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What's coming up? 30s vintage dress...40s vintage jacket...50s vintage dress...60s vintage lingerie...70s party dresses and jackets...80s Addams family and mocassins..

80s baroque faux alligator all leather Italian heels & 80s studded leather motorcycle chic black leather booties

****70s hippie handcolored handmade rainbow boots****

60s Witch Hat peaked toe...gothic 60s shoes

50s/60s cutest cotton dress & a 30s/40s vintage dress of jadeite and wine art deco rayon!

Nice vintage lingerie

black lacy vintage garter belt

Autumn...time to think about a coat...here's a vintage 60s coat in saffron that's restyled with tartan...and a 60s wallet with faux bois plastic and red tartan....

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70s jackets...40s style white faux fur & White leather !

A Oktoberfest dirndl dress & an 80s Addams family with ecru lace

A little dark and light...

Steampunk White witch boots

Perfect for a gothy Bride! White leather and lace boots - 8

70s slinky Halter new w/tags! & a tshirt dress refashioned and restyled!

Hippie fringed mocassins...moccasins...in a size 9/10...

Swimsuits == one piece and a two piece...all with a lot of Bombshell pin-up allure!

2 piece Boy Leg nwt! & 70s euro geometric !

Jack n Jill 60s mini!

Man Stuff- vintage ties, Hawaiian shirts, and summer patterns

Patterns

******* funkoma vintage *******
style recycle
* Tacoma and the Recycled Life *
Read the blog from time to time...

It's Time to Recycle, Refashion, Reduce and Reuse.....Buy Vintage!
.......

Wanna be Marilyn? coming soon...the Marilyn white halter costume dress

Elzac 40s vintage Victim of Fashion pin...and..a bakelite and early plastic nautical sailboat sailor swinger pin

..vintage 50s, vintage 60s and vintage 70s dress styles...some silky panties...and always ....some fun stuff....
tote bags, fun dresses and ..halter tops...swimsuits.......styles for all your daily and special event, and rockabilly fun !

I'm not forgetting my down-under friends ! I'll keep swimwear and spring clothes in stock too...

Wanna Shop funkoma right now on ebay? clicky

****To find these at funkoma vintage**google is your friend****

Red quilted purse with odd flip latch !

coming soon for party season...50s Red Lace and Satin Sweetheart Dress M L

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Rockabilly & Classic!!

Gotta Search funkoma vintage......
And now, a word from our sponsor....

50s Handpainted Mexican Vintage Skirt with a donkey and cactus.... this now has a new home and is getting used to hearing massive daily compliments....quite a change from donkey skirt's previous life of sitting in a box in a big closet.........

Want a Vintage 60s Dress, a Vintage 50s Shirt, some Vintage 70s Shoes or 80s Boots, because you love Vintage Clothing ?
I got it ! for Men & Women ** Children. And... Sewing & Patterns, and lots of other fun vintage stuff **

Shop funkoma on ebay? clicky

funkoma vintage

->>Sorry no more links but I assume you know how to use google or whatever, and funkoma will take you to places you really want to go to!!<<-

Because...It was fun...now it's kind of a drag, man.Where did almost all of funkoma go???
It's in Tacoma! Worldwide headquarters is 712 Broadway...Tacoma...WA !!
in Tacoma's Theater District, on Antique Row, Just a few blocks south of world famous Stadium High School !
open daily (mostly) 10 am to 6ish......

Visit me
online

funkoma vintage

Recycled clothing, handmade fun and oddments from the flotsam and jetsam of life
Always Cute & Never Mediocre!
Be A MySpace Friend...
why yes, I'm on Facebook...search funkomavintage.
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Time is...
too slow for those who wait,...too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,...too short for those who rejoice.
But for those who love...
Time Is Eternity

She fell from the sky**** She fell very far, and California, she says, is the name of the star*********

What I've been doing for 49+ years... Umm, as a child growing up in the Bay Area, I spent most of my formative years in Yountville, before it became the snotty WineDisneyland it is today.

