Re: the leases. How many years are left on the existing leases, Slate? Do you know?

As for Bush, what he said is bothersome. He said 35% of NEW oil leases, but he’s held the line on all the OLD oil leases that have pulled fuel out of the Gulf and contributed only minimally (compared to Texas and Florida) to Louisiana’s coffers. It was one of those well written sentences that sounds like one thing, but means something else.

blueshead
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Post 1

I read this poem today as I looked upon my ruined city. I cried for the first time in years..

La Nouvelle-Orleans Apres L’Orage

The cathedral bells’ untimely toll is awkward,
Giving me a headache.
It is my first time hearing it from home.
The streets are too quiet, no longer flashing hypnotic lights
And beckoning with its rum-soaked, flirtatious breath.
Even the horns of men who made cocktails out of rhythm
And drugs now lay rusted on my doorstep,
Their notes a mere gargle.

What happened to the Creole and Cajun aromas
From mawmaw’s kitchen, that loved to shake their hips
And wave their handkerchiefs in the wind?
And the hail of Greek gods that drank from the goblet
Of lust, and threw coins onto the heads of babies?
And the fairy dust-like potions from voodoo priest
That kept us all in an unsatiated worship of black and gold?

The crows are grey now, and caw in a listless perch
On great oaks that gasp to retell Noah’s tale.
The grass once green and fat with greed in the humid air
Now brittle, and petrified by the moment’s sudden enrapture.
But there beneath lies mudbugs and slave bones,
And the syncopated music of motherlands
Beating their congos and timbales, massaging the earth
With their festive feet and ash-crossed foreheads.
Tunneling their way in song to the surface.

Tarnished beaded medallions hang from the wires above,
Grasping back at the past, trying to restore its antique luster.
And the stench of soiled pants and molded treasures attract flies
That feed on the bland gumbo of a decaying culture.

Today my forbidden lover has drunk Juliet’s liquor,
Lying pale and breathless as we mourn her death.

But tomorrow we will place cayenne on her lips
And she will awaken refreshed, hungry, and ready to dance.

[Trenise Robinson]

“Mr. Bush acknowledged that, for some, rebuilding may have been so gradual as to seem non-existent. But, Mr. Bush said: “For a fellow who was here and now a year later comes back, things have changed.””

C’mon “Mr. President” — Is that all you can stomach - one visit a year??????

You disgust me.