Anne Rice on Katrina and New Orleans

[mofish]

All you 'lolol they are stupid for living below sea level let em die lolol' geniuses, this article is for you.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opini ... nted=print

Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
By ANNE RICE
La Jolla, Calif.

WHAT do people really know about New Orleans?

Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land?

The first literary magazine ever published in Louisiana was the work of black men, French-speaking poets and writers who brought together their work in three issues of a little book called L'Album Littéraire. That was in the 1840's, and by that time the city had a prosperous class of free black artisans, sculptors, businessmen, property owners, skilled laborers in all fields. Thousands of slaves lived on their own in the city, too, making a living at various jobs, and sending home a few dollars to their owners in the country at the end of the month.

This is not to diminish the horror of the slave market in the middle of the famous St. Louis Hotel, or the injustice of the slave labor on plantations from one end of the state to the other. It is merely to say that it was never all "have or have not" in this strange and beautiful city.

Later in the 19th century, as the Irish immigrants poured in by the thousands, filling the holds of ships that had emptied their cargoes of cotton in Liverpool, and as the German and Italian immigrants soon followed, a vital and complex culture emerged. Huge churches went up to serve the great faith of the city's European-born Catholics; convents and schools and orphanages were built for the newly arrived and the struggling; the city expanded in all directions with new neighborhoods of large, graceful houses, or areas of more humble cottages, even the smallest of which, with their floor-length shutters and deep-pitched roofs, possessed an undeniable Caribbean charm.

Through this all, black culture never declined in Louisiana. In fact, New Orleans became home to blacks in a way, perhaps, that few other American cities have ever been. Dillard University and Xavier University became two of the most outstanding black colleges in America; and once the battles of desegregation had been won, black New Orleanians entered all levels of life, building a visible middle class that is absent in far too many Western and Northern American cities to this day.

The influence of blacks on the music of the city and the nation is too immense and too well known to be described. It was black musicians coming down to New Orleans for work who nicknamed the city "the Big Easy" because it was a place where they could always find a job. But it's not fair to the nature of New Orleans to think of jazz and the blues as the poor man's music, or the music of the oppressed.

Something else was going on in New Orleans. The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy.

Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs.

And so New Orleans prospered, slowly, unevenly, but surely - home to Protestants and Catholics, including the Irish parading through the old neighborhood on St. Patrick's Day as they hand out cabbages and potatoes and onions to the eager crowds; including the Italians, with their lavish St. Joseph's altars spread out with cakes and cookies in homes and restaurants and churches every March; including the uptown traditionalists who seek to preserve the peace and beauty of the Garden District; including the Germans with their clubs and traditions; including the black population playing an ever increasing role in the city's civic affairs.

Now nature has done what the Civil War couldn't do. Nature has done what the labor riots of the 1920's couldn't do. Nature had done what "modern life" with its relentless pursuit of efficiency couldn't do. It has done what racism couldn't do, and what segregation couldn't do either. Nature has laid the city waste - with a scope that brings to mind the end of Pompeii.

•

I share this history for a reason - and to answer questions that have arisen these last few days. Almost as soon as the cameras began panning over the rooftops, and the helicopters began chopping free those trapped in their attics, a chorus of voices rose. "Why didn't they leave?" people asked both on and off camera. "Why did they stay there when they knew a storm was coming?" One reporter even asked me, "Why do people live in such a place?"

Then as conditions became unbearable, the looters took to the streets. Windows were smashed, jewelry snatched, stores broken open, water and food and televisions carried out by fierce and uninhibited crowds.

Now the voices grew even louder. How could these thieves loot and pillage in a time of such crisis? How could people shoot one another? Because the faces of those drowning and the faces of those looting were largely black faces, race came into the picture. What kind of people are these, the people of New Orleans, who stay in a city about to be flooded, and then turn on one another?

Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn.

What's more, thousands more who could have left stayed behind to help others. They went out in the helicopters and pulled the survivors off rooftops; they went through the flooded streets in their boats trying to gather those they could find. Meanwhile, city officials tried desperately to alleviate the worsening conditions in the Superdome, while makeshift shelters and hotels and hospitals struggled.

And where was everyone else during all this? Oh, help is coming, New Orleans was told. We are a rich country. Congress is acting. Someone will come to stop the looting and care for the refugees.

And it's true: eventually, help did come. But how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid? Why did America ask a city cherished by millions and excoriated by some, but ignored by no one, to fight for its own life for so long? That's my question.

I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.

They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

Anne Rice is the author of the forthcoming novel "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt."

[Phlegm]

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

I guess all the supplies, the voluteering rescuers, million dollars donated to help with the disaster meant the US is turning its back on Louisianna and Mississipi. Go ahead and blame everyone for this. FUCK YOU and shut the fuck up, Anne Rice.

