I'm moving, out of the state, out of the country, out of my mind.
As I sit here and type this there are so many good reasons to believe the previous statement.
In New Orleans, Louisiana it seems that some things will always remain the same as they were before Katrina, both good and bad.
Yes we'll still have the gumbo, the music, the people, the laissez-faire attitude towards work and life.
We'll still have the parades, the festivals, the celebrations and second lines.
As strong as the french quarter remains after Katrina, so too lies the power of corruption and scandal in our local government.

It took me a long time, and a big storm, to realize just what corruption actually is, what forms it takes, and how it hurts people.

Most often it comes in the form of an elected official giving out a "no bid contract" to someone they are connected to. In this case what happens is some politician assigns a particular task to a company, i.e. debris removal, selling fema trailers, or retrieving flooded cars. When this happens no other competing company has a chance to "bid" on the job. This is how politicians make the real money. They get a cut from the company they gaive the job to in return for the no bid contract.

It's gone on for decades with little or no adversity from other politicians, or even the citizens that these supposed "leaders" represent. Today I was listening to the inspector general for Louisiana on WWL radio, who is in charge of investigating these types of offenses. There was a case where a shop who sold motorcycles received $112million for selling fema trailers which it didn't even have a permit to do (they had a permit for selling old, used trailers but not the brand new trailers fema was sending). No permit? No problem! Just get your cousin/uncle whoever you have in the state legislature to pull some strings, you might have to pay a little fine of $40,000 but when you're making $112million you can afford such petty fines.

This stuff is still going on while Washington watches, looking for any reason whatsoever to no send more money. While the media is scrutinizing our "shit for brains mayor" Ray Wonka and Governor Blancstare.

Yet nothing happens.

Furthermore, seeing corruption on a local, close up level also educated me on how these things transpire on the national stage. The war in Iraq for instance, is another example of how corruption works. Many no bid contracts were given out to a lot of Pres. Bush's friends. Is this a sign of corruption in the white house? Of cronyism? You betcha. Is it the first time it's happened in the white house? Definitely not, and it won't be the last by far.