French Quarter @ MindSay 
new orleans
Stop Press!
Whoops! I screwed up folks. Remember a few entries back I said, "Fundamental Christian groups blamed the 2004 Tsunami on the mass of unbelievers and heretics in the Pacific Southeast. So where's their explanation about mother nature ripping the Bible Belt a new one? Personally, we believe it's mother nature starting her own religious reconstruction." Turns out I blabbed about things I know nothing about. Yep, I've been proven wrong!
The wonderful group known as Columbia Christians for Life set me straight. Turns out this entire hurricane was really "God's judgement." Indeed, the fetus-shaped eye of the storm decided to level this once beautiful, exciting "wicked city." Indeed, the big guy in the sky thought it was a good idea to flatten New Orleans to teach us all a lesson. After all, if those dirty New Orlean'ers hadn't supported "child-murder-by-abortion centers," "drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets," and the "exchange of plastic jewelry for drunken women to expose their breasts" this whole catastrophy could have been avoided.
So shame on you, citizens of the razed New Orleans and any who participated in any "public celebration of sin." This is all your fault. Go now. Hang your head in shame, those of you still alive, and pray. Just be thankful "New Orleans is now abortion free[...], free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, [and] false religions."
Alright, biting sarcasm aside, please tell me, if you're a Christian, that you are now outraged that people like this say these sort of horrific things in the name of your religion. Please tell me that you don't believe this. Please tell me you understand how nature works in its unpredictability and that this is no ones' fault. Also, on a side note... the French Quarter, home to most of these "wicked" acts, is about the only part of New Orleans that made it through the hurricane without too much trouble.
And people wonder why I'm atheist.
The wonderful group known as Columbia Christians for Life set me straight. Turns out this entire hurricane was really "God's judgement." Indeed, the fetus-shaped eye of the storm decided to level this once beautiful, exciting "wicked city." Indeed, the big guy in the sky thought it was a good idea to flatten New Orleans to teach us all a lesson. After all, if those dirty New Orlean'ers hadn't supported "child-murder-by-abortion centers," "drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets," and the "exchange of plastic jewelry for drunken women to expose their breasts" this whole catastrophy could have been avoided.
So shame on you, citizens of the razed New Orleans and any who participated in any "public celebration of sin." This is all your fault. Go now. Hang your head in shame, those of you still alive, and pray. Just be thankful "New Orleans is now abortion free[...], free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, [and] false religions."
Alright, biting sarcasm aside, please tell me, if you're a Christian, that you are now outraged that people like this say these sort of horrific things in the name of your religion. Please tell me that you don't believe this. Please tell me you understand how nature works in its unpredictability and that this is no ones' fault. Also, on a side note... the French Quarter, home to most of these "wicked" acts, is about the only part of New Orleans that made it through the hurricane without too much trouble.
And people wonder why I'm atheist.
First person account; riding the storm
An interesting pictorial of a group of friends riding the storm and getting out.
malkuth23's LJ
I'd really like to know just who this person is. Is he a thief, or does he work for Walgreen's?
You can bet I will be forwarding this picture to all the law enforcement agencies in and around NOLA. I contacted the Times Picayune....waiting now. This place was my neighborhood's. How many pictures I've developed there!
An interesting pictorial of a group of friends riding the storm and getting out.
malkuth23's LJ
I'd really like to know just who this person is. Is he a thief, or does he work for Walgreen's?
You can bet I will be forwarding this picture to all the law enforcement agencies in and around NOLA. I contacted the Times Picayune....waiting now. This place was my neighborhood's. How many pictures I've developed there!
My God..
I know I haven't been able to be reached very much by my online friends. I haven't updated and I really haven't signed on other than to get news updates and try to search for some friends of mine who are still in New Orleans. My apologies to everyone who might have been waiting for me to log on. It's just that I don't know what to say to anyone, really. Soapboxtop and I have many friends in that city. We both lived there. We have loved ones who are still unable to be spoken to. And I really don't know what to do at this point.
I'm watching a city I love fall apart. With each passing hour what the water doesn't get the fuckers who live there and should be shot on sight do. From trying to bust into a hospital housing children to get drugs to levees busting whenever they should have been repaired. I sit here and listen to reports from livejournals, the news, etc. with a stunned feeling I haven't ever felt. Tears come up to my eyes at any given interval. While making dinner, I just burst out crying as I was tossing some stuff into the garbage. No warning that it was coming. I was just crying. I feel so helpless. Even as I finally got a hold of someone staying where Tim is and they told me he was okay, there are other friends that are just flat out unable to be contacted or updated on.
Tim is the person who I was so desperate to find, I would have severed a finger gladly for a piece of news about. I'm so glad that he's okay. But I just wish he'd get his woman and whatever else he had to take and get the fuck out of there. It's not the water I'm the most worried about. It's someone breaking into their apartment and shooting them to get their crap. Or the general funk that is going to be everywhere.
