Ok, so Close-Up proved to be the best trip I've ever been on. I loved seeing all the sites and stuff, but the people there were the best. I made so many friends from EVERYWHERE. We had a lot of kids from Louisiana (because we're cool that way) but there were people from Wyoming, Ohio, California, Nebraska, Texas, Mississippi, Missouri, Utah and other places too.

The best part of the trip was Capitol Hill Day because that's when I got to meet the LA senators. I didn't really like Landrieu that much, though. It's not just because I don't support a thing she says, it's a lot because she couldn't answer a question straight. It seemed like she was trying to cover all the bases at once. She couldn't pick a side. Plus, she kept changing the topic and never really answered the original question.

However, David Vitter was the PERFECT man. I am so in love with him! Not only did he take everyone's questions (something Landreiu didn't) he also answered them. He gave his opinion on it and told us what the other side's (the Dems) view on the problem was and said which he thought was better. I agreed with just about everything he said too. He's a very smart man. And he cleared his afternoon to meet with everyone from LA, not like Sen. Landrieu who just held a quick meeting in the lobby with us. Vitter actually secured a conference room for us. He was a really sweet guy.

Anyway, the trip was fantastic and I'm missing all of my new friends! But we're all keeping in touch and some might come down for Mardi Gras.

Tomorrow I go on a week-long vacation/experience to Washington DC!!! I'm going with Close Up, which is this government sposered program for high schoolers to get a "close up" view of government!

I chose a roomate (for the hotel room) from my school and when we get there we get assigned two more roomates from somewhere else in country! How exciting is that going to be?

As a little "hey, we're here!" gift, me and my friend are making a little New Orleans gift package. It's just a litte bag for each of them with Mardi Gras beads, a New Orleans music mixed CD, 1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose, fleur-de-lis necklaces, and Mardi Gras procelain clowns.

I hope they like it!! I'm really excited about getting to meet all the politicians. I'm only really bummed out because my favorite Louisiana representitive, Bobby Jindal, isn't going to be there and we can't meet him! But I will get to meet David Vitter and I admire him too, so that will be fun!

It's going to be an interesting air around Washington because the Mid-termn elections changed a lot. I'm pretty outspoken, so I'll probably be shot. It's only freedom of speech for Democrats, Republicans don't count....*sigh*

Oh well

It should still be fun!

Pray for me tomorrow morning because I'm flying up! And it'll be really really cold there - in the 50s!!!!!! So I'll freeze, so again, prayers are needed.

See yall later!

I, like many Republicans mourn and lament the majority power of the House and Senate. However, it wasn't until I read this newpaper article that I realized just how crippling this shift of power is. Since Louisiana is majority Republican and we have mostly Republicans elected in Washington, a Republican House and Senate helps the state. Now that the Democrats have control, recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and especially in New Orleans will be completely destroyed. New Orleanians lose. Any movement a Republican like the AMAZING Bobby Jindal tries to pass, will be automatically shot down because the Democrats control the House. No matter how much it would help us rebuild and recover, the Democrats will not vote for it because it would be a Republican bringing it up. In more detail:

From the Times-Picayune:

The Democratic takeover of the U.S. House in elections Tuesday will mean a drastic drop in Louisiana's clout on Capitol Hill as the state's Republican-heavy delegation moves to the minority and loses the chance to control two committees critical to the post-Katrina recovery.

Louisiana, with five Republicans and two Democrats in the House, now faces a much more difficult challenge in steering federal policy at a time when the state looks to Washington to assist in rebuilding after last year's devastating hurricanes.

"That's a huge loss," said former Louisiana Democratic Rep. Chris John. "We're going to go through a tough time. It will take a while to recover."

Control of the Senate remained up for grabs late Tuesday, but Louisiana's political power rested mainly in the House, where the state was hoping seniority would begin paying major dividends next year.

The party that holds the majority controls the levers of power -- the committee chairmanships -- and it is unlikely that Louisiana's two Democratic members will even hold the gavel of a lowly subcommittee. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, will be entering only his second term representing the 3rd Congressional District. The 2nd District seat will be decided by a runoff between state Rep. Karen Carter, who would be a freshman, and incumbent U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, who lost his Ways & Means Committee slot in the wake of a federal investigation that is still pending.

At the same time, two veteran Louisiana Republicans who were poised to move into leadership of highly influential committees are now forced to wait at least another two years amid questions of whether they will stay in Congress at all.

With the Republicans thrust back into the minority after 12 years in control, Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Shreveport, saw his long campaign to become chairman of the powerful Ways & Means Committee evaporate. The panel writes tax policy and was instrumental in crafting a package of incentives designed to boost the economy of the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast. As chairman, McCrery would have been positioned to provide additional business and housing incentives to speed the recovery.

The election returns likewise turned off the lights on Baton Rouge Rep. Richard Baker's bid to become chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. The panel has jurisdiction over the insurance industry whose future is seen as a linchpin of the Gulf Coast recovery. After the 2005 hurricane season, many residents and businesses in south Louisiana and Mississippi have found it hard to afford flood insurance policies -- if they can find coverage at all. Baker had said that if he became chairman, overhauling the flood-insurance system would be his top priority.

But Former Louisiana Rep. Jimmy Hayes, a Democrat-turned-Republican, said the power shift doesn't mean the federal financial spigot will be shut off for Louisiana. A plank in the Democrats' campaign to retake the House was a pledge to fix the failures of the Republican-controlled Congress and administration to respond adequately to the disaster. Hayes said that Democratic leaders and committee leaders, although not from Louisiana, will be sympathetic to the state's cause. (load of horse-hooey!)

"I think you'd have Charlie Rangel's help on Ways and Means," said Hayes, referring to the New York Democrat who is all but certain to run the tax-writing committee.

On the Financial Services Committee, Hayes said Democrats have been similarly keen on making changes that would reduce the premiums on flood insurance policies and put them within reach of more Americans. (if they don't, heads will roll...)

He said that Democratic control of the two panels will matter more on national issues -- such as minimum wage, income taxes, Medicare -- than locally.

"It would have more repercussions on Wall Street than Canal Street," Hayes said.

Chairmanships aside, some wonder whether the loss of power in the House will mean the defections from Congress of McCrery and Baker, the delegation's two most senior and influential members. McCrery, 57, and Baker, 58, could be enticed to follow the lead of several former Louisiana congressional colleagues and trade on their seniority and connections to become highly paid Washington lobbyists.

McCrery came close to leaving Congress in 2004, when Republicans were solidly in control of the House, prompting a call from President Bush pleading with him to stay. Now as a member of the minority party, some believe he will step down. Asked about it recently, McCrery didn't dismiss the possibility.

"Why would he wait?" said Hunter Johnston, a Washington lobbyist. "He was more or less retiring before. It would be an easier decision now."

The Democratic House takeover also puts the Appropriations Committee seat of Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-Quitman, is some jeopardy. Alexander is the most junior member of the panel, so if the Republicans lose slots, he would be the first to go.

