Thoughts of the Dark Rose

Another Reason I Am For Obama

2008-05-24T14:08:00.003-05:00

Hillary the bitch has freakin' screwed herself this time.

If I had any doubts about my support of Barack Obama, they are gone now. I will not have this mean-spirited bitch in the White House. All of my Feminist beliefs are reeling over the words and concepts she utters on the campaign trail, but this crap about RFK was the final freakin' straw.

Give it up bitch! Your 15 minutes of fame are over.

Still Posting...

2008-05-21T16:05:00.000-05:00

Over at GentillyGirl.com

Going to start firing off from here again.

Wet Bank Guide: Win, Lose or Draw

2006-09-25T15:42:00.000-05:00

Wet Bank Guide: Win, Lose or Draw

We Are Not OK...

2006-08-29T02:51:00.000-05:00

2006-08-16T13:52:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Katrina: Time Magazine article

2006-08-02T15:45:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Katrina: Time Magazine article

The Garden of Irks and Delights: 2006 World Monuments Watch -100 Most Endangered Sites

2006-07-28T19:04:00.000-05:00

The Garden of Irks and Delights: 2006 World Monuments Watch -100 Most Endangered Sites

Shifting Blogs

2006-05-16T18:49:00.000-05:00

Okay folks,

I am slowly shifting this Blog over to my new one: Gentilly Girl.

All here will be archived on the new Blog. There are many more bells and whistles using WordPress, and Alan is working to teach me enough to make the new one more useful.

Gentilly Girl is part of the Think New Orleans system... an archived database of all that is going down here in NOLA. There are dozens of us in this system.

I have another Blog that will be used for Trans issues, and GG will be for N.O.

Both will feed to the proper groups.

Blessings!

This Past Week

2006-05-06T12:24:00.000-05:00

Okay, been a busy week.

Alan at Think New Orleans has created a new blog for me. I'm the Giunea Pig for this new info/archive network that's being set-up for New Orleans. There have been no anal probes or brain needles so far. *Whew!*

On Thursday we closed the SBA Loan: now it's time to raise the house and repair it before the Fall Hurricane season hits. We are also going to put a deck on the second level which can double as a wharf if the damn western wall of the Industrial Canal fails. With our gas-powered generator and wireless Broadband, I expect to be able to stay online and put out info for folks.

I'm thinking of getting a skiff with a motor that will be tethered to the new deck just in case the worst happens this year. We can motor to the Verdi Mart and get needed supplies. (I'm not going to pole a gondola there and back!)

That's all I have right now. The storms are coming, and I wish to get this out before the power fails. *rolls eyes*

Be Blessed!

Thought of the Afternoon

2006-05-01T18:04:00.000-05:00

Can I get a bumper sticker like this?

Hmmmm....?

We are not okay.

Stephen Colbert "Does" the Ruling Elite

2006-05-01T14:08:00.000-05:00

Oh my goodness! A few days ago Stephen Colbert was the final act at the Washington Press Corps annual dinner. Many members of the Ruling Elite were there, as were the Press Corps.

They didn't laugh very much.

Colbert was right on target with his psuedo "Conservative" act. Skewered so many of these buffons right were they live. (Or don't live.)

Crooks and Liars has the video of his performance that night.

For almost everyone in the room, it was "Misery Accomplished".

On Sunday, 60 Minutes "covered" Colbert, but it was done as a thin layer.

Chris Durang at the Huffington Post has a good coverage of that one.

Maybe we can get Colbert to look at the New Orleans situation?

Bay Buchanan Can Kiss My Panty-clad Tush

2006-04-28T13:17:00.000-05:00

Sweet zombie Jezus! Bay Buchanan thinks Katrina and us have worn out our welcome with the American people? Fuck you, you cross-wearing hag! Aren't we supposedly Americans?

We pay taxes to the Gov'ment. Our river is under the control of the Corpse of Engineers.... America gets millions of barrels of our oil to keep the country running. The Midwest would be seriously impacted if they couldn't ship the chemically-laden, and genetically-altered foodstuffs through our port. Much of their toys from the Orient come through us. We are vital to the health of the Nation.

