Thank you, Matt. Words are important. There is no word in the language that I can think of that is as accurate or as emotionally resonant as “refugees” to describe the plight of our fellow citizens. Perhaps the caucus fears it will increase an “us v. them” mentality, or play into Bush’s bizarre characterization of the Gulf as “that part of the world.” Unfortunately, many, if not most, of these people are refugees BECAUSE they have not been part of the “us” honored with lavish amounts of unearned money in this administration. The motto appears to be,”From them that hath not, much shall be taken.”

From a strictly technical perspective, I believe the word refugees HAS been used to describe homeless and dispossessed people in their own countries. In any case, language changes to meet the needs of its users, and if this is a change, it is appropriate.

Matt, with all due respect — I do not agree with using this word. I think, as Suzy writes above, it does create an “us vs. them” mentality — it makes them “others” — I’ve been saying “displaced Americans” — but my husband doesn’t think that sounds desperate enough.

In a technical sense — I don’t think these people are ever going back to New Orleans — I’ll bet they are absorbed into the communities that are accepting them. — So, in a couple of years would you say “refugees?”

I don’t know. I’m rambling. I don’t like the word. The masses already consider poor black people separate and different from them. I don’t think it should continue to be encouraged.

I’m with you Matt — refugee is apropriate. “Refugee” connotes desperation, and total that these people have experienced. It applies to everyone in New Orleans and everywhere else along the coast.

It’s very potent because I have never heard it used before to describe American citizens within our own borders.

When the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus steps up and says don’t call us refugees, we are citizens, I’m not inclined to argue the point. They are at ground zero, struggling to get help and shelter, and they are right. They have their reasons and it took but a moment’s reflection for me to realize their position and why the term refugee would foster a completely inappropriate view.

I ended my post on the matter thusly:

The word refugee elicits a visceral emotional response and images of uncaring tyrants who use their citizens for their own purposes while continuing to mistreat and/or otherwise endanger them. It’s a good word and a sadly appropriate one to describe the victims of Katrina & the Busheviks.

I try not to weigh in twice on the same issue, but…I began to remember (later than I should have) my American history, and gee, this is NOT the first time Americans have been/thought of/described as regugees in their own country. A Google search for : dust bowl refugees brought up over 42, 000 hits including the Woody Guthrie song (shame on me for forgetting) “I’m a dust bowl refugee.” blue girl, I appreciate your sensitivity, but I despise ceding the best words in the language to the trash can because someone may choose to interpret them the wrong way. “Refugee” is not a term of insult or disparagement, even if there are idiots who use it that way. (Indeed, there is no word free from misuse an an epithet, including “woman,” “liberal,” “Jewish” and “homosexual.”) There was no shame in being a dust bowl refugee; there is no shame in being a refugee from Katrina, and the word remains the single most accurate one to describe what has happened to people in this horrible disaster. There is unending shame to our government for having CAUSED a refugee crisis where one never needed to exist. To abandon this accurate and deeply resonant word is to abandon our best indictment of a criminally negligent administration. I am sorry if the term causes people in the LA legislative caucus pain, but I believe an accurate accounting of and redress for their terrible sufferings is of primary importance.

It seems as if the national boundaries of the US once again make any alienating label like “refugee” uncomfortable. What has struck me throughout this ordeal, are the ways in which a nation (deeply attached to its own superior wealth, power, and privilege) has been unable to fathom the readily apparent reality of uneven development and utter exploitation within its well-protected boundaries.

In fact, the refusal to acknowledge a refugee born and raised within the borders of America seems directly inline with a blind return to the innocent cries of “How could this happen to people from the richest nation in the world?!” Most fervent nationalists would pray that such a term would be reserved only for the extra-national, yet the fact is clear - we are all extra-national when the political machine, lubricated by the cancerous grease known as capitalism, begins to turn. Who is truly safe from the incompetence, greed, and utter corruption at work in that shell of a principle known as Washington?

Certainly not the poor and destitute, and their numbers are only growing these days - both inside and outside of our sacred borders …

Burn it down!

Well, my little brother is sure acting like a refugee - waiting near the scene to see if the authorities will let him in to rescue his cats and maybe salvage a few valuables and looking over his options for where to go next.

