Must be an election year.  In June the Orleans and Jefferson Parish Registrars of Voters announced a purge of 100,000 "inactive" voters from the rolls.  This on top of another purge last year that dropped 20,000 from New Orleans rolls.

While some voters purged may indeed have resettled after the storm, purges have been used frequently in Louisiana just before elections for partisan purposes.

Which is why the "mix-up" by the Jefferson Parish GOP Executive Committee, putting (Republican) Parish registrar Dennis DiMarco's name and office address as the sender of a flyer by the state GOP, urging Democrats and Independents to switch parties, smells just a little like fuckery.

Hurricane Katrina will see its third anniversary on August 29th, a cataclysm whose meaning has yet to inform the national politics of present-day America. But a new report released last month and a documentary film going national this month just might help transform that.  

The report and the film are highlighting issues of environmental justice, economic opportunity, and racial equality and they are bumping right into a counter-effort the denialist machine has launched -- a fear-mongering campaign aimed at scaring the poor and minorities about higher energy prices.

It's the naked truth about Katrina and climate and race in America versus a cynical and nauseating brand of ugly politics orchestrated by the fossil lobby whose message was something like this: "Climate action is nothing less than a war on the poor."

Alright, I know I lapsed for a couple of weeks, and I'm pretty much posting this at the ass-end of a Monday, but I really couldn't decide on which songs to post!

I thought it would be a good idea this month to concentrate on topics centering on dignity, especially considering our approach of the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Below the fold, paean of the week:

Four birds. In a 100 mile oil slick, stretching from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico,
at this time, four birds were captured for cleaning: a cattle egret, two ducks, a juvenile laughing gull, and one turtle. Oh, a snake was caught covered with oil, but it was tossed out by cleanup workers.

I attended a cleaning of three of the birds in Venice, Louisiana, about two hours outside of New Orleans towards the Gulf of Mexico. They use Dawn detergent, because it cuts grease. The Exxon- Valdez spill taught us that Dawn is effective.

"War" on Terror

Today at TPMCafe Senator John Kerry discussed ways our response to extremism and terrorism should be changed.  As so many well informed people have been saying all along about the "War on Terror," everything about the way our government approaches the subject needs to be rethought from the bottom up.  The basic strategy of Communist guerrilla recruiters, which was highly successful in so many places, was always to swell the ranks by winning over the hearts and minds of the local population.  Terrorist organizations have adopted roughly the same strategy.  The militaristic approach our nation has employed during the Bush years plays right into the hands of the recruiters.

More after the flip.

The Bush Iraq and Afghanistan wars will cost the U.S. $2.4 trillion, but some fiscal conservatives and anti-tax crusaders are still fixated on derailing the billions of dollars requisite to restore a city lost to Bush’s incompetence and hubris – the city of New Orleans.

An old, annoying, yet benign, viral e-mail is being treated to a sinister makeover and finding its way into e-mail boxes across America. The e-mail, in its original form, was disseminated ostensibly to ask the reader to posit the vastness of a $1 billion. While ruminating on this idea, the letter goes on to show how politicians cavalierly bandy about such a hefty sum in conversation whilst doing the nation’s business.

There is wonderful news in the paper this morning.  The New Orleans Lakefront Airport, one of the true architectural gems of the 1930s, is going to be restored to its original appearance.  Architect Alton Ochsner Davis will oversee the project.

Completed in 1934 and originally named Shushan Airport Terminal Complex, the airport is one of a very few Art Deco/WPA-era terminals left in existence.  Most of the air terminals of the era were demolished to make larger facilities to accommodate jet traffic.  Shushan was spared this fate when Moisant Field (now Louis Armstrong International) opened in Kenner in 1946.

Back in 1988 when the Exxon Valdez ran aground, I can recall at least a few weeks of steady coverage by both the three major networks and cable news (just CNN at the time) of the disaster, its environmental impact, and efforts to clean it up.

But the fuel oil spill that happened in Louisiana earlier this week proves to be a much larger disaster with farther-reaching consequences--yet for some news briefs I've seen on NBC Nightly News and a couple of cable channels, there hasn't been the major coverage it should be getting. Why aren't the MSM taking it seriously?

And scorpiorising says,

it is somewhat shocking to me, given the size of the spill and its potential impact on fragile wetlands, that there isn't more help coming to help wildlife, and to help with cleanup.

