Early Sunday morning she wrote that she, her boyfriend, their cats, and her computer were leaving. They arrived in Madison Sunday night, after driving straight through in the cabs in which she and her partner would normally carry fares.

This got the attention of Doug Moe, the Capital Times’ ‘gossip’ columnist, leading to a photo of them, with one of their cabs, in front of New Oreleans Take Out on Madison’s East Side.

I’m glad Nevenah was able to get out of there. It’s small comfort compared to the thousands who didn’t and either died or went through hell, but I can look at the photo and try to keep from crying.

If you aren’t reading the coverage on Making Light, go over now. Teresa, Patrick, and Jim and company are all over the clusterfsck where I can only sputter in rage.

My brother, who lives outside of Dallas in Rockwall County, says the local relief agency’s swamped with refugees who arrived early in the week, expecting to go back in a couple of days. They need donations of ready to eat food and drink if you’re in the area, money if you’re not.

The Red Cross is handling the main stream of refugees arriving by bus convoy, sending them to Reunion Arena. The Red Cross needs money to help them, even if the Federals are keeping the Red Cross from helping people still stuck in New Orleans.

She survived a contentious term as a member of the city council that included physical fights and demonstrations at her own home, including things left burning in her front yard. She also survived a bitter campaign for Mayor and incredible smear tactics the included accusation of vote fraud (from a candidate for whom there is actually evidence of vote fraud) and it goes on and on. Somewhere in the middle of this, she managed to beat breast cancer, too. Amazing.

She declared city officials “brain dead” and portrayed them as fawning sycophants to wealth — the immediate past mayor, she wrote, “whittles away his political capital, running hither and thither, obsessing about what he can do today to help H. Ross Perot Jr. increase his net worth.”

It’s also worth noting that the Nation’s website now lets you link to individual entries in John Nichols’ Online Beat column. Now to get an RSS feed…