This Times-Picayune series is the talk of the NOLA blogosphere.
It ought to be the talk of the nation.
Read it and weep for everyone in this country...and in the rest of the U.S.
And if that doesn't make you hopping mad or extremely upset, I direct you to these people's takes on the problem of obtaining insurance for your home.
If New Orleans and south Louisiana follow"business as usual" (preparing for the last hurricane, not the next), something worse than Katrina happens the next time.
But it's not just New Orleans that has to worry about this. From the RMS study:
Then there is a much longer list of cities at risk from rising sea levels and more intense storms, including cities all along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
And yes, the above quotes date from December of last year. They still apply, y'all.
I can't help but think that eventually, we'll all be living like the people in E.M. Forster's short story "The Machine Stops" - living underground like moles in our own little cubicles, with the only human contact being made through technology, all so that we can continue paying premiums to the almighty insurance companies. They won't refuse to pay out a claim if you catch no diseases, right? They won't dare drop you like a hot potato because you live on a coastline, right?... because you live underground in a NORAD-like compound.
The wrong kind of green is talking a little too loudly, and, though it doesn't surprise me much, it makes me hopping mad...
Update: And, as if the Road Home program weren't bad enough, Offbeat magazine gets a rebuttal from Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. on the bad press and other knotty details surrounding the Musicians' Village. It's sounding like yet another winding goat path through the Himalayas, to me. A telling quote, highlighted in the mag, too:
Connick: One thing New Orleans is really good at is waiting. They are good at that; they have certainly shown that in the post-Katrina thing, waiting for the city to come back and it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Uhh, Harry, don't say that one in public again. People will take you at your word, because you are a celebrity. Then, this town will never get rebuilt. Thanks, dude.
Yet ANOTHER update, 3-9: Ashley dissects this whole thing waaaay better than I have.
5 comments:
There have been people out there for years telling the federal government that something needs to be done about the wetlands.
Here is a problem in a nutshell: The Fed believe that we are and always will be corrupt. Our politicians prove this with their every waking movement. The citizens of New Orleans need to take a giant jump and vote for change by voting for different representatives.
The country as a whole believe that they dont need us. I am wondering how they will feel once their cup of coffee cost $20, because the ships must travel up the East coast to make their drop offs.
They believe we are stupid for living below sea-level and on the Gulf Coast. It is, also, believed that no one will face a tradegy like we did in Katrina. It is it wont happen to me syndrome. The taxpayers dont want their money spent on us, because they believe we are a lost cause.
My thought is once you forget about one area of the country the rest will follow. We all have our crosses to bear and if you are not careful this will happen somewhere else in the country. If the federal government forgets about the Gulf Coast, the East and West will follow. You start picking away at the country and you wont have a country left.
As Ashley Morris blogged, another wrench in the Musicians' Village is applications--musicians with bad credit, no credit, uneven work histories who cannot get mortgages for a home in an area created for them to be able to afford to live and raise their families and still contribute to what makes NO NO. Ack!
I especially loooove the backpedaling on the name of the Village. "It's just a NAME, y'all!" 8-S
It's just musicians' LIVES, y'all.
America has turned into an instant gratification society. Therefore, when people (outside of NOLA and the Gulf Coast) STILL hear about everything that has yet to be done, they are bored and indifferent. Ready for the next Anna Nicole to come along and entertain them. It is so sad.
America will deeply regret it if we abandon an entire region.
I know peeps on the gulf coast (MS, AL) affected by the crappy insurance mess. One couple is still waiting for a claim from hurricane Ivan so they can finish their repairs.
wow, Leigh, judge Musicians Village a failure based on Ashley Morris' blog post? and he says that he based it on T-P and Offbeat? if you read the entire post and comments, you'll see that that reliance was misplaced. there is no backpedalling on the name, leigh, it is and shall be the musicians village for a reason -- many, many musicians are building and living in that revitalized community, alongside kids of "non-musician families" who will benefit from learning from "masters". that's a good thing, as far as I can tell. but recognizing good in NOLA isn't in vogue, is it?
Post a Comment