Posted on 09/07/2005 1:47:06 PM PDT by .cnI redruM
"To my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs. novelist and New Orleans resident Anne Rice
Let me get this straight.
Ms. Rice, you live in (what was) a very attractive city which lies below sea level. On one side you have a giant lake; on the other side you have the Gulf of Mexico. Running through the middle is the Mississippi River. All of which are above you.
Preventing those giant bodies of water from flooding and drowning you are levees. These levees are described as century-old. People have been warning about the devastating effects of a direct hit from a hurricane for decades.
Ive heard a great deal of complaint in recent days that the federal government may not have allocated enough money to speed up the upgrades to those levees. This does, however, raise the question of why city and state residents were waiting around for the federal government to send enough money to upgrade this, instead of paying for it themselves. I mean, it was only your homes, businesses, and lives at stake. Perhaps these upgrades would have been expensive. If only this city had some sort of events to attract tourists, from which to collect taxes.
Anyway, your state and local officials decided to spend your tax dollars on something else that they (and presumably you) found more important, and then they waited for the rest of the country to pay for these life-preserving necessities.
Your beloved city and region has a colorful political history, in which there is, oh, a wee bit of corruption. Im from New Jersey, so I cant throw stones at that glass house. But you guys have managed to pick leaders who give you the worst of both worlds theyre scandal ridden and incompetent in a crisis. Look, Rudy Giuliani might have run around with Judith Nathan before his divorce, but he was a hell of a leader in our darkest hours. You know the National Review crowd isnt a fan of Pataki, but the man was a rock after 9/11 compared to Governor Weepy Ill-Evacuate-Eventually and Mayor Its-Everybodys-Fault-Except-Mine. Nobodys throwing around the adjective Churchillian about any of your officials these days. We didnt pick your local officials; you guys did.
Rice asks, how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid?
Ahem. What about those buses left unused, less than a mile from the Superdome? JunkYardBlog notes that its written in the Southeast Louisiana Evacuation Plan that buses are supposed to be used for evacuation of those who dont have personal vehicles. As JYB observes, there is something very peculiar about a city and a state that have a plan on the books for years that outlines what to do when a hurricane is about to strike, yet when a hurricane comes roaring in, the responsible officials just chuck the plan and try winging it. Delaying and then winging it in the face of a monstrous Cat 4/5 hurricane is never, ever a good idea, especially for New Orleans. (See more here.) Ironically, Nagin told CNN, I need buses, man, when he had plenty sitting around unused before the storm hit. Now theyre flooded and useless.
But its not like state and local officials could have seen this coming. They have never had a hurricane bearing down on them before and oh, wait, there was Hurricane Ivan just last year. And after that dodged bullet, Blanco and Nagin both acknowledged they needed a better evacuation plan.
I would note that weve seen some pretty intense disasters in other parts of the country, like planes crashing into skyscrapers and subsequently collapsing, earthquakes, tornadoes, blizzards, and yet somehow, none of these disasters had the total breakdown of law and order, civil society, etc. Jonah Goldbergs early joke about a Mad-Max style post-apocalyptic tribal anarchy may have been in poor taste, but it has turned out to be nightmarishly prescient.
We failed you? No, oh brilliant creator of Exit to Eden, you failed. You might not think of it this way, but: Your leaders failed to upgrade the levees. You elected a bunch of weepers and blame-shifters who lost their head in a crisis.
Over the past decades, your elected officials have let a criminal element incubate and grow until they ruled the streets, instead of the forces of law and order. In pop culture, a New Orleans thief is always a charming rogue with a devilish smile. In reality, theyre a bunch of thugs.
If the number of residents who are looting thugs were such a tiny minority, we wouldnt have seen this widespread, relentless anarchy. Madam, a noticeable number of your neighbors saw this disaster as an opportunity to smash a window and run away with a television, an act that reveals much about the inadequacies of the local school system, since that thief wont be enjoying that television with any electricity anytime soon.
I would also note that this is one hell of a police force your local officials hired and that you and your neighbors tolerated. 50 percent turned in their badges during the crisis and quit. Your police superintendent is conceding that some cops were looting. Just want to refresh your memory four years ago, New York and Washington, planes falling out of the sky, thousands dead, no idea what the hell is coming next and the cops, among others, showed up to work.
To save you guys now, I and a lot of other Americans will pitch in. We are witnessing the biggest mobilization of civilian and military rescue and relief crews in history. But I have a sneaking suspicion youre going to want the rest of us to pay for the rebuilding of your city. (In the near future, were going to have to have a little chat about the wisdom of building below sea level, directly next to large bodies of water.) And if youre going to come to the rest of us hat in hand, demanding the rest of us clean up after your poor judgment, Id appreciate a little less you failed us and a little more weve learned our lesson.
DallasMike, WOW. That should be its own thread imho (and I admit I ain't humble). Good stuff there. Praise God for Texas and Texans who stepped up to the plate for America. We had with 2 outs, 3 men on base, 2 strikes and 3 balls ... and here they hit a home run.
Anne Rice talks about her erotic novels, which were written under the pen names, A. N. Roquelaure and Anne Rampling.
New Orleans' favorite daughter is boasting a libation of her own.
Rice's managers found specialized wine-makers Brian and Walter Babcock and their vineyard, flourishing in a cool climate with oceanic soil. Rice found their grapes were ideal for producing a drink fit for any vampire: syrah.
Named for her character in "Interview with the Vampire," Rice's Cuvee Lestat Syrah is sold for $30 a bottle.
Just 200 cases of Cuvee Lestat Syrah exist, each with a ghoulish painting by Rice's husband, poet Stan Rice, on the label.
Brilliant article.
Born Howard Allen O'Brien, Anne Rice chose her first name, Anne as a child.
http://www.annerice.com/ac_Biography.htm
Anne Rice was born in Mercy Hospital, New Orleans, on October 4th, 1941. She was the second of four daughters born to Katherine and Howard O'Brien, and was given the name Howard Allen O'Brien, after her father. Mr. O'Brien had been ridiculed as a youth for having a "feminine" name, and suffered taunting and teasing by his peers. Apparently this played a part in the naming of their daughter.
In her own words (from "You Asked, Anne Answered" in the Official Anne Rice Web Site) "Well, my birth name is Howard Allen because apparently my mother thought it was a good idea to name me Howard. My father's name was Howard, she wanted to name me after Howard, and she thought it was a very interesting thing to do. She was a bit of a Bohemian, a bit of mad woman, a bit of a genius, and a great deal of a great teacher. And she had the idea that naming a woman Howard was going to give that woman an unusual advantage in the world."
Anne became "Anne" on her first day of school, when a nun asked her what her name was. She blurted out "Anne" immediately, and her mother, who was with her, let it go without correcting her, knowing how self-conscious her daughter was of her real name.
You want a good vampire novel?
Next time you get the urge to get all vampiric in a Southern swamp, pick up the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris. The protagonist is nicer, the vampires have more personality, and Harris doesnt take herself quite so seriously.
And while you're at it, imagine this gorgeous hunk as Eric.
Vladimir Kulich as Buliwyf in The 13th Warrior
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