Hottie Goth Day, Hottie Goth Day!!!

Tuesdays always excite me.

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the show. Have fun, laugh, cry, scream and don’t forget to tip your waitress.

Anyone watch the HBO special last night by Spike Lee about New Orleans and Katrina? It was excellent. I was a little skeptical; I thought it could turn out to be a condemnation of everything because of race. But I think he did a fair job of spreading the blame. And it wasn’t as if he blatantly put blame on others. He let the interviews and the events frame themselves. The police chief of New Orleans, a black man, got as much blame as anyone for helping things spiral out of control. It’s not as if race wasn’t brought up, of course it was. If you think race had nothing to do with what happened there you have a very naïve view of the world. You can’t tell me that if that hurricane had hit an upper middle class city inhabited by oil executives that the federal reaction wouldn’t have been different. I don’t believe it was an entirely Republican issue, either. The Democratic mayor and the Democratic Governor are just as much to blame. They didn’t have that city ready for a catastrophe that had been predicted to happen for years. There was no way to get people out of the city. After the levees broke, it was all down hill from there. No one stood up and took charge. The Department of Homeland Security is a farce. It waited far to long to react and free up money. The FEMA guy, Brown, he was just a symptom of the problem. He couldn’t have done more if he was a capable person. The Department had him tied up in bureaucracy. Our nation is no more ready for a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake or tsunami than it was before 9/11. That I blame on Bush.

I think you have to have been to New Orleans before and after to understand the scope of what happened. Have you ever seen the downtown of a major metropolitan city completely empty? I have now. Have you ever seen cars and trucks piled up with trees and junk piled all over an abandoned neighborhood? Or markings on a telling if it has been checked and if there was a body found. I drove around the city amazed at what it looked like. And this was three weeks or so after the hurricane. I constantly wish I could do something to help the city and its people. I just don’t have a clue how. I don’t have money to donate or any special skills. So, I send my best thoughts and tell everyone I can how magnificent the city was before and how it needs to be rebuilt even better.
I’m not looking at the city with blinders, it had major problems. A corrupt police force, one of the highest murder and crime rates in the country, segregated populations. But it had culture and diversity and a population of some of the most wonderful people in the world. There was a conglomeration of different cultures and peoples that made it special. I only hope that part can return. I sometime get the feeling they want to turn it into a corporate Disney world with the French Quarter and the Garden District. No middle or lower classes, just tourist spots and businesses. I supported the opponent of Mayor Nagin in the past election. I couldn’t vote, but I donated a little money to Mitch Landrieu. I think he is a guy with ideas and the clout to pull them off. I’m not sure Nagin can get anything done with his credibility so low.

Enough about that, I’m sorry I got on my soapbox again.
My oldest daughter starts high school this year. I’m mortified. I’m so old. Her orientation is tonight. I can’t believe I have a daughter in high school. One day they are in diapers, the next day they think you are an idiot. Next year I’ll have two in high school. Ugh. Plus, I’m eventually going to have to worry about them dating. I’m not ready for that. I know how guys are and we are all creeps, no exceptions. I think I’ll go by a motto that I heard the basketball player Charles Barkley say he uses to deal with boys and his daughter. He said you shoot the first one and the rest hear about it and stay away. Sounds like a good plan to me.