Gentilly Girl- a part of the 99%

January 12, 2008

“Protection of the Victim”?

NOPD is playing games again concerning crime reports to the citizenry. Though they post crime maps on the City’s website (two fucking weeks old), they do not believe it’s in the best interest of the people to KNOW what’s happening day-to-day in their respective neighborhoods. (Oh yes, it also protects the tourist industry here so they can claim all is “safe” in the city as they woo more folks down here to spend money.)
I call BULLSHIT on this one, trice-fucking unabashed B/S.

Try this freakin’ poop out:

“Narcisse maintained the department wants to keep the public informed and to follow the law, but he said Kahler should never have received records with victim identification and other details that could be harmful to investigations.

“The ultimate concern is protection of the victim,” said Narcisse, who also emphasized that officers must make sure that no information is released that will jeopardize making arrests.”

This from the same assholes who, after I reported being mugged by a thug at gunpoint, brought the supposed perp (along with five squad cars) to MY HOUSE for ID’ing. I reported a buffed Black man in his 20′s, and thank the Goddess they had “captured” a 70-year old man who did side work in the Marigny. But the point is that they brought the “perp” to my home, and he didn’t know where I lived when he put the 45 to my chest and forehead.

NOPD is not about policing a community. It’s only purpose is to protect the tourism, business and moneyed communities. It is not in the business of enforcing the Law, unless of course if enforcement means tickets to enrich the City Treasury and/or the tow truck companies.

The motto of every police department is to “Serve and Protect”. That motto covers All citizens, not a select few. The cops here in New Orleans don’t understand that. (Please note: I’m not peeing on the rank and file cops… they are only as good as their superiors.) Chief Riley has never understood that pledge, and for that he must be removed from his position. (And no cushy bailout job like the Majority arranged for the racist D.A. that resigned.)
If the City has to look elsewhere in the country for a real Chief of Police, so be it. If the man or woman chosen for the task isn’t Black, who freakin’ cares. We, the people of New Orleans, which keeps the City running on the real level, needs, desires, and deserves a real police department, not the shit sham piece that the Nagin Administration keeps in place.

We, yes we… the little folks of all stripes and colors, are the ones rebuilding this city, no thanks to the Naganites, and we both deserve and demand a responsible and efficient, honest and caring, police force. Nothing less will do.

Do you hear me now Mr. Nagin?

Sinn Fein

January 9, 2008

Owls’ Tuesday

Filed under: Gentilly,Green Living,New Orleans,Our House,Rebuilding — Tags: , , , , — Morwen Madrigal @ 4:10 pm

Yesterday brought some much needed tension release for the Owls (our community’s name for Betty and myself).

I woke up to hear that the framing inspector approved the work on the house with flying colors. He stated that the work was perfect, and that we have done overkill on the strengthening and stabilitization of the entire structure. (We haven’t had the railroad iron added to the corners yet.) It’s safe to say that the man was impressed. Our garage doors were also installed to our delight.
Later in the evening we sat down and talked out the insulation and attic poop with our contractor. Seems we can’t close the attic completely because the house might suffer due to moisture concerns. I had done some research on this matter in my studies about Greening the place, but ours is not adaptable to this concept. Oh well, the new approach being taken costs less, and at this point we need to scale back on the money being laid out.

Tomorrow the guys can put the Tyvek over the sheathing, and then in goes the insulation. Next week the walls are to be closed in. Flooring should start right afterwards and then it’s paint time. Our cabinets are to be installed and the appliances moved in. After that I’ll be putting in the Game Room’s sconces and Bath vanity lighting whilst Brent builds our office desks (48 running foot of them, and one of mine must be able to handle 50 gallon aquariums.)

Then I guess we just move in as soon as the last City Inspection is done. The outside will be unfinished, but the inside will be cozy and livable.

************************************************************************************************

Later in the night we went to the Pool tourney at the Phoenix. All three of us lost early, so we retired to the Starlight for more pool and drinks. Thank the Goddess that the tourists are gone… there’s parking on Rampart! YAY!

