As I stated earlier last week I just dragged in from two weeks of “Vacation” and I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to recover from walking 400 miles through New York, 200 miles through Washington D.C., snaking through some woods in South Carolina, stumbling around Charleston for a few hours and then spending four days wandering up and down the streets of New Orleans. During the entire two week period approximately 5 hours of it was spent behind the wheel of a car and most of that during the drive from Lamar, South Carolina to Charleston, South Carolina. As it turned out that rental car cost me more than a plane ticket from Los Angeles to New York City. In case you haven’t noticed airline tickets are cheap these days. It costs less to fly from LAX to JFK than it would to take a bus. The train we rode from New York to Washington D.C. cost nearly as much as the flight to New York. Initially our plan was to drive the whole thing because there is a lot of interesting stuff to see on the way but when we found out that flying was cheaper we figured we could fly one way and drive a rental car back. This was a bad idea we scrapped as soon as we discovered that the drop off price in Los Angeles for a rental car from New York was $2000 and that didn’t even include the cost of the rental or the mileage charges or the massive tax they tack on just to piss you off. I decided that seeing the world’s largest cross, the Route 66 museum and stopping in a few souvenir stands along the way wasn’t worth the cost. Once we decided to fly both ways we discovered we had a lot of extra time and that’s when we figured we may as well spend that extra time visiting the most humid and miserable place anyone could ever visit in the summer, so we booked a flight to New Orleans. We got rained on in New York, Washington D.C., South Carolina and despite the heat we even got drenched in New Orleans, but all things considered, we had a great time.
New York City is a great place to visit. You can get anywhere you want to go and some places you didn’t intend to be just by hoping on a subway. You can get a seven day pass for about $27 that lets you ride any subway in town as many times as you want. It’s probably the best value available in the entire country. Everybody in New York rides the subway, rich people, and poor people, working people, bums, school kids, crazy panhandlers and tourists with enough sense to leave their cars at home. About 90% of the cars on the streets of New York are taxi cabs. You can stand on any corner and watch a constant stream of taxi cabs speeding around, all honking and yelling at each other in 80 different languages. Television has given New York City a bum rap. I’m sure it’s got some funky neighborhoods but the streets cleaner than they are in Los Angeles and we walked through Central Park after midnight without getting mugged. I didn’t see one rat or cockroach the whole time I was there. The people are friendly, especially to lost and clueless tourists, and if you’re into shopping you can find stores in New York that sell everything you can imagine at prices way below what we’re used to seeing in Southern California. The city is dripping with fine old buildings, great architecture, museums and history and you don’t need a car to get to anything as long as you’re willing to cram yourself into a subway car that’s already packed full of people and hang on to a pole till you get to your destination. I think the subways play an integral part in the psychology of New York City’s population. To get anywhere they eventually have to ride it and everybody is crammed in together regardless of their station in life, the color of their skin or their national origin. Every car contains a cross-section of the entire city and nobody seems to get their hackles up as those subway cars lurch around and people are tripping over each other or falling in their laps. You could slide into one of those things dressed like Bozo the Clown with a giant rubber dildo sewn to the front of your pants and nobody would even look at you, let alone say anything.
Washington D.C. has changed a lot since I was there about ten years ago. I think a lot of it is because of 9-11 but that doesn’t account for everything. I don’t think they are as afraid of Islamic terrorists as much as they afraid of the American people. Homeland Security is everywhere. They rush up and down the streets in their white vans like something is about to explode somewhere and in many parts of the city you can see groups of them on roof tops looking through spotter scopes for potential right-wing extremists and soccer moms with anti-Obama bumper stickers. I don’t know what they did with all the homeless, the panhandlers and the junkies that were wandering around that town ten years ago but they aren’t there anymore. I think the Democrats must have rounded them all up and got them elected to office. D.C. has a subway system as well but we didn’t ride it. We walked from the hotel to the Capital building and then down to the Lincoln Memorial, took in the gaggle of war memorials and a two of the Smithsonian museums but by the time we made it to the Air & Space Museum it was closed and our feet were sore and we were tired of walking so we caught a ride in a pedi-cab back towards our hotel, had dinner and crashed early because we had to catch our plane to South Carolina the next morning.
