Night Light

one nation under a ... what, exactly?

thank you, mr . president

My post on the etymology of Ray Nagin's phrase "Chocolate City" is over at the Huffington Post.  Wow -- I forgot what a discriminated-against minority white rightwing conservatives are in this country until I read the comments.  I feel terrible.

Other people just get personal, as usual.  All I was trying to do was provide a little musical education.  And this is the thanks I get ...

If you live out the rest of your life without hearing "Funky Dollar Bill," don't blame me.

katrina: the latest casualty

From the Associated Press:

NEW ORLEANS — Filmmmaker Stevenson J. Palfi, best known for the award-winning documentary Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together, is dead at the age of 53.

Palfi shot himself Dec. 14 at his home, his family told The Times-Picayune. Relatives said Hurricane Katrina had destroyed or severely damaged almost all of his property and possessions, and he was severely depressed.

Palfi shone a light on some of the greats of New Orleans music, including Professor Longhair and R & B singer Ernie K-Doe.   He had spent much of the last fifteen years working on a film about musical genius Allen Toussaint - pianist, songwriter, producer, singer.   

Casualties from Katrina, like those from Iraq, will continue to surface for many years.  Scars borne of neglect and trauma run deep, and can appear at unexpected times.   

Stevenson Palfi remembered and honored many great talents who were at risk of being forgotten.  We remember and honor him.

allons a lafayette

cajun musicians ...

Some good news amidst the sorrow.  A number of New Orleans musicians are regrouping in Lafayette, a town in the heart of Cajun Country with its own illustrious music history:

"There's a difference between New Orleans music and Lafayette music - this will erase that boundary line," said Dickie Landry, a veteran saxophone player who lives here and was waiting backstage to jam with a band playing at an outdoor fund-raising concert for Hurricane Katrina victims in the center of town on Saturday. "The gumbo is going to get thicker," he said.

Among the refugees in Lafayette is one of my musical heroes:  singer, pianist, and composer Eddie Bo, who is staying there with several members of his band.   But make no mistake - the musical diaspora is still a tragedy.  If you want to help these displaced musicians, there's info on how to contribute to their health fund here. 

And Ray Davies, legendary leader of British pop band The Kinks, reminisces about his gunshot wound in NOLA and gives a plea for preserving the city in this London Times editorial, entitled "An ideal place to get shot."  Laissez les bons temps roulent encore ...

FEMA smoking gun found

The Wall Street Journal - that high-walled citadel of the leftist media - has found the smoking gun for FEMA's - and therefore Bush's - catastrophic mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina.   From the Journal (restricted access), via Raw Story (italics ours):

... internal documents and emails from FEMA and other government agencies dating back to Aug. 31 and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show the extent to which the federal government bungled its response to the hurricane. The documents highlight serious deficiencies in the Department of Homeland Security's National Response Plan, a post-Sept. 11 playbook on how to deal with catastrophic events. Mr. Chertoff activated the National Response Plan last Tuesday by declaring the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina an "Incident of National Significance."

In one instance, federal environmental health specialists, who were charged with protecting both rescue workers and evacuees, weren't called in by the Department of Homeland Security until Sunday -- 12 days after the Occupational Safety & Health Administration announced it had teams from various agencies standing by ready to assist. Even now, with mounting evidence of environmental problems, the deployment is being held up by continuing interagency wrangling, according to officials at the National Institutes of Health, which also is involved in the effort.

...  (FEMA)  first asked the Department of Transportation to look for buses to help evacuate the more than 20,000 people who had taken refuge at the Superdome in New Orleans at 1:45 a.m. on Aug. 31. At the time, it only asked for 455 buses and 300 ambulances for the enormous task. Almost 18 hours later, it canceled the request for the ambulances because it turned out, as one FEMA employee put it, "the DOT doesn't do ambulances."

Attempts by officials at NIH to reach FEMA officials and send them briefing materials by email failed as the agency's server failed.

That says it all.

devo republican-style

how to profit from the coming hard times (after making sure that they're coming) ...

skippy reported earlier that Joe Allbaugh, the man who trashed FEMA and then left Mike Brown in charge, was down in New Orleans sniffing out work for his new client - Halliburton.  Joe struck gold - or, to use a more apt analogy, pulled it from the teeth of his victims' corpses:

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

Dick Cheney is now ghoulishly profiting from two of the human catastrophes he helped create.  And Bush is the frontman for all of it.   The fact that impeachment is not already underway speaks to the profound rot of corruption - root and branch - in today's Republican Party.  That corruption is made possible by the active collaboration of so-called "moderates" in both parties, who pretend this is about policy differences and not ethics.

Allbaugh's other client is the Shaw Group, which gleefully advertises on its website as follows:

"Hurricane Recovery Projects -- Apply Here!"

UPDATE:  They've toned it down since this story hit CNN.  The exclamation points are gone.  But Joe Allbaugh - who looks like a cross between a debauched Bavarian burgomeister and that guy from Prodigy - has done his work well:  first by ruining FEMA, then by getting more money for the Administration cronies that have been feeding on the carrion all along.

Joe Allbaugh is the perfect example of a 21st Century Republican.  My, how they've devolved.  Republicans used to be conservative, but upright, like Everett Dirksen.  Hey, John McCain, and you other "maverick" Republicans who play along with this crowd:  We remember Everett Dirksen.  Everett Dirksen was a Senator of ours.  And you, sir, are no Everett Dirksen.

the president speaks

"What didn't go right?" asks President.

Also just in:  archaelogists discover Judas did not hang himself.   New scrolls reveal he said he would not  "play the blame game."