 8/28/2007
Heidi...thank you...Hurricane Bush...witty. It is time to make LA/NOLA a ward of the federal government. Section 8 housing, food stamps, WIC, welfare...all staples of NOLA...the lack civil government..law enforcement...political corruption/crime...were part of a quiet storm and levee breeches...long before any hurricane. FEMA knew...and let it happen? You are mad.
Written by LT
on 8/28/2007
I rec'd this email (below) yesterday and have shared it broadly...share it further if you like...or just read it and weep. Me, I thought the forums and panels that took place yesterday, hosted by Mary Landrieu, were both informative and educational, as well as the typical place for all of us to repeat our litany of woes.
Becoming more and more attached to our "stories" is not going to help us. The thing that's going to help us is to begin retraining our minds. Brain-washing, if you will, such that Laissez-faire becomes only an EXPRESSION, NOT a way of life, And that "just the way it is here" becomes an expression we simply stop repeating.
The more we are UNWILLING to ACCEPT the Status Quo, people, and further, to work to eliminate the expressions that PROTECT the status quo...expressions like "That's just the way it is here!" the less likely we are to engender it and resuscitate it over and over in our lives and in our community.
We SAY we want change. We SAY we want the clean out political corruption, but, tell me you don't go back to your bourre games and have a beer and repeat amongst yourselves, with a laugh, "This place is never going to change!" Well, if we keep being, doing and saying the SAME OLD-SAME OLD, HOW on EARTH will we EVER SEE the changes we all want?
HOW?
We WON'T! that's how!
Change on this broad a scale...change that will unite us and inspire others...change that can bring about TRANSFORMATION begins in the ROOTS...That's US, People...that's NOT ONLY the POLITICIANS! Not ONLY the Police chief, D.A. and Mayor...it's a change that MUST OCCUR HERE....Where we, each and every one of us who has a STAKE in this city...both financial AND emotional...it must occur HERE..in OUR HEARTS! In our DAILY TALKING. IN our belief systems. In our lexicon.
The TRANSFORMATION will truly begin AND pick up steam ONLY when WE represent A BELIEF in the POSSIBILITY and follow that up with BEINGNESS...we must begin BEING and DOING the things that citizens do when they want TRANSFORMATION to begin.
We must all share a vision of what we want. We must all begin seeing what's possible for us, as a GREAT CITY. A MODEL CITY, as both Clinton and Edwards said yesterday. And why not? Why not believe we can have a city that evokes ADMIRATION!! Why NOT BELIEVE it!
Sure! There is PROOF in our HISTORY that it can't happen! SURE!
Here are a few examples of change that can happen EVEN when it doesn't appear POSSIBLE....
"Guayaquil, Ecuador:
The dynamic mayor of Guayaquil, Jaime Nebot, has transformed the city from an unattractive port city into a clean, modern and efficient commercial and tourist center by promoting fiscal and legal accountability, economic reforms and good governance. (Guayaquil received the UN’s award in 2003). Nebot is now calling for a deepwater port, a free zone, convention center, and major highway construction to consolidate Guayaquil’s status as a world-class city and gateway to the Galapagos."
"Bogotá, Colombia (YES! Bogata!):
In a city known for crime and slums, one mayor led a crusade against cars that has helped to make Bogotá one of the most accessible and sustainable cities in the Western Hemisphere. Enrique Peñalosa, mayor from 1998 to 2001, used his time in office to create a highly efficient bus transit system, reconstruct sidewalks so pedestrians could get around safely, build more than 180 miles of bike trails, and revitalize 1,200 city green spaces. He restricted car use on city streets during rush hour, cutting peak-hour traffic 40 percent, and raised the gas tax. The city also started an annual "car-free day," and aims to eliminate personal car use during rush hour completely by 2015. Unthinkable!"
"Chatanooga, TN.:
"When the Clean Air Act went into effect in 1970, Chattanooga was dubbed the most polluted city in America, a place where people drove with headlights on in the daytime and came down with tuberculosis at three times the national average. So it comes as quite a suprise that Chattanooga (poulation: 152,000) is now being hailed in environmental circles as a model of sustainable community development.
This blue-collar town's transformation began in 1984, when the local nonprofit agency Chattanooga Venture assembled 1,700 citizens for Vision 2000, a 20-week series of meetings, in which they brainstormed thousands of ideas for improving the city and came up with 34 concrete goals and 223 doable projects. Public/private partnerships met 85 percent of the goals by 1992; the process was so successful that in 1993 the group staged ReVision 2000, which enumerated 27 more goals."