The fuel spill in the Mississippi River now stretches 100 miles, almost to the Gulf of Mexico, and a sickly oil smell hangs over the city. According to a WWL TV news report, an SPCA group from Houston has set up a wildlife recovery effort. I don't want to pass judgement yet, but it is somewhat shocking to me, given the size of the spill and its potential impact on fragile wetlands, that there isn't more help coming to help wildlife, and to help with cleanup.

With everyone paying due attention to the oil spill (now 80 miles and growing) on the river, a key story from yesterday's Times-Picayune got lost in the noise.

For years, writers, geologists, climate scientists and pols have discussed the value of coastal wetlands in flood protection.  I recently reiterated that a smart presidential candidate could even reverse my state's reddening trend with a commitment to restoring Louisiana's coast.

But, throughout all the discussions, no one has ever specified just how much flood protection bang wetlands offer for the preservation/restoration buck.  Now someone has.

The third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is coming up next month.

Today Dolly has been upgraded to a Category 2 hurricane.  And again there are worries about levees:

Coastal officials worried Tuesday that Tropical Storm Dolly may bring so much rain that flooding could break through the levees holding back the Rio Grande.

Some stories don’t ever seem to change.

In an attempt to get media attention directed away from Barack Obama and toward his pro-business, pro-oil drilling policies, John McCain announced that he planned to deliver an address from an oil rig in Louisiana.

According to a report from Politico.com's Jonathan Martin, McCain wanted to get a photo op to counter Obama's European trip.

Meanwhile, today (after McCain's plans were leaked to the media), we find out that a massive oil spill has shut down the Mississippi River.

UPDATED: McCain canceled his trip.  Will be in Ohio instead.

Sorry for the short blast, but the Picayune just posted a piece updating their efforts to find out just what exactly John McCain is doing in New Orleans today.

Setting aside rumors (mine, mostly) that Old Grand Dad will actually be announcing Gov. Bobby Jindal as his running mate, the McCain campaign has been running in circles trying to figure out some meaningful appearance to counteract the images of Barack Obama ruling the world stage.

Since I've been such a jerk in the last 24 hours, and since there a few hours left in my vacation from civility, I've decided to face head-on the question that's arisen since the close of the wildly successful Netroots Nation-Austin:

Pittsburgh?  WTF???

Not much to expand on here, so you will have to accept it for what it is.

CNN reports this morning on the value of supplies actually given to Katrina storm victims. The Bush Administration, GSA and FEMA proudly claimed they had given away $85 million in relief supplies, but apparently this total was accomplished by assigning the value of a crate of toilet paper to a roll of tp, etc. The real value was a paltry $18 million and not all of that was distributed. Imagine that! A whopping $18 million to an entire city destroyed with hundreds of thousands of people displaced, and much of it never distributed. How generous!

The General Services Administration, which manages federal property, over-counted cases of toilet paper, plastic sporks and other cutlery, by mistakenly counting a single item as being worth as much as multiple items contained in a package of goods.

It has been nearly three years since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the gulf coast region, leaving behind a wake of suffering and human misery unmatched in recent American history.  Sadly, the victims of this crisis are still suffering and residents of the Gulf Coast region are still waiting for the government to do the right thing by investing in the region, cleaning up and rebuilding New Orleans and surrounding communities.  The scale of this crisis is unimaginable for a modern, developed nation with the industrial strength and collective will we have to remedy the situation.  As a country, it is time for us to come together and call for justice for the victims of Katrina and Rita with a comprehensive, public works program designed to address the real needs of people who are still suffering from this natural disaster.

For anybody who thought Louisiana would get a far better deal from BushCo under GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal than she did under Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, they'd better think again. For Bush's pattern of abuse against Louisiana seems to transcend her politics. According to the Baton Rouge Advocate,

Bobby Jindal,  angered over the increased costs that storm-wounded Louisiana must shoulder for construction of hurricane protection levees, asked Washington for more time — and a little fairness.

Under the latest war spending bill, Louisiana must kick in $1.8 billion by 2011 in order to activate $5.8 billion in federal funding needed to strengthen the New Orleans-area levee system.

Jindal said Louisiana’s share for repairs to the 360-mile, federally maintained levee system, is higher post-Katrina, than before the storm. "It seems ridiculous," Jindal said, tersely.

I'm not going to pretend this is comprehensive !

The panelists include John M. Barry who wrote a book about the 1927 Mississippi flood, among other things. More at http://www.JohnMBarry.com

Karen Gadbois is a blogger who started with all this after Katrina, and didn't know what a blog was before that.

Her site is http://www.squanderedheritage.com/ and documents how The Powers are trying to tear down homes and other buildings that are just fine, thank you very much, in order to clear space for highrise developments and such.