Popular Debunking!

Popular Debunking!
Originally uploaded by ellis_earl.

WARNING! BLOG WILL TEMPORARILY SWERVE!

But first... Go purchase the latest edition of Popular Mechanics to get good stories on debunking Katrina myths, rebuilding New Orleans, new home design, what to expect this coming hurricane season, and a whole lot more. scant mention of Da' Parish but chock-full-o logic and facts.

Do I think anyone in N.O. will take the advice given, especially on house designs? Ha!

As far as I can tell, people intending to "rebuild" want the parish to return to the way it was, which it never will. But take heart that whatever returns will be better than before. I even hear that my parents neighboorhood might be a "green" area or even a sort of lake.

Imagine... boating through the old neighboorhood while feeding the ducks and pointing out where my realitives and friends used to live to unbelieveing tourists! Wild!

I am glad I visited St Bernard Parish and saw it with my own eyes, upclose and personal. I still feel the effects of the trip in renewed gratitude for the simple things... Hot water... fresh water... any water at all. If nothing else I'm grateful that my family and I live in a dry city (Haughty Voice: "We even have power and sewage service.").

I'm sure whatever becomes of Arabi I can still count on the daily ritual of being eaten alive by mosquitoes at dusk when I visit.

OH NO!... SWERVE!

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Just got back from a trip to Tombstone Arizona with my wife and daughter. Imagine my surprise when we were greeted by English accents at the Trailrider's Inn! Turns out the owner is from London and so was a friend of his who was visiting for a few weeks. Neat Inn with a great little pool and friendly service. Give it a try if you're ever in the area, pardner.

Well, the pace was slow, the food large and carb-filled and the cowboys real. We rode the stagecoach and heard the history of the six-block-long town. Bought some great souviners, used the jazzusi and generally soaked up the dusty local atmosphere. Although there are at least six gunfights a day at various locations we managed to miss them all, although we heard a few shots on the last day in town. I could have stayed on for a week or two... or a month... or... who knows?

Stopped at an ostritch farm on the way back to L.A. and my daughter had a great time feeding the great stupid birds and the deer at the ranch with them. We also stopped to see the roadside DINOSAURS in Cabazon, CA. We went inside the belly of the brontosaurus and perused the gift shop. A gift shop in the belly of a dinosaur with more square footage than our house!

All in all a great first family road trip. Wifey and daughter had a great time but it's good to be home.

WOHA!... SWERVE!

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So get up to date on what really happned during Katrina and prepare your minds for the coming hurricane season. Things will be different, but then I read,"All things work for the good of beleivers." I trust it is so and wish all you rebuilders only the best. God bless and good luck! -Earl

P.S.- FAMILY UPDATE! My sister the nurse is finally back in her "Who cares about Uptown" apartment and she is feeling a lot better as things seem a bit more normal. She had to buy a new couch as my Dad had slept on it during thier Katrina stranding and the inside temperature soared to over 100 degrees. Between the sweat and the "Katrina funk" it was history. I think she's most happy because her cat is most happy. Cat people!

As to my parents they are well enough, although my dad hurt his back when we visited the "old House" in Arabi. He hit his head on an open electrical box cover and fell onto the junk in our yard. We got a picture of He and I sitting in the junk and I'll post it soon. Anyway, they are doing as well as can be expected although they haven't yet received any more money from FEMA. I suspect it will come when the dozers finally roll.

Also, my Dad wants to visit the old house one more time. My middle sister says she will take him there but won't go into the house again. She's done with it all and is going to try to look for flowers around the neighborhood while he treasure hunts. That's all, look for the "junk" photo soon -Earl

Chocolate Death Toll?

ontheroof
Originally uploaded by Gna42.

I am posting the following statistics in response to former President Carter's remarks made at Coretta Scott King's funeral.

Quote Jimmy Carter: "We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, those who were most devastated by Katrina, to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans."

Are there not yet equal opportunities for 79 year old White folks like my parents, who lost EVERYTHING? Is that what former President Carter meant? We all know what he meant, and I for one resent his classless and race-baiting comments.

