FUNGUS Among us

Where else can you hear The Templars, Dead Kennedys, Against Me!, Youth of Today, Dropkick Murphys, Bane, Circle Jerks, Flogging Molly, Buzzcocks, AFI, Sick of it All, MC5, old Ramones, The Unseen, The Meteors, Oxymoron, Black Flag, The Addicts, Dag Nasty, Manic Hispanic, DI, Southern Culture on the Skids and surf rock???????

No, not just your mother's old vinyl collection. Fungus 53 on XM Satellite radio is THE best resource for old and new punk, oi, hardcore, ska, surf rock and cowpunk. They make up for one lousy Green Day song with 50 songs all in a row from classic bands like those above. You will hear shit you never heard before. They are not afraid to play anything and everything, new and ancient history.

If you're thinking of getting Howard on Sirius, I understand completely, but if you want great punk rock that is accessible 24/7 then you need XM. I cannot stress enough how fucking good this station is. It's about damn time too.

pUnK RaWk with a "W"

I just added 2 links to my sidebar that will appear to be very different from one another. One is PunkVoter.com, a liberal, anti-Bush site, and ConservativePunk.com, an unapologetic conservative site....for, yes indeedy, punks.

Punks (and, btw, it's taken me 20 years to feel comfortable using that term, since in my youth we never called it punk, but were quite used to be calling "freaks" instead, which I'm sure the Hot Topic/Travis Barker generation has no frigging clue about, but that's a rant for another day...) have traditionally identified themselves with an ill-defined and ragtag brand of ultra-left politics ranging from the most extreme and semi-educated Communists and Socialists to the young poseur who spraypaints the anarchy symbol on his jacket without really understanding why. Some of their causes are worthwhile, but for the most part many glom onto whatever is fahionable for the day, and many hold thousands of contradictory idealogies in their heads, failing to examine deeply their most cherished premises.

Now another voice emerges. Punk Conservative is an anamoly. They like Bush. They like Fox. They like Minor Threat. They are educated and bodly speak their convictions. Plus, they give Ayn Rand, my favorite author, some credit on their links page.

While I don't agree with MANY of the opinions of the writers on this site, (I don't like Bush, that phony statist prick) I do consider myself of Libertarian/Bill Mahar persuasion, a Gin & Tonic- Swilling-Playboy-Reading-Stinking-Capitalist-Pig advocate.

Libertarians are sometimes thrown in the Conservative mud-pen, although I think the ruling "Conservative" party isn't very conservative at all, unless you believe legislating moral behaviour (while conveniently ignoring their own), amassing an incredible and irresponsible deficit and advocating a much larger and more powerful government are things Coservatives and Republicans should be doing. I don't. Many true conservatives and moderate liberals don't either.

So "while the views voiced on Punk Conservative aren't necessarily my own", it's a site well worth looking into, just for challenge of our own precious convictions alone.

Both sites are worth a ride. I find myself getting pissed at both of them, and agreeing with both of them. I'm convinced that somewhere in the middle, where common sense is hiding, lays the answer.

Thinking for yourself requires challenging and informing yourself. Now, isn't that the true essence of punk, kiddies??

Triumph of Common Sense

"HARRISBURG, Pa. - In one of the biggest courtroom clashes between faith and evolution since the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, a federal judge barred a Pennsylvania public school district Tuesday from teaching “intelligent design” in biology class, saying the concept is creationism in disguise."

Not only is the judge a Republican (which, of itself, does not necessarily mean you're automatically a drooling Jesus-Monkey), he goes to church.

Yet he ruled against the ID pushers, stating that while ID “may be true, a proposition on which the court takes no position, ID is not science.” He also is quoted saying that ID “violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation”.

But exactly. Intelligent Design is a theory NOT based in science. It cannot be tested against natural empirical evidence through any of our immediate senses or through conducted experiments. It is, in fact, premised on faith, or what the good judge terms 'supernatural causation'.

Evolution, while also a theory, is based in scientific research and CAN be tested against natural evidence. Theories that can be proved or disproved belong in science classes. Theories that cannot be either belong in philosophy to be debated at length.