[mofish]

Oh, you mean the aid that came SIX FUCKING DAYS AFTER THE STORM?

[Phlegm]

Yeah. If you look to blame someone. Blame the fucking mayor of the city. Why wasnt the city prepare for hurricanes? The fucking city is below sea level in an area that is has yearly hurricanes and yet there were no plans to deal with it in place?

[Mop]

Yeah. If you look to blame someone. Blame the fucking mayor of the city. Why wasnt the city prepare for hurricanes? The fucking city is below sea level in an area that is has yearly hurricanes and yet there were no plans to deal with it in place?

Easy answer you see...


WEll the Mayor (D) knew there was a problem long ago, but the state cut budget as federal funding had been removed - because Bush sent people to war thus having to get money from somewhere ... Not only is bush at fault fot this... but


about 11 years ago Bush was on campaing through Texas - during one day the bathroom on the bus was broken and everyojne got off to pee in one spot. THis later burned off due to the hot summer weather and was soon into the atmosphere. Aftertime it had travled over the mid attlantic to where it finally was cool enough to break out of its gas form. It happened to land with in the atlantic current and was quckly carried S towards africa. The extra salt with in the urine caused a chemical reaction heating up the water around it 1/10000000000000000 of a degree, this change was the start of the hurrican as the moisture began to enter the air again from the ocean... and today we can all sit here and say - Bush took a piss in the bushes and caused this...


FOR SHAME I SAY FOR SHAME PRESIDENT BUSH FOR NOT USING A TOLIET

[mofish]

Yeah. If you look to blame someone. Blame the fucking mayor of the city. Why wasnt the city prepare for hurricanes? The fucking city is below sea level in an area that is has yearly hurricanes and yet there were no plans to deal with it in place?

Youre an ignorant fool. Do some research before you spout off and sound like an idiot. WE HAVE BEEN BEGGING FOR LEVEE UPGRADE FOR YEARS.
The Corps of Engineers are FEDERAL. Maybe Mayor Nagin coulda just pulled 20 billion dollars out of his ass. That would only be the entire revenue of the city for 10-15 years. Or maybe he shoulda just got out there with a shovel and done it himself.

God damn you generation-Y ignorant fucking retards.

[mofish]

Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, where I grew up, today on Meet The Press.

MR. RUSSERT: Hold on. Hold on, sir. Shouldn't the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of New Orleans bear some responsibility? Couldn't they have been much more forceful, much more effective and much more organized in evacuating the area?

MR. BROUSSARD: Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.

Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.

But I want to thank Governor Blanco for all she's done and all her leadership. She sent in the National Guard. I just repaired a breach on my side of the 17th Street canal that the secretary didn't foresee, a 300-foot breach. I just completed it yesterday with convoys of National Guard and local parish workers and levee board people. It took us two and a half days working 24/7. I just closed it.

[mofish]

MR. RUSSERT: People were stunned by a comment the president of the United States made on Wednesday, Mr. Secretary. He said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." How could the president be so wrong, be so misinformed?

SEC'Y CHERTOFF: Well, I think if you look at what actually happened, I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, "New Orleans Dodged The Bullet," because if you recall the storm moved to the east and then continued on and appeared to pass with considerable damage but nothing worse. It was on Tuesday that the levee--may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday--that the levee started to break. And it was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was no possibility of plugging the gap and that essentially the lake was going to start to drain into the city. I think that second catastrophe really caught everybody by surprise.


IS HE A LYING SACK OF SHIT? OR IS HE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD?

[Darcler]

Fuck yes, Anne Rice. I want your food.

[Lyion]

Youre an ignorant fool. Do some research before you spout off and sound like an idiot. WE HAVE BEEN BEGGING FOR LEVEE UPGRADE FOR YEARS.
The Corps of Engineers are FEDERAL. Maybe Mayor Nagin coulda just pulled 20 billion dollars out of his ass. That would only be the entire revenue of the city for 10-15 years. Or maybe he shoulda just got out there with a shovel and done it himself.

God damn you generation-Y ignorant fucking retards.

*sigh*

The Corps' New Orleans district in 2003 spent about $409 million on construction contracts, dredging and maintenance for the state's waterways, real estate purchases, private sector design contracts and in-house expenditures, according to the Corps. That more than doubles the $200 million the district spent in 1991.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday that a lack of funding for hurricane-protection projects around New Orleans did not contribute to the disastrous flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.

In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way--inundating much of the city--were completed and in good condition before the hurricane.

However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and couldn't handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 4 storm when it hit the coastline. The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made decades ago based on a cost-benefit analysis.

[Phlegm]

Yeah. If you look to blame someone. Blame the fucking mayor of the city. Why wasnt the city prepare for hurricanes? The fucking city is below sea level in an area that is has yearly hurricanes and yet there were no plans to deal with it in place?