So. Yeah. I'm really not up to posting too much right now. Maybe I'll have more to say later. When my head is on straight.
God Bless all you guys down there. All my love goes out to you.
"Life Goes On?"
This story is dedicated to everyone who believes Hurricane Katrina is attributed to God's wrath.
This story is dedicated to everyone who say that this is just a warning against our collective decadent lifestyles.
This story is dedicated to anyone who, in one way or another, feels represented by the phrase "God hates fags."
This story is about what happened yesterday in the French Quarter of New Orleans:
Katrina doesn't cancel Southern Decadence parade
Web Posted: 09/05/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Rod Davis
Express-News Staff Writer
NEW ORLEANS — You know a city has legs when three or four dozen of them are parading down Bourbon Street — some clad in tutus and grass skirts — six days after the most damaging hurricane in American history.
But the annual Southern Decadence parade through the heart of the French Quarter stops for nothing — not even Katrina.
"Hey, we've got to keep our morale up, too," said Jill Sandars, aka "Jelly Sandwich," her "Quarter" name.
Resplendent in a fluffy red skirt, dark hat and small black umbrella, she strutted and sang with 15 to 20 other storm survivors who'd hunkered down in battered but not beaten streets normally associated with bead-throwing at Mardi Gras.
The event always manages to be held the Sunday before Labor Day. This time, of course, the circumstances were different.
Water covered the upper northwest quadrant of the Quarter, roughly from Conti to Canal streets, between Bourbon and North Rampart.
There was no power or water, and only hints of the kinds of food made legendary at venues such as Brennan's or Galatoire's. Both of those restaurants seemed relatively unscathed, as did many of the structures on the riverside end of the district, its highest elevation.
But the Quarter was far from its famously lively and carefree self. National Guard and police were everywhere to keep the peace and stop looting. Helicopters buzzed overhead as the evacuation of the city proceeded.
But as the parade assembled at Orleans and Bourbon, outside Johnny White's Sports Bar & Grill, where the motto, "We never close," is strictly enforced, the mood was old-school Vieux Carré at its finest.
"I survived Hurricane Katrina and all I got was this lousy T-shirt," was handwritten on the shirt of a young woman who was wearing a tutu and pulling a bead-laden wagon. Alongside her, marched — ambled actually — a shirtless young man in cut-off shorts, boots and hardhat. The sign he carried read, "Life goes on?"
As the parade moved along, people came out on balconies and threw down beads. On at least one balcony, birthday suits were the uniform of the day.
For Marvin Allen, bartender at the famous revolving Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone, even the lack of meals could be turned into celebration. He and a group of survivors who live near the Ursulines Convent on Chartres combine provisions each evening for dishes such as "Wienie Jambalaya."
"In some ways, it sounds strange, but we're actually doing better than we normally are," Allen said.
It's a brave face, but it's working. Still, Allen hopes to evacuate to Dallas later this week.
The future of New Orleans may be problematic, and time lines for recovery mostly are educated guesses. But the same forces of fate — or the mercy of the African voodoo goddess of the winds, Oya — that deflected Katrina's destructive winds at the 11th hour seem to have spared this legendary part of the American cultural experience.
The northwestern quadrant, as well as outlying landmarks such as the historic Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on North Rampart at Conti, where plague victims were taken in the 1830s, were underwater anywhere from a few inches to several feet.
But most of the landmarks in the Quarter theoretically could reopen whenever power and water are restored — by November, optimistically. There's no talk of canceling Mardi Gras.
As the Southern Decadence parade meandered past the corner of Orleans and Royal, it passed the fenced garden behind St. Louis Cathedral. A giant oak and magnolia both lay uprooted. It was the largest single scene of devastation in the Quarter.
In the center of the tangle of limbs and broken trunks stood the garden's statue of Jesus, the one with outstretched arms affectionately known to locals as "Touchdown Jesus."
The statue was completely unscathed, except for a broken finger and two broken thumbs. "J'ai confiance en vouz," says the inscription, "I have confidence in you."
At that intersection, a New Orleans cop appeared, held up his own arms and stopped the parade.
"I didn't know Decadence was still on," he said. Parade-goers politely assured him it was.
"Keep your spirits up," he said, and drove away.
His lack of knowledge could easily be forgiven. It's not like phones, TVs or much of anything facilitates conversation. As one habitué of the sports bar said, drinking a warm beer on the sidewalk, "We just can't get any information."
"Yeah," said Ride Hamilton, a longhaired screenwriter who keeps water and medical supplies for the stranded. "And we can't get any strippers, either."
(from http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA090505.24A.katrina_french.89fd85d.html)
This story is dedicated to everyone who believes Hurricane Katrina is attributed to God's wrath.
This story is dedicated to everyone who say that this is just a warning against our collective decadent lifestyles.
This story is dedicated to anyone who, in one way or another, feels represented by the phrase "God hates fags."
