Where You Said You Live at? OR Margaritas as Coping Strategy

Why no NO news, commentary, rants, pleas? Because it rankles enough to live it, much less reiterate it for the consumption of others. Each front page of the Times-Pic is demoralizing, infuriating—early pundits bashing New Orleanian stupidity in not getting flood insurance when a large percentage HAD flood insurance; every senator and representative bitching and moaning over the Gulf Coast being OK (and needing no more money) since they see clips of the French Quarter up and running on national news then being agog at their first superficial glance of Lakeview (where WHITE people and PROFESSIONAL people lived, not welfare queens and drug dealing pimps specializing in crack whores of all hues) and then the Ninth Ward, not even taking a look at the chaos of half-repaired and completely ignored traffic lights, piles of debris, refrigerators and 3+ weeks’ worth of garbage and a coming election that is plagued by chaos, in-fighting, racial contempt and deep-seated conflict, federal neglect and unprocessed hurt and anger; and the bullshitting cockamamie half-assed amateurish job being done by all decision-makers and –influencers on the local, state and federal level; and then there’s the particular chaos and neglect and fraud and graft that is FEMA.

I’m shattered and nothing happened to my house.

No one is being decisive or honest. Much of the money directed our way in the early days has been wasted. Entergy and LSUHC saw the post-Katrina atmosphere as one in which they could get concessions and privileges no one would give them before—LSUHC closed Charity and University, “furloughed” most of the employees (all while LSU hospital staff were retained and many helped with housing), and claimed the Charity hospital building was unusable and the federal government needed to build a brand new hospital for them; and contractors ran loose and wild with money, squishing the huge amounts they got through more and more subcontractors and therefore smaller funnels until those who actually did the work got paid shit. It offends all my sensibilities, fuels all my social resentments (one, that Entergy, a private for-profit company, owns a utility at all; none of this would’ve happened if we still had NOPSI b/c there would’ve been no incentive/profit in delaying repairs or service or paperwork gimmicks). Shaw made a shitload of money, too. Meanwhile, no one knows what to do while FEMA drags its barrely-competent feet on new flood maps and SBA loan requirements and amounts change at random and Burger King pays better than most of the non-construction jobs in town. I feel like my chest is weighed down, and also feel forsaken. Again.

OK, let’s go denser as a city but let’s GO. People need places to live last October. No one in charge of making a decision seems to care. This time could be sent printing truckloads of absentee ballots and getting addresses from FEMA (another court fight) instead of squabbling over hidden agendas, racist and otherwise.

It all makes me tired. And, like many women my age, I already have 3 full-time jobs (paying job, mothering/domestics, what little intellectual life I have been able to spare from the black hole of the other 2 jobs).

The revolution needs shared domestic work, not just a good beat.