"Bahía de Caráquez, Ecuador
After it suffered severe damage from natural disasters in the late 1990s, the Bahía de Caráquez government and nongovernmental organizations working in the area forged a plan to rebuild the city to be more sustainable. Declared an "Ecological City" in 1999, it has since developed programs to protect biodiversity, revegetate denuded areas, and control erosion. The city, which is marketing itself as a destination for eco-tourists, has also begun composting organic waste from public markets and households and supporting organic agriculture and aquaculture."
Visit the URL here For an extraordinary story of community transformation that could serve as an proof that-though the circumstances and situations are different- we certainly CAN recover and do better than JUST recover, but become a MODEL of recovery!
http://www.inhabitat.com/2006/04/23/post-slum-payatas/
And this NEXT story describes a community that has Transformed itself from a crumbling slum to a thriving town center with it's own MUSICAL HERITAGE serving as a KEY PIVOT POINT in the transformation
http://www.hic-net.org/document.asp?PID=375
None of these cities is exactly like New Orleans, obviously, but they are each different from one another in many ways and yet, they have all managed, despite deeply rooted beliefs (based solely on WHAT IS, rather than what CAN BE) that nothing would ever change.
"Change the Way You Think about things and the things You Think About Change."
Lao-Tse,
Dear Paul,
>
> Interesting information coming out only 2 years later about the hurricane that hit New Orleans in 2005 :
> http://www.gregpalast.com/hurricane-georgehow-the-white-house-drowned-new-orleans/?print=1
>
> With love and fun,
> Daniel
HURRICANE GEORGE:
How the White House Drowned New Orleans
by Greg Palast [Thursday, August 23]
It's been two years. And America's media is about to have another tear-gasm over New Orleans. Maybe Anderson Cooper will weep again. The big networks will float into the moldering corpse of the city and give you uplifting stories about rebuilding and hope.
Now, let's cut through the cry-baby crap. Here's what happened two years ago - and what's happening now.]
This is what an inside source me. And it makes me sick:
"By midnight on Monday, the White House knew. Monday night I was at the state Emergency Operations Center and nobody was aware that the levees had breeched. Nobody."
The charge is devastating: That, on August 29, 2005, the White House withheld from the state police the information that New Orleans was about to flood. From almost any other source, I would not have believed it. But this was not just any source. The whistle-blower is Dr. Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, the chief technician advising the state on saving lives during Katrina.
I'd come to van Heerden about another matter, but in our talks, it was clear he had something he wanted to say, and it was a big one. He charged thatthe White House, FEMA and the Army Corp hid, for critical hours, their discovery that the levees surrounding New Orleans were cracking, about to burst and drown the city.
Understand that Katrina never hit New Orleans. The hurricane swung east of the city, so the state evacuation directors assumed New Orleans was now safe - and evacuation could slow while emergency efforts moved east with the storm.
But unknown to the state, in those crucial hours on Monday, the federal government's helicopters had filmed the cracks that would become walls of death by Tuesday.
Van Heerden revealed: "FEMA knew at 11 o'clock on Monday that the levees had breeched.. At 2p.m. they flew over he 17th Street Canal and took video of the breech.."
Question: "So the White House wouldn't tell you the levees had breeched?"
Dr. Van Heerden: "They didn't tell anybody."
Question: "And you're at the Emergency Center.'
Dr. Van Heerden: "I mean nobody knew. The Corps of Engineers knew. FEMA knew. None of us knew."
I could not get the White House gang to respond to the charges.
That leaves the big, big question: WHY? Why on earth would the White House not tell the state to get the remaining folks out of there?
The answer: cost. Political and financial cost. A hurricane is an act of God - but a catastrophic failure of the levees is a act of Bush. That is, under law dating back to 1935, a breech of the federal levee system makes the damage - and the deaths - a federal responsibility. That means, as van Heeden points out, that "these people must be compensated."
The federal government, by law, must build and maintain the Mississippi levees to withstand known dangers - or pay the price when they fail.
Indeed, that was the rule applied in the storms that hit Westhampton Dunes, New York, in 1992. There, when federal sea barriers failed, the flood waters wiped away 190 homes. The feds rebuilt them from the public treasury. But these were not just any homes. They are worth an average of $3 million apiece - the summer homes of movie stars and celebrity speculators.
There were no movie stars floating face down in the Lower Ninth Ward nor in Lakeview nor in St. Bernard Parish. For the 'luvvies' of Westhampton Dunes, the federal government even trucked in sand to replace the beaches. But for New Orleans' survivors, there's the aluminum gulag of FEMA trailer parks.. Today, two years later, 89,000 families still live in this mobile home Guantanamo - with no plan whatsoever for their return.
