I'm trying to put my finger on it. Why do I feel so bad?

Yes, the weather was gross today. Not all of my Christmas presents to others are going to get there in time for that holiday...c'est la vie. They'll be New Year's gifts at this point. My son is out of school for the next two weeks - but I have signed him up for a mini-camp. Not that I don't love my son, but he loves the mini-camp. So I turned the big 3-5 last week. Big ol' whoop. I'm not getting any younger, and my childhood was nothing I'd want to go rushing back to. No serious regrets there.

I have a touch of blogging fatigue that showed in one of my last posts. It would be nice to be able to back up all the stuff that has entered my brain and then toss the stuff saved onto my organic hard drive in a trash bin somewhere. Perhaps then I'd feel better.

Problem is, I decided to voluntarily take up answering a query of Ed's last night concerning the infamous picture and article that has been a hot topic as of late. After gazing at a bunch of Nola.com comments about Sharon Jasper and her TV that essentially said "How dare she???" and "Let's get her address and phone number and harrass her!", I wanted someone to dunk me in Clorox. Or, maybe I should have been duct-taped and put out on the street like a nasty fridge.

I really thought I'd left significant amounts of gutter comments behind when I left the majority of the parenting blogs behind - though I still check some parenting blogs on a regular basis and have linked to some, I was happy to have let go of the folks who thought it was their way or the highway as far as their views on what you should or shouldn't do as a mom or dad were concerned. Such people had no hesitation, if you expressed a different opinion from theirs, in cursing you out or trying to flame your name into cyber-oblivion somehow.

And yeah, I'd been warned about the Nola.com commenters before. I had some idea of what to expect. However, a good scan of 294 comments yielded only three of note that were different from the usual merde-ish invective:

Posted by wakeupfriend on 12/19/07 at 11:16AM

Reminder: While President Bush has been in office, the Republicans controlled the presidency, the House of Representatives, The Senate, and the Supreme Court. Yet, not once during that time was an attempt made to end the funding for welfare programs.

'Know why? Can you handle the truth?

These programs are not for the Jaspers of the world but for the rich and famous campaign contributors and politically connected people of the world. DON't even TRY to say that the Republicans could not have eliminated or reduced funding and support for these programs!

$ 800,000,000 to tear down and rebuild public housing in New Orleans! Eight hundred million (by the time cost overuns and change orders are calculated)! We should be outraged not with the few residents who reside in public housing but with the government that profits from their continued occupancy.

Where are the letters to Bush? Demand that he stop spending $ 50 billion per month on the eternal conflict in Iraq and that he solve our housing problem here by building new homes everywhere. No more $ 375,000 per apartment developments! No more developers who contribute to the party in control of the Presidency!

No. I guess it's just better to fall for the Times Picayune's attempts to frame the issue in controversial, blog-worthy terms.

Posted by RhettsWife on 12/19/07 at 11:41AM

Mr. Bruno's post says it all. The main problem is that the leadership of this city in past decades has created the continuing mentality of 40 acres and a mule and entitlement. Why, so that they could get the vote. Now let's start working together to unify this city and make it progressive. We hope that the council makes some definitive decisions that will create a new Nouveau Orleans and not the same old system. They talk of corruption. Corruption takes more than one form. Let's get quality housing for those who are truly deserving of it, let's improve education, let's stand up for moral standards, let's make this city the Queen of the South.

Posted by MitchLisHot on 12/19/07 at 2:40PM

It amazes me how nothing gets done in the city of New Orleans!!!!! IF YOU ALL WOULD CUT OUT THE DIVISION AND DISCORD then maybe you can come online with the rest of us in the state of Louisiana......Already in SouthWest Louisiana there are low cost affordable homes being built complete with onsite day care centers and clubhouses/recreation centers.......In Lafayette alone there will be 27 blocks of homes built....But for division, discord, fatalism and the "old guard" (the White power structure who still to this day resent desegregation and the Landrieus) you can't even get three houses built in the New Orleans area....A-freaking-mazing!!!!!