BUT, Americans are tired of hearing of us and our plight? Screw them.

Suspect Device has a wonderful piece relating to this latest insult. I'll give you the closing lines:

"We are not going away. And if we go down, we're going to take you down with us."

So be it! America be warned: We are tired of the Gov'ment dragging it's ass in providing relief. We are not okay down here.

(Personally I vote for Succession, ala Callenbach...)

Crooks and Liars has the video link.

Humid City: Halliburton Detention Camps??? Political Subversives??

2006-04-25T13:45:00.000-05:00

Humid City: Halliburton Detention Camps??? Political Subversives??

Medicated New Orleans

2006-04-21T12:57:00.000-05:00

Since the Deluge of New Orleans almost 8 months ago I have been stretched tighter than a drum. Research and worry about our friends, the city, and the entire Coast... getting back home resulted in one very worn-out nervous wreck.

After taking three weeks to get rid of a cold I made a decision: I'm going to be medicated like so many others here. It's the only way I can make it through anymore.

Can't bear to look at parts of the city... too depressing. Don't dare to go out everynight to escape my reseach and contact work for Gentilly: I can't drink that much. Can't sleep due to the fact that I've spent my bedtime hours just going over data or trying to find answers for folks.

Yesterday my Doctor at the V.A. prescribed Paxil to calm me down. (Haven't used the stuff in seven years.) After picking up the little bottle of magic pills, I took a whole one. Thirty minutes later I'm like floating, feeling waves of anger and sorrow flow out of my body. (I have intense reactions to pharmaceuticals.) Was melting in the passenger seat as we ran our errands.

Got home and promptly crawled into the bed. Slept for some hours, ate some food, and just layed on the sofa watching whatever. I felt like an over-cooked piece of pasta. Every part of my body ached, and I couldn't stop yawning. Finally I called it a night and just crashed.

Today I'm a little shaky, but much calmer. Betty was laughing at me as I lay sprawled across the bed trying wake up. She just said, "Baby, just relax and let all of this stuff leave you. You've been way too intense since the Flood. Just rest." So, I'm sittin' at the dock of my puter bay just slowly wending my way through all of the research and data... feeling not so stretched and wondering if a nap is in order. I cut this one way too close: might have had another month in me, but the meltdown was going to come big-time. *rolls eyes*

So, I'm taking it easy this weekend, going to have a nice bubblebath, (the landlord finally hooked up our gas and bought a working water tank), and nibble on fruit whilst playing with our cats. Going to listen to music, relax, and cut those magic pills in half!

Goodness! It feels great to just be more like my pre-Deluge self. (Hmmm... How many Charrettes do I need to attend this weekend? See... it never ends here in the new New Orleans.)

That's just Life, but at least I'm calmer.

Katrina We Are Not OK Katrina: The Others

2006-04-19T11:59:00.000-05:00

Katrina We Are Not OK Katrina: The Others

Humid City: Scientific American Shines the Light of Sanity on The Gulf Coast

2006-04-19T11:06:00.000-05:00

Humid City: Scientific American Shines the Light of Sanity on The Gulf Coast

Gentilly Charrette

2006-04-18T12:47:00.000-05:00

First New Orleans Charrette Begins in Gentilly, April 18

WHAT: The Gentilly Design Charrette, a week-long series of meetings and design sessions, all open to the public. The charrette will produce an immediately actionable plan for the rebuilding of the Gentilly community, plus a zoning code that will assure future development is in line with the community’s vision. The goal is to create a model for comprehensive, fast-track planning that can be emulated through New Orleans.

WHEN: April 18-25, 2006

WHERE: St. Leo the Great Catholic Church, 2916 Paris Ave., New Orleans

WHO: A volunteer team of 35-40 architects, planners, engineers, and other specialists led by Andres Duany, principal of the Miami-based architecture and urban planning firm Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. (dpz.com)

CONTACT: Irina Woelfle (305-373-8616; irina@iwprgroup.com); Ben Brown (828-508-5002; benbro@earthlink.net) or Steve Filmanowicz (312-927-0979; sfilmanowicz@cnu.org)

NEW ORLEANS – Starting with the arrival on Tuesday, April 18, of a volunteer team of architects, planners, and other specialists led by Andres Duany, New Orleans gets its first exposure to a fast-track planning process developed by Duany and his Miami-based firm, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company. The focus is the city’s Gentilly community. The results should provide a model for city-wide planning.