The objections to the term sound like the all-too-familiar attitude that we Americans are not like all those ferners. When have to flee the destruction of the place you live along with many others, you are a refugee. American or not - we may think the rules are different for us, but reality doesn’t care what we think. When those outside your community take you in because your community is unable to sustain people, you are a refugee. No shame in it, only spoiled rat-bastards think it reflects some personal shortcoming.

Mike, I agree with much of what you say, but the people in this comment thread who have objected to the term are not “spoiled rat-bastards.” Just the opposite, in fact. They are good people who have been doing a lot of amazing coverage of the Katrina aftermath. And they are trying to be sensitive to those affected by it.

TalkLeft has more on this issue of terminology.

Refugees

Of course the people fleeing the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina are “refugees,” and should be referred to as such. I don’t understand what all the fuss is all about … did anyone object after Sept. 11, 2001, when th…

From Scott McLellan’s press conference yesterday. Notice how they’ve been displaced and yet they are still somehow not displaced people, let alone refugees. And note also the impossibility that refugees or displaced people could be Americans. Perish the very thought. It’s imperative that we keep those two types of words as far away from each other as possible, apparently. This is the logic of tyranny. Anyway, here’s Scott:

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Terry, this is a time when we are focused on making sure we’re doing all we can to address the ongoing problems. The President is interested in solving problems. And we’re looking at a lot of ways that we can do that. I’m not getting into ruling options out. The President is considering a lot of ideas as we move forward to help the people who have been displaced.

As he said, these are not displaced people, these are not refugees, these are Americans. And we all have a responsibility to help, all of us at the federal, state and local level and all of us as Americans have a responsibility to help people in this difficult and trying time.

Not quite sure what’s going on. A storm of biblical proportions in the city that forgot to care. It’s as if all the warning signs were ignored. (Computer generated test drills…meteorologists…city planners… and maybe even Nostadamus) Did we need more warning or were we just tired of people crying wolf since 1969? If only WWL’s retired weatherman Nash Roberts had been on television with his map of the Louisiana Purchase and his fat undry unerasable markers! It would have made great television; but deep in my heart, I doubt we would have heeded the call.

Perhaps this is nature’s way of leveling the playing field? Or cosmic physics…a sort of action/reaction to global warming and mother nature’s response to that bush-whacked international energy treaty? For too long we as a nation assumed that refugees and catastrophes were the arena of the Third World only… that benefits were only for Bob Geldoff, George Harrison, and people far far away. And if the images got to be too painful, at least we could turn them off or hear some united nations of singers anthemize. NOT THIS TIME. As Sally Struthers might remind us: “feed the children” because now “it’s all in the family.” Not to sound too sarcastic, but I find it frustrating that some people are more worried about what to call my fellow evacuees than what to do for us. Is refugee too stinging? Is the term too painful? Is the reality too true? Odd that refugee nations (Afghanistan and Indonesia) and even one so called enemy (Cuba) –are among the twenty plus nations coming to our aid. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think? Don’t worry about what to call us… just help us!

An act of God? Yes… according to some, especially insurance adjusters~ indeed I know two Noahs from New Orleans. In the long run, I hope this will make us rethink our holier than thou attitude. With New Orleans being perhaps the largest Catholic city in the South, NO DOUBT this will probably be the biggest test of faith since the Portuguese tsumani and earthquake way back in 1755.

NOTE: that European storm was the end of an empire and the time for lots of questions. (see Voltaire”The Lisbon Disaster”)..Speaking of questions……shall we?

A failure of our government? Whose fault? Federal? State? Local? Policemen abandoning their posts… some commiting suiicide. Jefferson Parish Pres. Aaron Broussard and New Orleans Mayor Nagin losing it during interviews-CNN and the media only making matters worse by replaying the same horrible sound bites and images over and over again…even this morning Governor Blanco and George W. were acting like two middle schoolers not inviting each other to the Sadie Hawkins Day dance.No time for another press conference. No time to finger point… but an opportunity for reflection and change…recall that the Mississippi flood of 1927 fueled early Civil Rights and the Populist movement….where the hell is Huey P. when we need him?

As for myself, I may have lost job, home, property and family (my mom — a Siciclian American– Catherine aka Katrina died in the city last monday in an old folks home… just before the levees broke …her body left behind as the flood waters rose. she was 81 and deathly frightened of water)

LUCKILY… opportunities await in New York, Los Angeles, Baton Rouge…. and here in cyberspace.

