"He's like John Kerry _ he was for it and then he was against it"

[Rowka]

Katrina Evacuees Decry Mardi Gras Plans

 

A boxing dummy festooned with Mardi Gras decorations sits in the lawn of a partially destroyed home in the Lakeview section of New Orleans, La. Monday, Dec. 12, 2005. Water lines from the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina can be seen on the house. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

 

 

By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer

Tue Dec 13, 9:38 PM

 

NEW ORLEANS - Some Hurricane Katrina refugees stuck in hotel rooms and unfamiliar surroundings across the United States are in no mood to party, and they are decrying the city's plans to hold a Mardi Gras celebration in February.

 

"This is not the time for fun. This is the time to put people's lives back on track," said Lillie Antoine, a 51-year-old refugee stuck in Tulsa, Okla.

 

City officials announced last month that New Orleans would hold an abbreviated Mardi Gras celebration. Civic boosters say the festivities can help revitalize New Orleans' economy, lift morale and show the world that the city is on its way back.

 

In addition to scaling the two-week Carnival season to eight days, the cash-strapped city is seeking corporate sponsors for the first time to pay for police overtime and the cleanup along the parade routes and the French Quarter.

 

Some storm refugees and black organizations say the party preparations are insensitive to the plight of so many displaced New Orleanians.

 

"I just think it sends the wrong message to have a celebration when people are not back in their houses," said Ernest Johnson, the Louisiana president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

 

At a protest Monday of a few Katrina refugees in Atlanta, where the New Orleans Saints were playing, ChiQuita Simms said reconstruction should take precedence over partying.

 

"I'm not against Mardi Gras," said Simms, who has been living in an Atlanta hotel with her 14-year-old son. "I'm against their priorities." She added: "What you can do is guarantee me in two months you're going have a Mardi Gras, but you can't guarantee life will be back on?"

 

Before Katrina struck, the 2005 festivities were going to be one of the most exuberant parties in this party city's history _ the 150th anniversary of Carnival parades in New Orleans. Mardi Gras falls on Feb. 28.

 

The dispute boiled over Saturday at a town hall meeting in Atlanta when Mayor Ray Nagin came under fire from an angry and raucous crowd of refugees for approving a Mardi Gras. Nagin then told the crowd that he had actually been against celebrating Mardi Gras but that tourism leaders forced his hand.

 

His comments stunned Carnival supporters back in New Orleans

 

"He's like John Kerry _ he was for it and then he was against it," bemoaned Ed Muniz, the captain of Endymion, one of the city's biggest and most glamorous parades.

 

Ernest Collins, the city's arts and entertainment director, said that the mayor made his Atlanta comments "in the heat of the moment" and that Nagin knows how important the celebration is.

 

But three days after the Atlanta meeting, Nagin suggested that during Carnival, hotels should put aside about a quarter of their rooms and an unspecified share of their profits to help bring people back. Hotel and tourism industry leaders were flabbergasted by the suggestion, and accused Nagin of "politicizing" Mardi Gras.

 

One study found that in normal times, Mardi Gras generates $840 million a year for New Orleans and fills 95 percent of the city's hotel rooms.

 

"We need it for our psyche. It's like group therapy," said Arthur Hardy, a Mardi Gras historian who publishes a popular guide to Carnival each year. "We've likened this to a jazz funeral, we mourn on the way there, and rejoice on the way back. We've got to start rejoicing!"

[B-Bottom]

Why they are even rebuilding that city is beyond me

[T. Alan Smith]

Why are they relying on the government to get their lives back on track. The government didn't destroy their lives. Mother nature did. Cities are built by people's sacrifices, blood, sweat & tears. Not by govermnent aid.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

Originally posted by B-Bottom Why they are even rebuilding that city is beyond me

 

 

It's absurd.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

Originally posted by T. Alan Smith Why are they relying on the government to get their lives back on track. The government didn't destroy their lives. Mother nature did. Cities are built by people's sacrifices, blood, sweat & tears. Not by govermnent aid.

 

 

Please don't interfere with the socialist movement.

[hawkhuff]

 

Originally posted by T. Alan Smith Why are they relying on the government to get their lives back on track. The government didn't destroy their lives. Mother nature did. Cities are built by people's sacrifices, blood, sweat & tears. Not by govermnent aid.

Unfortunately, we live in a gimme gimme society in which entitlement and no sacrifice is the norm.

 

"Ask not what you can do for your country but what your country can do for you."