"The nation has watched our city struggle with the effort to initiate and follow through on processes that can move us from the immediate aftermath of two devastating hurricanes onto a path of full recovery," says Scott Darrah, president of the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association, which invited the Duany team. "We are convinced it’s time to demonstrate that one neighborhood can embrace a constructive process, adopt innovative design approaches, and move toward immediate implementation. That’s why we’re excited to partner with a group of consultants who have the most enviable track record in post-Katrina planning."

Duany says, "We couldn’t think of a better place to do this than Gentilly. It provides all the examples of architecture and all the challenges of urban planning we’d expect to find in the whole region. There are rich and poor residents, high and low ground, new and old structures. Everyone in New Orleans will see themselves in some aspect of Gentilly."

Duany uses the "charrette" technique, which links intensive, sophisticated design work with an inclusive consensus-building process on a tight deadline. The result is a package of immediately actionable plans down to the neighborhood and lot scale, complete with a zoning code to ensure that patterns of future development follow a community’s vision of how it expects to grow. That package is developed with constant public input and with designers continually refining their work to reflect the evolving community consensus. And it is all accomplished within a week.

"The last thing citizens here need," says Duany, "is another meeting, another survey of their opinions, another list of options that get them no closer to a real plan. We are as committed as they are to planning that delivers safer communities that don’t have to sacrifice architectural traditions envied all over the world. There is no reason, in fact, why homes and neighborhoods can’t be even better than before and even more uniquely New Orleans. And there’s no reason a plan that enables all of that can’t be done quickly. In Gentilly, over the next week, we’ll prove it."

Duany has led the most successful post-Katrina planning efforts in Mississippi and Louisiana. In fact. the only plans moving through stages of implementation are ones initiated by teams he led. In Mississippi last October, Duany brought some 200 international and local planning specialists together for the Governor’s Commission-sponsored Mississippi Renewal Forum. The group created plans and zoning codes for 11 communities and three counties. (See www.mississippirenwal.com) The majority of those communities have remained engaged with design teams and moved the plans toward implementation. In Louisiana, the Louisiana Recovery Authority contracted with Duany for charrettes in three parishes. City councils in all three communities immediately endorsed the plans that came from those sessions. (see http://www.louisianaspeaks.org).

Duany’s teams have also produced a series of innovative designs for small-scale, storm-worthy dwellings that would make ideal alternatives to the temporary FEMA trailers that are the current standard for emergency housing. The designs have become popularly known as Katrina Cottages. Since the introduction of the first prototype in January, Katrina Cottages have captured the imagination not only of storm victims but also of a whole segment of the nation’s housing market focused on high design at low cost. It’s clear now that these cottages can form the nucleus for a new generation of affordable housing built on the very best traditions of a region’s architectural heritage.

The Katrina Cottage design group has produced two Katrina Cottage prototypes on display in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and Chalmette, Louisiana. During the Gentilly charrette, they will initiate construction of at least three more prototypes from the same design family. The new cottages, designed in keeping with New Orleans architectural traditions, will be on display for months after the charrette. Like the charrettes, these cottages are fast-track propositions. Because they’re built using the latest in manufacturing and panelization techniques, they can be installed on a site within a matter of days or weeks instead of the months required for on-site, stick-built construction – a major advantage in a state looking to replace some 180,000 damaged or destroyed homes.

The next week promises to be full of excitement and progress towards real plans with real results. "In New Orleans so far," says the GCIA’s Darrah, "there has been much debate about alternatives and many suggestions for ways to proceed. But no process has moved from the most basic discussion stage to anything close to implementation. We think this charrette has the best chance to change that trend."

Further Thoughts on the Parable of the "Nolas"...

2006-04-14T15:35:00.000-05:00

Where do I start? What direction must I take this rant? Who will understand these concepts?

