By Alan B. Combs.

These were a couple of posts sent to my mailing list following the Katrina Hurricane of 2005 which did so much damage to New Orleans.

Many of my wife’s relatives live(d) in New Orleans. I find I have a great deal of affection and sadness for that wretched city.

It has not been a good year for New Orleans. Many enterprises, both legitimate and those with less than respectable attributes went down those totally inadequate drains. The bordello district was particularly hard hit (so to speak). Total inundation was the order of the day. A prophetic folk song popularized by Bob Dylan and others described these events.

“There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Scum.”

The above pun comes, of course, the old folk song, the House in New Orleans.

“There is a House in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun.
It’s been the ruin of many a young man,
And I, Oh Lord, am one.”
(a very old folk song, played in a minor mode)

Someone has worried that my recent pun on the above song might be a little bit politically incorrect (PIC). When I am PIC, I do it full speed ahead with full intentions.

Nothing racial was implied or intended in my pun, though, I suppose it might be a little PIC to joke about a New Orleans bordello being washed away in the toxic sludge that wiped away the rest of the city. The place needs all the industry it can get.