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9/6/05–4pm…….. on the road en route back to new orleans

The debate continues…. refugee vs. evacuee. I say it’s po-tay-toe- po tah-toe all over again. Let’s just call the whole thing off. If we look at the etymology, a refugee is someone who “fugere” or flees. Face it, we fled. And those who didn’t should have. Evacuee comes from the Latin “evacuare” which means to “empty out.” Flee. Empty out.Gone pecan.Perhaps a better term would be castaway, especially since CNN just announced that our beloved Gilligan, Bob Denver, died this weekend at the ripe old age of seventy. He’s not bad company as I wander I suppose ~since the Minnow went on a three hour tour with enouigh clothes for 3 (?) seasons in B&W and color as well as 3 made-for-TV movies, including one with the Harlem Globetrotters…but I digress.

New Orleans- established 1718, sinking ever since -CNN

Perhaps I should stick with Noah and the biblical imagery instead as I venture back and forth from New Orleans to Atlanta and back again. 7 days and 7 nights, Not quite the Old Testament 40 + 40. In fact, not much rain at all. Indeed, the rain didn’t even last a day. Once it was over, it all seemed fine ~ emphasis on the seem. Then “the levee broke” in a spastic, toiletesque flush in a way not even fitting for a bad Led Zepplin cover band. Quickly the refuse-tainted water rose on a Stairway to Gilligan’s Isle.

Unfortunately, I did not NO-AH what I was in for. I did not have two of every species ready, willimg, and able to repopulate the earth ~ like Noah I had forgotten the unicorns and Napoleon’s mythical liger (skills will be very important in the coming days). As I sit here and take inventory of my flock, I realize that I’ve traveled 1000 miles with nine cats and a dog, all of whom are spayed and/or neutered. So much for the joy of repopulating. Curses on you, Bob Barker! Curses, oh S P C & A! Maybe Noah had procured a unicorn afterall, Things had just been fixed? Cruelty to animals indeed!

P.S. Gilligan…..we’ll miss you, lil buddy!

9/9/05 6:15 pm …
just got electricity in Covington… home in new orleans still underwater

This not your mama’s disaster film…..

The 70’s was the decade of the great disaster film: The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and Earthquake in Sens-r-round (just very poor sub woofers and lots of them). There was also the more exotic post apocalyptic genre which included The Planet of the Apes and its four sequels, A Boy and His Dog (featuring a very young ~or is that Jung ~Don Johnson), and Soylent Green (”it’s people!”) ~ a wild assortment which mixed racial, cultural, and sexual paranoia into a blender which makes for an interesting allnite film fest once the power is restored and the BETA tapes dry out. In reality none could have prepared me for the past two weeks. Although scary moments in ghost towns resembled out-takes from Omega Man and the mad dash for water, gas, and internet connectivity seemed to sting of Mel Gibson meets Kevin Costner in a gumbo of Mad Max in a murky Waterworld, it’s not really the end of the world- just a change in the world (perhaps for the better?).

Although the media seemed to thrive on the violence and yellow journalism (even Geraldo was in the thick of things), the good people of Georgia and Mississippi seemed to be cut from the same cloth as the good folks of Carter Country or Alice, not the eerie droids of Westworld or the hooligans of Clockwork Orange. Sure, tempers flared in gasoline lines or stuck in 3-mile-an-hour traffic jams, but the looters etc., were the exception, not the rule. AND, as we all know by now, the exceptions are what makes good television. AND when there’s no good television… what’s a network to do?

As the city gets drained and the bodies are counted, I hope we’re all disappointed with bad TV. Not as many body bags. Schools up and running by October 3rd in Jefferson and St. Tammany. And if we need a disaster film, there’s always NETFLIX (who incidentally is waiving my fees until I get resettled).

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9/15/05 1am… still in Covington aka GOD’s COUNTRY (location, location, location)

in·sur·ance: noun
1 a : the business of insuring persons or property b : coverage by contract whereby one party undertakes to indemnify or guarantee another against loss by a specified contingency or peril c : the sum for which something is insured
2 : a means of guaranteeing protection or safety

As of AM this morning, FEMA has unofficially “lost” my mom. Well two days ago they had her. Then they misplaced her. Now they deny they ever saw her. Is she really dead afterall? None of the coroners between New Orleans and Baton Rouge (including the fed’s tent city morgue in St.Gabriel) can verify if or when she has passed through their doors. Those who claimed to have seen the corpse are now missing as well. Fox News (ala’ X-Files) as well as The New York Times (ala’ The New York Times??) have expressed interest in this post-geriatric odyssey of sorts. More relatives et alii are concerned now that she’s passed than before she died. They’d all go visit, but noone has a clue where she is. Oh the humanity! Oh the humidity!