A few days ago I lifted a post from the blog: "After the Levees" . I reread this piece over and over, and I realise that I am one of the heartbroken ones down here. That my faith in a concept and a Nation has been shattered, and that I am very sad and ashamed for the America I have always fought for, the America I was taught to believe and trust in.

I spent nine years in the Navy believing that was my due under the Social Contract. Worked for years to help those displaced under said Contract, believing that this was the right thing to do: help the folks in my "neighborhood", to be a good citizen. I am coming to a point where I am being thoroughly disabused of that notion.

There was a time when our country stood together, but that was before gated communities, video, tank-like SUVs, and a speading spirit of "only me". Me, me, me... mine, mine, mine, and then there are the "others".

As a Society we are all interdependent: Life is a chain, and when one link is harmed, we all feel the pain. For some reason Modern America doesn't get this concept. I have survived many bad turns in my life, repaired the damage, but this Governmentally-engineered flood has brought me to my knees, as it has for many people here along the Gulf Coast post-Katrina/Rita/Deluge.

We believed and trusted in the Social Contract. We as a region gave unstintingly for the Nation, even to point of destroying our physical protection. We trusted in the Nation's words and deeds that we would be protected, all to no avail. In other words, we got fucked royally without a "Thank You".

What we had, (operative term: had), here in New Orleans was a true culture, one that mixed so many different folks within one society. Didn't always work so well, but if one looks at the sum total of what we were, it was actually a net positive. We helped build this country. Under the current machinations of the Powers-That-Be, this form of culture will become a thing of the Past, a lost dream of the kind of dream that Jefferson advocated for the folks of America, the "Natural Aristocracy". We had a Natural Aristocracy here in New Orleans, whether one lived in the Uptown, Gentilly, or just had a shotgun in the Lower Ninth Ward. It was called "just folks".

I also belive in Self Reliance, ala Emerson, but that cannot work when one is constantly undermined by the actions of the status quo. How can one rebuild their life when there are constant roadblocks thrown in their way and when the fault does not lie within that person's actions, but in the inaction of the government? We did nothing wrong outside of trusting the outsiders, and we are now paying for that wrongly given trust.

To the folks of America: unless a change is applied, what is happening to one of the oldest parts of this country can and will happen to you. It's just a matter of time. California? Worry folks... the neocons will marginalize you. The Pacific Northwest? When the Cascade volcanos blow, all you will get are the ashes. New Madrid... you are freakin' screwed.

This is the paradign in American Culture: "Fuck you... I have mine".

There is another way. (I'll give that one to you soon... I want you to think about the above first.)

Just something to ponder. We are not okay.

From People Get Ready- Flood Washington

2006-04-14T14:39:00.000-05:00

Flood Washington

The Gulf Restoration Network:

Last week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finally admitted failures in the design of New Orleans flood walls. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock told a Senate Subcommittee,"We have now concluded we had problems with the design of the structure. We had hoped that wasn't the case, but we recognize it is the reality."

Experts from the National Science Foundation countered that potential problems have been known for some time. They cite a 1986 corps study that warned of just such floodwall failures. As New Orleans rebuilds, we must ensure that the nation learns the lessons of Katrina and that the possibility for future, similar Corps' mistakes is addressed.

Legislation to do just that was recently introduced in the U.S. Senate. Called the Water Resources Planning and Modernization Act of 2006 (S. 2288), the bill will update the Corps project-planning guidelines, require a strong independent review process, improve wetland management, and shift the Corps' priorities away from pork-barrel projects.

Please take a moment to urge your Senators to support this important legislation, and then urge five friends to send the message as well.

Visit the Gulf Restoration Network to send your message.

Virginia Boulet for Mayor!

2006-04-13T20:07:00.000-05:00

Okay, I know that many of you are worried about splitting the vote, but a vote for Virginia Boulet is not a wasted vote. This is not about Nader in 2000.

This is a Primary election. The finals will be Forman, Landrieu, and... ?. Couhig doesn't have a chance. Nagin cannot even get the Black vote. Boulet is a real competitor.

This woman has ideas that will help settle down the Feds and the Nation's tax-payers. She has foward looking ideas. Out of all the ones running, she has ideas for the future of this city. I see no probs with her agenda.