Cut the strife, discord and division and you'll see just how much that can be accomplished.....Brad Pitt can't do everything!!!!

This reminds me of Abraham arguing with God over how Sodom and Gomorrah will be saved: if there are but fifty righteous people in town - forty - do I hear thirty? - twentytwentytwentydo I hear twenty? - ten?ten?ten? - going once, going twice...

Think about this. Three people out of 294 had something to say other than "I'm paying for that lady's large apartment and her honking big TV! Cut her off!!!"

That was when I really knew, deep down, that the projects were gonna go without any rational discussion of revamping the approach to their redevelopment. We're supposed to trust that HUD and HANO have done the right thing in giving the rights to the redevelopment of public land to these private interests when those two organizations haven't been able to manage a bunch of grocery bags, forget local and nationwide low-income housing. Tax credits go to Providence and Enterprise, all wrapped in pretty, shiny paper with a nice satin bow on top. Happy holidays!

There wasn't much point in going to the City Council meeting today. I didn't want to go to see another catastrophe - I've had enough of that. The newspaper's headline today made it clear that things were more or less predestined, anyhow.

E is correct as well:

It was really ugly. Very upsetting. The whole event made me sick to my stomach and not because of the pepper spray fumes, though that didn't help matters. It didn't have to happen the way that it did. City Council was extremely arrogant and undemocratic in the way they handled the proceedings today.

There are other tried and true means of diffusing a situation like the one City Council was confronted with this morning. If I were in charge, I would have let all of the advocates and residents come in, I would have let them chant and yell and scream and take turns with the microphone. I'd have allowed them to do that all morning. Then you have HUD and HANO and the developers do their side and then you vote. Given the experience at the demolition hearing last week, there was no real reason to assume things were going to get out of hand. Sure people are going to shout and be rowdy. They're going to boo things they hear and don't like. They're going to stomp their feet and speak out of turn.

Big deal. Let them. At the hearing last week (see the link), public housing advocates were well behaved, they allowed representatives of HANO and HUD and the Developers to prevent their case. Sure people interrupted to boo from time to time but the meeting went forward, the vote went forward. They voted with the developers and against "the mob" but nobody went out burning condominiums, nobody pushed down police officers, nobody was violent against any of the HUD or HANO officials, and representatives of the developers, or any members of the review board. The same thing probably would have happened. Protesters would have filed in, they would have been loud and obnoxious, council would have voted in favor of the developers and protesters would have been loud and obnoxious. Big deal. They would have left in peace. Maybe someone would have broken a window in frustration or something.

People want to feel like they're listened to. They want to yell and scream. They want to be given access to the democratic process. They want to feel like their voice matters. That is why so many people showed up this morning to attend this meeting. They all already knew they had little chance of stopping council from approving the demolitions. Don't we all know that?

The only good news today, really, is that the abandoned cab that has been sitting in front of my house for a few months is finally gone. Whoop-dee-doo.

The real debates I've seen in the past week concerning these issues of housing, race, class, corruption, and media spin have revealed that we are a flawed bunch of people who mean well. We are in a flawed system that needs help. Many of us want to help, but are at a loss. Is a hollering session at a City Council meeting going to help? Are we really getting all sides of this and other issues that concern this city, or are we being played for complete doormats? How do we work for change when we have to be overly concerned about how everything looks or sounds to someone else? How can we get everybody educated enough to be able to question the things they are shown or told? For more on why this is especially important to consider, check Nightprowlkitty's latest.

I'm exhausted and need to recharge, is all. I also need to make sure the city doesn't decide to kick in my front door and instantly declare that my home is over 70 percent damaged and ripe for demolition. Yes, I'm not the world's greatest housekeeper, but give me a break. We just repainted the place and the abandoned cab that used to be out front is gone now.

Some people...