There are moments...

...in the Truman Show when cracks in the conjured reality inhabited by Truman Burbank start to widen. Like a mad detective, Truman tells his wife to look in the rear view mirror with him, "I predict, that in just a moment we will see a lady on a red bike, followed by a man with flowers and a Volkswagen Beetle with a dented fender...." and sure enough they materialize, passing by, almost as if he had a crystal ball.

Last night I had one of those Truman flashes... when I learned that, "a U.S. House of Representatives committee on Thursday approved a bill to create a corporation that would buy and redevelop tracts of land devastated by recent Gulf Coast hurricanes, helping property owners in Louisiana avoid massive defaults on home and business loans."

First the lady on a red bike...
Katrina floods breeches the 17th Street Canal levee with surgical precision, inundating the poorest sections of the city, leaving the poor and a majority of NOLA's (democ)rats left clinging to anything that floats for almost a week. Then, survivors are bussed as far as possible from the scene of the crime - Houston, Atlanta. Those who want to stay, undergo forced evacuation by sheriff's deputies in body armor, holding rifles. Shipwrecked, jobless, homeless, the refugees still hang on to their land back home, expecting to return someday.

Followed by a man with flowers...
Facing foreclosure with no solution in sight, they can thank Louisiana Republican and White Knight, Rep. Richard Baker for coming to the rescue with the Louisiana recovery bill. The House agreed yesterday to create the "Louisiana Recovery Corp." taking over the debt on "destroyed" properties at the request of owners unable to make their mortgage payments. The corporation would "relieve" hurricane victims of their mortgage obligations up to $500,000.

"This is a major step toward providing urgently needed financial options to tens of thousands of Louisiana citizens who right now face terrible choices, between continuing to pay the house note on a destroyed home they will never live in again or accepting foreclosure and an impaired credit record," Baker said.

"It's also a step toward rebuilding communities through the maintenance of a functioning market system, safeguarding a lending industry that will be essential for financing recovery efforts, and utilizing private sector resources to provide a fiscally responsible return on the taxpayer's investment," he said.

and a Volkswagen Beetle with a dented fender....


All of those beached and demolished waterfront casinos will magically reappear on dry land in the 9th Ward, bringing jobs and prosperity to a section of the city that was once wrought with poverty.

The Truman Show stars the first child ever adopted by a corporation... tune in any time for another episode in Louisiana's Electoral Disaster.

"When Hurricane Katrina broke the levees in New Orleans, it did more than create a wave of evacuees fleeing the city. Democracy itself is now a disaster area. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has postponed city elections indefinitely, thereby extending the term of the city's mayor by executive decree. Meanwhile, bureaucratic squabbling and flawed voting mechanics threaten to bar tens of thousands of people from future elections..."

"New Orleans needs to get absentee ballots to its many registered voters who are displaced, but only the Federal Emergency Management Agency has a relatively comprehensive list of new addresses. Citing privacy concerns, FEMA refused to share that list and later decided it was too costly to notify people about their voting rights. Just this week, under threat of a lawsuit, it agreed to pass the list on to the state. Louisiana now plans to send notices about how to apply for a mail-in ballot to those already registered, but the onus remains on displaced residents to register and apply for a mail-in ballot."