The diminution of clout continues a long slide for Louisiana that has accelerated recently as veteran members have been enticed from public service by the big pay checks they can earn as Washington lobbyists. Former Reps. Bob Livingston, R-Metairie, Billy Tauzin, R-Chackbay, and Sen. John Breaux, D-La., all quit Congress in the past six years for the private sector. Livingston was the Appropriations Committee chairman in line to be speaker of the House; Tauzin was chairman of Energy and Commerce; and Breaux was considered an influential deal-maker on both sides of the aisle.

Louisiana is far short of the kind of clout it enjoyed at its peak in the early 1970s when Louisiana Reps. Hale Boggs was House majority leader, F. Edward Hebert chaired the Armed Services Committee and Sen. Allen Ellender served as president pro-tem of the Senate and chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee.

At the time, the entire Louisiana delegation was Democratic and the party was ensconced in what would be 40 years of domination in the House that ended with the "Republican Revolution" in 1994. The Republican takeover made it easier for many conservative Southern Democrats to switch parties, a trend that has turned the region into a bastion of GOP dominance. Now, with the House in Democratic hands, other Southern states whose delegations are likewise controlled by the GOP are certain to see their own influence diminished. (*cough* Gulf Coast *cough*)

"I think you will see a lot of people quitting," said Johnston, the lobbyist.

Since Katrina, Louisiana has grown accustomed to looking to other states for help in Washington and it will have to rely on its regional allies now more than ever. Just over the state line in Mississippi, Louisiana will have an ally in Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat who is seen as likely to control the Homeland Security Commitee, which has jurisdiction over emergency preparedness and security at ports and chemical plants.

John, the former Louisiana congressman, predicted that in a Democratic-controlled House, Melancon is likely to get a seat on the influential Energy and Commerce Committee, which touches almost every aspect of the U.S. economy. John also said that with a closely divided House, moderates such as Melancon will be sought out by both sides on a host of issues, boosting his leverage somewhat.

And while Louisiana's influence will decline, the state won't be without access to federal resources. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., is on the Senate appropriations committee. (I hate Landrieu politics, but I really hope she can help us)

The state's drop in influence may not be over. The state came close to losing one of its seven House seats after the 2000 census. With a dramatic population decline after Hurricane Katrina, there is a good chance that in three years, the already-battered delegation could be shrink by one.

So I attended that New Orleans Voodoo Music Fest today! It was loads of fun! I got there about 12:00 and went to see this band called Mute Math.

Mute Math is absolutely amazing and everyone should go to iTunes right now and buy their CD. Plus, they are native New Orleanians and that makes them better than any other band in the world. Except other bands from New Orleans. (Plan B is my favorite song!)

After Mute Math me and my friends went to go see Broken Social Scene. I had seen BSS up in Chicago for Lollapalooza, but they were better this time around. Maybe because I was on my home turk. *shrug*

After that, we saw Shooter Jennings. Shooter Jenning's is a country/rock singer. It's mostly just rock with an accent. And he was the only guy all day (besides Mute Math) that pronounced New Orleans correctly. It's not New Or-leens, and definately not N'awlins (say that and be prepared for an angry New Orleanian to jump you). It's New Or-Lins. Lins. Like pins. Get it straight.

Then my friends and I just hung around for Red Hot Chili Peppers and saw Social Distortion in the process. They were pretty awesome too, and the RHCP were, once again, the best performance of the whole festival.

We ran into some pretty fun things today in City Park. One of them was this guy, with long long long scraggly hair, hobo clothes, and recorder. He was amazing! He was jumping everywhere and dancing! We ran into him at just about every concert and by the time we were at RHCP, we asked to take a picture with him. And he let us!!! It was pretty schweet.

Also, while we were watching Social Distortion...there were this two guys wearing Mardi Gras beads. No. IT'S FRIGGIN OCTOBER!!!!! Mardi Gras isn't until February this year. Why don't tourists realize this? No New Orleanian EVER wears Mardi Gras beads unless they are at a parade!!! We DO NOT WEAR MARDI GRAS BEADS. For the love of God, if you ever visit here, and it's Christmas, DO NOT wear red and green Mardi Gras beads. My friends and I will point and laugh at you. A lot. JUST SAY NO.

And on that note...goodnight!

So I was driving to school this morning, just like every other morning. I live across the Ole Miss River from the great city of New Orleans, so naturally I had to cross the bridge to get to my school on the other side. As I was starting to cross the river, I happened to look up at the sky. I was AMAZED by what I saw.

It was a rainbow. But not just any rainbow. Sure, I've seen rainbows before while running through the sprinklers on a muggy New Orleans summer afternoon, but those rainbows are usually just a small line of color. This rainbow, situated perfectly over the heart of the city, was the full deal. It was the entire arch. It extended from one point on one side of the city ALL THE WAY over to the end of the city.

Naturally, I took it as a sign. It just had to be. You don't see those things often. Not that big, not that bright.

I'm sure everyone has heard the story of Noah and the Great Flood. At the end of the story, at the end of the storm, the rain, God promised Noah never to drown the Earth again. He used the rainbow as a sign. It was his pact with Noah and his people.

New Orleans has now recieved the same promise. Never again. Never to that extent. It's going to be ok. God said so.

It's almost impossible to explain, but I'm going to try anyway. At my school, each class has a class name. It rotates every three years between the names Skip (sailors), Mac (Scottish), and Sioux (Indian). One of the names is given to a class when they reach sophomre level, depending on the year that class is. My class happened to fall on a year when Sioux was the name given to Sophomores, so that's what we were named last year and thats the name we carry with us until we graduate next year. Freshman have the "little sister" name of the senior class. This year, the seniors are Skips and the Freshman are First Mates, keeping with the sailor theme. Next year, when my class are senior Sioux, the freshman will be Red Feathers. The Macs have the Scotties as a little sis class. 8th grade is always Leps.

This year the classes are:

8th grade Leps

Freshman First Mates

Sophomore Macs

Junior Sioux (YAY!)

Senior Skip

Ok, so now that we have the names down...

Every year, my class holds a HUGE competition between the classes known as Rally. You might be sitting there thinking, "oh, yeah so does my school!"

No.

The Rally at my school is very unique and was invented at my school. It's different from your school's class competion. It's taken A LOT more seriously. The competition between the classes last all year, but is only celebrated on RALLY NIGHT.

That was tonight.

And guess who totally won Rally this year?

SIOUX!!!!!!!!

Because we are awesome! Our theme was "Siouxfari" this year. We had the most beastly amazing mascots, too! It was GREAT! FLIPPIN SCHWEET!

When they announced that the senior Skips got runner-up, my class knew we had it. The Macs just absolutely suck. I hate that class so much, it's really horrible and un-Christian of me. Every Mac class is just so AHHH! Every Mac is so annoying! (You can tell if you are a Mac by looking at the year you graduate. The last set of Macs graduate in '06. If you want to see what you would be, just count down "Mac, Skip, Sioux, Mac, Skip, Sioux..." to see.)

When we won...oh my goodness. We were all holding hands and everyone could make out the words "Jesus help us. Jesus help us. Jesus help us." When they announced we won, everyone jumped up and started screaming and crying and we ran down the bleachers to the center of the gym and created this mosh pit...

It was amazing.

And we're going to win again next year as Senior Sioux!!!

"Pack Your Sioux-tcase!" (that MIGHT be our theme)

Yall, the real victims of Katrina aren't just the ones found in their homes. The death count didn't end at 1800.