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In Charleston we took a ferry out to Fort Sumter where the first shots were fired during the Civil War. In New York and Washington D.C. the memorials are for the Union Army Generals, but in Charleston and New Orleans the Memorials are for the Confederate Generals and soldiers who served the Confederacy. The story behind Fort Sumter is amazing.
South Carolina declared its secession from the Union on December 20, 1860, five days later U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson spiked the cannons at nearby Fort Moultrie, abandoned what he considered to be an indefensible fortification and under the cover of darkness secretly relocated his two companies of the 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment to Fort Sumter. At 4:30 am on April 12, 1861 a single mortar round fired from Fort Johnson exploded over Fort Sumter but they did not begin their bombardment of the island fort until 7:00 am when Capt. Abner Doubleday fired a shot at the Ironclad Battery at Cummings Point whereupon the Confederates opened fire from their 43 guns and mortars at Fort Moultrie, the Floating Battery of Charleston Harbor and Cummings Point. Fort Sumter fort had been designed to hold out against a naval assault at a time when naval warships carry guns capable of elevating high enough to fire over the walls of the fort, however, the land based artillery manned by the South Carolina militia were capable of lobbing round after round directly over the walls into the fort, thereby limiting Major Anderson’s use of the Sumter’s upper levels and restricting him to the lowest levels where the cannons suffered a limited field of fire. The Confederate troops fired some 3000 rounds into Fort Sumter over a period of around 34 hours, and after one of their rounds took down the flag pole envoys were dispatched to the island to see if they were ready to surrender. Major Anderson agreed to surrender providing he be allowed to re-raise the flag and lower it with a 100 gun salute. The Confederates acquiesced to his terms, the flag was raised and when the 47th gun fired a spark ignited several nearby cartridges killing one soldier instantly and seriously injuring the rest of the gun crew. The salute was halted after fifty rounds were fired and the surrendering Union troops were placed aboard a Confederate steamer where they spent the night and were transferred to the Union steamer Baltic resting outside the harbor sand bar the following day. The injured gun crew was taken to a Charleston hospital where one later died from his wounds and the remaining soldiers were sent back to the North. The two men killed by the accidental explosion were the only casualties in the opening battle between the states.
An 1861 engraving shows the nearly completed Fort Sumter as was constructed on a man-made island of sea shells and granite from northern quarries. The fort’s strategic location in the center of Charleston’s harbor provided the Confederacy with a near perfect location for ships carrying much needed supplies to run through the Union blockades. The fort itself is a pentagonal structure; originally it’s walls were fifty feet high and eight to twelve feet thick. The first Union attempt to regain control of Charleston harbor began on April 7, 1863 when Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, moved the ironclad frigate New Ironsides, the tower ironclad Keokuk, and the monitors Weehawken, Passaic. Montauk, Patapsco, Nantucket, Catskill, and Nahant into firing range of Charleston’s Confederate controlled coastal defenses. The Union fleet of ironclad ships never managed to effectively engage and the 154 rounds they fired were answered by more than 2,209 rounds fired by the Confederate defenders. The ironclad Keokuk sustained so much damage during this battle that it sank the following day a little more than one mile off the southern tip of nearby Morris Island and two of the ship’s massive 11 inch Dahlgren guns were salvaged by the the Confederacy who moved one of them into Fort Sumter where it was put to use defending the fort against further attacks by Union forces. On the night of February 17, 1864 eight ill-fated, but courageous crewmen manning the 40 foot long Confederate States Ship H. L. Hunley were killed following the first successful submarine attack sinking the 1124 metric ton USS Housatonic in Charleston harbor. While the Hunley survived the attack, she foundered and sank while returning from her mission and the wreckage of the Confederate submarine was not recovered until April 17, 2004. The eight Hunley crewmen who drowned inside the primitive submarine were interred in Charleston’s Magnolia Cemetery with full military honors.
