A real sign of the times

                  Last night we had our first New Orleans parade in over 18 months. It was the Krewe of Boo Halloween parade, traditionally the first real parade of parade season, which runs through Mardi Gras (This year, March 1st). And it was rushed and kinda small since the city only green-lighted it two weeks ago. Still, they managed to pull together a show with 14 floats and each one had a complete marching band and/or dance group in between them. It was vintage New Orleans again and for the first time since Covid hit, it started to feel normal again.

But one thing that caught my eye was this large sign on the very first horse-drawn wagon leading the parade:

                                 

This isn't Cajun Country or North Louisiana. You'd expect this sign there--and sometimes a lot more--but this flew downtown New Orleans, on the little blue island in the middle of the big red lake that is Louisiana. This it the city that  mourned when Trump was elected and voted overwhelmingly for Biden two years later. And last night, this sign led the parade and was applauded. Wow. If that's not a sign of interesting things to come next election, I don't know what is.

(For those not in the know, all three of you, it's a polite euphemism that means "Fuck Joe Biden". And it's popping up everywhere. Even here.

As for the rest of the parade, It was fun and I'm still mildly hung over.

New Orleans--return to normal. So ends the great game

 So as of yesterday, my freelance mutual aid support gig came to a close. Of the four mutual aid groups I was servicing, one shut down when they lost their own generator (because they never bothered to change or even check the oil--DOH!), another collapsed when the power came back on and the volunteers suddenly had better things to do. The primary person tried to keep going it alone but eventually broke down emotionally and had to quit. She really meant well but got too caught up in solving everyone else's problems and forgot to take care of herself.

Third group, the largest, shifted operations to Houma where the need was greater. I did not follow them. The last group was collecting and distributing supplies from a vacant lot adjacent to the home of one of the leaders but the owner of the lot showed up and kicked them off. His right but still a shitty thing to do considering that he never uses or cleans that lot and these folks at least mowed it and picked up all of the accumulated trash so they could work from it. I wasn't there when the guy showed up but I like to think I could have worked something out with him for another day or two. But that's what I do. I talk while others shout.

It was getting to be time to shut down anyway. The power came back on finally on Day 11 and the people showing up for help slowed to a trickle. The last couple of days I couldn't give water or ice away and I couldn't pay folks to take MRE's from me. I got stuck with six cases that were "gifted" to me by the aid group that didn't want them back.  They were in demand for about two or three days after the storm and then when regular food started coming available, they just piled up...Meals Rejected by Everyone. Guess I'll be eating them for a while.

Trading was fun and profitable while it lasted and usually benefitted everyone as I shuffled goods from places where is was plentiful to places where it was in demand. Ice, water and food were my primary stock in trade but gasoline was my cash cow, so to speak. We had tons of it at two of the aid stations as it kept coming in, but it was difficult to move unless you has gas cans, which were in great demand. I had several to start with but I quickly doubled my supply by trading gas and other goods for empties and then I used those to take gas to places that needed it but couldn't come to the hub to get it. One in particular was a small coffee shop that stayed open serving the neighborhood by running on a generator. The owner left them one gas can and I supplied them with ten gallons a day in exchange for two gallons of cold brew iced coffee for the hub volunteers, including extra cups and one of their fabulous hot breakfast burritos for me every morning. Another place a couple miles away was selling brats every day the last week and they also got topped off every day in exchange for two brats and a cold beer. And of course my own generator and those of my friends and neighbors stayed full. And while homes were being looted during the last week, my house was always being watched by some of those same neighbors (and three dogs or varying degrees of utility).

Batteries were also in high demand and I distributed hundreds of them around the neighborhood to power lights, fans, radios, etc., I asked nothing for these since they were all donated anyway but a lot of grateful people are likely to remember me, at least for a little while. That has value too.