Yall, the true victims are the ones not counted, the silent sufferers.

This piece from The Times-Picayune touched my heart. It's about an elderly man that recently died. I first heard of this man after Katrina when I read an article about him losing his the Lakeview home he built himself in Katrina.

No natural disaster killed this man. It wasn't just the faulty levees. This man died from things that exist in every New Orleanian: a broken heart.

Yall, read this story. If it doesn't send a tear down your cheek then you most likely have no heart.

From the Times-Picayune by Chris Bynum:

On March 24, 2006, Irwin Buffet stood in his flooded Lakeview home, echoing the words of so many elderly survivors of the storm.

"My future is behind me now," said the retired building inspector for the City of New Orleans.

The recovery of his home and neighborhood, he felt, would take more years than he had left to give. Irwin Buffet was right. On Oct. 8, the 89-year-old World War II veteran died from complications of a stroke he suffered in late September, less than a month after the anniversary of Katrina.

Buffet is an example of Katrina's hidden, untallied death toll: elderly people in good health before the storm who deteriorated rapidly after.

"He died of a broken heart," said his daughter, Janis Shreve. "I see him as a Katrina victim. He had many more years ahead of him."

As friends and family gathered for his funeral service last Tuesday, one of Buffet's new neighbors put everything in perspective in the carefully chosen words of his eulogy.

"The two big events in Irwin Buffet's life were World War II and Katrina," Doug Madden said.

When the young Navy man returned home to New Orleans in 1945, he purchased a lot on Gen. Haig Street for $6,000 and built a home where he would bring his bride and later welcome a baby daughter. She would grow up, marry and move to the other side converted into a double. As grandchildren and great-grandchildren arrived, Buffet and his family remained the sole occupants of the house he built.

After Katrina, the house stood gutted and empty. Following the the memorial service Tuesday, family members brought the flowers that had surrounded his casket to Buffet's front door.

Neighbors no longer live next door or across the street. Driveways and streets are empty. There are no tricycles on lawns. No mail in the mailboxes. Just the orange writing still left on walls and doors from Katrina rescue squads, and a few warning signs from absent neighbors to would-be looters.

Even when a Florida firm earlier in the year donated free gutting and mold-remediation services to prepare Buffet's home for rebuilding, his daughter had asked, "How can I bring him back to an empty neighborhood?"

This was Buffet's heartbreak -- that life as he knew it was history, with all its markers washed away. The floors in Buffet's home had been stripped down to bare concrete, in anticipation of a new beginning. But Buffet's life came to an end before he could see the recovery through.

Mark Shreve quietly removed a few red roses from the funeral arrangements outside, and silently walked through the house, dropping one in each room. Other family members stood outside the house, quietly weeping, unaware of a son-in-law's final goodbye to Mr. Buffet's life.

Mourners who came to Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home that day had a place in Buffet's half-century of life in Lakeview.

Lola Freedman had known Buffet for 60 years. Both had been married to someone else, and as couples, they were the best of friends. When Buffet's wife, Josephine "Jo" Wachsman Buffet, became ill in 1978, Freedman sat with daughter Janis Shreve while her mother lay in a coma for eight weeks.

"Janis was 2 when I first met them. I played canasta with her mother. One day we got stuck in the sand going out to her Lakeview home to play," said Freedman, recalling the early days of a new subdivision when the streets were still gravel.

Six months after Buffet's wife died, Freedman's husband died unexpectedly. Buffet and Freedman began a friendship that later blossomed into romance, creating a bond that lasted until his death. They never married, but they kept a standing date on Wednesdays.

Buffet, an award-winning photographer, was a founding member of the Greater New Orleans Camera Club. He was a monument to patience, always willing to wait for the right light, the right moment, the right angle.

A photograph of sunlight filtering through an iron cross in Metairie Cemetery that Buffet had captured years ago (returning to the site four times to "get the sun just right") sat on an easel at the foot of his flag-draped coffin. It was a symbol of his passion for pressing a shutter and freezing time -- at just the right time.

Freedman pressed a tissue against her high cheekbones, catching tears that spilled from her eyes even as she smiled at a memory.

"His sense of humor was delicious," she said. An animal lover and rescuer, Buffet prided himself in his ability to train his dogs. One eulogizer recalled the time he demonstrated his gentle dog-training skills to a neighbor by issuing the "sit" command to his dog.

The dog promptly pooped on the lawn.

Buffet's quick-witted explanation: "She listened. She just misunderstood the word."

As the reception area filled with visitors, Buffet's life stories became intertwined with Katrina conversations -- stories of insurance woes, rebuilding concerns and deaths.

Mike Macksey grew up on Gen. Diaz Street in Lakeview. His aunt, Elaine Seeger, raised him when his mother died in 1952. Seeger, like Buffet, had built her home in the early '50s. When Katrina came, she refused to leave. She drowned in her own home.

Grace Moskau lived across the street from the Buffets. Her daughter, Dara Moskau Troescher, had grown up there. Troescher, now married and living in Mississippi, drove to New Orleans before Katrina to help evacuate her mother. When the two returned to Gen. Haig Street, they went through the meager belongings that were left.

"One of the few pictures that survived was a black-and-white portrait Mr. Buffet took of me 27 years ago," Troescher said.

The loss of a studio and photographs documenting five decades of a passion formed that core of loss that Buffet mourned most. There was little from a lifetime to salvage.

And Katrina had taken his car, his last connection to his independence. And later that summer, Buffet, the oldest of seven children, buried the last of his siblings.

When Buffet and his daughter and son-in-law moved to another community to begin a new life after Katrina, their arrival went almost unnoticed.

"We kept seeing people down the street, and we waited for a moving van. But one never came," said Madden, the new neighbor, who described the marked distinction of Katrina survivors whose new lives began without luggage or boxes or keepsakes.

"Daddy would just sit on the patio and stare for hours," said Shreve, recalling her father's displaced days in his new home 50 miles from Lakeview.

"I would say, 'Daddy, what can I do?' And he would say, 'There is nothing you can do,' " Shreve said.

People of all ages gathered at his service, among them his granddaughters, Cara Coste and Shana Mace, and his great-grandchildren Kelsey Coste and Kaela Mace. Katrina had left a mark on four generations. Healing would take time.

The day after the funeral, his 31-year-old granddaughter Shana pulled up in front of her childhood home.

"Shana was just sitting in the car, staring at the house," Shreve said. "It broke my heart. She said she just likes to visit where she grew up and remember how wonderful things were before Katrina."

New Orleanians lose. Period.

Forget about the loss of homes, schools, businesses and lives.

Forget about FEMA checks that "get lost in the mail."

And how flood insurance doesn't cover floods.

And how federal "relief" is money is as real as Santa Claus.

I'm talking about utility bills.

Entergy Inc. (A Fortune 500 company) is now "cutting their losses" by overcharging New Orleanians. How much money would you have to pay to have two 34-watt bulbs in your house, with no other electrical appliance being used? Over $7,000. Two light bulbs. More than 3 months of my mother's salary. That just ain't right.

Entergy New Orleans claims to have gone bankrupt after Katrina. Well, newflash, who didn't?