 

JFK would be spinning in his grave.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

Originally posted by hawkhuff Unfortunately, we live in a gimme gimme society in which entitlement and no sacrifice is the norm. "Ask not what you can do for your country but what your country can do for you." JFK would be spinning in his grave.

 

 

And he was a Massachusetts Democrat. Shows where we've gone since then.

[rikshaw]

 

Originally posted by T. Alan Smith Why are they relying on the government to get their lives back on track. The government didn't destroy their lives. Mother nature did. Cities are built by people's sacrifices, blood, sweat & tears. Not by govermnent aid.

 

 

because they are scum

[Zamfir]

 

Originally posted by T. Alan Smith Cities are built by people's sacrifices, blood, sweat & tears. Not by govermnent aid.

 

 

 

Originally posted by Craigv Please don't interfere with the socialist movement.

 

 

 

You guys have a funny view of city-building and socialism.

 

Most cities, including mine, are all about zoning favors, tax breaks, and amazingly cheap government loans for those poor, needy developer capitalists.

 

Take that away from their historical development, and most of your towns would be lucky to be half their current size.

[T. Alan Smith]

 

Originally posted by Zamfir You guys have a funny view of city-building and socialism. Most cities, including mine, are all about zoning favors, tax breaks, and amazingly cheap government loans for those poor, needy developer capitalists. Take that away from their historical development, and most of your towns would be lucky to be half their current size.

 

 

I think you may be is-interpereting me. What I was trying to get at was, this country was built on self-starters from cultures around the world. This generation seems to have lost that. People seem to always blame the government, when they need to brush themselves of and simply get to work.

[pbass_groovin]

I love living in a small rural midwestern town

[Craig Vecchione]

 

Originally posted by Zamfir You guys have a funny view of city-building and socialism. Most cities, including mine, are all about zoning favors, tax breaks, and amazingly cheap government loans for those poor, needy developer capitalists. Take that away from their historical development, and most of your towns would be lucky to be half their current size.

 

 

You have indeed misinterpreted my statement, which was commentary on the replacement of initiative with entitlement.

[filterthing]

 

Originally posted by T. Alan Smith Why are they relying on the government to get their lives back on track. The government didn't destroy their lives. Mother nature did. Cities are built by people's sacrifices, blood, sweat & tears. Not by govermnent aid.

 

 

My god, that is what I have been saying. I thank you for making my day!

[Zamfir]

 

Originally posted by T. Alan Smith I think you may be is-interpereting me. What I was trying to get at was, this country was built on self-starters from cultures around the world. This generation seems to have lost that. People seem to always blame the government, when they need to brush themselves of and simply get to work.

 

 

 

I got that. On the one hand, I see plenty of self-starters, including this generation, who get right back to their entrepreneurial or other jobs.

 

But ordinary people in NO can't turn back on all the water and sewer lines, gas lines, pave the roads, fix other infrastructure, get building or demolition permits, renew business licenses, have stolen assets documented by the police for insurance purposes, have their kids educated there, etc., etc. - without the city government doing its part to make business/employment and other life activities possible in their jurisdiction.

 

Also, when your family's main sources of capital (business, house, land, vehicles, equipment) have been wiped out, it's bleedin' hard to simply "get back to work" or rebuild anything. Re-acquiring capital only happens so fast for those living on greatly reduced, even barely sufficient incomes.

 

Not to vent on you personally, T. Alan - I just get a little weary when people in general adopt popular, but rarely examined political/social claims that the government is always bad, or that government is somehow the Great Imposer of Dependency on ordinary citizens. As if that's all government does (hardly), or as if those "other" people suddenly lost 100% or even most of their freewill and ingenuity in contact with government, which they manifestly haven't.

 

It's ironic that most of the middle and upper classes don't seem to realize how symbiotically dependent they are on their own locality to do basic, usually forgotten, but valuable things for them - until those benefits are gone or in grave danger of ending (clean water, education, or firefighter response, anyone?). And *everyone* in anything resembling a town or city has been willingly dependent to some degree, as long as cities have been around, providing public goods that no individual can. Including providing the conditions that attract employers, whose jobs provide income that gets spent on all those small, self-starting, supposedly independent entrepreneurs.

 

Personally, I think rebuilding NO where it is, is not wise (Hastert was right, just had lousy timing/PR sense). But it's not my town and place of residence or livelihood.

[ezstep]

Originally posted by B-Bottom Why they are even rebuilding that city is beyond me

 

Yeah, we felt the same when Three Mile Island nearly melted down. We wondered why they didn't just close down that part of the state and move elsewhere.