New Orleans Ladder: Vendredi~Independence Ladder

Friday, July 4, 2008

Vendredi~Independence Ladder

Warning: Don't blow your hands off/Lebowski Fest 2008
~37 Flood

Juneteenth or July 4th? Conflict woes as an African-American
~Affrodite's Adventures in Nappy Hair

McCain Girl Vs. Obama Girl
~casa de Charlotte della Luna
~Editilla wanna'tolya~~but can't stop laughing long enough to breath. This has got to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Jeez Louie!
Now I can face Independence Day!

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT

Chris Nearly Drowns ~Bagnews

Happy Birthday, America.
Everyone gets a shovel.
President George W. Bush participates in the ceremonial groundbreaking for the Walter Reed National Medical Center Thursday, July 3, 2008, in Bethesda, Md.
White House photo by Eric Draper
We gonna need mo'shovels...

Vitter hopes war chest can pay legal bills~Sen. David Vitter, R-Pamp., is asking the Federal Election Commission whether he can use campaign money to pay fees related to legal issues and bad publicity he confronted after being linked to a prostitution ring.
~Editilla pops brain into toaster, bites tongue gnashing fingers like a banshee, screams bleating down da'street~
NONONONONONONONO and NO!!!
And that goes for Obama paying Clinton's campaign debts. What is the point of giving any money to any candidate if they can just give it to each other
--or other actually professional prostitutes who work harder. It should be just as illegal for Obama to pay Clinton's debts as it is for Vitter to pay for his prostitute debts with our campaign money.
Why don't we instead make honest working girls and boys legal and illegalate these politicians who are making Millions of Dollars running for office.
Screw these rich politician bastads and bastadettes, instead of the poor Madams. This is ridiculous.
Editilla has no problem with folks doing sex however they want to do it, ya'know. It is when someone tries to do it to me, without asking--or even paying for it--that gets under my eyelids like broken glass.
If paying for sin was good enough for his Jesus then why not David Vitter? Happy Birthday, America.

What Fresh Hell?
~Levees Not War~Get in Barack’s Face

Revised report assesses storm dangers, offers more BS promoting the as yet unreleased ASCE/IPET study done by the Corps for the Corps

And all this time the 17th Street Canal Levee Breach Repair is LEAKING flowing water towards the Lakeview neighborhood. Right now, this very minute. Even as you read this, salt water is streaming beneath the Corps brand new "T-Wall".
That is the problem that I have with this article and the Times Picayune's incomprehensible bias towards its major source Dr. Link. With this Ladder we have wedded together, into an expanding albeit syllogistically sticky web, his colleagues Gerald Galloway, who commanded USACE and VP of Titan Corp-which gets all the concrete contracts, ASCE former La president and smarmy Fuckmook Tim Ruppert who stands to gain considerably from defending Corps Project Engineering work and his hat'tip friends, and Corps Public Relations Contractors [note: the 2nd PR link has removed testimonial quotes from Corps personnel- clients after they turned up in the article linked to Galloway...HA! Fast, them--but that is why the Corps pays'em da'Big Money!]. I don't care what blog'o'sphere club may wanna be playground epicenter, We the People can no longer trust the word of these criminally compromised engineers--or any other fool that would stand between us and those levees with a Corps of Engineers press release sticking out of their ...mouth. Sorry. These are the same villains who built all of this infrastructure which is failing, which I witnessed fail in New Orleans the week of 8/29/05--which is GODDAMN LEAKING RIGHT NOW. The levees are leaking after they repaired them. The folks at ASCE don't need to make it any plainer than that. I did not need a slide-rule to stick my arms elbow deep in those leaks, no degree in biology to recognizes the smell of the lake in that flowing water. This is insanity to even allow these creeps a bank loan--let alone the $30 Million we have already paid them for this still unreleased IPET report <-[note: the link to said report at the end of the TP article led to "unauthorized" or no where.] These are the engineers and their dirty carasses who are being sued by the citizens of New Orleans who lost everything when the Industrial Canal levee failed. Why allow the Corps and their employees- spokes'hos to publicly taint the jury on that lawsuit with articles like this?
What would Perry Mason say? "Objection, your Honor! HERESAY! The Corps attempts to misdirect the Public's view away from ENGINEERING and onto Funding, Small Town Councils, Quilting, Muskrats, Katrina the Clown, the American People! How dare they!"
What would the wizard say?
Since Perry and Toto wouldn't take that BS for a second then neither will yer oh'so humble Editilla. I remember when this country did Smart Television and built things that Worked. And if it didn't work we fixed it. We sent people to the moon and brought them back with Duct Tape when it broke. Our engineers did not used to run from a problem--they waded out into it up to their forking necks and put it into their mouth as did Robert Bea when taste-testing the alleged ingredients of these failed levees. Where is he in this freak'show article? Defending the people of the City of New Orleans in this very lawsuit that's where. Robert Bea, Dr. Seed and other engineers who authored the ILET Study are no where to be found in this article, not a word. Why? Dr. Link owes his career to the Corps. We do not need to consult engineers who work for the engineers who built our failing engineering infrastructure when there are Plenty of other engineers in our country who would beg to differ with the Corps and ASCE over Water Policy Management. Why give these buffoons any word least of all the last word on these levees in our country?
Why do anything but ride these Dope Dealing Fakirs out of town on a Barge? The Exquixotic Corps slithered away on taking responsibility for the other levee failures in court (for now). But will we stand neck- deep with the people of New Orleans, when the Tide Rises, or do we hide behind failing levees with Public Relations hack spin'filtraitors and the people who flooded New Orleans? Well? Please demand the 8/29 Commission.