Yes, I was a child, a very strange child. If you visit Yountville, well I could go on for daysanddays about that (you will have to wait for the book) But directly across from the Vintage 1870, (which was empty for a long time, and once was a Mag factory) (like on your hot rod), is the Rex Hotel. It's called something arrogantly faux-french now, but it's a 1920s Mission Revival style , and it was a REAL hotel my parents ran. It had linoleum covered floors, floral porcelain light fixtures and push-button on/off light switches.

My Dad, Norman, had a poker parlor, and Yountville Cab Company. My mom sold earthworms and ran Lomita's Red Front, a bar and restaurant, but not at the same time, silly.

I was a fashion demonista since day one, since I had to make 90% of my clothes 'cause I'm a shrimp. So by the time high school came around which only lasted 2 years before I blew that joint, I guess I was being goth before it was called Goth. I blended Edwardian, Addams family, holes, poetry, fringe, lace and leather, and sparkly jangly things with flower child to create my own style. I was innocently driven by dark demons expressed in the visible realm of the clothes you will see produced from my hand. Yes, happy to be alive, but like Johnny Cash, fully cognizant of the full spectrum of life....Can't have a rainbow without the rain (on your picnic).

I guess I should mention, that since my people came from OK and Idaho, I also emulated Patsy Cline, Hank, Merle, Dolly, and Porter Waggoner, and discovered the wonders of rhinestones ! And the love of black, black and more black is dedicated to the
Man In Black, Johnny Cash.

I've never worn any other jeans besides Levis 501 shrink to fit,redlines, if I can find them, which used to cost $5.00 new, at Mervyns. I took the Greyhound bus, by myself to "town", walked all over Napa, shopped the Woolworth's, and often hitch-hiked home, cause I didn't want to spend the other 50cents on a bus ticket.

If you've never had the pleasure of the Woolworth experience, I feel sorry for you. For a bit of the mood, listen to Nanci Griffith's "Love at the Five and Dime". Now,WALMART is a sick excuse for a store and a community...I mean, folks, they gotta pay your old grandpa to say HI when you walk in the door...He's not there to cheer you up..he needs to earn some $$ to afford something besides dog food for dinner, since his pension and medical got cut by his former employer who went bankrupt from unfair competition from WALMART !!

WHY am I telling you this??

Because I've been designing and sewing all my life..... and once again, I'm gonna design one of a kind clothes, panties and fun stuff! I can't finish college yet even though I've been going for 27 years, and the law classes I want are all full up!! So, COMING SOON, will be some very interesting things concocted in my sunny sewing room. Mom, gals, girls, kids (I made about 90% of my kids clothes--ask them), Dad, guys, boys, and the little creatures, too.

Look for Sew What in the title, as that's my copyrighted name for my creations. I have been considering a new name, since many on ebay have that id. So it isn't clever enough. Well, ta da, the new name is Vespertyna ...

No really I swear I'm gonna get sewing...My law classes have kept me toooo busy, but I did get my sewing room moved and organized, so watch out ! Thanks for your time and attention---It warms my heart, and maybe you'll get something designed by me.

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One of the best articles from the SF Chronicle, reprinted here without permission. It's about Herb Caen and his city, and mine.........

