The Battle For New Orleans

African-American entertainers show up at the evacuee centers to buoy the storm-ravaged's spirits.

Black bosses, preachers and the usual suspects line up to lie to the people they say they love and respect: black folks. Make that poor black folks.

When they hear the truth about New Orleans' Mayor Nagin and his criminal handling of this emergency, will some prominent black person step up, not excuse Mayor Nagin's part in this mess?

Or will we, as a culture, again lie about what we see and hear?

It's difficult to blame black, successful people in America who don't take responsiblity for the lies told on their behalf. After all, they can't forget where they come from, lest they get called an uncle or plantation black. God help him or her if Harry Belafonte doesn't approve of their politics.

Oprah to the Rescue
Gee, I have a hard time messing with Oprah. She has a good heart. But, she's clueless here.

Instead of showing women how to look fifty pounds thinner or fifteen years younger, why the hell doesn't she concentrate on lessons to save lives? When one thinks of the numbers of poor women who are home during the day watching her, you have to wonder why didn't she step up to the plate herself?

Maybe one of her books of the week could be the FEMA manual, in which it states clearly that disaster victims probably will be on their own for three days or more.

If anyone has enough curiosity, he could ask to see the FEMA website at the neighborhood library.

Instead of citing human nature and stupidity as the culprit, these ethnic pimps have decided that George Bush will be the SOB of this century. But the truth is this: people with children chose to ignore common sense and direct evacuation orders. It's like a mother leaving a child in a locked car on a summer day in Phoenix! Come on. What responsible mother would put her children in harm's way? If nothing else, maternal instinct would help you find a way out of that city, wouldn't it?

Of the thousands upon thousands of cars passing above them, could these women not stand along the interstate with their kids and beg for rides out? No one would've picked them up because they're black? If that's true, then Americans aren't as wonderful as they said they are.

This latest generation of notoriously corrupt Louisiana officials, hand picked by their Democrat bosses, have found out there's more than jive and jazz to running a big city. Their neglect of the poor, weak and sick amongst them is unconscionable.

Maybe the Pres Wasn't Such A Jerk After All
Few seem to know that the president called Governor Blanco three or four times prior to the hurricane and gave her a plan for evacuation, According to the Washington Post, September lst's edition, the president's office faxed her three memos summarizing the plan. He called her and begged her to let him federalize New Orleans. The president was ready to step in immediately. She ignored it, saying it was too complex.

I just wish the president had gone ahead and told Nagin and Blanco to go to their rooms. Because he didn't, because he respects the rule of law and our system of federalism and trusted these local leaders to do their jobs, he hates black people.

We all know, though, if he had taken over, the Bush Haters would say it was because Blanco is a woman and Nagin is black. When's this doublespeak going to stop?

Thanks for the read.

America's Wish Fulfilled!

It could happen, you know. If we put all the old stuff aside, and start again.

New New Orleans
Offer each family who lost everything voluntary participation in a program funded by the federal government in which the following would take place:

• Each family will be given a large sum of money. We will provide classes in which the labs would include buying their own homes. Literally. The homes will be in a federal reservation not far from the old new Orleans.
• Each adult with children will be required to attend parenting classes.
• Each parent will be given vouchers for their children's education in schools that are designed to fit the individual's needs.
• Each teacher or instructor will be provided housing and benefits. However, the standards for hiring these teachers will be high. What we are doing is building a new generation to lead the next one!
• In the meantime, enterprise zones will be created in the new city. People who are more skilled than others, will start them. But they will be required to have rotating apprentices all the time. They will be loaned the seed money, expected to pay it back. There will be no taxes on these enterprises for a set number of years.
• This model city will begin to govern itself when the best and brightest step up help in this venture. That will be determined as the new black leadership in this country takes over.

That's only part my idea. Could it work? Who knows? If everyone is free to choose, why wouldn't it?

Most importantly, the money will be spent anyway. Why not spend it on something that won't return our friends to their old lives of poverty?

Thanks for the read.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

It took very little time for the foreign press to blame, four-square, the entire hurricane mess on President Bush. Even the Telegraph in London has got in on the act.

Another world offensive has begun against the president. But first, before we heed their advice to kill the president, shouldn't we ask more questions?

Why Did It Take So Long?
Of course, with the data (empirical and otherwise) we have so far, the president seems to deserve criticism. I was dumbfounded, for instance, by his lack of urgency. By Wednesday night, I was ready to impeach him. Distressed by the tick tock of this endless, deadly evacuation, I admit I started to doubt. It was so, well, so uncharacteristic. Dubya not on it? It was too hard for me to believe.

Then my sweet husband, who is very smart, made a startling observation. What if the Feds can't go into New Orleans? Dang! I should have thought of that.

Sure enough, in a small interview on Fox, an FBI person whose team had been there since Friday, made it very clear there were national security issues in addition to the presence of opportunistic groups posing as city gangs. DEA also was there, as was INS. So, we may be able to conclude that opportunistic groups, perhaps those unfriendly to the rest of us, were in the city.

When asked if the national security problem somehow involved communications, the FBI spokesman said he couldn't go any further than acknowledging that it indeed was. Considering the proximity of important military facilities, plus New Orleans being a huge port, I had to allow that might be true.