Youre an ignorant fool. Do some research before you spout off and sound like an idiot. WE HAVE BEEN BEGGING FOR LEVEE UPGRADE FOR YEARS.
The Corps of Engineers are FEDERAL. Maybe Mayor Nagin coulda just pulled 20 billion dollars out of his ass. That would only be the entire revenue of the city for 10-15 years. Or maybe he shoulda just got out there with a shovel and done it himself.

God damn you generation-Y ignorant fucking retards.

Listen you dumbfuck. I am not saying the levees breaking is his fault. IT HIS FUCKING FAULT FOR NOT HAVING A PLAN IN PLACE IN CASE THEY DO. The mayor knew that the levees needed to be upgrade yet the fucking moron didnt have an emergency plan in place just incase it break? Gee.. the levees needed to be upgrade but you federal people not going to give us money to do it... so instead of preparing a emergency plan incase the levees break... we just sit the fuck here with our heads up our asses.That fucking stupidity to the fullest degree.

[Arlos]

Lyion, your quote is about how much money was spent in 2003. Not 2004, not 2005. How much was spent 2 years ago is utterly irrelevant. You also must understand how little trust that people, especially in that area right now, have for ANY pronouncement any governmental agency makes. After all, if Chertoff can stand there and say with a straight face that there were NO plans for a Cat 4/5 hurricane hitting the area, and the aftermath was a complete surprise, when there are legions of scientists, reporters, news reports, and even an ex-FEMA chief saying otherwise.... How much do you expect them to believe the Corps of Engineers when they say "Nope, not OUR fault!" hmmm? Also, state and local politicians HAD been calling, and for a while, for further upgrading the levee system so that it COULD take more than just a Cat 3. They were ignored.

I DO fault the current government for how long it took relief efforts to occur. The National Weather Bureau predicted 3+ days before it happened that Katrina would hit the New Orleans area. Why wasn't all the logistical stuff happening *THEN*? Why weren't hospital ships put en-route THEN so that they could get to the gulf and be on station off-coast immediately after the hurricane had passed? Why weren't the truckloads of food and water already pre-positioned to get in there and get supplies in to those people? Why did NONE of that arrive until FOUR days AFTER the hurricane? By that point a WEEK after they knew it was needed? Yes, there were failures at the local and state level as well, but FEMA and the feds completely screwed the pooch on this one, big time.

-Arlos

[Langston]

Arlos - you would have to also include the following statement BEFORE all of your other statements:

Why didn't the government foresee the failed levees before the storm?

If the levees hadn't failed, the city would have taken damage, but not nearly to the degree it eventually did.

All of you are Monday armchair quarterbacks. It's really easy to say that someone should have planned for "it" when you're looking back on whatever "it" was days afterwards.

[DESX]

you want our Mardi Gras,

Dirtiest festival in fucking existence beer bottles all over the fucking streets , dirty diapers and shit everywhere you see, a homeless person sleeping on the street on every damn corner, shitload of fucking rednecks wasted trying to re-enact shit from nascar in their damn pickups, drunk college dumbass's in every fucking direction you see.

[mofish]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/times. ... index.html

The Times-Picayune of New Orleans

An open letter to the President
Dear Mr. President:

We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we're going to make it right."

Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.

Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It's accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.

How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.

Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.

Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.

We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame.

Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don't know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city's death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.

It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren't they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn't suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?

State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn't have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn't known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."

Lies don't get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You're doing a heck of a job."

That's unbelievable.

There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.

We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We're no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.

No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn't be reached.

Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.

When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

[Arlos]

Arlos - you would have to also include the following statement BEFORE all of your other statements:

Why didn't the government foresee the failed levees before the storm?

That's exactly the point. Scientists, among others, had been saying for YEARS that the levees wouldn't hold up to a truly major storm. There was a major article series in the New Orleans paper about that very issue. It was VERY well known that a storm of that magnitude would destroy the levees. Hell, National Geographic, a year before the storm, had a projection of a Cat4+ hurricane hitting New Orleans with results almost identical to what DID happen.

Now, take all that, and compare it to what Chertoff has PUBLICLY said: That the levees going was a complete surprise. That no one knew that anything this bad could happen. etc. etc. etc. Either he's staggeringly incompetant, or he's flat-out lying, because people DID know, and for years. Hell, read the comments from the head of the disaster agency under Clinton, they had plans in place for at least dealing with the aftermath of a storm of this magnitude, and the plans included sending out hospital ships and ships with major water pumping capability to follow the storm, so that they could be off the coast immediately after the storm passed, to handle evacuees, and to help drying the city out. What happened to those plans? Why did the Bush-era FEMA and Homeland Security not send out ANY hospital ships until this past FRIDAY, literally a week after the National Weather Center forecast the storm hitting New Orleans. Even if the levees didn't go, hospital ships would have saved lives.