A particularly devastating bombardment by Union forces between August 16th and the 23rd of 1863, Union batteries with vastly improved artillery pieces continued their bombardment of Fort Sumter firing more than 5000 projectiles at the rapidly diminishing fort and successfully dismounting all of the parapet guns. The Confederate soldiers worked tirelessly to salvage the remaining undamaged cannons from the ruins and managed to get four 10 inch columbiads, a single 8-inch rifled columbiad, and two rifled 42-pounders all of which were mounted in the left face, bottom tier casemates of what remained of the devastated fort despite further bombardment by the Union batteries aimed at hindering the repairs. With the loss of their most effective artillery pieces and the fort in ruins the tenacious Confederates manned the ruins of the island fort with capable infantry forces.
The Union Generals no longer considered Fort Sumter an effective part of Charleston harbor’s defense and this bit of delusional thinking led General Quincy A. Gillmore and Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, now commanding the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, to the determination that they could easily take Fort Sumter down with a combined land and sea assault during the first weeks of September, 1863. However, Gillmore and Dahlgren both seriously underestimated the strength and tenacity of the Confederate defenders, and the uncoordinated attack was a fiasco from start to finish.
Admiral Dahlgren, apparently a stubborn gentleman who desired full credit for taking Fort Sumter, estimated the Confederate strength on Fort Sumter to be at most, limited to 6 to 10 men remaining from a corporal’s guard unit. Dahlgren delegated Commander Thomas H. Stevens of the monitor Patapsco to lead a force of 400 sailors and marines in 25 boats to overcome the few remaining Rebel troops and take possession of the fort. Somewhat reluctantly, Stevens proceeded with the attack but less than half of the 25 boats managed to land and those that did landed on the right flank of the fort where they could not scale the fort’s walls rather than on the gorge where a passable breech existed. When the defenders realized the attack was underway the garrison fired a signal rocket and their compatriots at Fort Johnson opened fire on the invading Union boats while the Confederate gunboat Chicora opened fire upon the boats and landing party. The remains of the landing party took refuge in the shell holes blasted into the side of the fort’s defenses while the sailors and marines in the retreating boats fired blindly at the fort endangering the exposed landing party more than the Confederate troops inside. Eight Union soldiers were killed, 19 were wounded and 105 were captured while the Confederates suffered no casualties at all.
The Union Army flotilla, under General Gillmore’s command was staged between Morris Island and James Island where Gilmore’s engineers had constructed a battery in the marshlands. An exceptionally low tide delayed their scheduled departure to join forces with Admiral Dahlgren’s naval assault force and by the time the tide reversed sufficiently to free their movement the Confederate’s had already defeated and captured most of Dahlgren’s surviving force and it became clearly evident that any further attempt to assault the fort would be pointless. General Gillmore’s Marsh Battery contained an 8-inch mounted Parrott Rifle which was considered the cutting edge of modern artillery at the time. The thing weighed 16,500 pounds and used a 16 pound charge to fire a 200 pound projectile over a maximum range of 8,000 yards at it’s highest elevation. Gillmore’s troops nicknamed the gun the “Swamp Angel.” Without regard for the innocent non-combatants including many women and children, on August 21, 1863, Gillmore ordered his gunners to commence firing incendiary and explosive shells into the city of Charleston causing many fires and great destruction. On the 32nd volley, much to the relief of Charleston’s citizens the massive cannon burst apart.
Following the failed assault, the bombardment of Fort Sumter recommenced and proceeded with varying degrees of ferocity until the war ended. Despite their many casualties, the stalwart Confederates continued to salvage guns and ammunition from the ruins and their highly capable sharpshooters harassed the Union batteries with deadly accuracy. The Confederacy never surrendered Fort Sumter. The granite stone blasted from the top two tiers was moved outside and stacked up against the remaining walls along with sand bags and palmetto logs while rendering the fort even stronger and more defensible. The Confederate infantry successfully continued their defense and full control of Fort Sumter until the Union General William T. Sherman’s advance through South Carolina forced the evacuation of Charleston on February 17, 1865. On April 14, 1865, the retired Major Robert Anderson returned to the fort and raised the same Union flag that he was forced to lower when he surrendered the fort to the Confederacy exactly four years earlier.
