Golly, I sure was pleased to hear, courtesy of New York magazine and Matt Phillips, that Mr. Theon Johnson, late of New Orleans and currently of New York, NY, thanks to the great wandering of the peoples financed by you and me, with a nice launder through the compassionate money machines at FEMa, is still watching TV on our collective dimes. Ogling, it seems, a great deal of Halle Berry, a favorite of his, thanks to the wide cable offerings in his room with an airport view.
ayuh, Mr. Johnson has been resting comfortably at the JFK airport Holiday Inn since he was plunked down there last Super Bowl Sunday, after being flown to New York City for free last September, as part of the vast rescue of the unfortunate resulting from the self-confessed failure of the army Corps of Engineers to adequately gauge the sinking of the city, to properly build the surrounding levees, and to ably grease the immense number of outstretched palms.
This shocking travesty of an admission is combined with the criminal lack of leadership shown by the political knaves in the surrounding city, parish and state governments.
These are the locales where school busses, barges and float planes are still awash in mud, reeds and jetsam. Flotsam was outlawed by edicts issued by Mayor Nagin during the course of a litany of evils he denounced during a series of campaign speeches made praising the importance of the candy mixtures, suspensions and colloids he likens a rejuvenated New Orleans to.
Of course the true villain in this whole affair, including the puppeteer who has controlled the destiny of Mr. Johnson for so long, who has rendered Mr. Johnson totally penniless, homeless, a ward of the court and pawn of the Legal aid Society, is, of course, President George Bush.
Why even al Gore has categorically shown, as had Mr. Michael Moore, that Mr. Bush is wholly at fault for global warming, international terrorism, the steep price of oil, the disappearing ice caps, the rage of the polar bears, Tom Cruise's fading popularity and George Clooney's unexplained loss of masculine gravitas in certain suburbs of Helsinki.
Still, Mr. Theon Johnson rests on his adjustable bed in New York awaiting the outcome of a court case which may yet net him another $1,200 on top of the $9,000 he has already received and spent on high living, parties, liquor, food, cigarettes, exotic clothing, and pay-per-view movies.
"I spent my money just the way I wanted, and I think (FEMa) should send me some more," Mr. Johnson glibly explained to Mr. Phillips, between his riveting discourses on the noted attributes of Ms. Berry.
He plans to use this latest free windfall to shack up in another room for a few more nights of fun in the Big apple before flying home, for free no doubt, by a government pleased to reunite this poor bedraggled man with his similarly suffering cohorts in the Big Easy.
But it hasn't been all wine and roses, not with nine grand thrown overboard on goodies and excitement and his empty pockets of today.
Some days, when his caseworker doesn't show up with a few free bucks and bus coupons, Mr. Johnson is forced to panhandle for money out front, when he's not begging for canned goods at a local church. and when finished, he returns to his room, showers and settles in for a go at cable movies, and repeats this sorry process, over and over. But thanks to his constant ablutions and the daily changing of the sheets, he has remained quite presentable.
Thanks to the City's lenient squatter's rights laws, and because he was an occupant for more than 30 days, he just can't be chucked out on his ear like we would be for non-payment. No, he is forced to endure lengthy court proceedings on his behalf, which have been winding there way through the internecine halls of justice since May 9th, after the harried hotel served him with the obligatory three notices of occupancy termination for non-payment of his room charges.
Too bad Mr. Schumer and Ms. Clinton have not seen fit to visit Mr. Johnson in his hours of tribulation and observed the daily rigors of his life — the endless movies, the pittances offered by his careless social worker, the evil ministrations of the plodding legal system, the vile insensate refusal of FEMa to send him more ready cash at his whims, the tardy response to Legal aid's offer of a speedy buy out on his behalf, the outright seedy behavior of the hotel and their oafish demands that he actually pay for the room that he's endlessly occupied, his forced panhandling for money, the annoyed looks from the church members when he wheedles them out of a few more cans of victuals. The list is heart rending.
as they say in Massachusetts, "How many more, Mr. Speaker, how many more…"
Indeed, for how many more and for how much longer must we continue to support the "victims" of Katrina as they rest, watch TV, use their relocation money for smokes, liquor, parties and then beg for more?
Wouldn't the money be better spent rebuilding the emergency services, the fire and police stations, which provide real services to real people who have returned and who are actually trying to rebuild their once bustling communities?
I know a jeweler in Nacogdoches, Texas, who survived a hellacious journey as part of the Vietnamese "boat people," who asked me a few simple questions after the Katrina debacle began.
"What would all those people have done if there was no government? Would they just have lain there and died waiting for someone to come for them?"
Why, in america, must so much for so many always be free? and why do we, who must foot the bill, allow it?
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