This story is about what happened yesterday in the French Quarter of New Orleans:
Katrina doesn't cancel Southern Decadence parade
Web Posted: 09/05/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Rod Davis
Express-News Staff Writer
NEW ORLEANS — You know a city has legs when three or four dozen of them are parading down Bourbon Street — some clad in tutus and grass skirts — six days after the most damaging hurricane in American history.
But the annual Southern Decadence parade through the heart of the French Quarter stops for nothing — not even Katrina.
"Hey, we've got to keep our morale up, too," said Jill Sandars, aka "Jelly Sandwich," her "Quarter" name.
Resplendent in a fluffy red skirt, dark hat and small black umbrella, she strutted and sang with 15 to 20 other storm survivors who'd hunkered down in battered but not beaten streets normally associated with bead-throwing at Mardi Gras.
The event always manages to be held the Sunday before Labor Day. This time, of course, the circumstances were different.
Water covered the upper northwest quadrant of the Quarter, roughly from Conti to Canal streets, between Bourbon and North Rampart.
There was no power or water, and only hints of the kinds of food made legendary at venues such as Brennan's or Galatoire's. Both of those restaurants seemed relatively unscathed, as did many of the structures on the riverside end of the district, its highest elevation.
But the Quarter was far from its famously lively and carefree self. National Guard and police were everywhere to keep the peace and stop looting. Helicopters buzzed overhead as the evacuation of the city proceeded.
But as the parade assembled at Orleans and Bourbon, outside Johnny White's Sports Bar & Grill, where the motto, "We never close," is strictly enforced, the mood was old-school Vieux Carré at its finest.
"I survived Hurricane Katrina and all I got was this lousy T-shirt," was handwritten on the shirt of a young woman who was wearing a tutu and pulling a bead-laden wagon. Alongside her, marched — ambled actually — a shirtless young man in cut-off shorts, boots and hardhat. The sign he carried read, "Life goes on?"
As the parade moved along, people came out on balconies and threw down beads. On at least one balcony, birthday suits were the uniform of the day.
For Marvin Allen, bartender at the famous revolving Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone, even the lack of meals could be turned into celebration. He and a group of survivors who live near the Ursulines Convent on Chartres combine provisions each evening for dishes such as "Wienie Jambalaya."
"In some ways, it sounds strange, but we're actually doing better than we normally are," Allen said.
It's a brave face, but it's working. Still, Allen hopes to evacuate to Dallas later this week.
The future of New Orleans may be problematic, and time lines for recovery mostly are educated guesses. But the same forces of fate — or the mercy of the African voodoo goddess of the winds, Oya — that deflected Katrina's destructive winds at the 11th hour seem to have spared this legendary part of the American cultural experience.
The northwestern quadrant, as well as outlying landmarks such as the historic Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on North Rampart at Conti, where plague victims were taken in the 1830s, were underwater anywhere from a few inches to several feet.
But most of the landmarks in the Quarter theoretically could reopen whenever power and water are restored — by November, optimistically. There's no talk of canceling Mardi Gras.
As the Southern Decadence parade meandered past the corner of Orleans and Royal, it passed the fenced garden behind St. Louis Cathedral. A giant oak and magnolia both lay uprooted. It was the largest single scene of devastation in the Quarter.
In the center of the tangle of limbs and broken trunks stood the garden's statue of Jesus, the one with outstretched arms affectionately known to locals as "Touchdown Jesus."
The statue was completely unscathed, except for a broken finger and two broken thumbs. "J'ai confiance en vouz," says the inscription, "I have confidence in you."
At that intersection, a New Orleans cop appeared, held up his own arms and stopped the parade.
"I didn't know Decadence was still on," he said. Parade-goers politely assured him it was.
"Keep your spirits up," he said, and drove away.
His lack of knowledge could easily be forgiven. It's not like phones, TVs or much of anything facilitates conversation. As one habitué of the sports bar said, drinking a warm beer on the sidewalk, "We just can't get any information."
"Yeah," said Ride Hamilton, a longhaired screenwriter who keeps water and medical supplies for the stranded. "And we can't get any strippers, either."
(from http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA090505.24A.katrina_french.89fd85d.html)
This is what New Orleans is about.
Photos taken by me at various times.
The Hotel Richelieu, vacationing the year I moved there.
A typical night of Halloween on the streets of the French Quarter
A bronze girl staring down at you from a balcony (which actually isn't named a balcony)
The flower guy. He used to sell his roses and beads on Bourbon St.
One festive doggie
A group of musicians on the street.
This is what New Orleans is about in the end...
The Hotel Richelieu, vacationing the year I moved there.
A typical night of Halloween on the streets of the French Quarter
A bronze girl staring down at you from a balcony (which actually isn't named a balcony)
The flower guy. He used to sell his roses and beads on Bourbon St.
One festive doggie
A group of musicians on the street.
This is what New Orleans is about in the end...
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