Started at the old Bardelli's, where Caen loved the crash of dice cups in the eternal game of boss dice. Caen liked to lunch with people like Dapper Dave Falk, demon suit salesman, Elmer Robinson (he called him ElMayor), or George Christopher, emeritus politicians, loved to walk into that dining room like a king in his court. Gone, all gone, like the Emporium, killed off on its 100th birthday in 1996, like the wondrous Woolworth's store at Powell and Market. Bardelli's folded in 1997, the year Caen himself died. Now the place is Johnny Foley's Irish House, packed on a Wednesday night, but different from the old place as night and day. No dice, for one thing. No politicians. No Dapper Dave. No suits. No Herb Caen. His picture is on the dining room wall, in a place of honor, the only non- Irishman there. "I'd like to think he would have liked this place," said owner Martin Connolly, hopefully. The real heart of Caen's world was in North Beach. Caen liked cable cars. "Simply nothing like them," he wrote 23 years ago. Back in the later Caen period it was impossible to ride the cable cars. What would Yogi Berra say? "Nobody rides them. They're too crowded." Tourists, squealing as if they were in Disneyland By the Bay. But now, tourism is in the Dumpster, and there is room. What would Caen do if one came along with empty space on the running board? "I leaped buoyantly aboard," he wrote in a 1979 column. "I couldn't resist." A half-full car came rolling up Powell the other Thursday, carrying a cargo that would delight an old columnist: a glowering woman going home from a shopping trip downtown, a young man pretending to be bored, three little girls from somewhere west of the Golden Gate, only a handful of tourists. The usual sounds from the crew: "Fares! Who's got fares? Look out! Hold on!" and the car went clunking up Nob Hill and into the past. Got off at Jackson, walked through Chinatown, peering down the dark alleys. Caen always thought them mysterious. Up Grant, down Broadway to Enrico's in North Beach. Caen loved to sit outside at Enrico's, sometimes with people like William Saroyan, John Steinbeck, maybe some other famous guy. Often with Barnaby Conrad, the bullfighter and restaurant man Caen called "Barnabull." They are all gone - Conrad to Santa Barbara, the others to the big column in the sky, but inside Enrico's the other Thursday was Tony Serra, famous lawyer, surrounded by people, holding court. There was Millie, the old lady who will take your picture with a Polaroid camera for $5. Types out of a Caen column. "Hello," we said to the parking attendant next door, "Did you know Herb Caen?" No, he said, he was sorry. He did know Francis Ford Coppola, though, and did we know that the president of Afghanistan's brother owns a restaurant down the street? A scooplet. Caen was serious about making the rounds: Sometimes he referred to himself as "Mr. Nite Life." He sat in on drums at the Saloon on upper Grant, looked in on five or six places a night: Maybe Tosca, Spec's, Capp's Corner, the Washington Square, Dante's, Moose's. In the old days, the lower bar at the Mark, the St. Francis Hotel (He called it "The Frantic"), The Palace (never the Sheraton-Palace), Trader Vic's. Places like that. After that a nightcap, usually at the Gold Dust lounge at Powell and Geary, downtown. He was a great believer in nightcaps, and corny live music and the Gold Dust still has both. But it was more than bars. On other occasions, Caen would catch a show, go to a party or two, take in the opera, check out a new restaurant. "Tosca," the opera, appeared in his column almost as often as Tosca, the saloon. You could check it out. Caen was above all a newsman, always looking. The column was his stage and his world, and the readers were the audience. The show always had to go on. "He was afraid he would miss something," said Ed Moose, the restaurant man. "He had this saying, ÔAround the corner something is happening, and I don't want to miss it.' That's what drove him." "He was out every night," said Moose. "If he took a night off, we didn't know it." Yet he showed up every morning at the paper, 9:30 sharp, to produce the column, 1,000 words a day for 58 years, more than anybody before or since. A good column, he thought, had 24 items in a good mix. In a typical year, he dropped 6,768 names. "He had stamina," said Moose. He also was the ultimate reporter. He wrote paeans to the fog, the bridges, "the daily ride on the city's ever-revolving carousel," but he saw the other side of the city, too. "I find myself pounding the filthy pavements almost daily. And I am struck by the loneliness, by the lost souls shuffling around by themselves or standing in homage to catatonia on a windswept corner of nowhere . . . "I try to remember the words of my late friend Elmer Peterson, who lived on Sixth St.: ÔJust look around, not straight ahead.' The Ôgood' people look straight ahead as they move through those districts. They don't want to see the highly visible truth, they don't want to hear the calls for help . . . you may have to feel something, give something, think about the unthinkable - the dark side of Baghdad-by-the-Baydream." ". . . Up here (on Nob Hill) the dream city lives, almost unreal in its beauty. Only a few blocks down the hill, the other city festers and boils. The truth can be evaded and delayed, but for how much longer?" Caen wrote that 12 years ago. Caen was fond of Washington Square, the heart of North Beach. Of all the places in the city, it seemed this would change least. But the old Washington Square Bar and Grill, where Moose got his start in San Francisco, turned into the Cobalt Tavern, where everything is a shade of deep blue. Caen was a regular for lunch and sometimes dinner at the old Washbag. The new Cobalt doesn't do lunch. That's no surprise. The long lunch of Caen's day, the rolling of dice for drinks, the leisurely afternoon talk, is over. And it was only yesterday. On the other side of the square is Moose's, sort of a shrine to Caen's city: good food, good music. Caen's portable typewriter - an Olivetti - is on the wall, and a picture of Caen's last New Year's Eve, the great man with Moose, with Ann Moller Caen - "the lovely Ann," he called her, with His Willieness, the mayor, and Nancy Pelosi, the congresswoman who is now the Democratic whip. The whip? He would have loved that. One gets the feeling that Caen has just left and will be back shortly. But that's an illusion. Has the city changed since Caen left? "Yes," says Moose. "It's more fragmented. It doesn't have the man with the magic wand to tell people where's a good place to eat, where to go tonight, who's a good guy and who's a bad guy, and why San Francisco is the most wonderful city in the world." "We've lost that," Moose said. "Herb Caen gave us who we are." Has the city changed? Well, for one thing, Caen's not here anymore.

