Indictment

This photo in and of itself should be sufficient to indict the Mayor of New Orleans for malfeasance, corruption and incompetence. Yes, that idiot who tried to blame Bush like every other liberal, Did any students go to N.O. public schools on Monday? So, OK, Mr. Mayor - and School Superintendent and Police Chief - why weren't those buses used to get people out of New Orleans? Oh, I see, everybody was too busy looting, including the cops? Now I understand. And so should everyone else.

Rescued!

Fats Domino has apparently been rescued from the New Orleans disaster. OK, so now that's out of the way, how about getting everyone out and just nuking the place? The obvious parallel is Port Royal, the pirate city in Jamaica destroyed in 1692:

Once known as the 'Wickedest City on Earth,' Port Royal on the island of Jamaica was one of the largest towns in the English colonies during the late 17th century. It was a haven for privateers and pirates, such as the famed Sir Henry Morgan, due to its excellent geographic location in the middle of the Caribbean. From Port Royal, these buccaneers preyed upon and plundered the heavily laden treasure fleets departing from the Spanish Main.

Shortly before noon on 7 June 1692, 33 acres (66 percent) of the "storehouse and treasury of the West Indies" sank into Kingston Harbor in a disastrous earthquake. An estimated 2000 persons were killed in an instant. An additional 3000 citizens died of injuries and disease in the following days (Pawson and Buisseret 1975:121). Salvage and outright looting began almost immediately and continued off and on for years. A pocket watch, made ca. 1686 by Paul Blondel, a Frenchman living in the Netherlands, was recovered during Link's (1960:173) underwater excavations near Fort James. Its hands, frozen at 11:43 a.m., serve as an eerie reminder of the catastrophe.

Following the earthquake, Port Royal underwent a dramatic revival only to fall again when it was ravaged by fire in 1703. A total of 16 hurricanes between 1712 and 1951 have consistently smashed Jamaica, as have an additional six earthquakes between 1770 and 1956 (Cox 1984:Appendix B). Following a severe storm, a hurricane, and two earthquakes in 1722, Port Royal as it once was disappeared for the last time.

Maybe they could build a real sane city somewhere further inland.

Fats Domino is missing

The New Orleans songster, now 76 years old, has apparently gone missing. I wonder what happened to him. The last anyone saw of him he was at home in the Katrina-devastated section of the city. OK, I've got to say it, "Ain't that a shame?" I will keep track of any reports of his whereabouts. He could be a symbol of the revival of Sin City, that focus of evil of the Gulf Coast, or a sad token of its decline and disappearance. Sort of reminds one of Pompeii, gone never to return. How many cities have been alive, if corrupt and frustrating, one week and then gone forever the next? A thousand years from now will an archeologist digging through the ruins of what used to be New Orleans find a jolly skeleton in a porkpie hat surrounded by gold records?