Intelligent Design...a fundamentalist wolf in secular clothing...has some merit as a topic for lively debate in ANY other social study class but science. It needs to be discussed openly and rationally, but not trussed up as anything equivalent to science or fact in any matter whatsoever. Doing so is taking American students and their parents as fools. It murders all common sense and rational thought, and gives us invisible men living in clouds as demand enough to give it solid footing along with the accomplishments of Einstein, Galileo, Darwin or Hawking.

To put it a little less fiery, it's a very good question, but fails as an answer.

He also states that “It is ironic that several of these individuals (who promoted ID taught in science classes), who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.”

Ironic, indeed. It is, by far, their modus operandi, and their insincere motives are as tainted as their spirits are void of the love for the god they claim to worship.

Mr. Matt Photography

I finally finished Matt's photography site, with the exception of his profile page. Go see it, link above! Let me know if anything looks odd on your browser. Hey Mooselet and Gabe, the photo featured is actually a pic of Hull bay 2 Thanksgivings ago. It's probably the best Hull has looked since we all left it, huh?

To those who know me (the only ones who read this except for the occasional wandering religious troll) Matt is my wonderful man, who also was my first real beaux back in teenage days. Thanks to our travel-lust and the antics of an old acquaintance who is now officially insane (looong story!), we are back together and better than ever. It seems that since we hooked up again 4 years ago we've become quite the creative duo, with him passionate about photography and me creating the best paintings I ever have. Isn't that the way it should be? (4 years?? Holy Crap!)

Anyway, the site took awhile, since I'm not guru-level on Dreamweaver/Fireworks yet. Converting huge jpegs into smaller web jpegs, thumbnails and pngs is a real pain in the ass. But now he has an attractive website to show to potential clients.

Today I'm working on my mural portfolio because I have a big meeting coming up tomorrow with a spa owner. Have to print out some new photos of recent work to add.

We also have an artsy fartsy charity-party to go to tonight at a local gallery. I have 7 small paintings and he has about 8 small mounted photos committed to a charity sale, half the proceeds go to the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital here. The other half goes to the artist, and we are free to donate to the hospital if we want. If I sell anything my money is going to New Orleans groups.

Defending Religious Freedom

It occurred to me that the whole "Merry Christmas" controversy is something other than a Far Right propaganda and publicity stunt. It still is, but there's something else more insidious. It's a trojan horse, dolled up to look like a defense of religous freedom, but inside is a different story.

With the help of Thomas Jefferson, religious freedom was established in this country. In Jefferson's 1777 Draft of a Bill for Religious Freedom for the state of Virginia, he states: "Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind..."

In other words, God meant for our minds to be free and capable of depending on reason to reach conclusions, and any threats to such freedom lead to a bitter hypocrisy not intended by God.

He follows: "...the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to exalt it by its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others..."

He is saying here that although God has this power, he does not seek to coerce us, but allows us to follow reason alone. Also--and this is most relevant to our present state of affairs today--the people who help to lead this country, political or religious, are imperfect humans and are not divine, and have no right to impose their will or politics based on their faith upon others.

So while he admits the existence of a creator (and his personal position on this is quite debatable), Jefferson paves the way for all to possess freedom of mind, speech and religion, even if one chooses NOT to have religion. You cannot have freedom of religion without freedom from it. Also, politics wedded to religious concerns leads to more impropriety and loss of freedom. Hence, people like Senators Frist, Brownback, Trent Lott, President Bush and the like. Hence, people like James Dobson and Pat Robertson waging a full-on war against true religious freedom, through the means of bullying and buying influence to today's politicians to impose their system of belief on the our entire country, Christians and non-Christians alike.

The Anti-Happy-Holidays crowd is crying wolf. They claim their rights to say and hear and read Merry Christmas is being impinged upon because stores, people and even the President's holiday card chose the easy and inclusive way out with Happy Holidays. These people cry Religious Intolerance. They boycott huge retail corporations who sell to every creed imaginable because they choose Happy Holidays over Merry Christmas. Ridiculous, true, but even more ridiculous when you realize that these people are NOT the oppressed minority. They are running our country!!!!