Levee neighbors must wait for ruling on tree removal

Independence Day~Toulouse St.

A Week in the Life of
New Orleans

Non-profit news related to eastern New Orleans ~NONPB

Faithful Servants of New Orleans

Smooth sailing for yacht builders despite economy

Cummins says flood damage will top $100M

Flood damage is latest challenge to Iowa mosque

Insurers based in Wisconsin getting lots of flood damage claims

Amtrak flood disruptions to end

Red Cross volunteer hurt helping Iowa flood victims

Viacom vs. YouTube:
Beyond Privacy

Chris Rose: 60 Second Interview with Christian Scott

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Sinn Féin

New Orleans Ladder
Chere'yat Bourgeois Nievete?
Every goodbye ain't gone.
Every shut eye ain't sleep.
Gonna' build up this Living Ladder.
Gonna lean it up against the world, so we can pass over our damn nation, so we can always find the long road back home.
Stitch-hiking the Web for Daily New Orleans News, Bloggery, Videos, Poetry, Photography, Music and Humor, yeah where'yat, post Kafkatrina Recovery for the City That Care Forgot and Presidente Bush left for dead.
The New Orleans Ladder accepts no advertising revenue.
To contact or submit articles please leave a comment.
Anything goes on the Ladder, except no kiddy- porn ~{which will be forwarded immediately to someone who can track you down quicker (if you're lucky) than I (if you're not), no lie, believe it, faster than a speeding bullet and with as much regard as a dragon fly, perched upon the head of a water moccasin, waiting for its prey} --and no gratuitous profanity.
Just paste the articles' url in the comments.
Contact me directly on Twitter.
Please tell your friends about the Ladder.
Lassezes Le Bon Temp Roule'!!! Who Dat!
Thank You All,
Editilla the Pun.

A note to advertising types
~From your ho'ho homble
Editilla the Pun,
thank you for asking.
Here's the Deal: what we hang upon this Ladder we do so with LOVE, HONOR and AFFECTION. Heart'stopping Awe and Adoration...Aw'dat
--especially this right side.

Of what we hang here I want our Gentle'rillas to know: We accept no ad revenue,only Blessings of Thanks -and Tons-O-Traffic!- from All Youz who'z contacted us with Notes of Glee at finding yourselves thusly hero'hung --by this Ladder with Care-- and we hope y'all get some Gat'zillion hits there!
Please put ya'Finger on'em...
--let'em know we're here!