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Can't Bush tell a crisis from an ideological bias? How does it feel to be in support of a President who supports torture? What Would Jesus Do?

Bush on Legal Reform "...we must free small businesses from needless regulation and protect honest job creators from junk lawsuits. Justice is distorted and our economy is held back by irresponsible class actions and frivolous asbestos claims." Reality Check: The President's reform plans will make it more difficult for consumers and patients to access the courts. The Senate is voting on a bill that would shift class action lawsuits from state to federal courts, which would seriously curtail a consumer's ability to pursue a class action claim. Republican leaders are also expected to move on medical malpractice reform, including proposals that would cap lawyers' fees (which will lead to the availability of fewer laywers for wronged patients) and awards to plaintiffs at $250,000, regardless of the type or seriousness of the injury.
Out of touch with Americans: A CBS poll showed that 63 percent of Americans want the president and Congress to make it a top priority to lower the costs of healthcare and insurance; 58 percent want to make Medicare more financially sound; and 57 percent want to see an increase in the number of Americans with health insurance. But only 26 percent named reducing jury awards in medical malpractice lawsuits as a top priority for policymakers.

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Bush on the Budget "I will send you a budget that holds the growth of discretionary spending below inflation, makes tax relief permanent and stays on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009." Reality Check: Spending on homeland defense, the war in Iraq, and reduced revenue from Bush's tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% have increased the budget in recent years. Without adjustments to spending in other areas, the U.S. budget deficit has seen an astronomical rise to $413 billion. Further exacerbating the budget will be Republican efforts to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and privatizing Social Security, which will require a minimum of $2 trillion in transitional costs. Bush called for counteracting this lack of fiscal restraint by cutting spending on domestic programs such as student loans, child support enforcement, and school lunches. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-NH) announced that cuts to Medicaid -- which provides health care to seniors, children, and families in need -- would be used to balance the deficit.

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WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, IN GENERAL?? TAKING MONEY FROM SENIORS, TAKING FOOD FROM CHILDREN, TAKING MEDICAL CARE AWAY FROM THE POOR? THIS IS AMERICA~~~~THE LAND OF THE FREE, THE HOME OF THE BRAVE ???

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This guy just gets meaner and more vicious towards the working class, CHILDREN, the poor and the defenseless, as the days go by...Would Jesus plan a big giveaway to the multinational corporations? Would Jesus take granny's retirement away? Would Jesus agree to kill people to save them ?

Now that Bush is president again-- HOLD ON TO YOUR WALLETS !!

Bush's Cut-and-Spend Plan Is Math-Challenged*** LA TIMES article published Sept. 19th 2004****** "The one sure thing that will happen if he becomes president is the tax cuts will be permanent," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, a forecasting company in West Chester, Pa. "That will result in large, persistent budget deficits, so he will not be able to follow through on his other pledges." end quote. Guess who pays the budget deficit? My children and grandchildren, and YOUR children and grandchildren !! Hey, Feb. 2nd Update---Yup, just as predicted, the rich are gonna get to keep the money they took from you when they eliminated your job and gave you that paycut and scrapped your benefits! Is this a great country or what ? ARE THESE THE VALUES YOU VOTED FOR?

