Now that five years has passed since Hurricane Katrina wrecked the Gulf Coast, and especially New Orleans, people are starting to ask “where has all the money gone?”
The federal government has been castigated for not doing enough to help New Orleans, but the facts don’t seem to bear that out. The federal government — that’s you and yours truly, folks — has pumped close to $200 billion into trying to bring the Gulf Coast back. And that doesn’t include what the insurance companies spent.
In New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers is spending billions on huge pumps, trying to prevent another flood disaster should another Katrina come along. More billions are being spent to fix up housing. And still more billions are going toward replacing worn out infrastructure.
But when did it become the nation’s responsibility to rebuild New Orleans, to turn it into a safe and secure city?
New Orleans was a basket case even before the hurricane. Its municipal services were among the least competent in America. Its police department was among the most corrupt. A simple thing like a title search on many of the properties that were destroyed was almost impossible.
To make all that worse, much of New Orleans sits below sea level behind huge dikes. It is webbed by canals that flooded when Katrina came along, and that likely will fail again if another big storm hits. It seems insane not to move the city to higher ground and turn the low-lying areas into parks and docks.
We see pictures of the French Quarter area of bars, restaurants and tourist traps, and are told that fabled neighborhood has come back. And if it has, that’s good.
But beyond the French Quarter, much of New Orleans is a place you don’t want to be at night, or even in daylight.
I wish the citizens of New Orleans no ill, but if another Katrina hits, I hope that as a taxpayer I don’t have to shell out once more to rebuild a city that may not be worth rebuilding unless it’s relocated to higher ground.
After watching the news last week about the graffiti in Fresno, it reminded me of how little graffiti we have in Madera now. I am not a “letter to the editor” person, but this is such a big deal, I could not resist the nagging feeling that we as a city have accomplished a very large task and should all be told about it.
Let’s call it the “Yes We Can” story!
A few years ago, a man named Manuel Ruiz was hired by the Madera Redevelopment Agency as code enforcement officer, and the graffiti program was placed in his area of responsibility. The city had a crew that daily went out to remove graffiti. On a good month, the crew maybe stayed even with the taggers. Maybe.
Then, Manuel hired Tim and Christina. And my, how things have changed! This is where my story takes shape. Let’s call Manuel, Tim and Christina the GAC (Graffiti Abatement Crew).
With the help of a consultant hired by the city, they realized it would take a bigger crew to do the job. The trio began to build the crew. The key, folks, turned out to be you, me and anybody else who cared enough to join in.
Guess what? Today, more than 800 citizens are involved. The GAC asked the citizens to chip in. They held meetings, formed teams, have captains. Today, you are hard pressed to spot the graffiti. Oh yes, there is still graffiti here and there, but not like it was before. In essence, people, you are the ones who have defeated the taggers. They know now that if they are caught, they are punished. Not a slap-on-the-wrist punishment, thanks to the efforts of the police, the District Attorney’s Office and the courts.
This whole plan evolved because of you. It’s not too late to get involved. Graffiti is not a one-time thing, it’s ongoing. But you have shown everyone, everywhere it can be done. So all you people who are a part of the 800, stand up, be proud and let out a big hooray!
I am proud of us, and you should be, too. If this has inspired you to join in, simply call Manuel, Tim or Christina at 661-5110.
I have signed my name because I live by an oath of truth. This is not intended to be political. Trust me, this is a true happening of the graffiti program.
For the past few months, I’ve been using Pepsodent toothpaste after spotting it at the drug store for 99 cents a tube. Want to know something? It’s great tasting, and it works fine.
My grandfather, who was a dentist, once told me in answer to a question that the best toothpaste was “elbow grease.” I replied, in my best 7-year-old voice, “I like Pepsodent.”
Other brands of toothpaste cost much more than Pepsodent, some more than $5 a tube. I have tried them, and they pale before Pepsodent. Here’s hoping Pepsodent’s makers, Church & Dwight Co., Inc., don’t do anything to change it. The company also makes other brands of toothpaste — Arm & Hammer, Close-Up, Mentadent and Aim. Those other toothpastes aren’t too bad. I’ve tried them all. But compared to Pepsodent they just don’t do the trick for me.
