Tomorrow Kalypso and I fly to New York, and then two days later we're off to Israel for 6 weeks to excavate at Tel Zeitah once again. But being a New Orleans news addict, leaving is especially difficult with all this stuff going down:
Dollar Bill Jefferson was indicted, nearly two years after the freezer incident, and it was probably caused by a blogger named Schroeder who confronted the Congressman at Whole Foods.
The insurance industry is fighting back hard about allegations that it underpaid wind claims. Former governor of Montana and now an insurance industry lobbyist, Marc Racicot, claims in todays T-P Letters to the Editor that the LRA is unjustly making the insurance industry a scapegoat. He says the idea that people like me were routinely underpaid on wind claims is "grossly untrue." My favorite is the following quotation: "Forcing insurers to pick up the slack for the federal government is irresponsible." Rock on Mr. Racicot! I met this guy when I testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee. We of course had very different points of view about the insurance industry relating to Katrina. He is paid handsomely to like the industry, and the industry owes me money, so that's about it.
And though many, including our mayor, argue this tragedy away as a "Blip" or worse, "black on black crime," New Orleans is the murder capital of the U.S. for 2006 and likely 2007.
Yesterday I spent several hours in an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve a certified letter. We found the form in our flowergarden, but the post office said they can't find the letter, and they can't read the numbers to know who it is from. How is it that I'll miss this place?
Starting tomorrow, D and I will be in Italy for 10 days. At about midnight last night, I began to experience "I can't leave New Orleans" pangs but they subsided by this morning when I woke up to loud hammering. The roof next door is still being fixed twenty odd months later. We all need breaks.
ReplyDeleteHave a great trip! Take lots of pictures. And, above all, please be safe!
6 weeks is a LONG time. I lived in New York for six years and pretty much missed NOLA everyday. But I also had my wife (then girlfriend) and all my stuff. I also love NYC, which took out some of the sting.
ReplyDeleteLet us know if you need care packages. Zatarains boxed stuff isn't great, but it'll do in a pinch.
And for my next act, impeaching ass monkey of the planet. Damn! Like his dad, I doubt he even knows how to grocery shop.
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