Today is another day;

Yesterday was the Durango Farmers Market, I'm the music coordinator, that's just a glorified title for grunt. I show up every Saturday at 7:00 am to set up the sound equipment and tent. I also do the bookings for the summer. There are quite a lot of talented musici8ans in the durango area that will paly at 8:00 am on a Saturday (unbelievable). Good show today. The musician for today couldn't make it so I covered for a while. A young man named Howard from Texas showed up and played for a while He wasn't too bad, sounded a little like John Mayer. A woman named Gigi Love played for a while she was very good.

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I've been a member of Dmuisic since 2003, I've always had a fond place for Dmusic and even have a link on my Homesite main page to DM. Recently I was spamed using the DMuisc emailing connection on my page. I expressed concern and found lackadaisical and uncaring attitudes about the matter. At times it even seemed as though it was my fault. Now I have a better idea of what it's like when a woman gets raped. I am offended by some of the attitudes and lack of concern for what I felt was a breech of my trust in Dmusic. yes it's true that I am in the public eye and should expect stuff like this but, I ran a test of the email link and found that even though it requests that you enter an email address the email was still delivered. People have proposed that only registered members should be able to email an artist or user from the contact link on DM. Why not? This suggestion is actually very valid and would protect the privacy of members to some degree and offenders could be banned. Well much to my chagrin the suggestions made by other long time DM'ers and myself have gone unacknowledged and even ignored, it would seem. I have hence, no other choice but to remove my music and information from DM. If any one even gives a rat's ass or if you are concerned about this problem please go to this forum string and keep it going with your concerns.
Here

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"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
James Madison

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Nothing for now

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Merry Christmas
and
A Happy New Year

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I was watching National Treasure the other night and was reminded of a section in the Declaration of Independence that many people tend to overlook. Whgat follows is a section of the Declaration with certain lines highlighted in red. These are very powerful words and perhaps the time has come to consider their meaning.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

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Two new songs added today, both are rough drafts of work in progress, I wrote both in the 90's but never recorded them. One of them "They Won't Be Speaking English When I Die" recently won me first place in the "Search For Talent" contest here in Durango. CHeck en out

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I want to take this moment to thank all of you who sacrificed your time and personal lives to go to other places in the world and lay your lives on the line for what ever reason it may have been whether willingly or otherwise. I also want to take the moment (as we should do each day) to remember those, who did not come home. Thank You.

Now I would also like to say, shame on Mr Bush for using you today on this day of rememberance for his own political justifications. The Veterans sacrifice is not a political tool by which to gain popularity for decisions made by Presidents or anyone in the political arena. I am ashamed of his behaviour today and the outrageous lack of humility that the man has, in using the American Veteran as a means to further his political persona.

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History is the Lesson, the flood of 1927

note the part marked in red

Great Mississippi Flood
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from Great Mississippi Flood of 1927)
The Great Mississippi Flood in 1927 was the most destructive flood in United States history.

In the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 the Mississippi River broke out of its levee system in 145 places and flooded 27,000 square miles or about 16,570,627 acres (70,000 km²). The area was inundated up to a depth of 30 feet (10 m). The flood caused over $400 million in damages and killed 246 people in seven states.

The flood affected Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee with Arkansas being hardest hit with 13% of its territory covered by floodwaters.

The flood began when heavy rains pounded the central basin of the Mississippi in the summer of 1926. By September the Mississippi's tributaries in Kansas and Iowa were swollen to capacity. On New Year's day of 1927 the Cumberland River at Nashville topped levees at 56.2 feet (17 m).

By May of 1927 the Mississippi River below Memphis, Tennessee was a watery oval up to 60 miles wide (100 km).

The flood propelled Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, in charge of flood relief operations, into the national spotlight and set the stage for his election to the Presidency. It also helped Huey Long be elected Louisiana Governor in 1928.

As the flood approached New Orleans, Louisiana 30 tons of dynamite were set off on the levee at Caernarvon, Louisiana and sent 250,000 ft³/s (7,000 m³/s) of water pouring through. This prevented New Orleans from experiencing serious damage but destroyed much of the marsh below the city. As it turned out, the destruction of the Caernarvon levee was unnecessary; several major levee breaks well upstream of New Orleans, including one the day after the dynamiting, made it impossible for flood waters to seriously threaten the city.

By August 1927 the flood subsided. During the disaster 700,000 people were displaced, including 330,000 African-Americans who were moved to 154 relief camps. Over 13,000 refugees near Greenville, Mississippi were gathered from area farms and evacuated to the crest of an unbroken levee, and stranded there for days without food or clean water, while boats arrived to evacuate white women and children. Many African-Americans were detained and forced to labor at gunpoint during flood relief efforts.

Several reports on the poor situation in the refugee camps, including one by the Colored Advisory Commission by Robert Russa Moton, were kept out of the media at the request of Herbert Hoover, with the promise of further reforms for blacks after the presidential election. When he failed to keep the promise, Moton and other influential African-Americans helped to shift the allegiance of black Americans from the Republican party to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats.

The aftermath of the flood was one factor in the Great Migration of African-Americans to northern cities. The flood resulted in a great cultural output as well, inspiring a great deal of folklore and folk music. Charlie Patton, Bessie Smith and many other Delta blues musicians wrote numerous songs about the flood; Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" was also based on the events of the flood.

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President Bush is a MIserable Liar

Today, I heard an interview with him after meeting with people in Biloxi. The question was put to him. How can we fight this war against Mother Nature while simultaneously fighting the war in Iraq? His response was "We have a job to do, to protect this country from terroists"

That is the greatest lie I have ever heard. I propose that Mr Bush's first responsibility is to the people of this country, here at home. Not some enemy far away on distant shores. The president has failed in his duties and now he is making excuses. People are needlessly dying while he defends his billions each day expenditure for a needless war. I propose Impeachment proceedings begin immediately. Not only that, but there is clear evidence that Mr Bush and his administration are directly responsible for this tragedy. he should be tried for Murder. Bush is murdering American citizens as I write this. If you don't believe this, then read this article:


Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? 'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues



By Will Bunch

Published: August 31, 2005 9:00 PM ET

PHILADELPHIA Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

"That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.

One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."



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Will Bunch (letters@editorandpublisher.com) is senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 when he reported for Newsday. Much of this article also appears on his blog, Attytood, at the Daily News.

I rest my case, write your congressmen and senators, demand that Mr Bush be called down for this attrocity.

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