Others will remember me less fondly. The last day most of the people turning up to "request" items from the hubs were the junkies and local "entrepreneurs" who were trying to get large lots of hygiene and cleaning products in the original unopened packaging so they could resell it. Most of the volunteers were either oblivious to this or too uncomfortable to tell them no, but I had no problem being the mean one and telling one lady that no, she could not take two cases (eight gallons) of bleach. she'd gotten them already and I took them out of her wagon, giving her one and setting the rest aside to go down to Houma where people actually needed it. And boy, did she cuss me. We were also giving out umbrellas and she grabbed four and I grabbed three back. Same for batteries as she tried to clip a whole CASE of Duracells only to have me take them all back and hand her eight of each type before sending her on her way. True we had large quantities of these things but we also had no shortage of people who could use reasonable amounts, and if word got around that no one was going to stop these second-handers, we'd wind up inundated by them. So I made my presence and intention obvious at the two largest hubs and kept outflow to individuals down to fair levels. I also took a quantity of batteries to a small hardware store that was open and traded them to the owner for his stock of pepper spray and then I took those back and gave one to as many of our core volunteers as I could since some of the local junkies and freebooters were starting to get aggressive. One girl did end up having to spray a guy who tried to go behind the table and threatened her. Good for her. Again, I was elsewhere, darn it.

But our best score the last day was when one of the tame junkies (so called because they'd show up every morning and unload my truck and other donor vehicles in exchange for food and miscellaneous whatevers) came around with like a 3-4 week old puppy. He said that he bought it a few blocks away from a trap house (drug den) and that they had more for sale. The pup wasn't weaned yet and the others likely needed saving so I started calling rescues and making arrangements for them while planning how to get that one and the others. This junkie said that he could get all the other pups for $20 each and several of the volunteers, over my objection, quickly pooled their money and gave it to him. I know junkies and I was going to get these pups for trade goods or for free, but they paid him cash. Sighing, I made him take up to where the pups were and there were five more in this house. Our guy when up and paid another junkie $20 for the rest of the pups and pocketed a hundred bucks for himself. No surprise to me. Then he took off, leaving one of our girls to hold "his" puppy until he could return for it. We went in to get the pups and I saw mama dog in the other room, all upset because  she wanted her pups. I demanded mama too and the junkie there was reluctant to let her go until I explained that the puppies needed her milk and she needed to be milked because her teats were enormous. He said I could take her for a bit but had to bring her back. Yeah, whatever. I said I would but never intended to as she was clearly starving herself and had a few untended open sores. She needed saving too. She growled at me at first but once she figured out that I was going to take her to her puppies she was sweet as could be. We took all the dogs to a local rescue that will care for them until the pups can be adopted out and then rehome them and mama, who is going to be spayed and medically treated. Truth told, she was so nice I was tempted to offer to take her myself, but I talked  myself out of it. This first junkie skated right off to another trap house to score and never came back for "his" puppy, which was just as well because I sent it on with the others. Fuck him.

So we did a lot of good things this last week, but saving those dogs ranks highest on my satisfaction list. and then at the end of the day Thursday everyone shut down or pulled stakes and now I'm just here, somehow with cash in the bank to compensate me for diesel fuel burned. (That stuff was unobtainable for a while as fuel deliveries to area gas stations with power focused on regular gasoline and I only kept running because I'd stored 20 gallons and topped off the tank before the storm.) I also rotated out a lot of my older packaged supplies like bulk food and batteries into the distribution stream  and replaced it with fresh stock. So my emergency supplies are replenished and refreshed and even expanded by all of the discarded MRE's that were literally tossed into my truck, unwanted and unappreciated, when the last two hubs broke camp. I'm in a better place now than I was before the storm. but I worked for it too. I delivered goods all over the area for 8-10 hours a day every day, I ran people to the urgent care, ferried volunteers around, ironed out petty disputes, press-ganged random people into "volunteering" to load and unload trucks every day (Hey, if you're standing around our lot when a truck needs to be filled or emptied, I'm going to put you to work, especially if you're there to ask for free stuff.) I also kept supply stocks at each hub evened out, made pharmacy runs and provided security at the hubs and overnight storage of as many supplies as could be shoehorned into my van every evening, in sum, I did lots of work, helped things run smoothly, and I got paid well in goods, cash and good will which one hopes can be parlayed into future favors should a need arise.