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Shortly after our visit to Charleston we flew down to New Orleans where we discovered a climate so hot and humid that condensation was dripping off the fogged up windows of the airport. We caught a shuttle to our hotel in the Garden District near St. Charles and Josephine Street, checked in, unpacked our luggage, cooled off in the shower and went out to explore the city. We walked down Josephine to Market Street, turned left and continued walking all the way to the shops along the riverfront near Canal Street. By that time we were both drenched in sweat, so I sat in the air conditioned mall while my wife shopped for some more appropriate clothes and shoes (of course). We took the trolley down Canal to St. Charles and caught another that dropped us off near our hotel where we immediately took another shower before going back out. Over the next few days we wandered around Bourbon Street, explored the much of the French Quarter, rode the trolley down to Congo Square, wandered through a endless graveyard the size of a small city and spent more than a few evenings futilely trying to squeeze some winnings out of the slots at Harrah’s Casino at the end of Canal Street. As far as casinos are concerned I have seen few that are tighter. I estimate that the odds are you could win more money from a pay phone than you could at that casino’s best paying slot machine. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing pennies, nickels, quarters or dollars, you are guaranteed to come out with less than you start with because they’ve got those machines screwed down so tight that the reels barely spin. It might be that I’ve been spoiled by playing the slots in California, Nevada, New Mexico and a half dozen other states where it is actually possible to win once in awhile, but as far as I’m concerned, that big glitzy casino at the end of Canal Street in New Orleans exists only to fleece the tourist trade and the next time I visit New Orleans I won’t waste any time in that establishment.
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The most interesting time we spent in the Big Easy was the afternoon we spent at the Confederate Memorial Hall Museum located down Howard Street from the traffic circle where the memorial to Robert E. Lee was built. The Confederate Memorial Hall Museum is a beautiful old ornate brick and stone building with a great deal of fine architectural detail. The interior is a massive continuous open hall with an open timber framed ceiling with several heavy solid trusses running across the width of the structure. The careful craftsmanship expended on the framing of the ceiling alone is staggering and the entire building is one of New Orleans most beautiful examples of fine Southern architecture imaginable. The collection of artifacts displayed within the museum includes the personal effects of many of the Confederacies most notable leaders such as General Beauregard, General Polk, Brigadier General Gibson, Colonel Mouton and General Hood. The museum also contains the symbolic crown of thorns sent to Jefferson Davis by Pope Pius IX during his two years of solitary confinement at Fort Monroe following the end of the war. There is a great deal of Confederate history carefully preserved within those walls and some of the finest examples of exquisite sabers, rifles, pistols and an ample collection of portrait paintings, ambrotypes, tintypes and daguerreotypes of individual soldiers, Officers, and civilians of the Confederacy. There is also a large display of personal effects and old photographs of the numerous African Confederates who voluntarily served the Confederate cause; a historical detail often omitted from historical discussions of the Civil War.
While in the Confederate Memorial Hall Museum I had brief chat with the one of the curators regarding the legality and justification for the secession of the Confederate states. The commonly held belief is that the Civil War was fought to free the slaves, at least that is what most of us have been told in our American history classes, and it is actually a myth. When South Carolina seceded from the union in 1860 and Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 Union troops to go down there and screw their feet to the floor he had no intention of abolishing slavery. The fact of the matter is, Lincoln expressed the belief that the institution of slavery was provided for under the provisions of the U.S. Constitution and even though he did not believe that slavery was morally correct he would do nothing to abolish it because he took an oath of office that required him to uphold the provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Ultimately, abolishing the institution of slavery in the Confederate states had nothing to do with equality for the black slaves. The abolition of slavery was implemented as a method of punishing the Confederate states for their secession from the Union and the primary driving force behind it was the political desire of the new Republican Party to destroy the economy and rapidly dwindling political influence of the southern states.