And what was the effect of the White House's self-serving delay?
I spoke with van Heerden in his university office. The computer model of the hurricane flashed quietly as I waited for him to answer. Then he said,"Fifteen hundred people drowned. That's the bottom line."
They could have survived Hurricane Katrina. But they got no mercy from Hurricane George.
Written by Heidi
on 8/28/2007
If west LA is almost rebuilt...despite Bush being AWOL...what is the difference Joe? At you admit that you're a beggar. We're all citizens...what are the citizens in West LA doing different? It will take more than money Joe...politics...Iraq...if the money was given...what makes you think that those currently running this mess actually use the money what it is intended for? LA/NOLA...no planning...no funding. Sorry Joe...until then quit talking in circles...it isn't politics that is keeping the recovery from happening.
Written by LT
on 8/28/2007
Thanks for posting that article below Tee Dub. As for the "Wandering World" idiot's post, I have a rhetorical question. Who prints the money and controls finance in this country, Louisiana or the Feds? From your postings it is obvious you do not understand the most basic reality of our governmental system: HE WHO CONTROLS THE DOLLAR CONTROLS the recovery, politics, all within the material sphere of the universe.
Written by R.E. Lee
on 8/28/2007
There is plenty of blame to go around, but consider this. Bush is AWOL again. The western part of Louisiana is almost rebuilt from Rita. Makes you wonder. Now, let's see. Blanco is governor over there, too. Hmmmmm did she help that area more? Or did they help themselves? Bush needs to put the rest of the money in for the Road Home and stop making Louisiana and Blanco beg. She is not running for office again. That political game has worked, Mr. President. You may even get your little clone Jindal, but for God's sake the people of the New Orleans, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, St. Tammany and Jefferson Parishes are citizens, too. In fact, most of that entire area voted for you. When will you stop the politics and keep your promise that was made in Jackson Square? Just give Louisiana the same amount of money that you are spending in 5 days in Iraq and we will be finished begging. Aren't we worth that? Aren't we part of this great country, sir?
Written by Cajun Joe
on 8/28/2007
I never doubted the accuracy of the article. I doubt the true desire of local/state officials to develop and coordinate a recovery plan. All the hard working, caring people are useless without proper leadership. Read about the post-WWII rebuilding of Japan by MacArthur...you need that type of restructuring of the current cultural and social systems to have any hope of success. The same old same is what caused NOLA to be that perfect victim. All the problems stated in the article had been in existence for decades. It just took an act of nature to expose them to the world.
Written by LT
on 8/28/2007
The article in USA Today is quite accurate. We repeat what we have said before under another article on this site:
Politicians are not what are needed. The people on the ground who spoke and presented their views, the citizens of Louisiana and this city, are the most viable means of improvement of this city. We need the return of hard working, responsible, and dependable men and women to this city and state. We need reform in our political system and we need leadership into the future. We have seen too many politicians visiting and not enough of the worker bees.
Written by RhettsWife
on 8/28/2007
Nice article...sadly it still doesn't change the facts that now exist. NOLA/LA...need to allow someone, anyone take over. There simply isn't the talent, tool, desire or intelligence politically available locally or state wide to handle the task. Reading, seeing and hearing the available pool of candidates in both parties is bleak...sadly the citizens aren't up to it. Perhaps...with some focused change to the social system, culture by an outside presence...something can be salvaged.
Written by LT
on 8/28/2007
I'm taking time away from the "reconstructure" (sic) of my house to post this piece that says what I would like to say, but much better than I ever could: USA Today 08.26.07 By Brian Schwaner, Associated Press writer
NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans is my hometown. And it's dying. Despite billions of dollars in aid, recovery programs with catchy names and an outpouring of volunteer effort, New Orleans is not recovering from Hurricane Katrina.
Beyond the happy mayhem of the French Quarter, entire neighborhoods are in ruins and the business district sags from the shattered economy. Thousands of people are homeless and squatting in vacant and storm-damaged properties, some just a few blocks from City Hall.
More than 160,000 residents never returned. For those who did dare to come back home, little resembles normalcy.
For the people with the power to save it, New Orleans is a forgotten place.
It's a national disgrace. People should pay attention. The next time, it could be your town.
Katrina struck Aug. 29, 2005, flooding 80 percent of New Orleans and laying waste to the Mississippi coast. The feared worst-case storm lived up to every promise of horror.
Local, state and federal disaster officials bungled the rescue effort from the start, but in the city's darkest hour a presidential promise offered hope.
