The Nashville Symphony will face $42,000,000 in cleanup costs in the wake of the flood.
Schermerhorn Symphony Hall, opened in 2006, at a cost of 123,000,000 was flooded in its basement, within four inches of the performance hall. The two Steinways and the organ console will be covered by insurance, and the Symphony carried ten million in flood insurance. FEMA will pitch in some funds, but there will be a shortfall of several millions to raise separately.
OS, ever the culture warrior, thinks this presents the Symphony an opportunity to connect with the life of this region of the state. Professional orchestras suffer from the perception of being aloof from everyday life, and elaborate halls, as good as they are for musicians to perform in, tend to be off-putting. Many people simply won't walk through those ornate doors.
It's the 'Cathedral Effect'. OS heard a tale, a true one, of an outreach by an English cathedral located at some distance from London. Pains were taken to make certain that everyone in the area knew they were welcome to visit and see the splendors of the historic building. The great day arrives, and amongst the visitors are a married couple in their nineties, who had lived nearby their entire lives. They had a wonderful time, but when asked why they had never visited, they replied: 'We didn't know that people such as us would be allowed in the building!'.
It's time to show up and play in the churches and high school gyms around the region, and build audience and donor base. Musicians hate this, and bitch endlessly about it. Let them.
Rahm Emanuel's infamous quote does have a bit of truth in it--this is a real rough patch in the life of the organization, and an opportunity to serve the culture of Middle Tennessee. On the long pull, the Symphony will benefit as it weaves itself into the fabric of daily life.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Skewers Obama Eighty Miles North Of The Mexican Border
One minute long, and she says it all:
Peripheral Vision And Hearing: On The Road And Back Again This Week
A few images and thoughts from this week's travels in Tennessee, Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas:
A real giggle occurred at the Georgia border, on I-75 just south of Chattanooga, TN. Someone has purchased a billboard openly petitioning Our Lord to hasten his return to Earth sooner rather than later. As devout Christians, Mr. and Mrs. OS do understand that this day will arrive, because it has been promised by Christ himself, at a date known only to the Almighty. The billboard was a bit of a shock, implying that we would be able to pull this date forward, if we were to try devoutly enough.
Of course, given the traffic that followed in Georgia for the next several hours, one might understand the sentiment behind the sign. The afternoon was exhausting and harrowing, and it was Saturday! The road was rough, littered with shreds of blown and failed truck tires, along with much other debris. Never again. Never another drive through central Georgia.
A few days later, we met a refugee from Atlanta, waitressing at a restaurant. Three years ago, she was married, a homeowner, working in accountancy at a large construction firm. Everything fell apart at once, and now divorced, she sleeps on a friend's couch near Jacksonville, with the house on short sale (with no interest shown), happy to be working as a waitress, with a place to sleep. Away from Atlanta, and the traffic, and the life built on 'keeping up with the Joneses'-her quote. She said she used to feel ashamed at all that happened, losing the house, losing the marriage, losing the life. She says that many of her friends and acquaintances are bailing out of Atlanta, that the jobs have simply disappeared, and laughed grimly at the suggestion that news reports tout a recovery underway. She reports that rents are dropping rapidly on beachfront property, and is looking for a more permanent place to settle.
In Jacksonville, much vacant retail space, and a real shabbiness to many parts of the city, in contrast to the manicured privacy of the upscale developments. OS hit two golf courses, one in an older section of town. The course and clubhouse had certainly seen better days. The drive home in the afternoon was sobering, with scores of young men just hanging out on the stoops and street-corners, no place to go evidently. The newer course was in a planned development near the beach, and was impeccable. OS walked his holes, and had the course to himself.
The drive back to Tennessee took us through the Carolinas, via I-95 to I-16. A stop at an outlet mall south of Savannah was revealing. Three-quarters of the retail space empty, with other stores obviously on clearance. Our visit with friends in the Tryon, NC area was a true contrast. The little towns were thriving, well-groomed, with a wide variety of goods and services. Very little empty storefront evident. We hope to visit again soon. Something is being done right here. A town of 1500 with four prospering bookstores has something good going on.