Also, how could the FEMA head AND Chertoff NOT know about the people dying of starvation and lack of water at the convention center? The rest of the america watching the news had known about them for 24 hours before those 2 said they learned of it. Again, either we're dealing with monumental levels of incompetance or flat-out lies.

-Arlos

[Kramer]

i don't know people's ages on this board, but it does seem that the most vocal and arrogant people tend to be or at least sound like they are tenny boppers or in their early twenties... i don't know if it is a matter of actually having everything you have taken away or living enough life to where you can at least come close to empathizing with thousands of people who have had their lives devastated.... these people were victims. Victims of possibly the worst natural disaster in our history.... and to blame them is kind of like blaming the girl for wearing revealing clothing after she got raped...

[Captain Insano]

Oh, you mean the aid that came SIX FUCKING DAYS AFTER THE STORM?

Hey yah great article and post cockschnauzer...


First New Orleans WAS somewhat important at some time... Hey thats fucking great. But I bet Hitler was probably a pretty nice guy in his teens before he became a fanatical dictator...

What New Orleans once was means absolutely jack and shit.

For about the last 15 years it has been nothing more than a fucking rotten, drug ridden, crime infested cesspool.

The few weeks a year that they have Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest and Faggot fest/decadence don't make up for the millions of dollars pissed away on the native population of lazy worthless black people who soak up government aid and commit crime like it's a fucking national past time.

I am glad the nation's response was slow. I don't think the majority of the people in New Orleans deserve much of anything. It's not like they have contributed shit to this country in years. To top it all off when help finally arrived they were met with gun fire.

In my opinion Hurricane Katrina, which by the way I have reclassified as Hurricane Niggerific has really allowed the black population of this country to show their true ashy asses on national TV in front of god and everyone.

I think it's safe to say that God, G.W. Bush and Hurricane's have declared war on hip hop.

[mofish]

Hey dont you have some rims to go polish, and some marines to train in hand to hand combat, and some asian hookers to get crabs from?

[Jeddas]

Whos sayin' Hitler wasnt nice?

[Martrae]

Federal assistance in place by Tuesday afternoon:

FEMA deployed 23 Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, seven search and rescue task forces, and several hundred tons of supplies for stricken residents.

Department of Transportation had 390 trucks full of millions of MRE’s, millions of gallons of water, millions of pounds of ice, as well as millions of pounds of other disaster supplies.

The Coast Guard had 30 ships and 40 aircraft carrying out operations the minute that Katrina’s fury had passed.

There were 4,000 National Guardsmen assembled and deployed in Louisiana alone.

This doesn’t include assistance mobilized from other agencies such as the Department of Agriculture, Department of Labor, Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Defense and government coordination with the American Red Cross. And most of those listed assets were in place before Katrina even hit.


Yup...looks like they did nothing...

[xaoshaen]

Some of the complaints are getting downright ludicrous as people swallow Mayor Nagin's attempt to shift blame hook, line, and sinker. So far, I've heard all of the following multiple times:

- Bush should have mobilized the National Guard.

- The Army should have been deployed to enforce discipline in the lawless sections.

- The National Guard should have been on site sooner.

- The mayor declared martial law, so federal forces should have intervened.

- Bush slashed the Louisiana budget for civil improvements.

I mean, who cares about little things like laws or the Constitution in a time of crisis? Most of the people slamming the Federal response really should have taken a high school civics class. The logistic realities of the situation seem to have utterly escaped people's grasp: an interstate convoy is going to take three to four days to arrive, even in good conditions. You can't change the mathematics simply because people are suffering.

[Vincenti]

What New Orleans once was means absolutely jack and shit.

For about the last 15 years it has been nothing more than a fucking rotten, drug ridden, crime infested cesspool.

So is half of your beloved state of Californication. L.A. has a much higher crime rate, your population are all either liberal whackjobs, talentless hacks, or illegal alien gangmembers doing drivebys on other illegal alien gangmemebers talentless hacks or liberal whackjobs. What has the state of California produed in the last 10 years that is of any value?

So when Cali falls off into the Pacific Ocean becuase of an earth quake we will be sure to spit your sentiments back at you..."YOU ARE ALL LIVING ON A FAULTLINE YOU DUMBASSES SHOULD HAVE MOVED AGES AGO! WE AREN'T GOING TO PAY TYO HELP YOU AND YOU CAN FORGET ANY SORT OF AID FOR ABOUT 6 DAYS UNTIL MOST OF YOUR INJURED HAVE DIED" It's easier to get corpses out than people anyways, all a corpse needs is a 6 foot deep hole, a live person needs food shelter and care

fuck off!

[Martrae]

I'd say that about Cali.

[Tacks]

lol Cali is no better or no worse