Barely two weeks after Katrina, President Bush stood in deserted Jackson Square before the majestic, eerily lit St. Louis Cathedral and pledged the nation to a massive reconstruction effort.
"When communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm," Bush said. Earlier, Bush told relief volunteers that government would be the solution, not the problem. "Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people," he said.
Nearly two years later, New Orleans is neither better nor stronger, and a bureaucratic stranglehold is choking off its recovery.
From a tinted window 25 stories above the New Orleans business district, I can see the city rotting from the inside out.
Across the street, Dominion Tower, once bustling with office workers and sprinkled with upscale retailers, is abandoned.
The adjacent Hyatt Hotel, where Super Bowl, Sugar Bowl and NCAA Final Four fans relaxed, also is empty.
Rows of camouflaged Humvees wait in a nearby parking lot for the military police who patrol lawless neighborhoods.
Just out of sight are wastelands where people live in cramped trailers or try to rebuild as best they can.
The only attention the city gets these days is as a campaign prop for some of the presidential contenders.
Among citizens, there is anger. There should be. For those who see New Orleans as someone else's agony, a caution: This kind of governmental and political nonchalance could greet you at your most dire moment.
The main program to help homeowners rebuild from Katrina -- the $8 billion federally funded, state-administered and inaptly named Road Home -- is going broke and may be short as much as $4 billion. Public schools, firehouses, police stations and transit routes are closed. Hospitals have not returned to normal capacity, and those that are open say they are losing millions of dollars providing medical care for the poor. There is little political will to build a levee system that would prevent the kind of flooding Katrina caused.
Federal, state and city officials can't even agree on priorities, or get aid dollars to where they are needed now. Mayor Ray Nagin, Gov. Kathleen Blanco and White House recovery director Don Powell play a blame game for the failed recovery. There are even whispers among the leaders of the effort that the city's problems are overblown.
They are dead wrong.
OK, NEW ORLEANS HAS BAGGAGE
If Katrina was the perfect storm, New Orleans was the perfect victim. Political corruption and incompetence in city government and an anemic economy made the city as vulnerable to turmoil as the levees that failed.
Sadly, the situation has worsened, and many of the leaders New Orleans must count on are fading from the scene or mired in scandal.
Take, for example, the representatives closest to the seats of power. U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., has been charged in an alleged international bribery scheme. He has denied wrongdoing. U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., has been caught up in a Washington sex scandal. Blanco has thrown in the towel and isn't running for re-election following the failure of state-led recovery programs and largely ineffective pleas to Congress for more aid.
Even the city's emerging leadership was dealt a shock when City Councilman Oliver Thomas, seen as one of the "good guys" of the recovery effort and maybe a future mayor, pleaded guilty this month to federal bribery charges,
Meanwhile, the police chief and district attorney are feuding while the city grapples with a murder rate that is the worst per capita in the nation.
Even the mayor may be checking out. Nagin is raising money to campaign for a new political office -- perhaps governor or congressman, he won't say which. With three years left on his term, the city needs his undivided attention.
President Bush, the city's self-declared savior, has been here 10 times since Katrina, half the visits in the first six weeks after the storm. In the past year, as the true scope of the failure of the recovery unfolded, Bush visited only twice. The city didn't even get a mention in his State of the Union address last January.
PAINFUL REALITIES
Many of the 270,000 people now living in New Orleans wonder how the nation can spend a half-trillion dollars in Iraq while this city remains wrecked.
"I can't believe this is the United States and after so long, so much is still not fixed," said Melanie Ehrlich, a Tulane University researcher. "It's scandalous, unforgivable."
It's worse than that.
Not far from the Ehrlich home, the 6000 block of Paris Avenue is deserted. Weeds obscure gutted houses. Gruesome gang-like symbols painted on their doors tell cryptic tales of what rescuers found when they pushed through Katrina's floodwater.
"It's like looking at the rapture," said the Rev. Jeremy Evans, 31, as he gazed out from the nearby Edgewater Baptist Church. Like the biblical call of the faithful to Heaven, people seem to have vanished.
Paris Avenue is not an exception. Hard-hit neighborhoods across the city could rot for years at the mercy of process-oriented bureaucrats.
Ilene Powell has had her fill of it.
Powell's home in Lakeview was hit hard by Katrina's flood. She applied to Road Home for a rebuilding grant, then spent 16 months in a maddening process of confusing paperwork, interviews and phone calls. Like thousands of others, she is shaken by the experience. "Just who are the rocket scientists running this mess?" she quips.