But the point is that Entergy Inc. is a national company with billions in its company bank. How come our monthy energy bill is so high? They claim that they need to make up the difference of money lost in Katrina. Well, so do my parents. Food stamps ain't nothing nice to live on and I refuse to open another MRE.

It's not right and it's got to stop. We're trying to rebuild a city here. We can't do that if we can't afford to live in our house because our energy bill is too high (especially when we aren't doing nothing to make it that high). We can't afford to live in New Orleans and that means we can't rebuild it. What is this? This isn't fair, this isn't right. New Orleanians have been through enough.

are my favorite people ever.

Reggie Bush, Savoir of New Orleans, managed a 67 yard touchdown against the Buccaneers in yesterday's game. He's my hero. I love him so much!!

Well, after the Saints game (their second one in the Dome since the Great Flood) I went to a local festival to see another one of my idols.

Charlie Daniels.

And boy, did he rock it.

He's fat, old, ugly, and crunchy, but he's amazing none the less. Of course, he saved the best two songs for last.

The Devil Went Down to Georgia was the best performed song I've ever heard ever in the universe. The energy flowing during those fiddle wars was indescribable.

But my favorite song wouldn't be his most famous. Let me set the scene:

The stage lights are blue. All the band members are shaded. Charlie goes and site down on his stool. He raises his fiddle. He started sawing and playing and after a few chords the crowd finally recognized the song.

The Star Spangled Banner.

Charlie didn't sing, he left that up to the crowd. And man, did we sing! I bet you 500 hogs the people down on Bourbon Street across that River heard every note and every word.

It's about time I went to a patriotic concert. Lollapalooza was filled with hippies shouting nothing but their hatred of America. But Charlie didn't do that here in New Orleans. And neither did the crowd.

It was pretty schweet.

And that's mostly because I'm so blinded by tears I can't find the right keys on the keyboard.

America has done it again. America doesn't get it. A few blogs back I stated that the day the Saints returned to the Dome was the one day I've been truly happy since Katrina. But, according to America, I'm wrong. I shouldn't be happy that my city might could be coming back and that the symbol of desperation and despair a year ago is now a symbol of rebirth. According to America, I don't have the right to be happy.

Chris Rose says it best. (Yes, it's long. But woe to those that are to lazy to read it all the way through. You are the problem because you won't take the time to understand.You are the reason I need to be admitted to a mental hospital)

From the Times-Picayune: (again, I bolded the parts I liked, and the italics are my comments)

My euphoria over the Saints dissipated this weekend, but it was long before their loss to the Carolina Panthers.

While I'm still inspired by the team and their determination, it must be remembered that they are merely an enjoyable diversion from the massive challenges at hand -- challenges for which the nation's good will and assistance are most vital.

But I have come to the discomfiting conclusion that all the hoopla and feel-good that we displayed to the country leading up to and during the "Monday Night Football" game did not translate in the American Heartland the way we might have hoped.

I was under the impression that we won back America's love and admiration for our steely reserve and equanimity in the face of adversity and our ability to come together in communal celebration despite personal lives shrouded in sorrow.

Despite ESPN's sensitive handling of the tricky "New Orleans is back/New Orleans is definitely not back" message that we needed to send out, it seems that lots of folks did not buy into the Superdome extravaganza as a good thing at all.

This became clear to me as I read the letters to the editor in the weekend edition of USA Today. And while I am somewhat loathe to let USA Today set the tone of dialogue on south Louisiana's recovery, (yankee propaganda) there can be no getting around the unanimity of views of the six letters published on this topic.

To summarize their words: We -- we being anyone who cheered for the Saints or greeted the Dome's reopening as a forward step in recovery -- are wrong.

Let me offer a sampling from each letter:

Ravi Mangla of Fairport, N.Y., wrote:

"Using the New Orleans Saints' home game at the Superdome as a metaphor for a city returning to normalcy after a horrific disaster is such arrant dreck. I found myself frustrated Monday, hearing reports describing how 'inspiring' and 'uplifting' it was for New Orleans' citizens to finally get their team back. (and tell me, yankee prick why wouldn't it be inspiring to see the city you lost and miss start to rebound? Go die.) What would be more inspiring and uplifting, in my opinion, would be seeing all the people of New Orleans finally getting their homes back." (To bad you don't care enough to volunteer to build those houses, huh?)

Mark Washington of Omaha, Neb., wrote:

"As an African-American, I was disturbed about things I saw on TV: Thousands of mostly white faces in the stands being serenaded by white rock musicians. It wasn't exactly a vision of a returning New Orleans.

"I highly doubt that the vast majority of former New Orleans residents, who happen to be African-Americans, would have selected U2 or Green Day as their preferred entertainment."

Jack Wood of Fort Wayne, Ind., wrote:

"Federal funding contributed hugely to the $185 million it cost to renovate the Superdome in New Orleans? (learn a fact - the Superdome wasn't rebuilt with federal money. It was a private organization that paid the bulk of it.) Where are our priorities? With garbage still clogging the streets and people still homeless, what could that money have done to correct those conditions? This appears to be just another example of badly placed priorities by Americans. We should all be ashamed to put a football game ahead of human suffering."

Mark Van Patten of Bowling Green, Ky., wrote:

"The restored Superdome is an ugly concrete monument plopped down between interstate highway loops. It reflects the difference in the classes in New Orleans.
(go fall in a ditch and die)

"When it was convenient, the poor were inhumanely herded there to await rescue. Now, the Superdome is ready for business, but the poor will not be welcome because they don't have the money for admission or they have been relocated to another city."

Ira Lacher of Des Moines, Iowa, wrote:

"How many of the thousands of displaced New Orleanians could have rebuilt their homes with the $185 million that was squandered on restoring the Superdome for the use of overpaid professional athletes?"

And Donald and Anna Mulligan of Upper Black Eddy, Pa., weighed in:

"Very few hospitals and schools have opened in the city. And most business owners are still out of luck. But the city says, 'Let the games begin.'

"As we've always said, when you have a city that prides itself on booze, food, gambling and parades, what can we expect? (This got me so mad, I would shoot this person if I weren't a Catholic. Donald and Ann need to learn a little bit about New Orleans before assuming what life is like here. Ignorant Yankees)

"May God help us all."

All righty then. Thank you, America, for your comments. Now, before I respond, let me pause here while you, the reader, go refill your coffee cup. Or your big glass of bourbon or while you take a break from the blackjack table or between lap dances or while you rest between bites of an overstuffed alligator and hogshead cheese po-boy.

Where to begin? They don't give me enough space in the paper to say all I want to say, but here we go.

Let's start with this: If we did not open the Superdome for Saints games, presumably we could not then open it for the Bayou Classic, the Sugar Bowl, Tulane football, the state high school football championships, the Essence Music Festival, rock concerts, religious revivals, car shows, home and garden shows, or anything else that happens there in the course of a normal year and which generates massive spending, jobs and activity in the community. 

No Super Bowls, no NCAA championships and no chance at the national political conventions. And, worst of all, no monster trucks.

And I'm guessing those opposed to repairing and renovating the Dome for $185 million wouldn't buy into the concept of building a new stadium from scratch for about five times that amount. And therefore the logical extension is that all of the above events be moved to Houston, Atlanta or somewhere else and Tulane can just play their games at Muss Bertolino Stadium in Kenner and this community can just muddle along without the perverse spectacle of "games" in a building that housed sorrow and despair.