And here's the dogs:

      

  

And here's some of the supplies that we did give out, now discarded Friday morning on the curb by someone who wanted them a few days ago but not now. These liters of water keep for ten years and the MRE's for at least five but the ones now discarding them apparently don't worry about tomorrow and more than they did before this recent storm with sent them running to us for this very food and water.

 

Greetings from Ground zero: New Orleans

 16 years to the day, on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we now have Hurricane Ida getting ready to come ashore tomorrow as a projected Category 4 hurricane. 

Most of my friends have left, but a lot haven't.  I'm staying for them, and because I could not get away with all of my animals, weapons and ammunition. I won't leave the critters or the guns to the looters. So as of this writing, I have four dogs (my three and a friend's dog) three cats and six chickens in the house, the cats and chickens being crated in one room together. Defense is an FN-FAL, an Uzi and a suppressed AR locked and loaded and a Glock on my hip. I've got food and water for a month and my camper van has a full tank and several reserve jugs of fuel set aside. When the power goes out I move into it and use it's air conditioning. It's a diesel so it can idle forever and run the air and charging ports for the electronics. And we're expecting 2-3 weeks before the power is restored. Great fun, eh?

I'm as ready as I'm going to get and I'm tired. Bring it on and let's get this over with.

Guest post from Merida

Hi people. Merida here.

I'm blogging today because my human was out waaay too late last night at an adult-themed ball and after a brief nap and change of costume, is now back on the parade route acting a fool and passing out free wine to other fools. Sigh.

Ar least he hasn't gotten run over by a float yet.

And TWO float fatalities here in less than a week? By now even Darwin is slapping his forehead and muttering "WTF?" I mean these things roll every year in about 70 parades across the area and most anyone with the sense that God gives geese knows to not go between two floats that are hitched together and moving. And of course Mayor Latoya "Won't-pay-my-taxes-but-all-about-taxing-you" Cantrell immediately proclaimed that there will be no more tandem or triple floats for the rest of the season now. Why not just ban stupid people who don't understand basic physics? Oh wait--the floats are doing that pretty well this year.

Anyway, ya'll have a great day. I'm just gonna sit here and binge-watch the human's pay-per-view and maybe eat a couple more of his books while he's gone.

New old gun

And another post, just because a new (to me) pistol followed me home.

Yep. A Glock 22, Gen 3. .40S&W. Previously owned by my city.

Yep. NOPD is finally trading in their Glock 22's for new 9mm Glocks. They cut a deal with AIM Surplus and AIM is now selling them for $279.00 each. And any officers who want to buy theirs have been told to contact AIM with the serial number and pay...$279.00. What a nice FU from the city.

Of course the city has a bit of a problem with it's history of selling used guns. Back in the not too distant past, a slob of a mayor named Marc Morial made the city the first in the nation to sue the gun manufacturers, alleging that they were "putting dangerous weapons into the stream of commerce" and adversely affecting New Orleans, a city which then (and now) had a very high violent crime rate. Well the first thing that happened was that the SHOT show dropped it's bookings at the convention center, and it had been one of the few events to take up the entire million+ square feet while bringing thousands of visitors into area hotels and restaurants for a week. Then after that economic kick in the nuts, the gun manufacturers showed up in court with numerous guns bearing City of New Orleans property markings It seems that the same city that claimed that the gun manufacturers were dumping guns on the street had been selling confiscated and ex-city guns onto the same streets through some of the same wholesalers that the big companies used. So that suit got tossed and the city lost a lot of money for nothing.