These people, and their political puppeteers, are seeking to impose their system of belief on every non-Christian in this country. Christmas is, after all, Christ-mas, but it's fair to say that non-Christians celebrate this holiday in a variety of ways. We should all be free to do so. Jefferson tried to guarantee this. The Consitution guarantees this.

They also like to claim that Jefferson fans such as myself use the "Freedom of Religion" argument as an excuse to eliminate Christianity. Nothing could be more false. As I said before...I'll defend heart and soul your American right to believe and express your religion...just don't expect me to accept it into judicial and federal public institutions of which I am an equal, tax-paying, voting member of.

In other words, I am against "...the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others..." in my government. Thank you.

Forcing the public to forgo 'Happy Holidays' in favor of 'Merry Christmas' is not freedom of religion, it's tyranny of ONE religion. Will the President have to write Merry Christmas, Screw Everyone Else!...on his holiday cards? What comes next, mandatory church and tithing to "faith-based initiatives?" Our churches are already being used as voting offices, why not? Theology is being taught in our science classes, why not??

This isn't really about Christmas. It's about the agenda of the Far Right to do what they can to make this a country based on and ruled by their religion. They claim to be for American values, but American values never included religious tyranny. If they get their way, people like me and millions of non-Christian Americans will be unrepresented (yet taxed). But that's OK for these "Pat Robertson Christians" because they believe their way is the right way, it's God's way, and eventually we'll all be thankful.

Extremist Muslim leaders run on this philosophy, and it's doing wonders for them.

Merry Hatemass

Crap. I so did NOT want to devote any attention to this more than I already have. There are far more important things going on this world...the Iraqi vote, the war, Israel/Palestine conflict, Plamegate, etc, etc, etc.

I am, as Fox anchor John Gibson calls it, a "Professional Atheist". Whatever that means. I just know I'm lumped into that category no matter how extreme my lack of belief is, or how much I believe in everyone's right to believe what they want without my input or influence. No matter what I or anyone else of moderate sensibilities say about this matter will not make one ounce of difference to this extreme group of fundamentalists.

I, as a born-again Atheist, die-hard secularist and avid proponent of Church and State separation, don't really care if you want to put a manger on the median of Main Street. I'm not going to freak if you say Merry Christmas. I'm not going to boycot some store because they decide to plaster their windows with "Jesus is the Reason for the Season". They aren't hurting me. They can't force me to believe what they do. Everyone has equal right to express themselves, no matter how misguided. I don't have to agree with you, but I'll defend your right to express and hold your beliefs.

Want to put a religious display in a public space? Fine, just let everyone do it. I'll even make-up my own display, like "Happy Godlessmass" or "Merry Freethinkmas". If we can't have that, and the Christian fundies aren't satisfied with generic, non-religious decorations, then NO ONE gets to display a fucking thing.

People like Bill O' Reilly, Pat Robertson and James Dobson have only one purpose in mind by standing tall at the warfront of this idiotic crusade. They want true Christians to feel that the non-Christian world is going to feed them to the lions. It's pure manipulation in the name of power. "Happy Holidays" is not anti-Christmas, it's a figure of speech used to include everyone in the season. Must we exclude people of other beliefs just to please the raving vocal minority??

How terrible to use this season, which is for love, joy and giving for so many people of all beliefs, for this hateful and divisive purpose. Just this once, at this time of year, we should all come together in brotherhood and forget our differences. It's been a hard year. It's not going to get easier. Let's stop being so petty and selfish.

Demanding others to remember Jesus while forgetting his teachings is pure hypocrisy. Jesus would be ashamed of these people.

The Pharisees maligned in the New Testament, however, would be proud.

Merry Christmas! Now GET LOST!

Got Fema? Yeah, it's an old joke nowadays. You see it everywhere in New Orleans, especially hanging in the doorways of tourist shops on Decatur and Bourbon, emblazoned on t-shirts, bumperstickers and ballcaps.

But it's not a joke. Many people who should have FEMA, don't. That should alarm the American populace that something is deeply, horribly wrong with the Federal Government's ability to help us during a natural disaster. Or a not-so-natural disaster.

I'll let your mind do the wandering on that one.

What happens to people who don't have FEMA?