A visit in one of the larger towns was poignant, as OS overheard a retail store clerk recount that 'this was the job he could find', as the middle-management corporate job went away months ago. In a high-end antique store, a middle-aged gent walked in, attempting to flog a print given to him twenty-seven years earlier by his mom as a wedding gift. Marriage had recently ended, and evidently he was liquidating what remained of that life. The owner was kind, but unwilling to purchase without a clear provenance on the item. It was painful to overhear, and we quietly headed out the door to allow them to finish the conversation without spectators.
The drive home was extended by a closure of I-40 on the North Carolina side. A detour and overnight in Kingsport up I-26 took us through breathtakingly beautiful country. We wandered about in search of a place to eat after checking in to our hotel, and drove a few miles into Virginia up Highway 23. As depressing a sight as we have seen in years. The despair hung thick in the air.
Home again the next day, and grateful to be back. The contractors begin arriving this week to restore the damage wreaked by The Great Middle Tennessee Flood. We'll be living with the contents of a large living room stowed in the rest of the house. Never knew we owned that much china...
Still, so very grateful for our lives, one another, our kids, our friends, our work, our cats and dogs.
The economy is obviously not in free-fall as in 2008, but there are a lot of people still in a world of hurt, and many more yet to go through the wringer as we go through the inevitable de-leveraging after the governmet's attempts to pump everything back up. The road back will be long and hard.
More to tell, with one particularly poignant foreclosure tale to tell, but that's for another day.
So happy to be home.
A real giggle occurred at the Georgia border, on I-75 just south of Chattanooga, TN. Someone has purchased a billboard openly petitioning Our Lord to hasten his return to Earth sooner rather than later. As devout Christians, Mr. and Mrs. OS do understand that this day will arrive, because it has been promised by Christ himself, at a date known only to the Almighty. The billboard was a bit of a shock, implying that we would be able to pull this date forward, if we were to try devoutly enough.
Of course, given the traffic that followed in Georgia for the next several hours, one might understand the sentiment behind the sign. The afternoon was exhausting and harrowing, and it was Saturday! The road was rough, littered with shreds of blown and failed truck tires, along with much other debris. Never again. Never another drive through central Georgia.
A few days later, we met a refugee from Atlanta, waitressing at a restaurant. Three years ago, she was married, a homeowner, working in accountancy at a large construction firm. Everything fell apart at once, and now divorced, she sleeps on a friend's couch near Jacksonville, with the house on short sale (with no interest shown), happy to be working as a waitress, with a place to sleep. Away from Atlanta, and the traffic, and the life built on 'keeping up with the Joneses'-her quote. She said she used to feel ashamed at all that happened, losing the house, losing the marriage, losing the life. She says that many of her friends and acquaintances are bailing out of Atlanta, that the jobs have simply disappeared, and laughed grimly at the suggestion that news reports tout a recovery underway. She reports that rents are dropping rapidly on beachfront property, and is looking for a more permanent place to settle.
In Jacksonville, much vacant retail space, and a real shabbiness to many parts of the city, in contrast to the manicured privacy of the upscale developments. OS hit two golf courses, one in an older section of town. The course and clubhouse had certainly seen better days. The drive home in the afternoon was sobering, with scores of young men just hanging out on the stoops and street-corners, no place to go evidently. The newer course was in a planned development near the beach, and was impeccable. OS walked his holes, and had the course to himself.
The drive back to Tennessee took us through the Carolinas, via I-95 to I-16. A stop at an outlet mall south of Savannah was revealing. Three-quarters of the retail space empty, with other stores obviously on clearance. Our visit with friends in the Tryon, NC area was a true contrast. The little towns were thriving, well-groomed, with a wide variety of goods and services. Very little empty storefront evident. We hope to visit again soon. Something is being done right here. A town of 1500 with four prospering bookstores has something good going on.
A visit in one of the larger towns was poignant, as OS overheard a retail store clerk recount that 'this was the job he could find', as the middle-management corporate job went away months ago. In a high-end antique store, a middle-aged gent walked in, attempting to flog a print given to him twenty-seven years earlier by his mom as a wedding gift. Marriage had recently ended, and evidently he was liquidating what remained of that life. The owner was kind, but unwilling to purchase without a clear provenance on the item. It was painful to overhear, and we quietly headed out the door to allow them to finish the conversation without spectators.
