for now, turn out the lights, the party's over.

'...don't worry, your food, housing, insecurity, will be guaranteed by your department of redundancy department and the natural guard ...and remembers, trust-repers will be persecuted, so please stay where you are, don't move, and don't panic. don't take off your shoes! jobs is on the way ... thank you.'
(principal poop of morescience high school)

i am so heartsick. i have never felt anything this devastating in all my life.
i am so glad all my familia and friends, (as far as i know), are out of the hell-hole that new orleans has become in the last few days.

new orleans is in crisis and it is as bad as anything that has ever happened to this nation since world war 2. it's much bigger than 9-11, (no terrorist could pull this off so don't start that) ... almost a third of the nation's gas supply is either going thru or being produced in the area, not to mention the amount of goods in and out of the port in general. this is no twin towers. this is a thousand towers. this is one of the most important cities in the world crippled in one blow, like no other city in american history has witnessed. the jonestown flood is a footnote, the san fransisco quake a minor event, and i am not saying that from pride of living there ...it is in knowing just how much was there, that is no more. . .

and over a million americans living in new orleans alone are now homeless.

didn't they see this coming?
... it is going to be a very scary and nasty night in the big easy. i am sure you've seen the news. there are quite a few souls left that have very few options at this hour ... those that had/were able to leave and didn't have any excuse for being there, but are, the sick and ederly who couldn't/wouldn't leave, people left hanging because the airlines copped out helping tourist evacuate and the wonderful humans, who are going without everything like the rest, saving others ... and all the people left to ferment in the superdome, all of them stuck in that bowl ...
while the looting and lawlessness from desperation gets as thick as the humidity.
it's gonna be a long night in new orleans and we'll be lucky if the city isn't burned into the swamp by dawn.

didn't they see this coming?
so, where is the national guard? where is the force of help waiting at the perimiter to rush in supplies as soon as the storm passed? where is all the international help that was sent to 7 russians in a sub a few weeks ago? this is so surreal, people killing themselves in the dome, the city is like bandah ache meets the old west under water. this was a tragic, if not the most devastating day in the history of the easy and no one is there but a few helicopters. you see huge copters grabbing workers from the gulf or blackhawks flying life saving missions in the deserts over babylon, but not over the roofs of the lower 9th ward.

maybe it's payback for having mardi-gras, or having a large gay community and artists and a bit more freedom than the rest of the country, who usually love to fly down to the easy to get all loose and wild for a weekend...
we miss the big one and a day later the city is in chaos. no food being rushed in, no law and order, no nothing ... like they didn't see this coming?
(i wonder if 'w' is gonna scoot in, disrupt the rescue effort and hand out water bottles to the looters with his brother jeb, oops ... wrong state, and he's a lame duck also, no photo op there.)

for years we were led to believe by our leaders that the city was prepared, 'well...we did this study or that study, we know how to handle it ... if and when ...'. they weren't prepared and now aren't/won't get help to those stranded.
if this was an iraqi insurgency there would be 1500 troops around the dome in a baghdad minute.

there was no plan, we were duped. the pumps failed, the levees failed and the leaders failed.
it is a city that will never be the same in our lifetime, well, really never. but it coulda been handled better, now there will always be a bitter taste about this, nothing heroic, just base animal survival. like a rat in a corner while the captain left the ship ...
but the easy will be back, we'll figure out what the fuck went wrong and try it again. make the levees higher and stronger, lock ourselves in our bowl and prey upon each other as the tide comes in. humans are silly that way, as long as we think living where we do is worth it.
just ask the people of the coast who are blasted away tonite also, but there the animal has not risen yet, in new orleans the water is rising. they'll re-do just as we all do. it's what we humans do ... but they'll do it faster, they already have roads back.

i really don't know what anyone of us is gonna do right now or ever, (my family is really stuck in limbo, no place to go, everything gone, businesses, many lifetimes of shit, i just can't imagine ... how many people. this is not an area but a complete city! generations are affected, it is mindblowing)

the shock is beginning to settle, and i am not good at those step programs, but i think it's anger filling the void ...
how long before complacency comes back?

i am done here, i dunno if i feel like doing much of anything for a long while ... and we're the lucky ones. we still have our house in reno (tho the one in metry is prob toast), with all our shit and we are very high and dry...
and i have never felt so guilty in my life.

(and we're still moving back, by the way ... after we rebuild too.)
guess we'll see ya'll later ....

p.s. i'd post all the places to donate but you know where to look, and please do!

god save the easy and the last one out, please turn off the pumps.