In addition to the president's apparent security problems in the city, he seems to have made the mistake of trusting that local authorities were up to the task. Might this explain the president's gloved hand early on?

Why Else?

I've heard myriad reasons:

• The fleets usually in the gulf had to be moved out before the storm so they wouldn't sink. Carriers full of helicopters? How long does it take to return to port? Likely a few days under full steam.

• The propositioned National Guard troops, vainly anticipating the go-ahead from Governor Twit, finally had to move to the east from their former strategic position closer to New Orleans as the storm had shifted just before it hit land at the mouth of the Mississippi. The worst appeared to be over, they thought, with their fingers crossed.

• The National Guard command said quite frankly, they thought NOPD could handle their jobs. It never occurred to them the force would deplete itself by 60%! Whose responsibility is that? What if 60% of LAPD or NYPD, with their thousands of cops, decided to leave their posts in an emergency? Let's get real. Some folks in New Orleans love their city, but not enough to try to save it.

• Mobilizing a federal force takes a few hours. That's a reality.

• Clear responsibilities are defined by law, procedures and plans. Again, the locals didn't do their jobs.

Political Realities
Every leader has his own political reality that has to be reckoned with by his enemies and his supporters. Otherwise, the art of political gamesmanship descends into armed conflict.

Part of that includes making nasty decisions, right or wrong, about the emergency at hand. Sometimes those choices are home runs; sometimes not. I don't know why the president couldn't act sooner, or even if he already had. More will be revealed.

What we are watching right now is the biggest chess match we've seen in a long time. On one side is the credibility of the most powerful nation on earth; one the other is a cabal of individuals who want to president to fail at any cost.

In Texas they call it "how the cows ate the cabbage." Nagin's reality is simply defined: he will be pinned with exhibiting the worst dereliction of duty in the history of natural disasters, or he will be a nice little boy and do what the feds tell him.

As for sister, she'll be talking secretly to the president, getting on his good side. She knows how the cows eat the cabbage. She'll fade into ingnominy, unless she pitches in and hires federal people at the state's expense. In management they call that "buying your way out of trouble."

This is Bigger Than New Orleans
If the president's opponents think the United States is going to be pushed into a corner by a bunch of penny-ante politicians who don't know shoes from Shineola, they can think again.

I can imagine the president made that abundantly clear when he met with hizzoner and her idiocy, the governor, both of whom failed, failed, failed in their important duties to their people.

Moreover, other city and state officials throughout the country are on notice to take this stuff seriously and get the right, skilled people on board to plan for the worst. Their local pride isn't appropriate.

We can tell the Europeans that Americans, under the direction of the president, are in this together.

Thanks for the read.

The Heiracrchy of Blame and Responsibility

All politics are local. Don't ever forget that.

Mayor Daly, Giuliani, Et Al
Great city mayors have one very important public trait: they are first and foremost leaders within their own spheres. They know where to go for the services (corrupt or otherwise) that keeps a city going.

Many city mayors have large, effective police forces and people who will take the heat for them when the going gets bad. If they're really good at their jobs, they have trump cards to pull during the bad times.

The great mayors of big and large cities are the jewels in our crown. Without their powerful presence managing their cities, what we would have are real disasters like New Orleans.

All that Jazz
Mayor Ray Nagin showed his be-hind as he ranted, raved and called the president everything but a white person. Meanwhile, hizzoner didn't have a clue and decided he'd blame everyone but himself.

Even the city official, laughingly called "Director of Emergency Planning," stated that there was no planning. Huh? How much you wanna bet said director's former occupation was matre' de somewhere in the Vieux Carre?

Meanwhile, the Governor, that perimenopausal idiot who is so glad the president came, she clung to him like his mentally unstable sister-in-law, simply couldn't lead when required.

She clutched! She didn't order troops even though the president gave her the gift of an early state of emergency status. Why didn't someone scream at her, "For God's sake, Woman, make the call!" What a terrible character defect is weakness.

FEMA maybe didn't plan well enough, but the will was there. Logistically, this could have been avoided if the mayor had done his job AND the governor had stopped being hysterical long enough to take control.

President Bush shares the blame, in a much smaller way. He should've followed his gut and got the militias going sooner. Live by delegating, die by delegating. In this case, his advisors failed him.

Finally, the media. I don't know what to say about them. They also failed; I'm just not sure how yet.

Thuggery and Why
These individuals, thugs, would be the ones the mayor called " a few Knuckleheads." These tiny cliques of misanthropes have placed our country at risk. We must use the powers of the posse commitatus to rid our cities of them. We have to eradicate these vermin.

Why do these people do these horrible things? Because they can. No one stopped them. Meanwhile, everyone who understands that force must be met with force, that law and order has to be the top priority in crises, step forward.

Not so fast, Mayor Nagin.

What We've Learned
It matters not that this is a 150-year event. We have to assume that any emergency can be bigger than we think. I guess we should have back up plans. I'm not a professional, so I can only use my common sense.

If you haven't figured out that we are on our own in a biblical-style emergency, then you'd best find someone to take care of you--and not the government. You'll be on your own for a very long time. Imagine this type of emergency occurring in a large city--like L.A. I can't bring myself to think of it very long.

I've always known intellectually this truth. Now I'm a believer. My action item is setting up communications plans with my family. That's a good place to start.

Thanks for the read.