The Saints? Send them to San Antonio. The Sugar Bowl? Please, don't trifle around while there is still garbage to be picked up.

The arguments posited in USA Today seem to suggest that there be no compartmentalization of funding for recovery. In other words, that repairing the Dome prevents homes being rebuilt in the 9th Ward. Or that patching potholes on Bourbon Street is keeping hospitals from opening. Or that reopening the Aquarium of the Americas -- or doing anything with federal dollars that rebuilds our economic engines rather than homes -- keeps people homeless.

Pardon my plagiarism, but that is arrant dreck.

That people were "herded" into the Dome during Katrina is an interesting word choice. Here's some numbers for you provided by the Dome's administrative office:

Prior to the levees breaking and the water pouring into the city, there were approximately 10,000 evacuees inside the Dome. After the flood waters rose and trapped a population across the region, 20,000 more were delivered to the Dome by air and boat and bus.

I ask you -- and those 20,000 people: Better to be at the Dome or trapped on your roof or in your attic for those four days? (I went to school with someone who was trapped on a roof. He would have much rather been in the Dome with others than trapped in his attic thinking he'd die alone...like me uncle did)

The fact is, the Dome, for all its squalor and misery, saved lives. It wasn't Abu Ghraib. The toilets didn't flush and there was no cold drinking water and not enough medicine, but toilets didn't flush anywhere and there was no ice or medicine anywhere and it's crazy to think that only folks who were at the Dome or the Convention Center have a lock on the misery that befell the Gulf Coast in early September 2005.

Everyone's got a story in this town, in this region, and not one I've heard is a day at the park.

While we're at it, let me toss this gasoline on the fire, a snippet from an editorial in the current issue of The Nation:

"The reality of refugee apartheid is hardly a memory. The game was held hostage to the awkward fact that the folks starring in ESPN's video montages of last year's 'cesspool' were almost entirely black and the football fans in the stands were overwhelmingly white. But recognizing this would contradict the infomercial for the new Big Easy that was designed to appeal to the typical family, which finds gumbo too spicy and thinks of soul as something consumed with tartar sauce." (gumbo is not to spicy and anyone that thinks that is an idiot and should be sent to jail for treason)

A guy named Dave Zirin wrote this; another guy who wasn't there telling me how white it was. Zirin also took umbrage with U2 and Green Day playing instead of the Neville or Marsalis families.

Well, I would have liked that, too, but guess what? The Neville Brothers won't play in New Orleans. And the Marsalises? I don't know, except that I saw Branford on the sidelines joshing around with Spike Lee, whose enthusiasm for the evening was palpable, so add his name to the roster of folks who just don't get it.

Not to suggest that Zirin is a conspiracy theorist or anything, but he also said ESPN blocked out the live sound from the Dome and played fake cheers on the air when former President Bush was introduced because the sound of booing was so resounding in the Dome and, again -- why are people who weren't there talking about things that didn't happen?

That is utter nonsense.

Why are we having this discussion still? Why are people from other places spending so much effort to tell us that, as a community, we are wrong, misguided, amoral and racist? Why are they making things up? (they are making it up because they are jealous that they don't get to live in the greatest city in America. They are stuck in Boringville, Ohio where the term "go-cup" means absolutely nothing. They should be pitied. Not us.)

I mean, I can't really fathom how to craft a sensible response to a black man from Omaha who was offended by the appearance of U2. I mean, is this really an issue?

No African-Americans on the Saints roster or in Southern University's band or in the attendant media or Dome employees or security staffs or Irma Thomas or Allen Toussaint or the first responders who were honored or African-American season-ticket holders chose to boycott the game and maybe that's because they don't get it.

If there weren't thousands and thousands of black folks in the seats Monday night, then I am blind. And it might be worth noting -- just because I'm feeling ornery -- that when you incorporate surrounding parishes and trace a map from southern Mississippi up through central Louisiana, the demographic makeup of the Saints potential fan base is not an African-American majority.

In fact, it's not even close -- but acknowledging this would weaken the demagogic arguments of outsiders who keep hammering home just what a cesspool of humanity we've turned out to be here in south Louisiana. Human dreck. Unworthy. (anyone who thinks New Orleans is unworthy needs to be deported and shot)

Let me ask you something, Omaha: If you get your ass kicked by a tornado, are you going to tell the College World Series to permanently relocate somewhere else so you can get your priorities in order?

Hey, Bowling Green: If Louisville or Lexington gets whacked with a dirty bomb and has to rebuild from scratch, where will the Kentucky Derby and Wildcats basketball fit into the recovery? Disposable entities, last on the list?

Hey, Upper Black Eddy, Pa. . . . oh, never mind.

I called the editorial page editor of USA Today to ask if he thought those letters were representative of American thought on the matter but he didn't return my call.

Unlike some of that newspaper's correspondents, I don't speak for black people. And I don't speak for other white people. I speak for me and I'll take the grenade on this one if my priorities are so misplaced as to think that the opening of the Dome was, above all else, an enormous boost to our economy -- to say nothing of our spirits. (it's called "group therapy" Google it sometime)

But then again, maybe I'm just fat, lazy, drunk and stupid and don't get it and never will. (duh. everyone in the South is backwards, racist, fat, lazy, and stupid. Why do you think we have the biggest port in America here? Why do you think Jefferson offered $10 million just for the city of New Orleans? 'Cause we're fat, drunk, lazy, and stupid. Go get your brains checked, America, because I think the stupid ones live "up there")

Just throw me something, mister, and I'll be content to mind my own business and ignore all the suffering around me while I wave my foam finger in the air and scream into America 's living rooms: "Who dat say?"

Me dat say. Dat's who.

Today I went out to City Park to do the Breast Cancer walk. I walked in honor of my Aunt Nancy, who developed breast cancer in the beginning of this year. My Aunt Nancy took my family in after Katrina in her home in Texas, along with every other relative that made it out alive. On the night of August 29th, she really helped me. I was pretty upset about the levees breaking and scared for my friends that stayed. She had me help her make meatballs for dinner, which was nice because using my hands helped get my mind of off things.

My Aunt Nancy is a really sweet person, she's one of my favorite aunts. I don't get to see her much because she lives in Texas, but everytime she comes in to visit my grandparents I make a point to see her.

So I walked for her today.

City Park is a little scruffy looking since Katrina. The state simply doesn't have the money to keep it up anymore. Reggie Bush donated thousands, maybe millions, to help restore the Tad Gromley Stadium at the Park. It's now known as Tad Gromley Stadium, Reggie Bush feild. Reggie is going to save New Orleans. I have faith in him.

I was just at City Park yesterday too (I spent my whole weekend Uptown!). I went to a high school football game. It's not my high school, we don't have any boys so we don't have football, but I knew some guys on both teams.

I also ran into one guy that I hadn't seen since I left my second school in south Louisiana last September. It was a really nice surprise to see him and I hope we can keep in touch. He sort of disappeared on me last year. I think it was because he moved back to New Orleans, and with everything being so chaotic last September, I don't blame him for not being able to tell me he was moving back. I left that town just a few days later anyway.

