Like Shooting the Wounded

"Freedom is a messy thing...stuff happens...so, Dick--you want the pocket doors or the decorative gingerbread work."

Among other things, the total absence of any committment from Team Bush to the Gulf Coast region...and to the city of New Orleans...has resulted in yet another ugly phenomenon, according to the online Pic--the picking about of what's left of the houses themselves:

With looters having stolen what they can from in and around the houses, residents say thieves are now picking apart the houses themselves, making off with architectural detail work.

On a house where three of four foundation vents have gone missing, the sign reads: "Hey thief. You forgot one," with a spray-painted arrow pointing to the lonely remaining vent.

On some blocks, the human buzzards have hit nearly every house, picking them clean of the authentic details that make New Orleans homes known the world over: doors, cornices, brackets, shutters, wrought iron fencing, decorative gingerbread work on porches -- anything that will fetch a few bucks on a black market that police and even preservationists don't fully understand. In many cases the thieves, sometimes posing as contractors, have invaded the homes to lift the interior fixtures as well, including the giant pocket doors that bisect shotgun parlors.

"They're like termites, just eating and destroying everything," said John Koeferl, a Holy Cross homeowner whose French doors recently disappeared in one of countless thefts on his street.

From the moment the storm hit, looting of all stripes has infected the city, but the continuing and widespread theft of architectural details strikes many homeowners as the final insult. One stolen shutter might not be such a big deal, but collectively the pillaging amounts to theft of the soul and character of the city's most heavily damaged historic neighborhoods, such as the 9th Ward and Mid-City.

Stephanie Bruno of the Preservation Resource Center fears that much of that character will be lost forever, particularly in low-income neighborhoods such as Holy Cross, where homeowners and landlords might not have the money or the will to replace what has been looted. Though architectural theft has cropped up citywide, the combination of Holy Cross' architectural richness and the inability of its residents to return have made it uniquely vulnerable.

"It changes the character of the houses," Bruno said on a recent tour. "Each piece individually is not that valuable. But when you go to replace them, it's not like there's a 'cornice store' or 'bracket store.' You have to have them custom-made."...

Pete McHugh of Holy Cross has been hit three times. They first came back in October and cut into his cedar wardrobe with an ax. A week and a half ago, someone broke into his garage and stole a bunch of doors and shutters he had stacked there. Then a couple of days later, they stole the shutters off the front of his house.

McHugh cursed in disgust at the sight of it. He decided to remove the rest of the shutters and stick them inside the house. At least that way they'd have to take some time and trouble to steal them.

A Marshall Plan for the region how Scout Prime accurately described the region's need. And such a plan would include adequate funds for enough police presence to at least make things difficult for this sort of looting. However, it's pretty obvious that the administration's policy towards the region is a combination of ignore the facts (ACOE levees, a federal program failed--and let it be noted that the levees WEREN'T some sort of "gift" given to the city and region, but a calculated policy by the federal government to facilitate commerce...which benefits the nation as a whole)...anyway, it's a combination of ignore the facts, blame the victims, or state/local officials...and hope the public tires of the whole things. How Christian of the most overtly Christian administration of my lifetime...and, while I'm thinking about it...New Orleans may have plenty of pagans, heretics, or hedonists, but it's also one of the most Christian of big cities I've ever visited. From St. Louis Cathedral to tiny prefab buildings, one encounters Christian expressions of faith throughout. But Christian admonitions to 'love thy neighbor' are apparently lost not only on the so-called Christians running the government, but the so-called Christians who put their blind faith in the folks running things, too.

Well, at least you cleared that up for me--your expressions of faith are as phoney as your so-called family values.