Read the following statistics from Storms 411:Katrina which you can reference at
http://outhouserag.typepad.com/hurricane_watch/katrina_aftermath_death_toll/

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The popular perception that African-Americans living in New Orleans were disproportionately victimized by the government's botched Hurricane Katrina rescue effort turns out not to be true - at least according to preliminary death statistics released by the state of Louisiana.

On Wednesday, Congress heard dramatic testimony from black Katrina survivors, who complained that racism drove the federal rescue efforts and resulted in an unnecessarily high number of African-American deaths.

"People were allowed to die," storm survivor Leah Hodges testified, telling a House panel that black residents of New Orleans had been victims of "genocide and ethnic cleansing."

But preliminary figures compiled by the morgue in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, which is the primary facility handling the bodies of Katrina deceased, show that a majority of the dead in New Orleans and surrounding parishes were actually not black.

Of the 883 bodies processed so far by medical examiners at St. Gabriel, 562 have been identified by race. Slightly less than half that number - 48 percent - are African-American. Forty-one percent are white, 8 percent unknown and 2 percent Hispanic.

The remarkable numbers, which undermine claims that Katrina rescue efforts were somehow infused by racism, have been completely ignored by the national media, with only the Lousiana-based news web site, The Bayou Buzz, devoting any coverage at all to the story.

The surprisingly low death rate for black Katrina victims comes despite the fact that New Orleans itself was more than two-thirds black [67 percent] when the storm hit. White residents made up less than a third [28 percent] of the city's population, according to U.S. Census bureau numbers.

The two hardest hit areas were Orleans parish, which is the city itself - with 720 people killed by Katrina - and St. Bernard parish, with 123 dead.

St. Bernard parish is 88 percent white, but the total population before the storm was just 65,554 people. The city of New Orleans, on the other hand, had 484,674 people before the storm, 67 percent of whom were black.

The two populations combined were still over 60 percent black - twelve points higher than the percentage of black residents killed by Katrina.

So more whites died per capita than blacks. So you had elderly white people who chose to ride out the storm at home vs the hell that awaited them in the dome. Many of them died. The black population that could not evacuate went to the dome.. And while they were uncomfortable, they lived.

December 13, 2005
Katrina - Aftermath - Death Toll


State

Louisiana Official
state
total 1,035


County/Parish
deaths

Ascension 9
Assumption 3
Caddo 11
East Baton Rouge 72
Iberia 6
Jefferson 30
Lafourche 2
Livingston 5
Orleans 154
Plaquemines 3
St. Bernard 125
St. Charles 8
St. Landry 1
St. Tammany 7
Tangipahoa 26
Terrebonne 19
West Baton Rouge 3

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So... CNN, Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, et all aside, we see that, lo and behold, a STORM does not play racial favorites. Katrina hit everyone, White, Black, Hispanic, rich, middle-class, and poor with equal force and devastation. I know. My parents still have no home and my sister will be out of her FEMA-financed hotel ASAP.

Despite the idiocy of New Orleans Mayor Ray "Willie" Nagin (or "School Bus Nagin," if you prefer) what New Orleans needs most is not Chocolate residents but Green residents, as in green from the lettuce-moola-greenbacks in their pockets. Does Nagin really think his plea for Chocolate voters to return and support him and his party isn't transparent?

When I went shopping at The French Market I noticed the vendors were predominently Asian, and the workers rebuilding the city mainly Mexican. My Point? Ray Nagin should drop to his knees and pray for ANYONE of ANY RACE who has money to come and spend it in his city! Nagin may not care what the well-to-do Uptown residents (Read White) think, but New Orleanians should.


The last thing New Orleans residents need as they rebuild their lives are people in positions of prominence racially dividing the city for purely political reasons. My Dad, God bless him, voted for these two clowns and I wonder if he regrets it now... or when he was waterless at the Convention Center. This is a time for tough love, New Orleans. Vote accordingly!

-Earl


P.S.- My Sister lived Uptown and Ditto to Blanco's shenanigins.