Speaking of which, tomorrow marks the day that I officially moved back into my original house! October 2nd, 2005 at 10:00 PM. I had stayed there the night of September 29 (I think, I have bad memory), but I didn't move all of my stuff back into my house until the 2nd.

My displacement:

August 27 - October 2nd

I'm really lucky. Some of my friends moved away permanately and others are still in FEMA trailers.

But anyway, it's sort of a big deal for me. This year is so different from the last, it's hard for me to think about what I was doing this time last year and how lucky I'm not going through it again this year. (Is it just me or does the US seem to have a hurricane buffer around it? Prayer works!) Remember me tomorrow at 10 PM. Or at least remember the struggles of the Gulf Coast residents and continue praying for us.

So, I haven't come on since Sunday I believe. So I have a LOT to report.

MONDAY

DOMECOMING

Oh when the Saints, go marching in, oh when the Saints go marching in, oh how I'd love to be in that number, oh when the Saints go marching in?

Who dat says dey gonna beat dem Saints? Who dat? Who dat?

It's not the Falcons!

So I was running a natural high all day Monday. First, my school let us go out of uniform and wear black and gold to celebrate the Saint's return to New Orleans. A TV crew came and interviewed some of the girls and we made lots of signs and had a Pep Rally.

Watching the Saints come home to the dome and hearing Green Day and U2 perform and sing about New Orleans, man, I gotta tell you it brought tears to my eyes. It was the most emotional things I've ever experienced. I thought I was going to lose my head after #37 blocked that punt in the beginning to have #39 run in for the Saints first touchdown in the Superdome.

Monday was the best day of my life. That was the first time I could say I was truly happy after the great flood. I couldn't get to sleep that night, I was so happy!

Yall probably didn't watch the game and probably don't care about the Saints return to New Orleans. But to a New Orleanian, the re-opening of the Superdome was the most hopeful sign of rebuilding, it was the most emotional experience we could have, it made us feel like we really were going to bounce back from this storm.

Tuesday

Still riding high from the Saints victory. Couldn't believe it. But as the Saints slogan says: Ya Gotta Have Faith. The next morning was a lot of fun and so was the day.

Until the roof collasped.

The 4th floor roof, which has been coverd in patches by a FEMA tarp since the storm,decided to fall ALL THE WAY DOWN to the 1st floor senior lobby. Pieces of drywalling and roofing and whatnot were threatening the hit the seniors in their space. My school is falling apart! It wasn't used to be falling apart, but it was under 6 feet of water at a certain time last year and had a lot of roof damage.

Oh yeah, because my school is "historical" (279 this year, oldest Catholic school in America) the New Orleans Historic Society is making my school replace the roof with slate roofing instead of a cheaper alternative. This means, my school is broke and can't repair our auditorium which received water up to the stage in Katrina. It really sucks because now my drama club doesn't have a place to have plays. I hate Katrina.

Friday

Yeah, I know it's a gap from Tuesday to Friday, but the only things that happened on Wednesday and Thursday were tests and my friend Owens being a deaf kid.

So today, we had our annual Serviam Pep Rally. Serviam - I will serve, it's my school's motto. Yay! So anyway, it was a lot of fun. One of my friends got to wear the mascot costume and that's only her life dream so, that was good.

I rode my bike to the levee by my house. It's getting cool down here, mid-70s. We had a cool front come through! It feels nice, but sometimes the mornings are too cold for me. (yeah, I know, that's why I would DIE anywhere else but New Orleans)

I love going to levee, I try to go everyday! The Army Corp of Engineers still haven't removed the barge that is jammed in the side of it, so my town will drown if something happens (pray it doesn't. I'm dead serious). So yeah, I still feel abandoned by the country.

I saw a sign (big sign, HUGE sign, an advertisement) that said "SCREWED OVER BY YOUR INSURANCE ADJUSTER?" It was AMAZING!!! And it's true. I advise anyone with All-State to switch, you are not in good hands. My uncle had flood, homeowners, and hurricane insurance but according to All-State - flood insurance doesn't cover floods, homeowners doesn't cover wind, and hurricane doesn't cover hurricanes. So my uncle is looking at a nice little check of $2000 to rebuild his Lakeview home.

By the way, let me take this oppurtunity to say that it wasn't just the 9th Ward that was crippled. The areas that were heavily damaged were:

9th Ward, Chalmette, New Orleans East, Gentilly, Mid-City, Uptown, Lakeview, and Metarie

This area is about the size of Rhode Island. The devestation and damage (within the first month's cleanup) is equal to about 700 World Trade Center disasters. Death count: 1800 and rising. Missing: 800 (1 of those 800 is my best friend. Erica Green, African-American, about 5'6, short black hair, and a slight gap tooth - if you've seen her please inform me. I've been looking for her.)

Anyway, I'm babbling about Katrina damage. I'm trying to work to get beyond that. But I really want yall to know. I want yall to know how bad it is here, but as Chris Rose said, how good it is here too. New Orleans is a paradox, an oxymoron. Please save us.

The reason we rebuilt the Superdome before the houses was because we need TOURIST MONEY. This city is a TOURIST CITY. Our economy is based on TOURISTS. Without entertainment - like the French Quarter, Aquarium, Zoo, and Superdome - we won't have anything for tourists to visit and the city will suffer. Please know that. We don't think sports are more important than neighborhoods and citizens of New Orleans. We just need to generate money to get them back.

Please come and visit us. We really do have a lot to offer and we'd love to have you. Take care.

Yes, I'm bringing yall yet ANOTHER Chris Rose piece. The fact is that he is amazing and this piece really captures everything that's been going on. The Saints are returning to the Superdome tomorrow night and that's a BIG deal. This is the first time since Katrina that the Saints will play where so many suffered in August 2005. It's a big deal. Bono is coming and so is Daddy Bush. Green Day and U2 are playing together. Ray Nagin's going to be making inappropriate comments infront of cameras. I'm very excited.

So, here's Chris: (I bolded the parts I really REALLY liked)

Dear Joe,

Welcome back to New Orleans. As you have probably noticed, a lot of the city looks like it did when you were last here, whenever that may have been, in our pre-Katrina state.

Admittedly, all those windows blown out of the Hyatt downtown have an ominous look about them, a jarring reminder of what went down here a year ago. And, since they loom over the Superdome, they'll make for good TV images, and that's why I am writing to you.

I am offering you some unsolicited and perhaps unwelcome comments on how you should do your job Monday night.

Joe, I hate when strangers give me unsolicited advice on how to do my job. But you and me, Joe, we've got history together.

I grew up in Washington and was a young man when you came to the Redskins and gave us a new attitude and our first Super Bowl win. That was a night to remember.

It was 1982, before the era when "fans" of NFL and NBA teams began that wonderful tradition of looting their downtown stores and burning cars to celebrate winning the championship.

Ah, the old days.

And by the time L.T. busted your leg on "Monday Night Football" all those years later, I was living here in New Orleans and watched the game with some friends in a bar in Kenner and I want you to know, Joe: I was there with you.

It hurt me as much as it hurt you.

Well, maybe not.

But I'm straying from the point. The point is, I don't know much about all the other sports guys who are in town this weekend telling America our story. But it worries me that they won't get it right so I wanted to write to you to ask you to get it right.

