My Dad's Lungs

Sunday I learned that my dad had been in the hospital for the past three days. He had a hard time breathing on Thursday and the physicians in his town of Columbus NE suggested he go to the bigger hospital in Lincoln. There they pumped out quarts of fluid/blood from his lungs. My dad has had a difficult time keeping track of all the cell phone number changes I have had since Katrina, and his friend Elizabeth had called and left a message on an old phone. Luckily, Therese checked the old phone on Sunday and I was able to contact him. He is scared, and lonely. I asked him if I should drive up to Nebraska to see him, and he said to wait for now. They are running some more tests on him this afternoon, as apparently there are two tumors and one of his lungs has collapsed. So now I'm sitting back and waiting, something that I'm pretty good at since Katrina.

Later note: I just found out that they found quite a bit of cancer in his lungs, and he is trying to get the hopital to release him so he can go home to Columbus. I will be flying to Nebraska Thursday after my classes so I can spend St. Patrick's Day with my dad. I will fly back to New Orleans it looks like Sunday.

My Daughter's Katrina Movie

My daughter Kalypso made an 11 minute Quicktime video about New Orleans, Mardi Gras, and the recovery effort now six months after the hurricane/flood. I think she did a great job, especially for a 10-year-old.

You can see the movie here (314 meg) or a smaller version here (97 meg). The bandwidth frequently is exceeded on this site, so:

I also put it on YouTube.

Come On America, Be Like Newt!

I'm shocked to read that Newt Gingrich agrees with me. Shocked, I tell you. He argues that New Orleans needs to be rebuilt, and he writes about this in an article that appeared in Time Magazine March 6th, 2006 (co-authored with John Barry). The authors state that it should be rebuilt for financial reasons--it is the busiest port in the U.S. Plus they add that Washington has a moral obligation, and they write "It was the Federal Government's responsibility to build levees that worked, and its failure to do so ultimately led to New Orleans' being flooded." They even go green, claiming that the loss of coastal wetlands contributed to the mess, and they state "Compare that with the fact that in the past two years, we have spent more to rebuild Iraq's wetlands than Louisiana's." Could the world be so screwed up these days that I wish that Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, and not Hastert, who questioned right after Katrina the wisdom in rebuilding a city below sea level? America needs to be reminded that it is six months after Katrina, and very little has happened yet. My friends Bart and Xy made a video marking the six month mark. We need some help.

Insurance

DSC03869
Originally uploaded by howieluvzus.

My friend Mark, or I mean Howie, took this picture on Mardi Gras. It sort of sums up my life right now.
He said as many people laughed that a tourist asked "What's up with Allstate?" The locals told him that if he wasn't from here, he wouldn't understand. That's about right. I am beginning to believe that I would have been better off if I had never had insurance to begin with.

There is a Season (Turn Turn)

Dennis Persica wrote an opinion piece in Saturday's Times-Picayune. He spoke eloquently about how life and death continue, but other things don't.

Time marches on, but recovery, on the other hand, seems to be having trouble keeping up. We've been through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and now Mardi Gras. But I'm beginning to think that even by the time Independence Day rolls around, not much will have changed.

Similarly, in my Intro to Biblical Studies courses today we were reading about the cycle of life as recorded in Ecclesiastes 3:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to harvest up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up...

We then started talking about the Gezer Calendar, an old Iron Age inscription in which months are calculated by agricultural phenomenon, such as the month of harvesting barley, followed by the month of harvesting wheat, and then the two months of harvesting grapes. The discussion then turned towards the ways in which we mark seasons here in New Orleans. It is a pretty amazing time of year. Mardi Gras was one week ago today, and now it is the relaxed time of Lent. My liver is thankful at least. But soon it will be St. Patrick's Day, and then the Indians will be out on St. Joseph's Day, and then of course Easter, and then Jazzfest. However, as the seasonal cycle of life is continuing, still very little seems to be happening to the infrastructure of New Orleans. Even less is happening in the flooded neighborhoods to bring residents back. I am personally living in a racked house that has mold growing inside the walls, while we still wait six months later for our insurance company (Allstate) to settle our claim. I would like to repair our house, but Therese is pretty sure she wants to move to another house. I told her if she can find one that we can afford, I'd go along with her decision. But the prices of houses that didn't flood have skyrocketed. About two weeks ago Allstate finally sent out two engineers who agreed the house was leaning, and we are now waiting on their official report. New Orleans began demolishing houses in the Ninth Ward, Gentilly, and Lakeview just yesterday. The streets are filled with the debris of gutted houses, and many houses haven't been entered since before the hurricane. There are racoons and cats living in some abandoned houses. I believe the slow pace of recovery is shameful. I also think that it is purposeful. I think about how much money Allstate will make by settling our claim nine months later, and then multiply that by about 100,000. I also think the slow pace has to do with the gentrification of the city. I still believe that ten years after Katrina I will look back and see that I am better off for the entire experience. It is hard to see that now though. But I am more patient. You would go absolutely crazy unless you are able to see that this is much bigger than any individual can control.

Shenanigans

Sigh...Our Criminal Court Clerk way down yonder in New Orleans, Kimberly Williamson Butler, finally came out of hiding last week. Today she appeared before a panel of judges and just got sentenced to three days in jail. Oh yeah, she's also quitting her job as Court Clerk and uh, she's running for mayor. As one hero of mine might say, "Buncha Freakin' Idiots!"