The drive home was extended by a closure of I-40 on the North Carolina side. A detour and overnight in Kingsport up I-26 took us through breathtakingly beautiful country. We wandered about in search of a place to eat after checking in to our hotel, and drove a few miles into Virginia up Highway 23. As depressing a sight as we have seen in years. The despair hung thick in the air.
Home again the next day, and grateful to be back. The contractors begin arriving this week to restore the damage wreaked by The Great Middle Tennessee Flood. We'll be living with the contents of a large living room stowed in the rest of the house. Never knew we owned that much china...
Still, so very grateful for our lives, one another, our kids, our friends, our work, our cats and dogs.
The economy is obviously not in free-fall as in 2008, but there are a lot of people still in a world of hurt, and many more yet to go through the wringer as we go through the inevitable de-leveraging after the governmet's attempts to pump everything back up. The road back will be long and hard.
More to tell, with one particularly poignant foreclosure tale to tell, but that's for another day.
So happy to be home.
Video Of the Gulf Of Mexico Taken This Weekend: From Gulf Shores To The Deepwater Horizon And Back To Louisiana
This is disturbing footage to watch, especially knowing that the Obama administration sits on its hands as this situation unfolds. OS does not endorse the narrative questioning why BP is doing 'x' vs. 'y' at the spill site, or the final bit with the anthropomorphization of the dolphins. That's a bit odd. But the simple documentation of the spill itself is sobering.
All we need now is a big hurricane...sucking up all that oil to deposit inland.
When OS was a small lad, he visited the Bon Secour Peninsula for many summers in the 1960's. It was a different place then, largely undeveloped, with just a country road running from the village of Gulf Shores out to Fort Morgan, used during the Civil War to guard Mobile Bay. His uncle would take him shrimping in the shallows of Bon Secour Bay, in a small boat, and let him sort through the groaning nets for shrimp and crab, to be served that evening for dinner. It was an enchanted place and time, and the little boy knew it. It was a place apart.
Perhaps, OS's grandchildren, or their children, will be able to experience it for themselves. Heaven only knows what it will take to undo this damage.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Simon Johnson's Words Still Ring True
Simon Johnson weighed in a year ago with sober words about cultures around the world, which all share one characteristic in common: their economies have gone belly-up, and needed to be rescued by the IMF.
Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Russia grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.
As the great-and-good of the world gather in Canada to plan our futures, his words bear reading again.
Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Russia grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.
As the great-and-good of the world gather in Canada to plan our futures, his words bear reading again.
Had To Confirm It Just To Make Certain: California Welfare Cash Cards Used In Casino ATM's
So, making our way through North Carolina to visit with friends, on the 'Never gonna drive through Atlanta ever again' route.
NPR on the radio, 'cuz country radio is like fingernails on a chalkboard these days.
Floating up through the speakers, a constant flow of polite talk on innocuous subjects, competing with the road noise, and suddenly we hear someone being interviewed about State of California cash cards issued to welfare recipients being used to withdraw cash in the ATMs of over half the casinos in California.
What???!!! Mrs. Os and her stunned husband listen in disbelief as Jack Dolan of the Los Angeles Times calmly (and wittily) tells the tale of what he found by checking the publicly available records.
Of course, the Guhvernator is all over it, by gosh and by golly.
Turns out, 1.8 million dollars flew out California's door via these ATM's since October 2009.
Now, given the fact that California hands out some 6.6 billion dollars in cash assistance every year, 1.8 million is really in the statistical realm of a rounding error. Or, one can contemplate the fact that 1.8 million is a drop in the bucket of the breathtaking 6.6 billion welfare tab that California spends every year.
Six billion six thousand million, heading out the door, most of the money borrowed from the rest of the world.
It's not about the money. It's about a culture where this sort of behavior is chatted about cheerily on NPR, in almost an amused tone of voice.
