On this day in New Orleans, snowballs were still a Really Big Deal Haley, 7, and Shane Babb, 5, anticipate the cool sweetness of their snowballs as they wait for Shiela Marriott to prepare them at Ro-Bear's in Harahan. Photo: John McCusker ~Editilla was doing this very thing~ building some kid a perfect snowball, at the Flora Cafe' that morning when Valentine came in for his early juice. {I also did fresh-squoze juice for Ali.} Only this morning Val was a bit up on breaking news: "Hey, Juicy," he says "Did you hear that one of the World Trade Center towers is on fire?" "Nah", said I, more interested in making sure to swirl the Condensed Milk just right around the cone of crushed ice to the top, without breaking it down, which would not do at all, mashing up all the color layers I had painstakingly laid in the snowball already. While the kid watched, Val, stepped across Royal to get a paper and comes back in looking a little scared...looking me right in the eye he said, "You may want to get over to Big Daddy's and check the TV." "What?", I said, stepping around a few more of the children waiting for their snowballs. Then da'Angel storms into the cafe, "HEY EVERYBODY! SOMEONE HAS JUST FLOWN A GODDAMN AIRLINER INTO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER IN NEW YORK!" The place emptied like fire in a theater, as everyone ran to the bars across the street to see it on the Tube. Suddenly Schiro's was packed too. Suddenly there was not a car on the street outside, as I suspect anywhere else in America either. Me, I turned around and looked at the children waiting on their snowballs and asked, Who's next?
1 Mo Day! WHODAT SAY... DEY GONNA BEAT DEM SAINTS?
~Hat Tweet~LeveesOrg~Boz Again! H.J. Bosworth Jr is the featured speaker in this Fox 8 TV news story about Corps' new flood protection. fox8live.com/news/local/sto… Media ethics are not negotiable ~James Gill~Garland Robinette did not fall from grace just because he has achieved geezer status, however. After using his radio show to advance the interests of Fred Heebe, Robinette relieved him of $250,000. That would have been just as disgusting when he was young.
Levee Safety Data and methods used to calculate Corps of Engineers’ LSAC ratings should be released ~Levees.org ~Surely the nation will fare much better if objective prioritization replaces the current practice of funding pet projects based on political issues. When the corps releases this data, we may find that exorbitant amounts of funding is being spent on levees that actually protect few resources. The data may even reveal instances where, for just incrementally more funding, the flood protection for heavily populated areas with large amounts of infrastructure and value can be raised from 100-year to 500-year or even 1,000-year protection.
Today on the Stinktank~10 PM TODAY: the Payola Pundit plans to use his radio show "Garland Robinette's Stinktank" to mouth you long day aboutthat $250,000 "loan" from River Birch owners (to keep him bent over with a ball gag in his " public opinion?" Hmmm?) Also, rumor has it, he will trot out all the hungry orphans he's been able to sponsor with what Fred Hebbe "loaned" him.
New Orleans Levees Won’t Be Tested by Gulf Storm, Officials Say ~Bloomberg ~Sandy Rosenthal, president and founder of Levees.org, a group set up after Katrina to monitor the status of the improvements, said she is satisfied with the work. Even so, she is taking items from the first floor of her New Orleans home to the second level and moving cars to higher ground. “If the rain falls too fast, the pumps may not keep up,” she said in a telephone interview. “We would expect floods. But I wouldn’t expect the levees to break.”