Landrieu will be in the Finals (I will support him if Boulet doesn't make the Finals.)... take a chance during the Primary, vote for Boulet. If nothing else, Mitch may adopt some of her ideas, maybe learn something new.

We have one week to the Primary election... look at her stuffs. Compare the concepts to the net negative of ideas offered by the others. There will be another month of B/S until the Final elections... give this woman and her thoughts a chance.

If she doesn't survive the Primary, maybe Mitch will look at her ideas. She needs our help. (Freakin' Hell, we need whatever to bring this city back to Life.)

We are the ones that work Tech, think about things, and dearly love our city. She needs us, and we need her.

'Nuff said... I'm voting for Boulet, and trusting to Fate. Sometimes ya's just have to trust to luck.

Napenthe!

From: After the Levees- Being Poor Like the Nolas

2006-04-12T18:29:00.000-05:00

An interesting parable here, and one that all of you should read and understand. THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING to our Social Compact.

Read it and weep as I did. I fear for this country and it's soul.

Being Poor Like the Nolas

By Boyd Blundell | bio

When I'm talking about poverty in my ethics classes, I’ve always felt like I’m missing something. I cannot successfully communicate the sense of helplessness that goes along with it, the sense of being the victim of forces to large to understand. But above all, I cannot communicate the sense of humiliation that comes with accessing an impersonal system, or in receiving charitable support for one’s family in order to survive. I myself have never been in that position.

No longer. To be part of post-Katrina New Orleans is to understand something of the helplessness and humiliation of poverty, regardless of your personal income. Let me tell you about the Nolas.

New Orleans is the equivalent of a family (let’s call them the Nolas) that lives in a very affluent neighborhood (let’s call it Bush Gardens). The Nolas have always been a bit of an oddity among the other families in Bush Gardens. They’re not all that well off, but that’s not it. Their closest neighbors on the southern edge of the neighborhood are no better off, but they never seem as unkempt, never quite as scruffy as the Nolas. The Nolas are justweird, but in the eyes of the neighborhood, it has always been a good weird. They are a hospitable family that throws great parties with the best food and spectacular music, and pretty much the whole neighborhood has fond memories of the Nolas and all their weirdness.

It’s been a very bad year for the Nolas; as disastrous a year as anyone can remember. Their house burned to the ground, the entire property is destroyed, and they can’t even think about the expense rebuilding the family house until all sorts of even more expensive repairs are done to the property. Much of the family is bunking with neighbors. Some died in the fire, and a few are unaccounted for. And while the fire department and other emergency services haven't done such a great job, most of the people in Bush Gardens are great. They seem to feel really good about helping the Nolas. But when it becomes clear that the help needs to be ongoing, the enthusiasm of many starts to wane. Because the causes of the Nola’s sudden “poverty” are very complicated and not easily fixable, many quickly become distracted by other things. Some are actually quite hostile, as though the Nola’s flagrant suffering is an insult to their sense of propriety.

This last group can be awfully brazen, and turn out to be very influential. This poor family, asking for help in its tragic circumstances from a neighborhood it helped build, suddenly finds itself being lectured on all its faults. The Nola’s begin to hear mutterings that they’re asking for handouts. The well-to-do Cato family offers a hectoring lecture on the Nola’s lack of sensible financial preparation. (Of course, they were wrong. But then, the Catos think that the failures of the fire department only goes to show that there should be no fire department. The Nolas think the Catos need to get out of the house more.) Other families launch aggressive attacks on the Nolas’ character, and some on the neighborhood council oppose any financial aid to a family so dysfunctional. (The Nolas think the council is pretty dysfunctional itself). The Nolas are asked, with no irony whatsoever, why the neighborhood should chip in to help them.

The Nolas, when they have time to think about it at all, are mystified by all this. “When did we become a them?” they wonder. Less than a year ago, the Nolas were part of the “we”. The Nolas were so cool that they made the whole neighborhood look cooler. Despite the neighborhood’s impressive wealth, travelers would often choose to come to hang out at the Nola’s messy and slightly dilapidated house. When the neighbors traveled, they were proud to claim the Nolas as their own, and were pleased to accept that the coolness of the Nolas were part of what made the neighborhood so great. Those crazy Nolas were firmly in the “we” column.