Pre-Hurricane Videos and the Fog of Bureacracy

My students and I were just discussing the amazing new video released by the Associated Press. It shows FEMA director Mike Brown briefing Bush, Michael Chertoff, and local officials 19 hours before Katrina hit.

I believed for the past six months that this administration was grossly unaware of the potential catastrophe that Katrina, while still in the gulf, could bring, and the urgency that was needed to prepare for the approaching disastor. Now it is clear that they did fully understand. Brown voices concern that "this is, to put it mildly, the big one," and he's worried about the health infrastructure and architectural structure of the Superdome. Also Brown is almost heroic, telling people to cut through bureacracy and help evacuees and in the end he would take responsibility: "I'll figure out some way to justify it. ... Just let them yell at me." They discuss the breaching of levees and enormous loss of life. The video also shows Max Mayfield, the National Hurricane Center Director. He claims the storm is much bigger than Hurricane Andrew, and he predicts the possibility of a "large loss of life on coastal areas." Throughout the conference, Bush asks no questions, but at the end he states:

I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm to help you deal with the loss of property and we pray for no loss of life of course."

This footage, coupled with seven days of transcripts of briefings, shows that federal officials anticipated the catastrophe. They understood the magnitude and urgency, and accurately predicted the outcome. The problem was that they didn't know how inept they were. So, it is baloney when Bush claimed four days after the storm to ABC news that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." And it is baloney when the Dept. of Homeland Security claims that they didn't understand the severity due to a "fog of war." Wednesday Brown stated in an interview "I don't buy the `fog of war' defense...It was a fog of bureaucracy."
So in class we discussed catastrophic events recorded in the Bible, such as 586 BCE, and how knowledge about historical events disseminates. Again, Katrina has made the biblical world so much easier to grasp for my students. I would also like to apologize to Mike Brown. It seems much of my earlier anger towards him was missplaced. I still won't send him a Christmas card, but I hate him less.

Have You Seen This Woman?

Kimberly Williamson Butler, New Orleans' criminal court clerk, has gone missing. A judge last week issued an arrest warrant charging her with contempt, because a while back they ordered that she start cleaning up evidence contaminated by Hurricane Katrina. She declined. Katrina has dealt a severe blow to the whole legal system. There are still people in jail 6 months later who have not had a trial. Ms. Butler has had a pretty amazing past couple of years. She was fired by Ray Nagin a couple of years ago, and she sued him for discrimination (she lost). She then was elected County Clerk, but severely screwed up with the 2004 elections. I had students that waited more than 10 hours to vote here at Xavier. And now, she has gone on the lam. Only in New Orleans.

Another Student's Story Re: Katrina

I just read this from my Theo 1120 blog, and I found this student's loss to be very sad and poignant.

Sometimes I think my hurricane story is very hard to describe in words. Prior to hurricane Katrina, I lived in New Orleans East, but the house I was staying in received six feet of water. I not only lost most of my personal belongings and electronic equipment that I owned, but I also lost my grandmother. My dad and my 91 year old grandmother decided to stay behind when Katrina struck. This was one of the dumbest things my dad ever did.
Granny lived in the sixth ward, just blocks from Claiborne Avenue. Her home had no water. They did have water in the streets, so there was no place they could go when the levees broke. Soon, her gas and electricity was turned off. It is really hard for a 91 year old woman to survive in a house with only canned food items when she is accustomed to getting her bread, butter and soup at a certain time everyday.
Soon, my father decided to go and get my brothers boat on Gentilly Blvd. Then he decided to ask the neighbor to help him push my grandmother to the Convention Center. This decision was ever worst that staying in the house, since people were just waiting there to get help that never came. She and my dad waited almost three days with very little food and water. The whole situation became even worst when my grandmother fell and hit her head while my dad was getting food for her. Soon, my dad began telling the National Guards that they had to do something for his mother. They did something for her by evacuating her by helicopter to the Triage Center at the New Orleans International Airport.
My dad remained with his mom at the airport, but soon they became separated when she was taken to the triage area for medical test. When he last saw her, she was alert. Next, he was told to wait in a designated area for 30 minutes where she would be returned after the tests was completed. 30 minutes turned into two hours, and my grandmother never came out. Finally, my father was told that FEMA probably flew her by plane to a hospital or senior-care facility. They put him on a plane to Corpus Christi, Texas and told him that Fema would contact him in two days with information on the specific where a bouts of his mother. Two days became two weeks and soon months passed. After searching for her nearly three long months, my dad filed a lawsuit against FEMA. Not long after that, a lady from St. Gabriel’s morgue called and said my grandmother was dead.
She was dead almost three months earlier, the same day my father was separated from her at the triage center. This hurt me a lot because I wish I could have spent more time with her, but she is gone now. My grandfather died about two years ago and my grandmother always wanted to be with him. They were married over 50 years. I know my grandmother is in a better place with her husband. I only wish I could have told her how much I love her before she left this world, but it is too late now.

Wizard of Paws

Barkus rolled on Sunday. The theme: Wizard of Paws: There's No Place Like Home.
Our float displayed a felt sign saying Ding Dog the Bitch is Fed, and other signs featuring Bush as the Scarecrow, Brown as the TinMan, and Nagin as the Cowardly Lion. I was the Mayor of Munchkin City, Therese the Lion, Kalypso Dorothy with Kochise as Toto, Gilgamesh as a flying monkey (but not the king), and Mosey as the Tinman.