**

***100 reasons to IMPEACH BUSH/CHENEY***

1. Failing to build a real international coalition prior to the Iraq invasion, forcing the US to shoulder the full cost and consequences of the war. 2. Approving the demobilization of the Iraq Army in May 2003; bypassing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reversing an earlier position, the President left hundreds of thousands of armed Iraqis disgruntled and unemployed, contributing significantly to the massive security problems American troops have faced during occupation. 3. Not equipping troops in Iraq with adequate body armor or armored humvees. 4. Ignoring the advice General Eric Shinseki regarding the need for more troops in Iraq; now Bush is belatedly adding troops, having allowed the security situation to deteriorate in exactly the way Shinseki said it would if there were not enough troops. 5. Ignoring plans drawn up by the Army War College and other war planning agencies which predicted most of the worst security and infrastructure problems America faced in the early days of the Iraqi occupation. 6. Making a case for war, which ignored intelligence that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. 7. Deriding “nation-building” in the 2000 debates, then engaging American troops in one of the most explicit instances of nation building in American history. (this is one of his first lies--do you remember?) 8. Predicting along with others in his administration that US troops would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. 9. Predicting Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction. 10. Wildly underestimating the cost of the war. 11. Trusting Ahmed Chalabi, who has dismissed faulty intelligence he provided the President as necessary for getting the American’s to topple Saddam. 12. Disbanding the Sunni Baathist managers responsible for Iraq’s water, electricity, sewer system and all the other critical parts of that country’s infrastructure. 13. Failing to give UN weapons inspectors enough time to certify if weapons existed in Iraq. 14. Including discredited intelligence concerning Nigerian Yellow Cake in his 2003 State of the Union. 15. Announcing “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” on May 1, 2003-more US soldiers have died in combat since that announcement than before it. 16. Awarding a multi-billion dollar contract to Halliburton in Iraq, which then repeatedly overcharged the government and served our troops dirty food.

Want more ? http://www.geocities.com/we_have_the_power_now/

As long as I have your attention for a few more moments.....What the hell is up with The Cure's song "Pictures of You" on that damned HP commercial???????Who OK'd that? Robert? What is wrong with you? Don't you own your own song? The last HP commercial they had featured a criminal suspect picked up by HP technology and DRUG down the street and battered by the cyberglobal police! Since when is it OK to beat up SUSPECTS ?? Face it people, we are now a banana republic since the Supreme Court annointed Geo. Bush , The Lesser. And since the passage of the "Patriot Act" we are living in a Fascist state. (Look it up)

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM: Officials defend display referring to U.S. 'genocide' The Associated Press, April 8, 2004.
A display praising the merits of peacekeeping that cited the killing of native North Americans as the world's worst genocide shouldn't be considered a jab at the United States, Belgian defense officials said Thursday.
The display, shown at the monument of the Unknown Soldier in Brussels this week, was meant to honor Belgian soldiers who died in humanitarian missions.
It included a panel listing North America as having the world's worst genocide with a death toll of 15 million, starting with Columbus' 1492 arrival in the New World but giving no end date.
The daily De Standaard called the display insulting to Washington. The newspaper complained about a list of genocides that mentioned Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Cambodia, Armenia and other countries - but ignored killings in the Stalin's Soviet Union and Europe's colonial past, including the Belgian Congo.
Ed. comment: Yeah, the Belgian Congo....uh, what about that??? Start with Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible.

Curious about The Best Interest of the Child?Spare Us the "Spare the Rod"
Canada tries to sort out the good spankings from the bad.

Here's California's utterly unhelpful rule on reasonable spanking: "Child abuse is a physical injury which is inflicted by other than accidental means on a child by another person. ... It does not include spanking that is reasonable and age appropriate and does not expose the child to risk of serious injury." Which leads to another legal oddity: Many states draw the line between abuse and "benign" spankings as the difference between beatings that leave welts and bruises and those that don't. It's legal to spank but illegal to have spanked in such a way that caused bruising, bleeding, or fractures. Which means child abuse depends more on the child's propensity for bruising—or how often she's been beaten in the past—than a parent's level of force.