For a few years, I used tooth powder, but you don’t see much of it around any more. I even used baking soda after reading that it was just as good as toothpaste, if not better. Well, I’ll tell you this: If you haven’t tried brushing your teeth with baking soda, don’t waste your time. It’s awful.
I think there might be too many brands of toothpaste. Choosing a toothpaste in the drug or grocery store can take a lot of time. Just looking at all the brands on display can make you forget what you have in your bathroom cupboard right now.
About four months ago, before my happy rediscovery of Pepsodent, I picked up a tube of Colgate and took it home. However, once I opened the box, took out the tube and tasted it, I could tell something wasn’t right. And I was right. It wasn’t just Colgate toothpaste, but Colgate with something in it to make your teeth look whiter than Styrofoam cups. And it tasted like Styrofoam, too. At first, I thought I’d have to use it all. Who throws away a perfectly good tube of toothpaste? But then, I saw Pepsodent in the store, and life was good again.
Tired of hearing about Pepsodent? Some day, I’ll tell you about Ipana, the second-best toothpaste.
We at the Madera Islamic Center would like to thank you for the articles you have been running about Muslims in general and the mosque at Ground Zero. These articles may serve as enlightening information to people in Madera. This week, someone left a sign in front of the Center that read, “No temple for the terrorists on Ground Zero.”
Whoever left that sign committed a terrorist act themselves. He or she should have the courtesy to come in person and state their opinion and perhaps we could have a discussion of the pros and cons.
Most of our community think the plan for a mosque at Ground Zero should be changed to another location since it is becoming a huge issue and many Americans do not want it there. It is too bad that the politicians have gotten involved, especially since we are coming up on an election.
Hopefully, they will move on to other things and not create a great division on the subject.
We are proud of our city of Madera and thank you again for your good work.
I stayed at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. a few times in past decades attending conferences — always on the boss’s nickel. I was sad to learn in 2006 that it was being torn down. Now, I am absolutely buffaloed to find out a new school has been built where the hotel once was — the most expensively built school in America.
It cost $578 million, and will house 4,200 students, from kindergarten through grade 12.
If I were a voter in the Los Angeles Unified School District, I would never, never, never vote for another school bond issue. These bozos running the L.A. schools have shown once again they have no shame. A few years ago, you may remember, that same group of head-scratchers built the $238 million Belmont Learning Center, and then had to spend another $100 million tearing it down. Turns out somebody discovered the land on which it was built was a toxic site.
The original budget for construction of the nation’s most expensive public school was a mere $270 million. The school bosses managed to more than double that.
The Los Angelinos ought to come to Madera and learn a thing or two. Here, the district brought their new schools in on time and on budget — and they are nice schools.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Unified School District, like many others, is having to lay off thousands of teachers, so one wonders who will teach the students once this new school opens its doors.
Despite being an outrageous travesty, this school has soaked up money that can’t be spent on other needed Los Angeles Schools. So, here is what will happen: Before long, the district will go begging the voters for more money for more schools.
No doubt this school — which has been named the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools — is a beautiful building. According to The Associated Press, it includes fine art murals and a marble memorial depicting the complex’s namesake. Kennedy, we remember, was assassinated at the Ambassador in 1968.
Meanwhile, the dropout rate in the Los Angeles district is 50 percent.
How do the people of Los Angeles put up with this?
Mrs. Doud and I both think autumn is almost here, even though by the calendar fall is still a month away. The way we know is that the cat is starting to fluff out and put on her winter coat.
It’s a little like when you go to the big city, and while walking around the stores you notice the better-dressed women are consulting salespeople about fall fashions. Who better than clothes-buying city women to predict weather change? Well, there’s the cat.
The cat hasn’t been well dressed at all this summer. All she has done is shed. The garage, which doubles as her house, is carpeted wall to wall with cat hair. There’s barely room for the cars. I sometimes go out with a vacuum and clean it up a little, and for a day or two it looks pretty good. Then it carpets up again.
One day I went after the loose cat hair with a yard blower. About all that happened was that the cat hair on one side went over to the other side, and vice versa. It took about an hour for all the floating cat hair to settle down, and it took the rest of the day before the cat came back. When the blower started, she bolted about three blocks down the street. When she returned, she first peeked around the corner of the garage door to see whether that monster had left.