The days off in Florida were all too brief. It took two days just to begin to get caught up on sleep from the previous month's non-stop work. OS and the sainted Mrs. OS have spent the past twenty years working and parenting, parenting and working, and working and working and working...and paying taxes...and paying taxes...and see government at all levels spend more and more, and give the money we earned and the taxes we paid to people who take it to casinos for gambling.
The words to describe the feelings just won't line up tonight.
NPR on the radio, 'cuz country radio is like fingernails on a chalkboard these days.
Floating up through the speakers, a constant flow of polite talk on innocuous subjects, competing with the road noise, and suddenly we hear someone being interviewed about State of California cash cards issued to welfare recipients being used to withdraw cash in the ATMs of over half the casinos in California.
What???!!! Mrs. Os and her stunned husband listen in disbelief as Jack Dolan of the Los Angeles Times calmly (and wittily) tells the tale of what he found by checking the publicly available records.
Of course, the Guhvernator is all over it, by gosh and by golly.
Turns out, 1.8 million dollars flew out California's door via these ATM's since October 2009.
Now, given the fact that California hands out some 6.6 billion dollars in cash assistance every year, 1.8 million is really in the statistical realm of a rounding error. Or, one can contemplate the fact that 1.8 million is a drop in the bucket of the breathtaking 6.6 billion welfare tab that California spends every year.
Six billion six thousand million, heading out the door, most of the money borrowed from the rest of the world.
It's not about the money. It's about a culture where this sort of behavior is chatted about cheerily on NPR, in almost an amused tone of voice.
The days off in Florida were all too brief. It took two days just to begin to get caught up on sleep from the previous month's non-stop work. OS and the sainted Mrs. OS have spent the past twenty years working and parenting, parenting and working, and working and working and working...and paying taxes...and paying taxes...and see government at all levels spend more and more, and give the money we earned and the taxes we paid to people who take it to casinos for gambling.
The words to describe the feelings just won't line up tonight.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Local Arizona Sheriff Pleads For Troops, White House Assures Us All Is Under Control
View and compare these two bits of video, one from the local sheriff in Arizona who admits that law enforcement cannot contain the drug cartels, and the White House spokesman who all but calls Senator Kyl a liar, as he assures us everything is under control.
Whose words do you believe?
Whose words do you believe?
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Sovereign Default Hall Of Shame: May I Have The Envelope?
(H/T to Mish, the one and only Chief Rabbi of Economics)
Mish points us to the latest Credit Default Swap quotes.
It's sort of like golf: The higher your score, the worse your situation.
So, drumroll puhleezzze, for the Sovereign Default Hall of Shame!
Venezuela
Greece
Argentina
Pakistan
Ukraine
Dubai/Emirate of
Iraq
Illinois/State of
Portugal
California/State of
Wait-a-minit-thar, bubbah! OS gots a question or toooh 'bout this heah' list!
Illinois ranks below Pakistan, Iraq, and Dubai? Two of those states are in war zones, and one of them is run by a profligate royal family.
Now, where izzit that The Winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize hails from?
Isn't that Illinois?
Didn't He serve in the state senate there and vote on spending bills that now have to be paid for?
And isn't that guy Chavez in Venezuela someone The One and his posse positively admire?
And isn't Argentina that country that wants to get another war underway over the Falkland Islands, with the active help of The Winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize and Miss Hillary?
And isn't California the place that keeps voting Democrat, and building the welfare state, and is overrun with Mexicans--and isn't that where Miss Nancy Pelosi hails from?
Aren't they trying to do to the country what they did to their states?
So, if these folks and their friends are the True and Only Path of Enlightenment for both the government and economy, how come anybody with a buck to invest in sovereign debt runs away from them?
Maybe they know that these folks always take societies and their economies over the cliff?
Mish points us to the latest Credit Default Swap quotes.
It's sort of like golf: The higher your score, the worse your situation.
So, drumroll puhleezzze, for the Sovereign Default Hall of Shame!
Venezuela
Greece
Argentina
Pakistan
Ukraine
Dubai/Emirate of
Iraq
Illinois/State of
Portugal
California/State of
Wait-a-minit-thar, bubbah! OS gots a question or toooh 'bout this heah' list!