New Orleans...
a courtesan, not old and yet no longer young, who shuns the sunlight that the illusion of her former glory be preserved.

The mirrors in her house are dim and the frames are tarnished;
all her house is dim and beautiful with age. She reclines gracefully upon a dull brocaded chaise- longue, there is the scent of incense about her, and her draperies are arranged in formal folds. She lives
in an atmosphere of a bygone
and more gracious age.

And those whom she receives
are few in number, and they come to her through an eternal twilight.
She does not talk much herself,
yet she seems to dominate the conversation, which is low-toned but never dull, artificial but not brilliant. And those who are not of the elect must stand forever without her portals.

New Orleans… a courtesan whose hold is strong upon the mature,
to whose charm the young must respond. And all who leave her, seeking the virgin’s unbrown, ungold hair and her blanched and icy breast where no lover has died, return to her when she smiles across her languid fan…

New Orleans.

William Faulkner~1925

My Name Is Burma

Please check out my friend Moe Swe, who emailed me wonderful Burmese Music after we met through my online work with the Burma News Ladder, during the Democracy Crackdown in that country in September-October '07.
I had just joined in New Orleans with Rising Tide, btw, at the 2nd Flood Anniversary. Synchronicity?
One song's lyric: "A drop of rain is now a Raging Tide. Burma How Long?" You tell me. Heads or Tails?
Lotta music there. Take your time.
Use the pause button. Fang though the playlist. Tell yer friends. Enjoy!
As with my love for New Orleans,
I cannot think of a better, quicker way to know Burma than through her music: the song of her soul, the instrument of her dreams, the expression of her hopes & fears.
Burma Sinn Féin!
Burma Rocks World Boogie!
Please shout'out and say hello to
Moe Swe--Let'em know we care.
Kyay Zoo Pyu Pea...Koo NyiBar
Kyay Zoo Tin Bar Dae
8-08-88~~8-08-08
8-28-08

Crucifixion Road

by Karl Demolay

This is for the city that care forgot...
the city that forgot to care.
This city, carelessly forgotten,
our party time's behind us now, sensual drums in the dank and virile heat. City of culinary delights, musical giants, simple pleasures, squalid splendors.
A city of dust, now shrouded in mold, forever succumbing to entropic bliss on pause.
This city of history, a living archive of revelry and regret. The past and the future collide in slow motion. This is the city that must be remembered and rebuilt, this bastion of visceral pleasures and historic decadence. All to our collective delight and nagging melancholia.

This is for the ones that evacuated...
the people who left it all behind. The ones that lost almost everything, or maybe just the one thing they cared about most of all. The ones marooned on highways for far too long, no way home, even as the storm unleashed its initial fury. Those left deserted, no place to rest their heads, thoughts still heavy with guilt or fear or resignation.
This is for the people that won't go back, can't go back, afraid of possibility and all of its attendant pitfalls.
This is for those that have nothing to return to at all, not one single thing.
This is for the ones that relocated, expatriates forced into strange lands with odd customs.
This is for the terminally restless,
the suddenly homeless,
the penniless brave.

This is for the ones that stayed...
the insane, the stranded, the curious tribes, erstwhile survivors and civic warriors alike.
Those souls who stayed calm and true despite the chaos, or lost their minds to apocalyptic fancy.
Battened down and hunkered low, sipping bottled water with hushed first glances, suspicious demeanors and flashlights at the ready.
Proud and defiant holders of the line, sometimes criminal in intent, quick movement on the perimeters, shoot to kill orders...
For all those who were trapped in makeshift shelters, replete with suicides, murders, and rapes: victimization rank and feral.
For the bitter end of salvation, acrid tastes on parched tongues dry, even as bids for escape were made.