--An eviction notice. FEMA set a deadline just short of the holidays to stop paying hotel bills for displaced Katrina victims. They claimed they wanted victims to find more "permanent housing". (For all you people caught in the stupid and intentionally distracting snit of whether to say Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas, forget about it...FEMA's holiday message has you all beat.) Federal judges, however, are fighting to force FEMA to extend this heartless deadline past the holidays.

--A home they can't use. Thousands of FEMA trailers sit in Alabama, empty. So while FEMA is busy trying to kick out victims from hotels before Christmas, they are not providing the very housing they claim they want these victims to use.

--FEMA rips them off. They don't get their promised $2000 to cover basic living expenses if their checks were "lost in the mail". How do you deliver mail to a tent under a New Orleans bridge, or an RV on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain?

--They have to pay for those who DO get FEMA. It's bad enough FEMA can't get their act together. They certainly don't need the help of certain yacht owning, golf playing opportunist rats who profit from FEMA's inefficiency. Here's a quote from this lovely article: "A FEMA program to reimburse applicants for generators and storm cleanup items has benefited middle- and upper-income Floridians the most and so far cost taxpayers more than $332 million for the past two hurricane seasons, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found in a continuing investigation of disaster aid." So while lawyers and doctors buy generators and chain saws they can afford on their own and might not even need, some kid in Ft. Lauderdale is putting catheters in by candelight.

These people are the scum of the earth. One guy in this article, who lives in a million dollar home, is actually wondering if it's immoral to cash his measly FEMA check. (His wife says, CASH IT! I want some Jimmy Choo shoes!!!)

We need an alternative to the present FEMA system. Big government bureaucracy does not work. Washington is not getting the job done in the way Americans deserve. Disaster response needs to be centered at state level, perhaps over territories of the country prone to certain disasters, instead of blind offices in Washington.

Individuals and community activists also need to learn to make preparations for fight or flight scenarios in this new age of natural disaster and terrorist concerns by saving money, storing supplies and establishing routes of escape and possible locations to stay in the event of such emergencies. Waiting for Daddy Govt. to bail us out is not an effective survival strategy.

41,000+ people displaced by Katrina are living in hotels, motels, trailers and tents spread across the United States. That number is a wakeup call. Awful things are happening to our once glorious country, and this is one of them. When you see regular people living in tents and under tarps because they've lost their home, you wonder...is this America?

King Tut: It Ain't All Black and White

I just got a letter from an activist group I belong to. There's a big stink in parts of the African American community about the reconstruction of the face of King Tut. Egypt was apparently conquered by the Nubians, and King Tut, whose reign was well after that, should have had African features, they claim. The image made popular today, of course, is the one at the top of this blog entry.

According to National Geographic, 3 separate groups were allowed to create forensic recreations of the face of Tut, on their own with no other involvement with eath other. All 3 arrived at similar conclusions and looks. Some dispute this, and say they look nothing alike. While there are some variations in the soft tissue, the bone structure is the same, the chin and protruding teeth are the same. They look like they could be "brothers", so to speak.

Upon viewing the finished reconstructed face above, other than the subjective artistic assumptions made about skin and eye color (which they only guessed at), this face doesn't necessarily look purely Caucasion. I am no forensics expert. But as an artist who uses faces realistically quite a bit in her work, I study faces all the time. The features look mixed, certainly not pure Caucasion by any stretch of the matter. I'm Irish and Swedish, I should know! It's not a far-fetched assumption to believe King Tut was of mixed blood and carried traits from both African and other sources.

Along with the pervasive incest involved in preserving the blood of Egyptian royalty, Nubian as well as Egyptian and Libyan blood all percolated in the mix, and probably Caucasoid blood as well at some point. It would be impossible to determine with any certainty what soft facial features King Tut may have had above his bone structure according to whatever race was his background. We can only theorize.

It's also fair to say that the peoples of the African race don't necessarily have the same, generic features across the board. Nubians were believed to have slim, aquiline noses. Some had varying degrees of pigment in the skin. King Tut has Nubian blood.