Good thing that we have been unable to find the alleged deceased…. because… to add insult to injury, the funeral home and cemetery in New Orleans are unable to “accommodate” her~ ironically her only insurance that was paid in full was her burial policy… she had no flood insurance or home owner’s, and her house is high and dry (unlike my own). Her funeral’s all paid for, BUT… even that is not guaranteed (see definitions above).

MEANWHILE, the Schoen Family (odd expression) of Funeral Homes can keep her housed temporarily at another location at an additional fee of $895 plus $100 a month rent on a tomb… this has ludicrous written all over it. I wonder if this might qualify for FEMA’s temporary housing stipend! Weekend at Bernies III perhaps?.

If I don’t try to laugh, I’ll be unable to cry myself to sleep. But the powers in charge reassure us…

“There will not be another mandatory evacuation unless Katrina’s little sister comes along and bitch slaps us”~ Aaron Broussard, Jefferson Parish President

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9/18/05 10:45pm… still in Covington but not in a WAL-MART

“The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs.”~ Wal-mart security guard on the looting of Garden District store

As we struggle through week three of Hurricane Katrina, I guess my own personal problem is that of patience….. Nagin and others are to be applauded for their persistence and diligence…BUT let us not be too hasty (nice use of the hortatory subjunctive???). PLEASE NOTE: Mexico City is still recovering from the of 1985, the Democrats are still recovering from 2000, and General Custer ….well he never recovered. ANYWAY, the point is that there are many preparations to be made. The water is contaminated, not that it was ever uncontaminated This was not your average storm recovery… those were not flood waters (despite what your insurance adjuster may tell you when you tell him you don’t have flood insurance). There are biohazard and disease problems~ no need for a punch line there. Just imagine the long term effects on soil and plant life. There is a an icing of goop and mold everywhere. The smell can not be washed off. If Lysol can make something that removes this STANK, I’ll buy it, endorse it, and sell it door to door (well where there still are doors that FEMA and the military didn’t kick down while looking for survivors, looters, and bears…oh my!).

MORE IMPORTANTLY, should we attempt to live in the city without the proper precautions? As of now, the city does not have proper medical and emergency services. PLUS~ there is a storm in the gulf. We don’t know what the levees can withstand. Some say a thunder storm could compromise them. Although I’m all for compromises in life, this is not one compromise I want to take part in. Should we risk a greater tragedy? (Euripides levees, Eumenides levees.)

I find it unfortunate that life in the rest of the US has gone on with a blind, or rather cataract, eye. The late night comics think comic relief is appropriate (I tend to agree, especially since neither L.A. nor NYC were affected~ OI VAY!). Just because we’re not the Big Apple, the Emmys go on this year though canceled for 911. We just can’t watch them here unless we have a satellite dish big enough to deflect the depressing local news broadcast beamed down from places no longer local.

How long must we look at debris, flooding, and the homeless? I suppose we must for a bit longer, especially since we’ve ignored them for too long. My fear is that the rest of the US is starting to move on without us or the other displaced (shhhh… better not say refugee unless you want Jesse Jackson or Tom Petty to give you a tongue lashing).

We are left behind…. like those darn country-and western CDs.

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9/23/05 Covington, LA … in the midst of Hurricane Rita and all that entails

You’re stuck on stupid! ~ General Honore
(when asked why the Rita evacuation plan had not been used for Katrina)

Sequels tend to be disappointing at best. The marketing plays on our fond memories of the original. The characters and plot, the thrills and spills, and the glimmer of what brought us to the first one the first time around: originality. With few exceptions the sequel is never as good as the original. Perhaps one or two of the James Bond films matched Dr. No. Some like Empire over Star Wars. The only sequel that exceeded its predecessor was Revenge of the Pink Panther~ let’s not even mention the ones with Alan Arkin, Roberto Benigni, or Steve Martin~ oops I did. But most sequelization just marched a slow (or fast) decline for the fans, the fun, and the franchise. Blair Witch 2? Rocky IV? And who knows what they were thinking when the shark followed the hero on vacation in Jaws 3D? Then again we could do the time warp end around and attempt to make prequels (Cassidy and Sundance: the Early Years. Dumber and Dumber, or even the last three, I mean first three, Star Wars flicks. While I’m in a lather, don’t even get me started on the latest Hollywood nonsense d’ jour, the remake!