And as fate would have it, I have one of those guns too. It's an old Beretta 92, used by NOPD before the jump to Glocks. It's an oldie--old enough that the late Todd Louis Green looked at it during a class I took with him back in 2011 and laughed. Todd used to be an exhibition shooter for Beretta before he went into teaching full time. He pronounced my gun "ancient" then taught me how to run it so well that I used it for the rest of the class even though I'd only brought it to show him. But here's that one sitting with the new one. Decades of protecting and serving the Crescent City right here. Now they protect me and three whack dogs.

And RIP, Todd Louis Green.


BTW, the new pistol shoots NICE. It may have a NY trigger but it's well-shot and broken in and it's smooth with a crisp break and great reset. I'd suspect that someone swapped out the disconnector and tuned it a bit but I know how fascist NOPD is on such mods...and they check every gun every qual just for that.

I was going to tweak this one but after 50 rounds at the range I think I like it just how it is.

Of dogs and decadence

She went to the vet today. Needed a bath bad. Hadn't had one since who knows when and she was greasy and grimy. They said the water turned black and I believe it because she's noticeably lighter now and much more pleasant to touch. Smells better too. The vet techs could not believe the change in her disposition in just a week, from scared and withdrawn to cheerful and loving. She'd doing great.

Back home, she kept me company outside while I tried (and failed) to fix my flood-damaged lawn mower, which apparently went under water while I was in Mexico. I got it from "won't start" to "almost stays running" but I can't quite knack it. I guess it's into the mower shop. Sigh. But she stayed out with me while the other two went right back in for air conditioning. Loyalty.

Now she's dozing on the sofa. Shame on her...but too cute to kick off.

But lest you think it's been all dog all the time, I did get out to Mid-Summer Mardi Gras uptown this week-end. There was a parade and adult beverages were consumed.

Don't try to understand it. You really had to be there.

Only New Orleans could screw up a gun buy event.

Yep, here in New Orleans today, there was a gun buy. They like to call them "gun buy backs" but how can you buy something back that you never owned?

Apparently the Mayor's office got hold of some money courtesy of a New York-based outfit (Can you say "Bloomberg"?) and announced that they would pay residents of Orleans Parish for any working gun brought in, no questions asked and no ID required aside from proof of residency. (Yeah, that had a lot of folks scratching their heads.)

The offering price: $500.

You read right. FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!

So I quickly decided to part with an old single-shot 12 gauge with a frozen ejector and glued-on handguard. I mean, for $500? Hell yes. I even went the extra distance and snagged a Heritage Arms Rough Rider .22 from a local pawn shop, and since they were only paying one payment to each resident, I recruited one of the charming young ladies I know from the bar to come stand in line and turn it in, with the understanding that we'd split that payment minus what I paid for the revolver. And off I went this morning with two junk guns and a hung-over showgirl to collect a quick thousand bucks.

(Sorry folks...she made me promise no pictures of her.)

We got to the drop-off point an hour early and the line was already almost two blocks long. Damn!

So we stood in the rain and chatted with some of the other several hundred people and watched as the line continued to grow behind us. Apparently I wasn't the only one looking to dispose of a couple of guns this morning.

And after almost two hours, the line had moved about a block and a half and people coming out were reporting that they were out of cash and were only giving out vouchers for whatever. And then they were out of those. A city official came out and announced that they would still accept any guns that people wanted to turn in, but everyone just laughed at him or shook their heads and walked away with their guns. And we, like the majority of those who came out, were in this group. The excuse was that they didn't anticipate this many people. They then clarified in the news later that they'd only intended to accept 200.

Gun buy-back hits capacity in only one hour.

Seriously? How do you not offer five hundred dollars cash for literally any gun and not expect a turnout? Only Mayor Latoya Cantrell's people could screw something up this badly. I guarantee you over a thousand people were in that line.

And let's talk about those people, because I was observing.