But she has stopped shedding, almost suddenly. Instead of looking mangy and decrepit, she now is sleek, combed and clean, almost like one of those cats in cat-food commercials.
By the way, have you noticed how those cat-food-commercial cats always look sleek and thin? It’s no wonder you see them dive into a bowl of cat food when they get the cue. I think they’re starved. And then they have cat barbers trim them up.
When I see those cats eating, I think to myself that if I fed our cat some of that cat food she might stop looking like a duffle bag with four little legs. But that never works. She just chunks up more. Pretty soon, we’ll have to start moving her around with a forklift.
It is disturbing to read that the front in the Mexican drug war has moved to Monterrey, one of Mexico’s most beautiful and most prosperous cities. The people of Monterrey are well-educated and productive, and the city is well planned and well-governed. Or, at least it was.
Now, local business leaders are putting full-page ads in newspapers, pleading with President Felipe Calderon to send troops to defend the city against drug violence.
The Associated Press reports that the mayor of Santiago, a suburb of Monterrey, was kidnapped and murdered by drug thugs disguised as police. The AP says Santiago has been a favorite getaway for residents of Monterrey, but that is no longer the case.
The Wall Street Journal reports that drug gangs are regularly using tractor-trailer trucks to block arterials in Monterrey, making it harder for police and fire trucks to respond to calls for help. A grenade was thrown at a television station.
If President Calderon reads the ad from the burghers of Monterrey, there will be little he can do to respond. Mexico’s armed forces already are stretched beyond their breaking points.
And the drug gangs keep expanding their wars against one another and the country’s public safety establishment, fueled by a constant flow of drug money, much of it from the United States.
Those same drug gangs are drifting north. We’re already dealing with their outliers here in Madera County. The 45,000-plant marijuana grow discovered this week north of Madera was just one example of Mexican drug gangs at work here. Had that marijuana been sold, much of the millions of dollars it would have fetched likely would have ended up in Mexican drug lords’ hands, either as cash or guns.
The United States pretends it isn’t in this war, but it is. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger just sent 250 National Guard troops to help protect the border. Before long, we will need 100 times that many.
All comments are edited for length and content. Because of content or space limitations, some comments may not be published. More than one comment from the same person during the same week will normally not be published. Please limit calls to two minutes or less.
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A woman (name given) called to ask “if you could come out tomorrow to St. Joachim Church. We’re having our kids’ second day camp and wondered if you could do a report on that.” The same lady called the next day to ask the same question and “wanted to know if a reporter could come out and take pictures.”
Another woman said, “On Monday I took my son over to St. Joachim Church for day camp. It was very nice. My only complaint was the people doing the registration didn’t speak any English. None of them. Everyone was speaking in Spanish. We need to understand that English is the language here. I don’t know if I’ll take my son next year unless they have English-speaking people.” (Editor’s note: The Tribune’s photographer, who speaks no Spanish, had no difficulty speaking in English with those she saw at the day camp, both leaders and participants, when she took photographs there.)
“A letter (to the editor) in Wednesday’s (Aug. 11) paper was titled Tribune should watch your mistakes,” said a man. “Well, you didn’t that day. The poor relatives who read their loved ones’ obituaries that morning must have been really disappointed when the names came out with letters missing. You couldn’t even understand the name of the person who had passed.”
“I was really disappointed in the photos used in the concert article,” said a lady. “They were taken by Ramona Frances, who came late to this event, while Leon Emo was there well before 5 p.m. He took several pictures of Susan and Andrea Venturi, Chuck DaFina, the crowd and the barbecue that would have been far more fitting to honor the tribute to Mr. Jerry Venturi.”
A woman said, “I’d like to apply for a job as a proofreader because you obviously need one. Saturday (Aug. 14), the front page has three different pictures with the same caption under the same one. I’m ready to start today. Come on guys.”
A lady suggested, “Let’s have a contest among readers. And, at the end of the week, give a prize to the one that found the most errors in the Tribune.”