Prior to the Civil War the Southern States were dominated by large labor intensive agricultural plantations. The institution of slavery was firmly established in the American colonies at the time of the American Revolution. It was most important in the five southern states from Maryland to Georgia, but the total of a half million slaves were spread out through all of the colonies. In the South 40% of the population was made up of slaves, and as Americans moved into Kentucky and the rest of the southwest fully one-sixth of the settlers were slaves. During the Constitutional Convention of 1787 the one issue where compromise was found to be impossible was the issue of slavery’s abolition. The Christian concept of morality could not overcome the pragmatism of a society that was then heavily dependent on the agricultural industry’s need for laborers and the influence of Southern representatives made the national abolition of slavery very unlikely in the foreseeable future, the dominance of the Southern state’s influence was made evident by the 3/5ths compromise reached during the 1787 Convention which allowed three-fifths of the population of slaves to be counted for enumeration purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of the members of the United States House of Representatives. Nonetheless, a small antislavery movement, led by the Quakers, had some impact in the 1780s, and by the end of that decade all of the states except for Georgia had placed some restrictions on the importation of additional slaves. When the slave trade was outlawed in 1808 most Americans felt that the issue of slavery had been resolved. The small group of Southern states continued to hold a great deal of influence over national politics because of the 3/5ths compromise and it was a never ending source of frustration for the Northern states where their economy began to rapidly grow as a result of industrialization, mining, commerce and transportation coupled with a growing urban population fueled by a high birth rate and large numbers of Irish, British, and German immigrants. The Southern states had little immigration, few towns and cities and beyond the large plantations, most of their non-agricultural industry was limited to small manufacturing enterprises in a few border areas. As the economy and population of the North continued to swell it became increasingly difficult for the South to continue to influence the national government and many Southerners were worried about the relative political decline of their region. In the attempt to maintain unity, most politicians continued to moderate their opposition to slavery in the South, but the sectional ideologies in national politics became increasingly virulent and hostile. The old second party system collapsed in the 1850′s and the Republican Party began to gain popularity in the Northern states where most of the industrialization was taking place as well as in the agrarian Midwest as the northern states became more committed to the economic concept of free-labor industrial capitalism. For the South, the issue of slavery was wrapped tightly around the constitutional concept of property rights and the abolition of slavery was considered a death sentence for the Southern economy.
The states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederacy considered the issue of slavery as being merely a part of their justification for secession. The American Revolution against the British Empire resulted in the Colonies Declaration made on the 4th of July, 1776, “”that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.” The federal government of the United States had strayed far afield from the original vision expressed by the founding fathers of the nation and many in the Southern states viewed the overbearing acts of legislation enacted by the U.S. Congress as blatant violations of the U.S. Constitution because those laws encroached heavily upon the reserved rights of the States. Inasmuch as the Declaration of Independence clearly established that whenever any “form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.” Following the Declaration of Independence each of the thirteen original states exercised its separate sovereignty, and one by one each adopted its own Constitution, appointed officers for the administration of its own government in all three departments, Legislative, Executive and Judicial, and each formed its own militia for the common defense of its citizens. In 1778 the thirteen states entered into a League under the provisions of the Articles of Confederation and thereby allowing a common agent to administer each state’s external relations. That common agent was the United States Congress, however, the second Article in that agreement declared in simple, clear terms, “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.” Following the logic derived from the historical documents substantially and credibly recording in very clear language the details and intention of all agreements, declarations and laws established, the states that seceded from the Union, beginning in 1860 with South Carolina, were legally justified in their actions by reason of two primary, and well established principles, namely, the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted.
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While the discussion above may seem like another historical diversion, it is in fact, very relevant to the essential nature of this blog and the author’s personal viewpoint that the United States of America has lost its moral compass, the nation’s current economic path is unsustainable, the government has become far to tyrannical and that the division that once existed between the two primary political parties, the division that provided our government with a true sense of balance has eroded to the point that both parties are pretty much the same, no real balance exists, representation of the American people has ceased to exist and corrupt professional politicians dominate a political environment in a government that has become far too large, convoluted and lumbering to benefit the citizens it is supposed to be serving.
The healthy secession movement that is growing in the state of Alaska is fueled primarily by the tremendous amount of highly questionable legislative acts passing through the United States Congress to eventually become laws that are then supported by a Supreme Court, whose members are more than willing to redefine the terms of our constitution according to the whims of self-serving politicians.