A fair number were what you'd expect in this neighborhood, a couple blocks off Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd ad south of Claiborne Ave. They were older black people, men and women, who were bringing in unremarkable old junk. But the majority of the crowd was young, male and white, and several of them still had their guns in the factory boxes, suggesting that they'd done what I did and quickly gone out and bought a cheap gun and rushed down here to sell it for more. And as we all talked, many people openly admitted doing this. Hell, who said capitalism was dead? I think that had they just offered a hundred bucks a gun, many of the locals would have sold their junk and walked away, but since the offering was so high, the money ran out quick and almost every one of those people took their guns back home again. (Note: if anyone on the Mayor's staff is reading this, you need to keep offering $500. I still have two guns to sell you, you jackasses.)

And yes, I did surf the line a bit as we were all dissipating to see what collectibles I could snag, but I came up dry. Well not entirely. Anyone wanna buy a Rough Rider?

I also had to buy my accomplice lunch, and it's a true fact that respectable strippers don't settle for McDonalds after you make them stand in the rain for two hours, so that wasn't cheap either. Thanks Mayor Cantrell. Only a special kind of incompetent politician could screw up a plan to give away money.


Oh--and for the "guns cause crime" argument...a thousand people stood in the rain with guns today and no one got robbed or shot, even after the bulk of them got hosed by their government officials. Maybe more guns don't cause more crime, eh?

No more Robert E. Lee, but a statue to Illegals?

I'm still not over the removal of the statues dedicated to Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard last year, done at considerable public expense even though the citizens didn't call for it just because a crummy mayor had higher political ambitions. I'm still mad about that, but I realize that I can't do anything about it until I'm elected President, at which time I'll federalize the sites and put them right back, and put more up in every liberal-run city across America just to remind them that you don't tear down monuments to men that much of America rightly reveres just to get yourself fifteen minutes of cheap camera time.

But now I'm calling for the removal of one. It seems that some doctor here decided to pony up his own cash and commission a statue to--get this--the ILLEGALS who came here for construction jobs after Katrina. You know, the ones who snuck into our country in defiance of our laws, then showed up here and immediately displaced many local workers--US citizens--who were already doing the initial clean-up work.

Dr. donates statue in honor of Latin American workers who helped rebuild N.O.

This doctor actually wants to thank them for "rebuilding" this city, totally overlooking the fact that countless locals were already starting to do it--many of them low-income minority US citizens--when the illegals swarmed in en masse and took their jobs from the contractors who realized that they could pay them a lot less then they were already paying the Americans. And they didn't come here to help us out of love or altruism--they came here for money--the money that would otherwise have gone largely to Americans who'd just gone through Katrina and needed the income. And after stealing the jobs, they either sent much of that cash out of our country or used it to pay smugglers to sneak the rest of their families up here to take advantage of our schools, health care and social services programs. THAT is the legacy of the post-Katrina Illegal wave, and those are the people that this guy thinks deserve honors and a statue.

How about a thank you statue to the police, fire and National Guard who saved all those lives and kept everyone safe? Or recognition of the businesses and banks that reinvested here when there was nothing but hope and empty promises? So many countless thousands actually took risks and did things for the benefit of the city, but this guy can only be grateful to the illegals who broke the law to come here, stole jobs from those already working simply to enrich themselves and attached their families to our social safety net like ticks.

So this guy wants a statue. Fine. He's a myopic jackass but he can have all the statues he wants. Oh wait--he wants the city to give it a place of prominence and spend funds to maintain it. And this being New Orleans, the city agreed. And now it's going into the new Crescent Park where I run many mornings.

I will be taking the dogs here now frequently and encouraging them to put it to the appropriate use.

I guess it was Caturday

A couple of weeks ago, a stray cat got into a substation and knocked out power to about 70,000 people for several hours during a very hot day.

This is funny to me because my power didn't go out and my air conditioning stayed on.

But being this area, there was a memorial parade for the cat this past Saturday, complete with a brass band and police escorts, so I took Aaron to his first Second Line parade. And we marched it with drinks and a few of my lady friends.


And then I took him to see Bella Blue, a cat of a different color.