Illinois ranks below Pakistan, Iraq, and Dubai? Two of those states are in war zones, and one of them is run by a profligate royal family.
Now, where izzit that The Winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize hails from?
Isn't that Illinois?
Didn't He serve in the state senate there and vote on spending bills that now have to be paid for?
And isn't that guy Chavez in Venezuela someone The One and his posse positively admire?
And isn't Argentina that country that wants to get another war underway over the Falkland Islands, with the active help of The Winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize and Miss Hillary?
And isn't California the place that keeps voting Democrat, and building the welfare state, and is overrun with Mexicans--and isn't that where Miss Nancy Pelosi hails from?
Aren't they trying to do to the country what they did to their states?
So, if these folks and their friends are the True and Only Path of Enlightenment for both the government and economy, how come anybody with a buck to invest in sovereign debt runs away from them?
Maybe they know that these folks always take societies and their economies over the cliff?
Senator John Kyl: 'They Want Something In Return Before They'll Do Their Duty'
It's 4:42 long, and is perhaps the clearest portrait yet of the mind and heart of The Winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.
Obama and company are deliberately encouraging the chaos on the border in order to hold the country hostage. When Kyl tells his story, you don't hear indignation in the reaction, you hear that collective release of breath that says 'Oh, dear God in heaven, this is my worst fear confirmed...'
In one sector of Arizona, a 94% decrease in illegal immigration, just by employing the laws and policies already enacted. In the next sector over, a tidal wave of illegals, drugs and crime. And they know it, and refuse to act. Obama will let the blood flow until he gets his 'comprehensive immigration reform'. The bodies stack up on both sides of the border in the meantime.
'It's a nice little country ya got here, it would be a damn shame if it were ruined by illegals running it over. Hey Gino, hey Vito, tell this nice country what happens if we don't get active cooperation! We're just out to protect you, after all!'
This begins to put the Administration's response to the BP oil leak in perspective.
Actually, it puts all of their behavior in perspective, from Day 1.
Da' Chicago Way, in da' White House...
(The White House, of course, denies all, and calls Kyl a liar.)
Obama and company are deliberately encouraging the chaos on the border in order to hold the country hostage. When Kyl tells his story, you don't hear indignation in the reaction, you hear that collective release of breath that says 'Oh, dear God in heaven, this is my worst fear confirmed...'
In one sector of Arizona, a 94% decrease in illegal immigration, just by employing the laws and policies already enacted. In the next sector over, a tidal wave of illegals, drugs and crime. And they know it, and refuse to act. Obama will let the blood flow until he gets his 'comprehensive immigration reform'. The bodies stack up on both sides of the border in the meantime.
'It's a nice little country ya got here, it would be a damn shame if it were ruined by illegals running it over. Hey Gino, hey Vito, tell this nice country what happens if we don't get active cooperation! We're just out to protect you, after all!'
This begins to put the Administration's response to the BP oil leak in perspective.
Actually, it puts all of their behavior in perspective, from Day 1.
Da' Chicago Way, in da' White House...
(The White House, of course, denies all, and calls Kyl a liar.)
Feds Halt Sand Berm Project In Louisiana
As OS has stated before, he'll say it again: The Obama Administration doesn't want a solution to the BP problem in the Gulf of Mexico, it wants the problem to exacerbate into a human catastrophe.
It's always, always, always about the quest for power. Once that idea is firmly understood, the administration's behavior appears rational and consistent. Sans that idea, they just look like a 'ship of fools adrift on a sea of nonsense'.
From TV News in New Orleans: WDSU
NEW ORLEANS -- The federal government is shutting down the dredging that was being done to create protective sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico.
The berms are meant to protect the Louisiana coastline from oil. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department has concerns about where the dredging is being done.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who was one of the most vocal advocates of the dredging plan, has sent a letter to President Barack Obama, pleading for the work to continue.
Nungesser said the government has asked crews to move the dredging site two more miles farther off the coastline.
