When The Levees Broke..

Kate loaned me the Spike Lee boxset of DVDs about Hurricane Katrina. Oh my word! They should run them in the month before the elections lest anyone vote for another Republican president. The failure to care is the kind of thing that we would try people for if it were in an unstable fledgling democracy (that we didn't like).

It would be easy to say it was a one off failure. But the Republican Party stands for small government. They want less federal involvement in the life of the people. In the case of Louisiana that has meant that they are happy to keep oil revenues but won't invest in the locality. There has been a woeful lack of investment over many years. The very basis of what Republicanism is about means that will continue.

I hope that America remembers. I hope the election doesn't get consumed in personality. For surely the nation cannot continue under the leadership of people who so believe in states' rights that they will leave poor Americans to die.

Comments

Who will rid me of this meddlesome...

... piano? It occurred to me yesterday as i nursed ANOTHER bruise on my arm.. that I have had a piano sat in my hallway for 2 months! It seemed like such a good idea at the time but apparently is not... its stuck there and everytime I walk down my hall I have to squeeze past the darn thing- often not successfully! A number of options lie before me: -chop the thing into several hundred pieces -find lots of people who want to move it.. to where I'm not sure -sell it -give it away -pray it away It goes next weekend.. even if it kills me... which it might.. hummm

Remembering What I Enjoy..

Occasionally I forget things. Some stuff like birthdays, names and stuff is a normal human thing, and I don't sweat it so much. But I also forget some other stuff which is not so good. I forget what I enjoy. I don't know how it happens but it does from time to time. And its at these moments that I need a bit of help remembering. So- this is a request for help. What do I enjoy doing? What gives me joy? Leave me a comment.

A Broadside: plot spoiler for Tory sympathisers

Today some alarming social equality data was released. It said what we all know: if you are poor, you have less opportunities in life. For every £100 a month less income than the median you start school one month behind developmentally. Your vocabulary aged 5 is half what it is for a rich kid if you are in the bottom ten percent of income. Housing tenure stats are even worse. "Only 4 per cent of those of working age living in social housing have degrees, and nearly half have no or only low qualifications. Only half of men and 42 per cent of women of working age living in social housing are in paid work, compared with 89 per cent of men and 81 per cent of women in households with a mortgage." Social housing: by its nature, is grouped (london people ignore this, you are the freaks not the norm). That means that we have allowed ghettoes of poverty and low attainment (not just in a SATS way either). Now it would be easy, and some daft Tory has already done it, to pin this on

Jude Smith

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