Sitting in your own crap

Yeah, that' s the title of this entry, because that is what's going on among the poor in NOLA.

Read this and weep:

2 September 2005(AP): The stench from backed-up toilets inside the Superdome is unbearable and people are afraid to go into the unlighted bathrooms.

Sandra Jones says she and her family use a box to relieve themselves instead of using restrooms because "The stink is so bad you can't go in there anyway."

Even though she's hungry, one hurricane refugee in the dome says she's not eating. Michele Boyle says eating would mean she'd have to use the dark, dangerous and filthy restrooms in the dome. So she's going without.

Boyle has been spending some of her time trying to keep a small area of the dome as clean as she can until help arrives. Boyle and other refugees found some brooms and swept up the mess.

She says they're simply "trying not to let it get any worse."

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Welcome to Hell, Day 5.

How in the name of decency can we allow this to go on? Tell me. Tell me that these poor people don't even deserve to take a shit with decency. I am listening to our dear governor tell me that today was a milestone and a turning point, but for the people camped out at the I10 overpass, the convention center, and the Superdome, IT IS NOT!!!!

Not one of these people asked to be in this position. The time for judging them is long, long gone. They need your compassion and love. PLEASE.

The 17th street canal broke Monday night. It is all but repaired. NOW. How long has it been? An eternity? Why was this not a priority?

Or better yet, when the budget for raising the levees was rejected for 3 consecutive years (presumably because tax cuts and wars against phantom stockpiles of WMDs had to be conducted), why did decent people not stand up and say "If we're gonna superheat the Gulf waters, can we at least pour some motherfucking dirt down here?"

Whatever you think about this, just understand one thing: IT WAS ALL PREVENTABLE.

From the failure to restore the levees and wetlands, to the failure to have a plan in place to evacuate the poor, to the failure to have a plan in place to plug breeched canals, to the failure to have adequate security for our neighbourhoods, to the failure to have adequate food, water, and shelter after the fact, IT WAS ALL PREVENTABLE.

It will cost 500 million dollars just to rebuild the HOUSING in the lower 9th ward. Just the housing. Not including the infrastructure. These people need your love and compassion.

My sweet Colleen tells me that she has to move back to Chicago, that there is nothing left for her in NOLA. The great Acadian Diaspora has begun.

My city is on life support, people. The city that gave America its one true art form, the city that spawned a cuisine treasured around the world, the city that gave you Lee Harvey Oswald (okay, bad example) IS DYING. Please, help SAVE NEW ORLEANS.