Anyway, that’s how Tuesday went and I am so much de-stressed. This flooded house nightmare is finally coming to a close and we can get out of this dump we’ve spent almost two years in. (And I keep telling outsiders that we are the lucky ones in that we can move forward on getting back into our home. My heart is heavy for those who can’t even start on rebuilding yet.)

Pics as soon as I get my tush up there in the daylight.

December 9, 2007

Ripping A Soul Apart

This week has been nothing but pain. The house is coming along, but I keep seeing the faces of the boys that died during the Crisis. I’m freakin’ feeling guilty: I still live. Working through the feelings of pain, loss and guilt are nothing but torture. (Last night a friend of ours almost lost it over the death of his good friend last Christmas Eve… I had to come out of my funk in order to try to help.)
Death is no stranger to me: my mom died in my arms when I was 13. That was the start for me: I wound up dealing with the AIDS Crisis a decade later. (do you have any idea what it feels like when everyone but yourself dies in a week from your Billiards team? How about finding out that your clerks are dead?) I remember my friend Adam having to have a lobotomy due to his AIDS dementia: he couldn’t remember my name when I would show to clean his home. I remember bailing a good friend out of jail because of the medications not working well together. I remember taking my coven to the top of Bernal Heights one night to show them the  “void” of light over S.F. General Hospital.
I lived that life, and the now current purging of New Orleans reeks of the same shit. I will not tolerate it.
Decades ago I dedicated my life to service. I knew what the cost was, but I also understood the benefit. (not that I knew that I’d be having nightmares and B/S, not to mention acts of kindness that still haunt me.)
When the Federal Flood happened, I made my decision to fight for New Orleans. Yeppers, my partner Betts tells me to STFU at times, but I continue the fight. The catz sit on my desk whilst I’m going crazy, but they know that Grand Ma is focussed. They understand. Do you understand me?
And ya’s know what? Ya’s don’t want me to go Freya on your asses… I have a ton of catz to unleash. I don’t wish to do that.
Alright, we must fight for Public Housing. We who stand for New Orleans must be there.
We cannot allow outsiders to determine the the future of our city, our home. This place is OURS dammit! New Orleans is our place, and the mother-fucking outsiders should have no say about our future.

At the risk of getting my tail feathers singed, I was the first here in NOLA to bring up Klien’s book “The Shock Doctrine”. Here is an article from ZNet that tells it like it is.

This coming week is the time for those of us who love New Orleans to prove how much we believe in this place… the proof of the pudding when it comes to love of place. Getting our house back means little when thousands of others are denied homes.

WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER Darlin’s.

I will never be able to have a peaceful sleep in our almost fixed home if I know that there is a Grannie, or an Auntie, Uncle, Grandpa… who cries because they cannot return home, can’t be with their families.

My lament over these last few decades was that I could not die, that the Goddess would not let me die. I’ve always wondered what the reason for that shit. Now I know… the Fourth Battle of New Orleans starts soon. It’s about Humanity over dollars, a Human breath against the ticker tape from the Stock Market. The value of Life and Living…

If you have a heart, and a soul… work with us to stop the destruction of all of these homes. Please, please… don’t let this crime happen. We will pay for this in the Future if it goes down this way.

December 7, 2007

Barbarians At the Gates

Since the Federal Flood of our city I have been monitoring the news, especially concerning the Projects. Know now that I AM NOT a fan of the Projects, but I do understand the need for them at this point in time. People need to be able to come home. (And these folks aren’t the crack-head murderers… they are the Elders who care for the kids and act as teachers)

ThinkNOLA has a piece by Professor Quigley concerning this topic.

I will be at one of the complexes that HUD wants to bulldoze on the appointed day. I’m going to stand for my fellow citizens and against the money/Repug machine’s desires.

Once again this is our time to stand against the money pigs and reclaim our city, our home. We know what New Orleans means… now we have to stand for the most vernerable of our folks. It is time to prove that color doesn’t matter in this city, only love and trust… acceptance… NOLA is our bloodtype. We MUST fight for the soul of our city.