This is for the politicians...
Federal, State and Local, at once inept and indispensable, some more than others, caught unprepared, unconcerned, unshaven---Playing cat and mouse in a city of smoldering ruins, screams from the darkness of urgent plight, atavism gone awry. Ignorance and obviousness, the slow motion train wreck broadcast for all to see and discuss, obfuscate and ignore. Declarations of me and mine, you and yours, pitted squarely against they and them. This is for too little, too late, the same old song played at precisely the wrong time, over and over. Nagin, Blanco, Brown, Bush, please report center stage to assume the mantle of scorn and blame, everyone gets their turn.
This is for the ones that try to rewrite history or deny it outright, we wish we could deny it all so easily.

This is for the ones that died...
for the loved ones, the foolish ones, the forgotten and cumbersome alike. For the elderly, the infirmed, Vera in her cobblestone grave, the unidentified ones that received no such memorials.
And our beloved household pets, loyal until the end.
The parks and neighborhood greens, flora and fauna turned to a sepia-tone static gray. The houses, once renowned for their architecture, are reborn as new testaments to the destructive coupling of Mother nature and Human Folly. To the spray-painted X's, harsh and unrelenting, omnipresent in their emergency orange hue: 1 dog dead, 1 person saved.
This is for the newest necropolis to rise, our once proud city, our interrupted way of life, breaks in the line of comfortable static. For the evidence of our empire, washed away in the eye of the storm and the turgid, toxic waters that followed.

This is for the ones that rescued...
the Firefighters, EMT's, Police Officers, National Guard. For the people from far and near that just appeared out of nowhere, just wanting to help any way they could, using anything waterborne. And for the locals brave and true, risking life and limb to save just one more person, over and over and over. For all of the endless, tireless, selfless sacrifices and tear jerking humanity. For their shining light of salvation into the boundless dark, onto rooftops, inside of hacked-out attics, out of harms way to higher ground. For beaming from all directions, these beacons of hope, springing eternal and true.
This is for all those who lent a hand, however small or large. Our gratitude, more than could ever be conveyed, is all we have to offer in return.

This is for the media...
the good, the bad, the ugly, for the rescuers and the soothsayers, the shelterers and the kind words, for the dispassionate, the doubters, the cynical and the apathetic.
The pundits and pontificators, their talking points and bad haircuts, feigning interest at all the scripted moments. For the smiles as the makeup is applied, the vacant suppression of harsh, unforgiving reality in plentiful evidence. The ones that control the present controlling the past controlled the future; as always, blissfully unaware of the consequences...
For the sidebars and scrutiny, the breaking news and tight focus close-ups, hands and mouths reacting in opposite directions, in equal amounts, all from the outside looking in. This is for updates at every quarter of the hour.

This is for the hospitals...
the nursing homes and hospices unprotected and ignored. Piling the dead or leaving them where they lay, morgues and freezers packed tight. This is for the generators that failed too quickly. No sleep or food or water or sanity or safety or hope. For our doctors and nurses, in hellish conditions, against impossible odds, this is for the ultimate and undying respect they deserve. This is for the thugs storming the gates for drugs and evil kicks on top of everything else happening, brash and ignorant of their crime...
For the hotels and hostels, kicking guest out to fend for themselves in our city gone mad. Inundation and tragedy, fragility and breakdown, the worst vacation, convention, honeymoon ever.

This is for the looters...
for the desperate, the prescient, the survivalist hordes. Scavenging and pilfering, salvaging and hoarding anything and everything of use in seemingly useless times.
This is for the business owners, opening their doors wide to allow retrieval of water, food, diapers and formula, keeping their cool and doing the right thing. And for the pharmacies, their good intentions torn asunder by destructive addicts and wasteful ignorance like so many store display shelves.
This is for the home invasions, the armed intrusions, for making a bad situation worse, for spreading the fear...
This is for the ones that made it easier even while others made it ever harder by the minute.