Actually, New Orleans does have rocket scientists at the Lockheed-Martin plant that serves the space shuttle program. But the remainder of its economy is shaky.
Perhaps taking cues from the leaderless, chaotic recovery, a crisis of confidence has tainted the local corporate contingent. Companies have heaped charitable contributions on the city, but some are pulling jobs out. There are murmurs that more may do so. Companies have a hard time getting executives to transfer here. Meanwhile, a University of New Orleans poll showed public sentiment is so bad that 29 percent of the current resident population may leave.
America should not allow New Orleans to die a slow death.
"No one in government has a true sense of the reality of what is happening here," Powell observed.
A great American city is withering. The people with power must be made to care.
And you should care -- that it could be your hometown that is abandoned when the crisis is yours.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE -- Brian Schwaner is the Louisiana news editor for The Associated Press, based in New Orleans. A New Orleans native whose family traces its roots in Louisiana to the 1760s, Schwaner is a graduate of East Jefferson High School in suburban Metairie and the University of New Orleans. Much of his career in journalism has been spent covering culture, politics and business in Louisiana. He joined AP in 2006 from The Cincinnati Enquirer, where he was assistant managing editor/business.
Written by Tee Dub
on 8/28/2007
Oh, and LT, the feds have handled it, it is up to citizens of Louisiana to belly up to the bar. Watch your vote, or your vote will clobber you.
Written by The wandering world
on 8/28/2007
Interesting piece, no real meat in it though. Talk is cheap, and if it earns Louisiana votes there is always time for it, and shallow promises. It is not the Presidential hopeful that is going to fix South East Louisiana (New Orleans, Slidell, etc. not to forget to mention, as many of ya'll back home tend to for some obscure and selfish reason? CAMERON PARISH AND OUR OTHER GOOD NEIGHBORS TO THE WEST OF THE N.O. VICINITY) It is the hard working, practical minded folks that will. All that is left as far as D.C. is concerned is the Congressional Budget Outlay for fisical '08 and the 'odd 9' and future years as well. Me thinkest Louisiana needeth to showeth good cause for budgetary considerations. So far the general concensus I have been exposed to around the nation concerning Louisiana is "Bring the dozers in and plow it back into the ground". Those are the facts. 2 years (24 months) later, after the fact, the nation is not even wondering about New Orleans. There are other things in the world, and the world does not revolve around N.O., Nagin, Bab's, Chertoff (possibly up for AG) etc. Time to look into potential reserves and resources Louisiana may or may not have on hand to shore up the line of defense, or the levees at least. God Bless Louisiana
Written by The wandering world
on 8/28/2007
It is time a post-WWII reconstucture of Louisiana...not unlike Japan. It is clear that the current political/business environment can affect the rebuilding of NOLA or LA. It is time to have the federal government come in and take complete control of this disaster called Louisiana. It is time rework the entire social structure, culture and basically remake the entire system. It is a failure...complete failure. The educational system is substandard (before the storms), the current politics are corrupt (both parties) and business is basically...well...who can we payoff. While a very small minority of people can manage themselves...the vast majority of the population is unable to function w/o serious assistance. All this state is now is a bumper sticker slogan for the politics of two parties seeking votes instead of results. I realize that this seems extreme...but after 2 years...zero progress...what makes anyone think that the current state climate can get any better...2 more yrs from now or 10 yrs from now. Blame anyone you want (Bush, Blanco, Nagin does't matter)...have all the conferences...meetings...listen to speeches...sermons...whatever...but it is time for people to just allow the feds to handle it.
Written by LT
on 8/28/2007
"Unquestionably, Hunter took the most heat as he attempted to focus upon the importance of self reliance and de-emphasized the need to rely upon the federal government. That philosophy obviously did not sit well with the moderator, O’Brien or with the audience". why am i not surprised...so it goes
Written by LT
on 8/28/2007
I disagree with Mike Huckabee on a number of social and economic issues, but the bottom line is that he is a really good, kind, man. The guy lives his faith - he doesn't just "talk the talk," he "walks the walk" - and unlike Duncan Hunter, he realizes that disasters call for federal assistance. All the volunteerism and "bootstrap pulling" in the world isn't going to be enough in the face of disaster. Also, did any of y'all notice in this morning's T-P about how Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) secured a rule that kept Louisiana's share of the federal rebuilding monies down? Stephen has dealt with this issue a number of times, but I have yet to hear Jeff decry this lack of fairness between LA and MS. As "The Wiggles" sing: "Where's Jeff?"
The Katrina and Rita “Hope and Recovery Summit” in 