A woman “suggested if you have complaints or issues with the Brown Bag program or the commodity program, please direct them to the Madera Community Food Bank in writing. Your phone calls will fall on deaf ears. The Pan-Am Center is a distribution site of these programs only. They do not manage them. I, for one, find it unacceptable that the seniors in our community are shown such lack of compassion and consideration. It’s called communication, people, and the Tribune will post it free.”
A lady called “in regards to Memorial Stadium where Madera High and Madera South play. It came to my understanding recently that people are using it as a playground and party area. They bring their children. They lift the covers on the long jump pits to play in the sand. They leave dirty diapers and leave debris on the field. They are ruining this field they just put in a few years ago.
“We’ve been wanting to install an extension to the fence to make it 12-feet high so people couldn’t help themselves over the fence. They are destroying the field.”
A woman responded to last week’s caller who “complained about the Indians taking the land they say belongs to them.” This caller said, “The whole cotton-picking Valley belong to them because the white man stole it away from them. Any part they can say is theirs.”
A man saw “another ad for the tire amnesty (program) in the paper. I’ve lived here five years and seen this ad many times. Living in Southern California (previously) I had never heard of tire amnesty. I guess you keep the tires off your old car and save the $2.50 recycling fee. Why would I want to keep four smelly tires around waiting for this amnesty? Maybe it’s geared toward the farming community. It just doesn’t make since. I just don’t get it. I’m confused.”
A woman called about our daily photo of “Madera County at work. I think you’ve missed a very important citizen of Madera County.” She gave the person’s name and said “she works for Dr. Mohammed Ahsraf. She’s worked there for at least 30 years. She’s been an asset to every patient that’s been there and the doctor.” She hoped the paper “would consider the person and feature her in Madera County at work.”
Thank you to Sam (Pistoresi),” said a woman. “He wrote the article (actually a letter to the editor) about the illegal aliens. Just keep it coming Sam. We all have to stand up for Arizona and do something about the illegals.”
Another caller had a similar comment. “I hope they suspend the welfare because they (illegal immigrants) are having babies, then collecting welfare and taking away from the people who really need it.”
Another lady said, “great letter in the Tribune from Katherine Atilano for her letter to the editor about her support of Proposition 8. She is correct. It is not God’s will to have same-sex couples united in marriage. I am so tired of this thing being pushed down our throats.”
“Unbelievable, only in America,” said a woman. “You have Mexicans that carry Mexican (Spanish rather) signs and speak no English protesting against a rock quarry. Cannot believe it. Out in front of the Government Center with a bunch of kids running into Fourth Street forcing cars to slam on their brakes. Only in America is the language English. You don’t protest unless it’s in English. You have no right because you’re probably not legal.”
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Thank you for your calls. Remember, the Red Line is open for your messages 24 hours a day by calling 674-4478 or by visiting maderatribuneredline.com on the Internet.
When I was a kid in grade school, one threat under which my fellow students and I lived was “the permanent record.” If one committed an infraction of the rules, such as talking in class or shooting spitwads, the teacher who caught us would say, “This is going on your permanent record.”
None of us knew what the permanent record actually was. We assumed there was a big book somewhere in the school in which the teachers would write down our sins. We had been assured in Sunday school, after all, that God had just such a book for His own records, and that every time we were not good boys and girls, notes of our infringements on propriety were made in permanent ink. I still believe that, actually. Someone has to be keeping a record somewhere, or a lot of guilt will be going to waste. Anyway, it just made sense that such a record was kept at school, too.
And it may have been, but as far as I know, it never followed me around. And I’m glad of that.
But the young generation of today is facing a bigger challenge, because it is creating its own permanent records. It seems that all the junk people are either putting on their own social media pages, such as Facebook, or putting on the pages of others, is unlikely ever to be erased. A photo of yourself naked drinking beer from a large funnel, for example, will be there when you are looking for your first job, and if your prospective employer looks you up, your job chances could turn to toast.
However, salvation may be offered in the future, says Eric Schmidt, the chief executive officer of Google. He told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that future technology may provide an opportunity for anyone to change one’s name and become an entire new person, as far as the Internet is concerned.
That may not be as weird as it seems. In the virtual world, virtual people would be as likely a population as anyone else.
But the permanent record still would be there, and I wouldn’t be any more comfortable with that thought than I was in grade school.