Why do I bring this up? RITA, that’s why. It’s as if CNN and Mother Nature saw a chance to cash in the boon known as tragedy part II (heck, the gulf war part two didn’t seem to work…. perhaps the gulf hurricane part two might). We’ve got evacuations. flooding. and this time the government is “well prepared”—cut –take two (aspirin and call me in the morning)… This time… no in-fighting. This time… little or no death. This time it’s (im)personal. Oh my, my mind has drawn a Blanco…….

se·quel (’sE-kwel) from Latin sequella, sequi to follow
the next installment (as of a speech or story); especially : a literary or
cinematic work continuing the course of a story begun in a preceding one

I remember doing a gig in Houma, La., about 12 years ago at an interesting BBQ joint called Porky’s II, adorned with enough pig paraphernalia to both scare and flatter Mel Blanc and his stuttering alter ego. I enquired, “Are you called Porky’s because you serve ribs?”
“Nope!” replied the owner curtly. “It’s named after the movie.”
“And Porky’s I? Is that in Thibodeaux? Or Hammond?”
“Nope there’s only one restaurant?”
“So why Porky’s II?”
“The second one was a better movie!”

Now, tell me, dear hearts, who’s stuck on stupid?”

9/27/05 Covington, LA – a month gone by

“My biggest mistake was not recognizing… that Louisiana was dysfunctional.”
~Michael Brown, ex-FEMA director

A parent can say mean things about their kids. A boyfriend or girlfriend may talk trash about their significant other. We throw pots, pans, and “sleep single in a double wide.” We talk funny and slaughter the English language at every turn; but, even though we may call the muse Clio CL-10, nobody in their right dialect really talks that N’awlins goobley goo we all hear in The Big Easy. And, if we did, the locals would be in the movies instead of the Quaids and the Costners. (Always back to Waterworld, but at least that’s better than Ishtar. By the way, did I mention that I lost Kevin Costner’s bed from JFK in the flood?)
I’m not denying we have are faults and foibles. Sure, we’re ranked 49th in education despite the fact that Mississippi insists that we’re 53rd and some folks insist that there are only 48 states. Personally I think right now there are only two states: denial and disbelief. Furthermore, we have high unemployment. Then again who doesn’t? I just got my unemployment debit card in the mail today (insert Homeresque “woohoo” here – the Simpson Homer, not the poet Homer).
However, we have been number one before. Back in the 90’s New Orleans had murder rates that ranked among the highest. But now we can say with confidence that in the past month those numbers have gone down along with the city’s actual population – last weekend less than five hundred residents, many probably still at Johnny White’s in the Quarter. Likewise, within the past five years, our great city was called the “fattest city” in America (no wonder people survived without FEMA for so long… imagine a camel with a po-boy… I doubt FEMA is distributing MRE’s with red beans, gumbos, or turtle soup, although they do have those cute lil bottles of Tabasco.).
Many may consider us the butt of jokes in the form of the Saints and the politicians. I would agree these are often the topics of disappointment and humor. WE CAN call them the AINTS. WE CAN wear paper bags. However, we’re proud of our dysfunctional kids. Although many don’t know the history of the fleur de lis, this New Years we’ll all toast to the old saint syne. Rumor has it that there’s a new T-shirt for our San Antonio games that says “Remember the Superdome.” Let us remember indeed.
WE CAN mock our crooked politicians. Huey Long. Earl Long. Edwin Edwards. Why didn’t CNN or Geraldo interview him during the storm? Afterall, he is a bit more eloquent than Parish President Broussard. And at this point he’d probably get elected even from behind bars. Vote and vote often. My mom may have died in Katrina, but I’m sure she’ll be voting in Louisiana for many years to come. Guess what? I can make fun. She’s my momma. Are you talkin’ ‘bout my momma?
BUT , Mr. Brown, these are our children. This, Mr. Brown, is our city. We may be 49th in education, but we learn three things in English class: synonyms, antonyms, and HOW’S YOUR MOM AND DEMS. This Mr. Brown, may be a dysfunctional family. But it’s our family.