Forensics is a science, albeit an inexact one. People who dispute the current faces of King Tut claim he looks nothing like the old paintings and statues of him. If one were to go according to that, there would be an entire race of 200 ft. high Egyptians who only walked sideways. To claim that forensic art based in science is more dubious than icon art from an ancient race who were producing these paintings as a way to glorify and exaggerate their royalty is an abusrd leap of illogic. It's obvious that the Egyptians were not in it for the photorealism.

While I can understand the frustration within some in the African community who have fought to overturn the outdated premise that the ancient Egyptians were Caucasian or Asian even, the current emotional outburst is knee-jerk. There's as much evidence for mixed races in Egypt at that time as there is for a strong African contingent. It wouldn't have been fair for the current forensic experts to portray King Tut as a stereotypical African because the evidence was just not there. So they settled for something somewhere in the middle, and even then, any rational person knows that even science changes in the light of new evidence.

Who knows what he'll look like 10 years from now.

Wasting More Time Yet Again.....

Inspired by Mooselet, I've decide to take the Spiritual Challenge:

You are an Atheist

When it comes to religion, you're a non-believer (simple as that). You prefer to think about what's known and proven. You don't need religion to solve life's problems. Instead, you tend to work things out with logic and philosophy.

What's Your Religious Philosophy?

Woop! Not a big surprise there!!


And another one:
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test



I so disagree with supposed High Score on Level 8 and 9! I am NOT treacherous or malicious! I just don't do as I'm told all the time, so there. And I guess the fact I love Quentin Tarantino supposedly makes me violent????? I'M GOING TO KILL THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THIS STUPID DAMN TEST!!!!

Gin and Tonic Ravings

Hoo boy. I'm on my forth gin and tonic, and hoping to gawd I get some sleep tonight. The ol' bitch of the sciatic nerve is acting up again in a notorious way...and mama needs some help this evening.

This bitch has been on my back since Sept. when I was 3 months strong into a new weight lifting routine and decided it would be cool to run the hills in the suburbs of San Diego while staying at my boss's digs for some mural work. Never-you-mind I live in flatter-than-a-12 yr.-old Florida and I'm not USED to hills anymore....naaaw, I didn't see any problems with that, not at my resilient tender age of 30-fucking-6.

So I ran these hills....massive hills I tell ye...for at least a good week. Then I sneezed. A vertebrae shot out of my back, hit the drapes, and I haven't been the same since. Now I can't run, can barely ride a bike, and walking is just fine if I'm hopped up on Alleve or it's many generic counterparts.

I thought it was going away this last Nov. until 2 days ago. It creeped up on me out of nowhere, somewhere between reading the newspaper and blowing my nose...and now I sleep on a freaking baseball at night.

Yes, a baseball. The Sciatic nerve is located just below the end of your spine in conjuction with your periformis muscle, which, is right in the crook of your arse. If you had a perfectly toned bum it would be right where the dimple would be. The chiropractor I visited yesterday could not ensure me a comfy night's sleep, so I tried sitting on a baseball. It fits perfectly into the periformis like a cement fist. Believe me, this is a luxury!! It releases the pressure, much like accupressure I guess.

So I'm taking a baseball to bed, my friends. Right under my left ass cheek. And with 4 gin and tonics under my gullet, I hope I get a decent snooze for once.

Oh yeah....I spent all day working on Matt's new website, Mr. Matt Photography....it's not much to look at and needs to be worked on way more, but after I upload the whole thing it should be quite nice.

Roadkill in Paradise

We our proud of a certain distinction among all others...
Our house and yard is the Bermuda Triangle for rodents and tiny creatures. Many a four-legged varmint has met his untimely demise while visiting our lovely sub-tropical cottage.

Coconuts falling incessantly from our many trees all day and night finally nailed a rat dead on. We awoke to the now-familiar death smell one morning outside our window. There lay a huge cannonball of a coconut on the grass, with four tiny rodent legs sticking straight out from beneath it. Smashed like a grape, he was.

We have a small closet where all the toilet paper is stored and every once in a while we hear a scampering of critters behind its walls. When the scampering ceases, the smell arrives and hangs around for weeks, followed by a horde of black flies, a la Amityville Horror, that materialize out of nowhere and cling to the window screens until we open each one to let them out. The Death Closet, we call it. It has claimed the lives of 2 critters since we started living here last year.
















