Tough Days I cannot believe that there on the radar to the east, is another. Here In New Orleans people are panicking a bit, nervous in their doubt. I do not think that it will hit here at all. But meetings are starting and I am sure that supermarkets are getting backed left and right. Lines going back and swirling, with handfuls of bottled water and worrying way too much about what I think of nothing.

Yes, here comes another hurricane, now a category two just around the lesser Antilles. Its name is Dean, slamming into those little islands. Cannot imagine living in those little paradises, every year a whamo storm slams into you, hurricane after hurricane. It would be fine for primitive cultures, owning nothing, but we have too much stuff.

There it lies, its winds swirling counter clockwise. Yet nothing could be more natural. For the earth is only trying to cool itself off. The hotter it gets the more we are going to get them swooping in as if they were on parade. Dancing and mixing the Caribbean and Gulf until they arrive on our shores. The rains will continue.

But we have no choice, we must live here. There is no where else in these States that I would live. But there I go again about the city, always reminiscing about the iron and streets of this town.

Even though a strange thing is going on here. It is City-gouging. Now everyone knows about the tax assessor's scandal of suddenly raising the value of houses to grab taxes. But there is more, much more. Cops are giving more tickets, Insurance companies want more (as always), and the Crescent City Connection Bridge is charging a strange "administrator fee" for people that go through the tag line without it registering. I hate it. All of this is just discouraging people from coming back, which is sad.  ¶ Thursday, August 16, 2007