But while you're visiting Revolution 21's Blog for the People, I beg you to read this and this -- a pair of entries far more consequential than anything I might have to say about someone so petty and, ultimately, unimportant as the TV Lady. Until and unless the TV Lady comes to love Jesus more than she hates whitey, there's not much that can be done for her.
LIKEWISE, until and unless all those in New Orleans like the TV Lady get a clue and get some perspective -- and this goes double for all those who use the TV Lady as cover for hating the poor, African-Americans or both -- there isn't much hope for a beautiful and once-great city. In that case, history will take care of them all. And all our outrage and witty takedowns of ungrateful morons really won't change anything and, thus, are unimportant.
In the grand scheme of things, for each one of us and for the good society we wish to build, what's important is this. And this.
We need to encourage young men and women to be like what I write about here. And here.
And we must mourn when the good die young. What once were important pieces of our hope suddenly aren't there anymore.
While cutting loose on scoundrels like the TV Lady can be important and instructive, cursing the darkness isn't nearly so important as lighting candles. Before you read my post about the TV Lady, I beg you . . . go here. And here.
Help people -- especially young people of every color, gender, class and ethnicity -- become good men and good women. Celebrate them.
And, as I do now, weep bitter tears when we lose them. God bless you, and merry Christmas.
This is rich. The public-housing Don Quixotistas down in New Orleans are chaining themselves to buildings scheduled for demolition and blockading federal offices to keep The Man from tearing down any more housing projects.
THEY CITE the need for affordable low-income housing post-Katrina but, the thing is, hundreds of rehabbed public units are going begging for tenants, according to local housing authorities. And the poverty petri dishes scheduled to come down got that kiss of death long before New Orleans got swamped.
From The Times-Picayune:
SO WHAT GIVES? Apart, of course, from the existential angst of spoiled white kids for whom wearing Che Guevara T-shirts is not enough.As housing activists continued to protest the proposed demolition of four public housing complexes, federal housing officials provided new details Tuesday about hundreds of public housing units available across New Orleans, with dozens of units ready for occupants in the B.W. Cooper, the former Desire and the Guste developments.
Housing officials said hundreds of private apartments where disaster or Section 8 vouchers can be used are also available to help meet the needs of displaced public housing residents, both in the short and long term.
Meanwhile, activists staged a protest on the steps of City Hall, saying procedural snags, as well as extra costs for utilities and security deposits, put those options out of reach for many poor people. Furthermore, some alleged "slum" conditions at those properties, and they have said they don't trust housing officials to make good on promises of mixed-income redevelopments that will welcome the poor.
Federal Department of Housing and Development officials said the local public housing supply outstrips demand. Currently, 1,762 public housing units are occupied and nearly 300 are available or within weeks of being ready at eight Housing Authority of New Orleans complexes and at scattered housing authority sites.
Another 802 public housing units across the city are being repaired and will be put to use in the coming year, housing officials said.
(snip)
If the council approves demolition, mixed-income developments would open at the St. Bernard, B.W. Cooper, C.J. Peete and Lafitte sites within months. In addition to the total of 900 public housing units, the three complexes would include 900 market-rate rental units and 900 homes for sale at the four long-standing public housing sites, according to current proposals. Many of the homes for sale would be reserved for first-time home buyers, with financial subsidies designed to allow former public housing families to become property owners.But the target of 3,343 public housing units in New Orleans is a flashpoint because it represents a drop of about one-third from the 5,100 units occupied before Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
As the city repopulates, housing officials say, other demands for housing can be met through use of vouchers that can be used for private apartments, the quality of which is in dispute. HANO officials say they inspect private units, more than 500 of which are listed on the housing authority's Web site, but activists say poor conditions in many units deter renters.
Beats me. It must be a New Orleans thang. Poor folks up here in Omaha want the projects gone.
Then again, maybe the core of lifelong public-housing tenants the Don Quixotistas seem to be advocating for have developed a taste for dungheaps, and they demand to live in dungheaps in the old 'hood, and they further demand that taxpayers pay for them to live in dungheaps in the old 'hood.
Or else.
If this woman interviewed in the Picayune is any indication, affordable housing is not the biggest problem here:
THESE ACTIVISTS ARE NUTS. See the picture above this post? Sharon Jasper sitting in her "slum house."Sharon Jasper, a former St. Bernard complex resident presented by activists Tuesday as a victim of changing public housing policies, took a moment before the start of the City Hall protest to complain about her subsidized private apartment, which she called a "slum." A HANO voucher covers her rent on a unit in an old Faubourg St. John home, but she said she faced several hundred dollars in deposit charges and now faces a steep utility bill.
"I'm tired of the slum landlords, and I'm tired of the slum houses," she said.
Pointing across the street to an encampment of homeless people at Duncan Plaza, Jasper said, "I might do better out here with one of these tents."
Jasper, who later allowed a photographer to tour the subsidized apartment, also complained about missing window screens, a slow leak in a sink, a warped back door and a few other details of a residence that otherwise appeared to have been recently renovated.
At the City Hall protest, a crowd of people railed against "privatization and gentrification of the city," saying it would be a mistake to raze well-built public housing at a time when so many people need affordable housing. One of their leaders, Loyola University law professor Bill Quigley, said it's appropriate that advocates for the poor from across the country have gathered in New Orleans to help fight the demolitions.
"This is a national scandal," he said.
With her 60-inch, high-definition TV.
I think that apartment looks pretty good. I wish my house looked that good. I wish I had a 60-inch HDTV, too.
This is a picture of a TV just like the one we have in our living room, a 1974 Sony KV-1203:
I MUST ADMIT, this is our small television. The "big" television in the basement family room is a 1984 Sony 19-inch stereo model. We were so proud that we had the scratch to buy such a nice TV back in the day.
Maybe we ought to have demanded that the citizens of Springfield, Mo., (where we lived then) just buy a fuggin' Sony stereo television for us. And pay for our apartment -- which was NOT as nice as Sharon Jasper's -- while they were at it.
I'll tell you what. If the "slum lady" really thinks she'd be better off living in a van down by the river -- or in a tent across from City Hall . . . whatever -- don't let your slum apartment's warped door hit you in the ass as you hightail it to Nirvana.
And I'll take your "slum house." I'll even fix the faucet and hang a new door.
ALL I NEED is for somebody in New Orleans to hire me and my mad language and radio-production skillz for a fair wage -- enough to make rent, eat food and pay my bills.
Oh . . . while I'm thinking of it, Sharon, could you leave the big-ass TV for the wife and me? I mean, after all, there ain't no electricity down there at the homeless encampment.
You wouldn't even be able to watch your stories.