author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Novel's progressed by another 500 words or so. I'll probably get another 500 or so done before the day is out, but blogging is sporadic due to no internet in the hotel room. I'm at Loaded Joe's for my wireless and for some rockin' damn music. It's the final Battle of the Bands competition of the summer. Mojitos and Bloody Marys are tasty. John can vouch for the hot chocolate. Beer's free. Someone who's been enjoying the free beer--Darryl? Therryl?--would like me to tell y'all, whoever y'all may be, that he says hello.

So I'll hang out here a bit more, and then head back to the hotel for more novel-writing.

Not that it matters.

John and I are in Avon, Colorado. We're doing that get-away-from-town thing we sometimes do on holiday weekends.

But who cares about my freakin' vacation?

The current estimate is that WOTC will start calling authors next week to get 'em to send in their full manuscripts, those they want to see. I'm going to try to get just as far through the novel as I can while I have no cats, cleaning, work, or random visits to interrupt.

But none of this matters.

A friendly gal from the NOLA.com forums who happens to be the niece of one of my parents' close neighbors emailed me with a link to satellite photography of our neighborhood. The houses are all standing. There's no water on the street. The levee is undamaged. My parents will have something to come home to. So will I.

But it's a house. Who. Fucking. Cares?

People are dying all over New Orleans. And FEMA have bugged out. Evacuation efforts by land, air, or sea can't go fast enough. And all air traffic was halted so that our precious President Bush could take a ceremonial tour of the area without feeling threatened. People are starving. There's no food, no clean water, nothing to eat or drink but what you can scavenge from what stores haven't been cleaned out yet. And Homeland Security forbade the Red Cross--the Red Cross! Loaded with supplies, food, and life-saving water--forbade the Red Cross to enter the city.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

Not because the roads are impassable. Not because they might got shot at. No. Because, apparently, everyone knows those lazy-ass po' folk will do anything for a handout.

I wish I was making that up. The Gods' Honest Fucking Truth: This is Homeland Security's rationale.

It is getting harder and harder not to believe that there exists a concerted Federal effort to kill the poor of New Orleans. Sorry, Mom. I know you're sick of hearing it. But nothing else makes sense.

You know what I want to do? I want to head down to Jeffco Aiport, load up a Cessna 172 with bottled water, and fly the hell down there. Land on I-10 after a few flyovers to get the poor stranded folks huddled there to clear the landing strip. Stop, pitch 'em all out, fly off again for more. Maybe take three people with me because that's all that plane will carry, three passengers and the pilot.

And I can't. I can't afford the rental or the gas. Nor can I afford to get shot down by the National Guard. That wouldn't help anyone.

I can, however, afford the donation John and I have made to the Red Cross. But Homeland Security won't let into the city the life-saving food and water we helped pay for. Because, of course, everyone who's still in the city is, according to Homeland Security, there by choice and they will choose to stay, choose to return, for the sake of a Red Cross doughnut.

You know, after 9/11, many authors felt that, compared to that tragedy, everything had ceased to matter. Why write books when so many people have died? I didn't share that despair--I felt that any celebration of life is always worth it.

But I'm coming very close to it now. At least with 9/11, you knew that everything the goverment could do was being done. But today, who cares about my novel? Anything that distracts the general public from the murder that is being committed on my city--there is no other word for what Homeland Security are doing by forbidding the Red Cross entrance--any distraction costs lives.

Stop reading this. Go do something. Shout it from the rooftops. Write emails and letters. Call your representatives. Get the assholes out of the Red Cross's way, get FEMA on the damn ground already, get food and water to the dying people stranded in my city. Please. Someone. Restore my faith in humanity.

Restore his faith, too. Gods know his faith in the rest of the government, at least, is no doubt crumbling.