Here's a tire-squashed squirrel that crawled under our studio window to gasp his last gasp. We followed the flies to find this sweet prize. Thank god for men! If it wasn't for Matt I couldn't open any jars and I'd be neck deep in bugs and dead squirrels. That's not entirely true...I can certainly open jars...but as for the bugs and dead squirrels, well, he and I both know the truth about this matter.

Many a gecko has been pressed flat in closed doors, windows, or wasted by our otherwise lazy and slothlike kitty. Since Howie can't catch a bird anymore in his slovenly middle age, he's regulated to swatting at lizards, which are abundant inside and out. The only critters that escape this damned mortal coil are the racoons, who chitter loudly all night while humping on our roof. We've whipped coconuts at them, all to no avail. Not even the power-washer, which can strip off your skin, deters them. They just smell a bit nicer to each other, I suppose.

At night, while we sit drinking cheap red wine and watching The Family Guy, I swear I see tiny, furry ghosts scamper across the Saltillo tile. Our house is haunted with the anguished spirits of rats, squirrels, mice, frogs and lizards. The Closet of Death retains a morbid smell year round, and getting a roll of toilet paper is quite the unfortunate chore. The itty bitty pink rake is ever at the ready to pull yet another stinky corpse from under the bushes. But this is south Florida, after all. There are parrots, and blue skies, and coconut palms...and there are hurricanes, and critters that take the long dirt nap in your bushes.

Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans

Everywhere you go in New Orleans today, other than the French Quarter and the neighborhoods on higher ground, you will see houses like these. And this one is lucky to still be standing. Look closely and you'll see the spraypainted tags from DEA and animal rescuers indicating when they were there, and what they found.


Matt and I just got back from my favorite city in the U.S. Our job takes us to many great cities. San Fran, NYC, San Deigo, LA, Chicago, Denver, Boulder, Austin and more. We also grew up in Boston, live near Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, and once lived in Dallas. Matt has lived in Honolulu as well as New Orleans. I regret never having lived in the Big Easy, it feels more like home to me than home did (and that's saying a lot). Now I'm not sure if anyone who really called it home can ever call it that again.

The scope of the destruction is mind-boggling. Even these few pictures can't convey what the eyes see when you drive up and down streets, block after block, for miles within the city and beyond. Hundreds to thousands of houses smashed, soaked, gutted, burned, with mold creeping up walls like cancer. Furniture, photos, toys, stuffed animals, mattresses, an endless sea of appliances. Cars, grey with flood water residue, are upside down in yards or buried under what was once a building. Boats in the street, the ground caked with a cracked layer of mud like you were walking on a dry lakebed.

And it's quiet. Dead quiet. After staring dumb and mute at all of this it starts to sink in that there aren't any people. It's the biggest graveyard in America, and even the ghosts have gone.

They say only 10% of the previous population is still in or has returned to New Orleans.

This house, like too many houses, had the roof hacked away by the occupants inside who had to climb to the top to escape the floodwaters.

Notice the floodlines here. These lines were everywhere...on abandoned cars and even the embankments on the sides of the I10.

















Boats tossed from their trailers...


















Boats tossed from the water...we saw so many gorgeous yachts and sailboats sunk deep with nothing but the tips of their masts sticking out. Cranes were lifting these boats out.
















Sign reads on abandoned Super 10 store: "Warning trespassers are considered looters and are shot dead!"
















Imagine the force it takes to throw an old Uhaul truck up like this.














Floodlines were everywhere, including the abandoned cars and trucks lining the streets. Some New Orleanians attempted to park their vehicles on the higher ground of the medians but to no avail. Hundreds of drowned cars were put under highways or used as barriers to the Ninth Ward to get them out of the way.























More destruction. This used to be a house.













This is only a fraction of the size of this empty lot or park the city used to dump all the debris they've been collecting. This heap contains the posessions of thousands of families and businesses. There are other lots like this with literal mountains of debris.
















Clean-up man, or could be a previous owner. These houses are very dangerous to go into, they are loaded with mold.

These photos were taken by Matt Ludlow on his Canon 20D.

Remember (and Renew) New Orleans.