November 20, 2007

We Are Not Ready?

Yesterday the Prez Debate Commission put out their list of localities where the Prez debates next year are to be held. They passed New Orleans over because “the city isn’t ready”. What a crock of elephant and donkey poop that statement is.

The PTB isn’t ready for US!

I know why the Repugs don’t wanna be here: they can’t take the heat of appearing in a city that was so badly damaged, and the fact that their “appointed by God” Warlord President has reneged, with their aid/non-concern, upon his promise of the rebuilding of our homeplace. SE Looziana is the poster child for the neglect that the “Gov’mit don’t work” shit they spout for the entire Nation. (Check this out.)

Some of the Demos recommended the place, but only John Edwards seems to be willing to make an effort to get one of the debates held here. (This is why Edwards is my guy. *swoons*) The other Donkeys in the race barely mention us, which by extension means that they don’t really care about infrastructure and people’s safety around the country or the very real threat of rising sea-level faced by the U.S. and the folks who live in the danger zones from this threat. Is this an example of their future Domestic agenda?
I still can’t believe that they chose Oxford, Miss over a cultured place like New Orleans. Old Miss is just a Neocon factory, churning out brain dead goose-steppers to further the Elephants’ desire to destroy the Republic. Oxford has about 600 hotel rooms (nobody wants to visit that honey pot), whereas the NOLA has over 24,000 rooms. Are 2,400 people going to shack-up with Oxford’s local families? I just bet they are going to love Fried Coon or Basted Possum… Yum, Yum!

I’m not flying off the handle about our city getting passed over on this, but about the fact that the example of how the Social Contract being disassembled here and along the Gulf Coast not being a backdrop for such an important event as helping folks to decide who they wish to lead the country and what is most important to their lives, children and Fate. Americans are concerned about Americans: we see that all through the ravaged areas down here whether the destruction was Natural or Man-made. Thousands of people have flocked to the Coast and the City in an attempt to help in the rebuilding process. Many have opened their wallets too.

How can the Debate Commission not see that Domestic interests are on the minds of many Americans? They are concerned because “it could happen to them”, and then what the fuck is the response from the Feds gonna be if the worst happens? Sadly, New Orleans and the Coast are perfect examples of the Feds’ response: red-tape, delays, wasting of monies by going through Halliburton, Shaw and countless others until there is no money left for the poor sods that actually do the clean-up and the rebuilding.

And don’t get me started on the topic of what actually will happen to the folks who inhabit the disaster zones of the Future.

More on this topic: Here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Like to bitch about this? Go here for the contacts.

November 13, 2007

I Made My Decision Months Ago…

John Edwards for President in 2008! (Been his girl since he announced from the Lower Ninth.)

I do not trust Hillary, and Obama doesn’t add up for me. This time around, as it should be every election, it should be about vision, possibilities and not just founded in fear tactics and divisiveness. Edwards talks about New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He wants to pull out from Iraq. He wants Universal Healthcare, and… John comes from a background similar to mine. His Dad worked in a mill… mine was a milkman who drove 60+ miles everyday through the swamps along the Coast rendering a service. (He was the first White man many Black children had ever met. Yes, I do remember those days of isolation for those folks.) This is the kind of person I can trust.
I vote for a candidate that shares a similar reality to mine. I cannot cast a vote for someone who shares nothing with my life as far as challenges go when we are talking the Presidency. I may disagree with the person later on, but I know that his feet were in the same mud as mine. That the worries of the family echoed the same concerns in my early home.

This is the kind of person I can trust when it comes to major National issues or the need for war.

Mr. Edwards, I AM your girl. I can’t wait to see you at the Inauguaration in 2009.

November 12, 2007

FEMA Trailers Vanish!

Filed under: Federal Flood,FEMA,Levees,New Orleans,Rebuilding — Tags: , , , , — Morwen Madrigal @ 10:58 pm

Over the past week I’ve been seeing FEMA trailers being hauled out of the sacred “Lost Neighborhood” where our house sits. I kept thinking that something is strange since we didn’t have that many trailers in our neck of the woods and I didn’t notice any missing from the neighboring homes.