Twelve countries—including Sweden, Denmark, and Italy—prohibit corporal punishment altogether. The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child condemns most forms of corporal punishment and provides that the "best interests of a child" should always be paramount. Canada had been censured by the commission for permitting spanking. The United States isn't a signatory to the convention—to the delight of conservative groups—many of whom cite Proverbs 13:24 for the proposition that it's a very good idea to hit your kid with a stick.

The notion that "the best interests of the child" should be paramount in any legal dispute alarmed Canada's Supreme Court, just as it alarms parents' rights groups who believe that their own rights should trump their children's. Under American law, the best interests of the child analysis only kicks in when parental systems break down—if there is a divorce or abuse—otherwise, parents are assumed to know best. But that is, of course, the sleight of hand that went unrecognized today by the Canadian Supreme Court and that goes unrecognized by the folks in this country who'd like to keep smacking their young: Parents don't have an unfettered right to discipline their kids. The only right they have is to hit their kids just up to some moving target of "reasonableness."

You are either for or against spanking. In my experience, the most vocal proponents of spanking seem to be those who claim that "I was whipped with a belt/switch/open palm regularly, and look how great I turned out." That could be an argument for dressing kids up in caps, knickers, and knee socks too. The important legal point is that whether or not you consider your kids to be your property, the courts will step in when you've crossed a line. And that line is decided by courts and legislatures, not by you. Those of you who want the state out of your lives might not like the idea of a broad no-spanking rule. But you should recognize that predictability and certainty in the law are the best ways to hold the state at bay.
Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor. Slate.com posted Jan. 30, 2004 Dahlia Lithwick
Vile, Vile Pedophile- Is child molesting a sickness or a crime? posted Jan. 7, 2004 Dahlia Lithwick
Little Man Tate- Florida's young murderer and the insanity of our competency laws. posted Jan. 2, 2004 Dahlia Lithwick

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KATRINA AND THE LEVEE FAILURES

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CNN's Paula Zahn was incredulous. "Sir," she said, "you aren't just telling me you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn't have food and water until today [Thursday], are you? You had no idea they were completely cut off?" "Paula," FEMA's head, Michael Brown replied unequivocally, "the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today." --NYT..."

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The New Orleans hostage crisis
***

