An email from New Orleans

In an email from a dear friend concerning their pal from New Orleans:

E. finally made it out of the French Quarter on Monday night. Him and his brother are currently at the un-official MoCo evacuation center (a.k.a. The Moondance Ranch). They came with offerings of looted good wine and top shelf bourbon. We are working with the local Red Cross office to get food and clothes vouchers for them, as well as their $2000 FEMA debit card that has been promised to all evacuees.

He has incredible stories, and if you may have seen him on MSNBC or FOX. His buddy Joshua Clark has been all over NPR airwaves talking about life down in the quarter after the storm. They formed an impromptu tribe and gathered (looted) items for several shut-ins in the neighborhood. They also cleaned up all the debris from Jackson Square, swept the streets, had a pool party every night complete with lot's of booze and barbecued food. He was really in the thick of it. Josh is working on a book about the experience and has been recording on tape several interviews. They had a Miami Herald reporter and photographer with them for an all night party on Sunday night. He apparently interviewed the whole group quite extensively (and got so drunk and mushroomed that he puked all over himself!).

I gave him a blank notebook to start putting in down chronologically. The stories are amazing. He showered with looted baby wipes and swimming in the pool. There is a bar they keep mentioning on the news called Johnny Whites. It has a bunch of hold-outs in it that were just drinking the whole time. Earth took a bunch of National Guard MRE's and water bottles there and traded for bottles of booze! Too funny.

I will tell you that he is currently overwhelmed with how much death occurred. His neighborhood turned to tight groups of friends helping others and keeping spirits up. Meanwhile a few blocks away, there were masses of people living like third world refugees and being shot, raped, and witnessing all the ugliness that societal neglect can bring out in people. America needs to wake up to a lot of issues that are currently slapping us in the face. The state of the economic divide. The lack of infrastructure funding. The loss of natural resources/wetlands. The environmental damage we create. The mis-guided use of our tax dollars. The complete state of denial that our leaders work in.

It should all come out. This event is 10 times bigger than 9-11. This is an event that started as a natural disaster and proved to be a man-made catastrophe!