This is for the children...
the lost or outright abandoned, the marginalized or used, for the separation anxiety, trauma and tears on long hot nights that just got worse and worse.
The unfamiliar and the dangerous, the abusive and profane, forsaking even common sense, for the lack of decency, for the bad examples and poor supervision. This is for the countless orphaned souls, forced to bear an adults pain with no advance warning, no preparation or guidance...
This is for the countless smiles, the innocence and playfulness, the ability to make it all disappear, if only for a moment at a time. And for their will, unbreakable and resolute in its purest form and function. This is for what we owe them, first and foremost; their satisfaction will be our compensation over time.

This is for the survivors...
all of us, if any of us, also still, the huge debt owed to those who didn't. This is for all of us in our sad, sad group, no matter where we are at the moment, home or abroad. For the hopes and dreams, reborn from the ashes of the ones previous, for our Phoenix on the bayou. For the nightmares and shock and ennui, the blank stares and paranoia deep into the night. And the helplessness, constricting, paralyzing, numbing...
This is for finding a way to get out of bed in the morning to go to work, gut your houses and reassemble your lives. This is for those that mourn their dead, their missing, their damaged. This is for all of us that are left to find their way back to some semblance of normalcy and well being in these dark times.

This is for the rest of the country...
witnesses to our plight, shelters in the storm, final arbiters of our collective destiny. This is for all of the numerous benefits and donations, the concerns and the heartfelt sorrow. The letters and emails, the long talks on the phone into those September nights and beyond, the shoulders to cry on and beds to sleep in. As well as the showers and food, simple things like ice and clean clothes. For the religious intolerance, the thought that somehow, we deserved this,
that this was God's doing...
This is for the stupidity and hypocrisy, for throwing the first stone when we were down and out. This is for their fatigue, their need to move on, not towards a better understanding, but only to the next sad refrain. For helping us stand, then forcing us to walk away stronger and more assured. This is for those that are rebuilding with us, as well as for the ones that make us want to now more than ever.

This is for the world...
the governments and their citizens, for the superpowers and third-world nations alike.
For their offers and advice, their engineers and city planners, the visits of rebuilding and improved protection. This is for the feeling that we weren't alone, that this has happened before elsewhere, only much worse, that it does get better with hard work and cooperation. For the lessons learned and experience shared; the first real promises of something good in uncertain times. This is for the most that we can share, our lessons, our triumphs and defeats, our heartbreaks and celebrations. This is for an open welcome to the grand rebuilding, our glorious comeback and their involvement in all that promises.

This is for the past...
and how not to repeat it. This is for shoddy levees and interrupted communications, driverless buses and improper shelters. For the wild ride to here, the respite in its warming memories, stories and legends yet to be told.
The anecdotes and folktales, the ghost stories and the pirates' songs, for history and the curious wisdom it imparts. For the good times, the bad times, the in-between times, we all had them here in this place we called home, no matter if you're local or not. This is for why we still call it home today, even if we won't, or can't be here now. This is for the sacrifices, the sweat and blood, the personal tales of reward and loss. This is for the chance to finally get it right, to learn form our mistakes one more time, to teach others the same as well; it's that precious and rare.

This is for the future...
and the promise that it holds.
For the chances in abundance, the endless, limitless boundaries presented. This is for the process of starting over, no matter how long or tough it turns out to be.
For the ways to see beauty in the ugliness, to fashion something new and exciting out of something broken and in a state of disrepair.
This is for our city, its legacy, our neighborhoods and families, friends and foes alike.
For our scenes and cliques, parishes and wards, businesses and hangouts, for the determination to rebuild them all, damn the engines.
Our wishes for a better way are here and now, ready and waiting, the concept of building better, stronger, and more secure. All we have to do is make it happen.
This is for the here and the here from now on.

So this is for you, in your own private way. For peace, contentment, steadfast resolve in trying times. For dignity and patience, reassuring calm after the storm. This is for the knowledge that you are not alone, no matter how lonely it may seem right now. For your hopeful return to the place we call home, if not now,
then in due time...
For the knowledge that she will wait for you, she always has,
she always will...
This is for our fair lady,
our New Orleans,
Past, Present and Future...