There's that guy on Fox Sports named Chris Rose -- he does that "Best Damn Sports Show" thing -- and I suppose maybe he's the guy I should be talking to but I don't know Chris Rose and the whole idea of talking to a guy named Chris Rose is a little weird to me.

But I know you, Joe. When you're in New Orleans, you hang out at my neighborhood bar, Monkey Hill. Hell, Joe -- we're practically family.

So here's the deal: I know you like to talk a lot, a whole lot -- and that's OK because it's your job -- but I'm like a lot of people around here, very sensitive about what people say about us these days.

Maybe too sensitive, I don't know.

I'm afraid our circumstances will end up being cast in sports metaphors and somehow I get the feeling that we'll be portrayed as the '76 Buccaneers or the 2003 Detroit Tigers -- teams without hope or redemption -- when the way we really see ourselves is as the '69 Miracle Mets.

Sad sack underdogs. The odds stacked against us. Backs against the wall, all that cliché stuff. And then -- the great story line -- pulling together and overcoming the odds and winning the big game!

Of course, I'm talking about the city of New Orleans and our neighboring communities, Joe. Not the Saints.

We've got bigger issues than the Falcons to deal with. We've got life. And a lot of our life depends on what all you sports guys tell the world about us and my guess is that you'll all go to our really great restaurants on your expense accounts and rave about the survival of New Orleans cuisine, so that one takes care of itself.

But there are other pressing matters at hand that might come up during your conversation with 10 to 15 million Americans tomorrow night, so I'd like to offer you some talking points.

The first is this: I'm assuming you had the professional curiosity and courtesy to drive around town and take a look at it for yourself. If you did, then you now understand what we mean when we say you have to see it to believe it and you'll understand why we kind of freak out when the message that goes out is that a tiny and interesting place called the Lower 9th Ward got wiped out but everything else is OK.

And if you haven't seen the Lower 9th -- or Gentilly or Lakeview or Chalmette or any area of the devastation, which is roughly the size of Great Britain -- then, please, don't even talk about it because you won't know what you're talking about.

Here's the message you need to give America, Joe, and this part gets a little confusing: Tell everyone that the city is rocking, it's alive and kicking with music and food and all that good-timing crazy stuff that Americans have come to expect when they visit here.

The fact is, you can spend a week downtown and in the Quarter and the Marigny and Garden District and Uptown -- the small, old part of the city where tourists usually confine themselves -- and hardly see any manifestations of the storm, the flood and its damages.

Tell people that, Joe. Tell them that New Orleans is still the best city in America. Tell them to come see for themselves, that we're happy, hopeful, joyful and celebratory still.

Then tell them this: New Orleans is a broken, suffering mess, weakened and scared. We're not ashamed to say it Joe: We're afraid.

Because what tourists never see is the other 80 percent of the city and that's the part where businesses, homes and churches got wiped off the map and that's where despair and sorrow have set in like incurable viruses. Depression, divorce and suicide are the trifecta in this town now.

Tell them that, Joe. Tell them that New Orleans is also the worst place in America, dysfunctional and angry, victimized by looters, predators, insurance companies, utilities and even government.

Got that? It's simple: Everything is fine here. But it's not fine.

I'm not sure why people get so confused when we tell them that.

Anyway, Joe, tell them we don't want a handout. Tell them we just want a fair shake.

The feds built crappy levees, Joe, weaker than the Packers secondary, more porous than the Browns' offensive line, and tens of thousands of people lost their homes and possessions and all physical manifestations of their youth in the flood.

Imagine if you had no photos of your grandparents anymore, Joe, or of your little league football team or your best friend from high school or the letters your dad wrote to you from Vietnam or the diaries you kept all your life or your wedding album or your collection of jazz 78s, baseball cards or some other stupid thing that was really, REALLY important to you.

Imagine if you lost one of your parents to a slow and unbelievably agonizing death in a dank attic last year.

All right, I'll stop there with the gloom.

I'm just trying to say, Joe, that we're a proud people around here and we're held tighter together through age, race and social class than the outside world has been led to believe and we are resilient and determined to save our city and our culture and I guess sometimes we hear out-of-towners say stupid things and we get all in a tizzy about it because we think no one understands us.

Then again, we don't understand ourselves. That's why we all find each other so interesting.

So have a good time while you're here Joe, live the good life and loosen your tie and say hello to strangers and talk a good game tonight and remember that even if we can't stop Michael Vick, in the end, we're going to kick Katrina's ass.

It's third and long -- real long -- but there's still a lot of time on the clock and although our front office is a joke and the game plan is shaky at best, we've got the guts, the courage and the tenacity to persevere and nobody works as hard as we do day after day because nobody else has to.

Remember that feeling, Joe? It's almost rapturous: When everyone thought you'd be a pushover? That you'd just lay down and quit in the face of insurmountable odds? And then you showed them what you were made of?

That's us, Joe. We're "The Bad News Bears," man. We're "Angels in the Outfield," "Brian's Song," "The Longest Yard," "Remember the Titans." We're "Rocky," dammit. And we're gonna rise up. Tell the world.

It's been a year since Hurricane Rita came and hit the Gulf Coast, a coast that was still soggy from Katrina a few week earlier.

At this time, I was living with about 7 other people in a two bedroom apartment in Thibodeaux, Louisiana. A few days before this storm, I was sitting at school eating lunch. It was during lunch that the school principal came over the intercom telling everyone to call and go home because Rita was becoming quite a threat. Everyone there, who were not Katrina victims, was ectastic about missing school. Everyone was saying how much they wished Rita would hit there, so they wouldn't have to go to school anymore. Needless to say, I blew up on them. I told them iff something bad did happen and their city was flooded and they lost their homes and couldn't go back to their schools, they would be in a pretty sucky mood. There was silence after that. Wouldn't you rather go to school then lose your house? I thought so.

My apartment was in walking distance from my new school, so I just walked home that afternoon. There, my parents decided we were going to evacuate - BACK to our home in New Orleans. So we loaded up and headed home.

I'm not sure exactly when Rita hit, but I remember that night pretty well. My mom woke me up and told me to fill all the bathtubs and sinks with water, in case the water went out. The power had already gone out, and we were in pitch black because all the windows were still boarded up from Katrina.

That afternoon on the first day after Rita, I saw something I hadn't seen since 1998 (Hurricane Francis) - water in my street. It was getting higher and higher. That's when a police man from my small town (I live in the suburbs of NOLA) came knocking on my door. He told us that the Harvey Canal had overtopped and they had Greyhound buses ready to evacuate everyone becuase they were afraid the water would get to high and flood the neighborhoods. We were going to be like Lakeview and the 9th Ward after Katrina he said. That's when the panic came.

We ended up not having to evacuate because local officials had learned since Katrina how to fill levee holes and such. Of course there was damage caused by the overflow. My town got on average 4.89 feet of water in the streets. I live a little further away from the Canal, so I guess only about 2 1/2 feet was in my street. My house is raised 3 - 4 feet, so we didn't have any problems there. We  were afraid the water would get to us though, as it was white-capping in the street.