"Once again, our government resource agencies, which are intended to protect us, are now leaving us vulnerable to the destruction of our coastline and marshes by the impending oil," Nungesser wrote to Obama. "Furthermore, with the threat of hurricanes or tropical storms, we are being put at an increased risk for devastation to our area from the intrusion of oil.
Nungesser has asked for the dredging to continue for the next seven days, the amount of time it would take to move the dredging operations two miles and out resume work.
Work is scheduled to halt at midnight Wednesday.
OS again asks the question: If they continue to work, what's US Fish and Wildlife gonna do? Arrest Billy Nungesser? Wouldn't the image of him being led off in handcuffs for arraignment just make it around the world in one hour, and play for weeks? Front page of the BBC, baby! Lead story on CNN, bubbbah! Cut to ObamaBob stuttering out an explanation an hour later.
Charge Billy with? Find a prosecutor willing to try him? Find a jury in Louisiana to convict him?
Sue Plaquemines Parish? And open the workings of the Obama Administration to the legal discovery process? Find a jury anywhere that will rule for the government?
How many law firms out there would love to lead the countersuit for damages?
Send in the Federal Marshals to seize all the equipment, lock up all those workers?
In which jail? Which sheriff? The Sherriff of Plaquemines Parish?
How many marshals? Armed how? Running a blockade of armed shrimp boats? Willing to fire on them?
Send in the Coast Guard, or National Guard? Is the Louisiana guard going to open fire on the citizens of Plaquemines Parish? Is any other state's guard unit going to do the same? They have to go home and face their neighbors, mainly in the small towns from which those units are mustered.
Keep working, Billy. Dredge away. Hurricane season is coming, an Obama wants that oil to show up in Natchez before November.
Protect your parish, your state, and your nation.
Keep dredging.
It's always, always, always about the quest for power. Once that idea is firmly understood, the administration's behavior appears rational and consistent. Sans that idea, they just look like a 'ship of fools adrift on a sea of nonsense'.
From TV News in New Orleans: WDSU
NEW ORLEANS -- The federal government is shutting down the dredging that was being done to create protective sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico.
The berms are meant to protect the Louisiana coastline from oil. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department has concerns about where the dredging is being done.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who was one of the most vocal advocates of the dredging plan, has sent a letter to President Barack Obama, pleading for the work to continue.
Nungesser said the government has asked crews to move the dredging site two more miles farther off the coastline.
"Once again, our government resource agencies, which are intended to protect us, are now leaving us vulnerable to the destruction of our coastline and marshes by the impending oil," Nungesser wrote to Obama. "Furthermore, with the threat of hurricanes or tropical storms, we are being put at an increased risk for devastation to our area from the intrusion of oil.
Nungesser has asked for the dredging to continue for the next seven days, the amount of time it would take to move the dredging operations two miles and out resume work.
Work is scheduled to halt at midnight Wednesday.
OS again asks the question: If they continue to work, what's US Fish and Wildlife gonna do? Arrest Billy Nungesser? Wouldn't the image of him being led off in handcuffs for arraignment just make it around the world in one hour, and play for weeks? Front page of the BBC, baby! Lead story on CNN, bubbbah! Cut to ObamaBob stuttering out an explanation an hour later.
Charge Billy with? Find a prosecutor willing to try him? Find a jury in Louisiana to convict him?
Sue Plaquemines Parish? And open the workings of the Obama Administration to the legal discovery process? Find a jury anywhere that will rule for the government?
How many law firms out there would love to lead the countersuit for damages?
Send in the Federal Marshals to seize all the equipment, lock up all those workers?
In which jail? Which sheriff? The Sherriff of Plaquemines Parish?
How many marshals? Armed how? Running a blockade of armed shrimp boats? Willing to fire on them?
Send in the Coast Guard, or National Guard? Is the Louisiana guard going to open fire on the citizens of Plaquemines Parish? Is any other state's guard unit going to do the same? They have to go home and face their neighbors, mainly in the small towns from which those units are mustered.
Keep working, Billy. Dredge away. Hurricane season is coming, an Obama wants that oil to show up in Natchez before November.
Protect your parish, your state, and your nation.
Keep dredging.
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