Well we went to visit “The House” to say hi and all, and then I noticed that an entire FEMA trailer park was gone. There were no craters signifying a meteor strike or wholesale abduction by aliens (FEMA and Shaw Group folks act like aliens…). There were no charred remains of those gaseous emergency shelters either. I figured that it was just magick, plain and simple.

The FEMA park filled Perry Rhoem Park, a football and baseball field that is the center of our neighborhood. So many folks showed up for the games, even if they didn’t have kids playing, and many would be grilling up goodies for all and sundry. It broke my heart to see the fields covered in white boxes on wheels… where would the kids play?

It turns out that there really aren’t that many kids around anymore. I still plan to do some fundraising so that the park will be better than before… a thank you to the fields for being a temporary home for so many folks, but when will our city have all of the various teams of short kids wearing huge shoulder pads or the little ones swinging a bat taller then themselves?

It is progress in the Post-Flood world here, but I will be very much saddened if the park doesn’t get used for what it was meant for very soon.

Crescent City Stories

Harry Shearer is still plugging away for New Orleans. These are wonderful vignettes of life post-Federal Flood here in the city.

I read everything that Harry writes about the area, but I missed this, so thanks to Chris Rose for the heads-up. I cried through all of them… tears of Joy.

I love New Orleans.

Once again, it’s Sinn Fein.

November 7, 2007

New Kitchen Cabinets

As promised, here is the East wall diagram and the West wall.

Betts decided to add an island to the West wall so we gain a snack counter and break up the room (which contains both the A/V room and the kitchen. The size is about 38 x 16′.) One of the corner cabinets will be the trash/recycling area (if we ever get recycling in the City again).

The Pantry is 7 x 16′ and will hold the hot water tank, a second fridge, a floor freezer, almost 16′ of 7′ high commercial stainless steel shelving and a general utility shelving unit for bulk buys and sodas (and my beer). Outside of the Kitchen fridge, almost all of our food and paper supplies will be stored here. We desired a commercial lay-out and I think this will fit the bill.

The Homecoming party should happen in early January since the guys are promising that we can return prior to Yule, but maybe a Geek Dinner with the NOLA Bloggers should happen before that. Maybe they could be combined, but we Geeks are a different type of creature, and I’m afraid that mixing all of the slices of Life that I know in NOLA could result in a super nova or Succession.

What do y’all think darlin’s?

Our House Repairs Are Speeding Up

Filed under: New Orleans,Our House,Rebuilding — Tags: , , — Morwen Madrigal @ 2:46 pm

This week sees the plumbers, electricians, carpenters and the masons working all at the same time on our home. These guys are like a force majeure right now. Here’s some more pics.

I’m waiting on the cabinet place to fax me the cabinetry sketches for the kitchen. It is my hope that we get “Best Kitchen in New Orleans” awards. The herb and spice unit stands 7′ tall and has all of these fold out racks, so many so that I should lose my mind when I’m searching for some obscure spice when I’m cooking something. All of the units are solid birch with a moderate cherry stain. Green granite will top them and the island table off and all of the appliances are stainless steel. Betts just ordered the hanging pot rack to hang over the prep table.

The new windows should arrive in 10 days. (Got a very good price on them as they were close-outs. *grins*) They are double paned and have very good energy specs. We’ll buy the hurricane shutters next Summer since we feel safe for the next several months.

All that is left is a huge appliance order, get the rest of the bathrooms’ stuffs, pick up light fixtures and order a small amount of carpet. Furniture comes last because we can’t find something we like at a reasonable price. If we had the time I think a trip to northern Miss. in a search for used, but nice stuff would be the way to go, but time is sadly lacking.

The main reason we can pull this off is that our contractors wish to use our place as a showcase of their best work. We supply the monies and they get their showcase. The payback for it all is having to act as tour guides when they bring new prospects by, but that’s more than worth it considering what all this is costing us. (And yes, I’m sworn to secrecy about the real costs to us.)

All we need now is our mitigation grant and then put new siding on the house.

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