We pretty much survived without any damage from Rita - it was the fear that we would flood that makes it so vivid for me. Since Rita, next to nothing has been done to protect the Harvey Canal. It was fine in Katrina because Katrina hit to the west of us. But Rita was to the east, and every Gulf Coast resident knows that the east side of the storm in the worst part. If another hurricane were to hit just east of the city, not only would New Orleans be gone, but I could say goodbye to my house too.

So it's been one year since that. Its sort of hard to believe. I highly doubt anyone else in the country really cares about the anniversaries of Katrina and Rita, even though te death count is over 1800 and counting, and 800 are still missing - including my best friend. I hope everyone will at least take a moment to remember all the "victims" of these storms. I went to school in the dark for 911 victims, don't you think I deserve the same respect seeing as I lost a whole city?

I pass through the heart of Mid-City and Uptown on my drive to school every morning. I drive right back pass them in the afternoon. On this particular day, I saw a dramatic change in what I saw from that morning until that afternoon.

Right after I get off the Cresent City Connection (the bridge connecting the Westbank to New Orleans) I pass a series of warehouses that all recieved about 6 feet of flood water in Katrina. On the way to school they were there. On the way back they were not. Instead, as I drove down this street I drive down everyday, I saw massive (MASSIVE) heaps of stone, brick, and steel. The buildings had been domolished. They weren't sturdy and were not worth to rebuild. The destruction lasted for about four square blocks. It was mounds and mounds and mounds of what used to be buildings. They were staples to my daily commute and now they are gone. I missed my turn and had to go all the way around to give it another go - that's how unfamiliar this area became to me. All within one school day.

That's when I saw the sign: Maverick Construction. Construction? No, that wasn't construction. They weren't constructing anything. They were demolishing, destroying, finishing off what Katrina started.

It's still to get worked up over a few abandoned warehouses, but I got upset anyway. I think this is emotional landmark number 500 that has been destoryed by a hurricane that was more than a year ago. More than a year ago. And I'm still harping on it. But I'll make yall a deal. When New Orleans is rebuilt and the clean up is finished, I'll stop talking about Katrina.Until then, you'll have to put up with it like I have to.

Tonight the religion classes ay my Church started up. I'm the second grade CCD teacher and this was my first time meeting my class this year.

Hoo boy.

It's going to be an interesting year.

Last year I only had two girls and they were sweethearts. This year I have four boys and they are...WILD. CRAZY.

I know it's wrong to hate a 7 year old...

And it turns out that one of them is related to the guy that cheated on me. Fun. And even more good news? Said guy will be picking up lil' cousin every Monday when we have classes. So I'll have to interact with Mr. Scum of the Earth. Ugh. I'm not looking forward to seeing him. I hate him so much.

So, anyway, that's a little update on the haps of my life. Sorry it wasn't more entertaining.

Ever since I was knee high to a duck I've listened to the Oldies Station here in New Orleans. Bob and Vinny in the morning, every morning. It was routine.

Now, it's Bob. Just Bob.

Because Vinny was arrested for the murder of his wife.

It was the most bizarre case I've ever read. First of all, it seems like he was trying to get himself caught. He left a list on the counter in his FEMA trailor with things like:

"Buy disguise

Get weapon.

Buy bicycle

Kill wife

Destroy note."

He forgot the last part. Vince Marinello, my favorite radio-host, was in the middle of a messy divorce with his wife Liz Marinello. On top of the stress caused from his failing relationship, Vince also had to deal with sharing a FEMA trailer with her (a burden even the best of friends find hard to deal with). He had lost everthing to Katrina, had no insurance, and now has to deal with divorce...and now murder.

It's so sad to see such a prominent New Orleans figure fall so low. He blames Katrina stress, which in my opinion could have been a cause. Katrina's made us all do crazy things. But I also think the guy was a psycho and should take some personal responsibility. Not EVERYTHING is Katrina's fault, but a lot is.

In other news, the death pages are doubled and the city isn't even halfway to pre-Katrina population. We're dropping like flies. New Orleans is a city of death.

F - Fix

E - Everything

M - My

A - Ass

So yall know about the pile of gravel the Army Corp of Engineers used to fill that hole in my levee (if you don,'t, it's one of my recent blog entries).

Well, I totally lied.

The Army Corp of Engineers fixed ONE OF THE HOLES in my levee with gravel. The other one is still big and gapping. In fact, it still has the barge that crashed into there. It's lodged in there - it hasn't even been moved since the storm. I hadn't noticed it before because I didn't go that far down my levee when I visit it. But recently, I've been going bike riding there (I've heard exercise makes people happy) and I rode down about 2 miles from my house. That's where I found the barge, still in the levee, with a great big crack in the cement that protects us from a storm.

It's cracked. It's going to break. I'm going to lose my house.

Reflection for the Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, The Homily Delivered by Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes August 29th at Saint Louis Cathedral.

One year ago today this city and the surrounding Gulf Coast experiences the greatest human castastrophe in the history of our nation. This anniversary provides a graced moment to pause in prayer, remembrance and a reflection on the notion of faith. The loss of life, homes, possessions, a whole way of life has tested our faith profoundly. The painstakingly slow progress in rebuilding has tested our hope.

How expressive are the words today from the Book of Lamentations: "My soul is deprived of peace. I have forgotten what happiness is; I tell myself my future is lost, all that I hoped for from the Lord."

The Gospel passage from today, however, calls us to hope. The Lord Jesus acknowledged that his Father's ways are mysterious to us. Then he invited those overwhelmed and burdened to come to him to find a rest. He promised: "My yoke is easy and my burden light."

Difficult as it is to experience the burdern to be light, we find a more developed perspective in St. Paul's teaching today: "...creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God...hope that sees is not hope...but if we hope for what we do not see, we wait in endurance...We know that all things work for good for those who love God..." In other words, there can be no glory without the cross! All affliction is intended both to purify us of what is evil and free us for the greater good.

So, we ask not why God has allowed this disaster, but how does God want us to respond. Faith-based communities have fed the hungry, given drink to the thristy, sheltered the homeless. St. Louis Cathedral School, present here this morning, was the first school on the east bank of New Orleans to reopen. It pioneered a new Post-Katrina policy in the Archdiocese of New Orleans to educate all irrespective of faith, race or economic resources. The US Congree, at your urging, Mr. President, has appropriated significant monies to help us rebuild. Thank you for your steadfast support. This is a moment for collaboration, public and private sector, secular and faith-based initiatives.

If this storm and her sister Rita help to move us from racial and economic injustices to a community truly welcoming of all people, whatever their race, ethnicity, or social standing; if we can move from a flood prone city to one effectively protected by strenghtened levees and coastal restoration; if we can move from a city still over fifty percent depopulated to one that clearly guides people to locations safe for rebuilding and supportable with necessary infrastructure; if we can move from a city with a failing public school system to one in which healthy competition and open enrollment pioneers a new effective approach to the education of our children; if we can move from a two-tiered health care system which discriminates between the haves and have-nots to the delivery of medical care which is integrated and medically effective; if we can move from a city rich in culture of art, architecture, and music, but also sometimes degrading of the dignity of the human person and prone to lethal violence, to one which is safe and truly fulfills the lofty aspirations of the human spirit; if Katrina, which means cleansing, enables us to work together to realize this vision, God will have helped us to draw a greater good out of our immense suffering. This is our hope. God grant us this grace!