On April 15, 2009, the Governor of the state of Texas stood on the steps of the State House in Austin and publicly threatened to pull Texas from the Union and form an independent, sovereign republic because a rapidly growing number of that state’s citizens are entirely fed up with the blatant corruption evident in the federal government.
In Vermont a retired economics professor leads a growing secessionist movement called the Second Vermont Republic made up of a rapidly growing network of citizens who are dedicated to separating their state from what they view as the “the American Empire.”
In the northwest, the citizens of Oregon, Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia are banding together in a separatist movement to form the independent Republic of Cascadia.
Secessionist movements have sprung up in New Hampshire and Hawaii as well, and one recent poll has indicated that more than 20% of the nation’s population has expressed their support for succession. While many American citizens and most elected officials in Washington D.C. have dismissed the sentiments of these secessionist groups, all available evidence indicates that an increasing number of American citizens, including a large number of U.S. Military officials, are dismayed by the ever accelerating erosion freedom, liberty and formerly considered “inalienable” rights once guaranteed under the provisions of the U.S. Bill of Rights. There is good reason for their dismay. Virtually every inalienable right expressed by our founding fathers has been abrogated by Congressional action or subjected to multiple re-definitions by the radical activists appointed to the Supreme Court for their eager willingness to legislate from the judicial bench infringements that cannot be accomplished by political means.
History indicates that the secession of individual states may not be the most intelligent course of action. In the current case the states that are most actively leaning in this direction are scattered across the entire nation. New Hampshire and Vermont are relatively small states with small populations that are primarily oriented toward political liberalism. Hawaii, while isolated by distance, is fairly similar in nature. It’s population is small and the citizens lean predominantly to the left of center, however, the state of Hawaii is about as far from New Hampshire and Vermont as it could possibly get and the possibility of these three states achieving any sort of an effective alliance ranges the spectrum of possibility from slim to non-existent. It is fairly easy to dismiss the ranting of liberals as frustrated political rhetoric. As far as the visionary independent Republic of Cascadia is concerned, that is a movement that has been underway for years and it appears to have about as much credibility as the Flat-Earth Society. Secession would be drastic step for any state government to take and it is difficult to imagine any state where the citizens are sufficiently united against the current administration to pull off a successful effort in this regard. However, it is only a matter of time before the current crop of politicians in Washington D.C. step over the line from acceptability to outrage. Their own arrogance will ultimately drive them to make one completely egregious error of judgment that will tip the scales of freedom and liberty over on its side and the people of this nation will finally see the line in the sand and either take matters into their own hands of accept the bonds of lifelong servitude to a government that exists for it own benefit and serves the interests of the elite.
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All things considered, including the temperature and precipitation, we had a great time everywhere we went. The Eastern seaboard of this nation is dripping in great history from one end to the other and there is a lot of American history that is conveniently left out of this nation’s textbooks that should be known. As a native Californian, I envy the New Yorker’s subway system. As rickety as some of those trains are they provide the best rapid transit system I have ever experienced and it certainly beats the heck out of the parking lot we call the 405 freeway. The oddest thing I noticed about New York is that, despite the fact that in many areas the trash is picked up three times a week, they don’t recycle anything and New York produces trash like no place on Earth. They could probably create a billion dollar a day recycling industry in that city with all of the cardboard and glass bottles that are stacked up on the streets every single day. It amazes me that nobody has figured this out. As far as New Orleans is concerned, they are still struggling to recover from the damage of hurricane Katrina. Construction is going on everywhere and the evidence of ruin is apparent in the many boarded up buildings and demolished houses that have yet to be torn down and hauled off. Among the citizenry there appears to be some degree of displeasure for FEMA and you can buy T-shirts in local shops that bear the FEMA logo and the message underneath it saying “Find Every Mexican Available.” Obviously, FEMA hasn’t exactly gone out of their way to hire the local contractors and the people down there seem to be under the belief that much of the towns reconstruction is being given to contractors from out of state using low-paid illegal alien workers. I don’t know if this is true but it seems to be the general sentiment among the local populace. At any rate we had a great trip, and we were glad when our last flight touched down at LAX.
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