Land of the blue tarps

I'm over in New Orleans today, working in a client's office while
a well is drilled offshore somewhere. I didn't go into town yet,
I stayed out here in the burb's and from this office it looks like
every third house has a blue tarp covering the roof. This area
just had normal streetflooding that results when the pumps
aren't turned on due to the workmen being evacuated, not due
to a levee breach. But it does look like a mild war swept through
the area.

All of metairie seems to be bustling, help wanted signs are
everywhere and every other vehicle seems to be full of mexican
roofers. On the other hand, tonight I can look out through the
darkness outside this office, and through one window I can see
the thin ribbon of the causeway bridge stretching out to infinity,
through the other window I can see that the center of New Orleans
is ominously dark.

I can remember christmas' from my childhood, when the soaring
towers of downtown left their lights on in the shape of christmas
trees, or a cross. Now, all I can see of downtown from here are navigation
lights at the tops of the buildings.

Talk radio here in Louisiana had some interesting information,
an interview with the loser in the last governer's election Bobby Jindal,
who I last blogged about here. Then they interviewed someone from
the recall Kathleen Blanco committee, and their website is here.

It would be worth it for me to move back to louisiana just so I could
sign the petition.