There used to be isolated spots on the tourist maps well stocked with prettiness and antebellum hospitality, but like
A Streetcar Named Desire's Blanche DuBois, the real New Orleans hasn't possessed much beauty or charm for nearly 30 years. The deep wealth and class divisions, the decayed infrastructure, the LAX CIVIL-ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, the depleted city coffers, the lawless depravity, the history of POLITICAL CORRUPTION BY A LONG LINE OF CITY AND STATE OFFICIALS and the incomplete governance that television viewers are discovering are, to use the local vernacular, the roux of a long-simmering pot of gumbo that finally boiled over when Hurricane Katrina turned up the heat recently. Now the city is drowning in it. New Orleans (before hurricane katrina) had gotten dirty and DANGEROUS)! How could some act out in such horror in raping, stealing, killing (as was shocking to worldwide news happen in THE USA?) If
the cheery tourist only would have peered out their French Quarter hotel-room windows to see the ugly
and abject POVERTY on full display at the squalid
IBERVILLE HOUSING PROJECT (average income of its
800+ households is a little over $7,000 sitting just next door to the Vieux Carre off Canal Street. Go beyond Tulane University and the nearby Garden District mansions, you would be in the middle of a GHETTO CHOCKED WITH RUDIMENTARY SHOTGUN HOUSES, dilapidated housing projects and living conditions that seem only slightly better than those in Baghdad. When you keep hearing people say on news they don't recognize "THIS NEW ORLEANS" , news people forget to remind viewers on t.v. what it really was like. People
at Gruber told me I WANT A JOB AND WANT TO WORK. Great! Let's
take this opportunity to try to teach how to end
poverty and make the homeless feel worthy to make a new life for themselves. List their skills on websites where shelters are around the country. Even people with disabilities have skills if anyone would take the time to find out about that homeless person and show them a trade
that would could build their own self confidence
in to work and not be dependent on the government which in turn makes us pay higher taxes. IS EVERYONE SICK AND TIRED OF LOOKING AT YOUR PAYCHECK AND SEEING SUCH A HUGE PART OF IT KNOWING YOU NOT ONLY WORKED FOR THE COMPANY YOU RECEIVED YOUR PAYCHECK FROM BUT YOU GET THE IMPRESSION YOU ALSO WERE FORCED TO WORK FOR THE TAXES THAT WERE MUCH FROM YOUR PAYCHECK FOR FEDERAL AND STATE TAXES? How to end poverty needs to be addressed, just like teaching people how to organize a clothing drive that is organized and meets the real needs of the people we are serving. See my posts on my ideas on having the needs posted on the red cross computer systems around the country with actual sizes needed. Are they for school children or adults? Be descriptive and specific so people really know what they need. This should be temporary, but we absolutely need to make sure
education is met in solving the real needs of the disaster of any hurricane. They need to be taught how to handle finances. Even seniors in high school/universities about to graduate have no experience in how to handle finances. They go out and get credit cards thinking everything is rosy and when it's time to pay the bills, they
are curious how they got in so much debt. Yes, even people that are educated can be such as careless with money. We need to take this opportunity to SOLVE REAL PROBLEMS that have been ignored. Yes, I have been to New Orleans
when everything looked "rosy" and full of jazz
and music!

Susan

easter_susan@hotmail.com