From an important posting in the blog: Dispatch from the Trenches

"OK, let's get this straight: Michael Brown is most likely an incompetent stooge but the fact of the matter is that when he refused to release supplies, National Guard troops, and construction equipment, and then ordered the Superdome locked and checkpoints set up along the roads leading out of New Orleans to turn back anyone trying to escape the destruction, he was following orders. None of it was accidental, none of it was a matter of poor decision-making or the wrong priorities. It was a deliberate attempt by the Bush Administration to blackmail the state of Louisiana into handing the city over to the Federal government. On Friday, four days after Katrina hit, National Guard troops finally arrived, supposedly bringing food and water to those trapped in the Superdome. It's true that there was an initial delivery of emergency supplies, but it was hardly adequate. Everyone assumed more would be coming. But the NG came armed, supposedly to defend itself against bands of looters with handguns and rifles. Soon after, it became clear that the NG's real orders were to lock down the Superdome and prevent anyone from leaving. Between Wednesday morning and Friday night, ships loaded with food, water, and medical supplies arrived. FEMA refused to allow them to be off-loaded. Michael Brown then ordered the communications lines cut that tied emergency workers together. Shortly before midnight, the Bush Administration essentially delivered an ultimatum to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco: before they released the emergency supplies, they wanted her to sign the city of New Orleans over to the Federal government." Note that the link (to the above story)is to the infamous article in the Washington Post, the one in which the Post reprinted the lie told to them by a 'senior administration official' (presumably Karl Rove or someone working for him), that Blanco had not declared a state of emergency as of Saturday, September 3, when in fact, as the correction at the top of the article says, Blanco had declared the state of emergency on August 26 (many feel the Post has an ethical obligation to reveal the name of the 'senior administration official', as any promise of confidentiality was rendered inoperative by the lie, and the fact of the lie is now part of the news). The spinning that is going on is part of the blame-shifting exercise by the White House, but, as Dispatch from the Trenches points out, has a darker purpose as well. Based on Bush's supposed authority to use the National Guard to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act, Bush wanted to declare martial law and take over the city of New Orleans. Why? Dispatch from the Trenches gives four reasons, the most important ones being the third and fourth (emphasis in the original): "Declaring martial law would give the Federal government total control of the city: the Army would be brought in to police it and - perhaps most important to this corporate president - the Federal government would have charge of all the rebuilding contracts, giving it $$$billions$$$ to hand out to its corporate sponsors. There's also the little matter of taking decisions about how and what to rebuild out of the hands of the people of New Orleans and putting them into the hands of people who see New Orleans as 'Sin City', effectively ensuring that New Orleans would never again be the Big Easy." Bush used the starving people of New Orleans as hostages to blackmail the Governor into turning the city over to his troops so he could: 1. hand out all the reconstruction contracts to friends of the Bush Crime Family such as Halliburton; and 2. use his soldiers to control the exit and return of the inhabitants of New Orleans, to ensure that 'undesirables' - blacks and poor white race traitors who like living in a predominantly black culture - never come back so he can rebuild the city as an amusement park for white tourists. The lie told to the Washington Post was just part of the pressure put on the Governor. Bush's plan explains why available troops were left out of the city when they could have been useful and were only installed as the city was being evacuated (they now serve as overarmed security guards), and why FEMA took active steps to prevent aid and aid workers from getting to the city. It also explains why the mainstream press spent so much time reporting on looting, rapes and murders, all in an attempt to force Blanco to agree to Bush's demands. The looting stories were almost entirely cases of people foraging for the food which Bush had ensured they couldn't have, and the rape and murder stores were largely fictional. The entire scenario was an attempt by the Bush Administration to make money off the tragedy caused by Katrina, an attempt that was partially foiled by Blanco's refusal to be blackmailed into handing the city over to Bush. The struggle continues, and we must not allow them to get away with their evil plans. It would be a social, architectural, and cultural crime to let Bush destroy New Orleans. New Orleans needs to be brought back to life in its existing buildings, most of which can be saved, and with its former inhabitants. Did the Italian government contemplate rebuilding Florence someplace else after the 1966 floods? Does anyone ever seriously contemplate moving Venice, a very similar ecological disaster of a city that is also slowly sinking? The idea is laughable. Let's face it. There are only five culturally important places in the whole country: New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and . . . New Orleans. You just can't give New Orleans up so that some rich Republicans can make money. If the American political system were working properly, Bush's attempt to use the lives of the starving and dying citizens of New Orleans as hostages should lead to his impeachment and removal from office. This wasn't just total incompetence and negligence; it was a criminal act. Posted by: Steven Cannon on September 07, 2005 at 02:36PM -- From the Huffington blog.

Well, folks the count is 2000+ dead American soldiers in Bush's Dirty Little War...Feel Safer Yet?...I grew up next to the Yountville Veterans Home, so my childhood was spent with old veterans, men and women who were sick, dying , and sometimes, getting better. I listened to gory war stories, and stories of unbelievable heroism, by fighting soldiers, by nurses, by pilots, by potato-peelers (KP !) I love our troops, but I DESPISE war. I'm appalled by the cuts in their medical care and benefits. America is the richest country in the world, we have the money to spend on what's important, like veterans, like families, like housing, like food, like medical care for every darn American, yet, we don't ! This makes me sad and angry, especially when a politician wraps himself in the flag, throws our troops into the line of fire WITHOUT proper body armor and adequate numbers of soldiers to fight properly !!! And cuts 12 Billion (approx. the amount needed to fund the Federally Mandated, Orwellian-named NoChildLeftBehind) out of education !!!
Bush on Education "Under the No Child Left Behind Act, standards are higher, test scores are on the rise, and we're closing the achievement gap for minority students. Now we must demand better results from our high schools so every high school diploma is a ticket to success." Reality Check: The No Child Left Behind Act focuses on punishments rather than help, federal mandates rather than local flexibility, and privatization rather than teacher-led, family-oriented solutions. NCLB encourages teachers to test-prep and suffocates more complex and useful teaching methods. The President has also failed to fully fund this program leaving states with the heavy burden of fulfilling goals without appropriate funding.

That's mean and unAmerican ! And that's just one example.

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