But now the Nolas are finding out what it’s like to be a “they,” to be “those people.” It’s not a whole lot of fun. The Nolas never had the most polished social skills, and have a difficult time in the other neighbors’ houses. Nor are they the most articulate people, so they have trouble explaining why they think they should be still part of the “we,” or how hurt they are that they’re not. They know that historically they were the gateway to the neighborhood’s wealth, and that the process of getting energy to the neighborhood houses had destabilized their property and made their plight that much worse. They had contributed. The Nolas find it a cruel irony that they became a “those people” at the precise moment that they most needed to be a “we”. And they find that their less savory relatives want to cooperate with the neighborhood and let most of the family property rot. On the nicest corner of the property, they want to build a banquet hall that will be a brighter, shinier version of the Nola's old, rambling house – and people will come to the banquets and pretend that they’re at one of the Nola family’s amazing parties. But the Nolas won’t live there anymore.

The Nolas are a complex family. The younger and more idealistic Nolas are just waiting for things to go back to something like the way they were. Older and more experienced family members understand that things will never be the same, that their family will never fully recover from this. They hope that if they work hard and learn to make do, they’ll salvage the most important parts.

But the wisest members of the Nola family are the ones most worth watching. They’re heartbroken, and you can see the impending sense of doom on their faces. Every day, they become more and more convinced the neighborhood will abandon them, that they are the poor that the neighborhood wants out of sight. They work on the property alongside their family, but they are humiliated, and they work without hope. In their darkest moments, they have come to suspect something awful: There is no neighborhood. They realize that the if Bush Gardens could do this to the Nolas, who had been such a celebrated part of the neighborhood, then it could do it to any other family in a similar plight. It is dawning on these wise Nolas that not only will they be abandoned by Bush Gardens, but that the neighborhood they were always so proud of is nothing like they thought it was. And that hurts even more.

I fear for the Nolas.

I fear for the neighborhood.

Building Big Easy: Raise, And Be Healed!

2006-04-12T17:06:00.000-05:00

Building Big Easy: Raise, And Be Healed!

Princeton Students Launch "Levee" to Help New Orleans PL

2006-04-11T19:26:00.000-05:00

Oh my YES!

Books and I have been good friends over the many decades
of my life, so much so that I spent twenty years running
some really huge stores and some very tiny holes in the
walls.

Imagine my horror during the Flood when I realized that
the libraries had not been spared... I sat down and
cried.

But this evening I ran across this story from the
Library Journal, and the tears were ones of joy:

Princeton Students Launch "Levee" to Help New Orleans PL

— April 11, 2006

A group of Princeton University students have launched the Levee for Life, a charitable effort to help rebuild the New Orleans Public Library System.

A group of Princeton University students have launched the Levee for Life, a charitable effort to help rebuild the New Orleans Public Library (NOPL) System. In a public ceremony, several poets and novelists put copies of their work into clear plastic boxes that are being linked to construct the "levee" in front of the Firestone Library. The Princeton for New Orleans Barbara Boggs Sigmund Community Alliance made $8000 gift to the NOPL Foundation. The Katrina Project is asking donors to buy a book pledge for $8.95 each at Powell's; with each pledge, the Katrina Project will add a book to the Levee for Life at Princeton, and the money will be delivered to the NOPL Foundation. The students have two goals, to both help the library and "to begin a national conversation that starts taking inequality and poverty seriously."

More Trash Talk

2006-04-11T15:10:00.000-05:00

This fits nicely with my little rant of the other day about the vanishing city garbage cans. It also answers some other questions.

Excerpted from Adrastos:

Onto the topic du jour: trash, debris, rubbish, garbage whatever it is you choose to call it we have way too much of it. Littering has always been a problem here in Debrisville but the trash problem has exploded post-K. In his column today Jarvis DeBerry describes one of the most idiotic things about where we are today: "A woman who drove past in an official-looking fluorescent yellow vest saw the pile of black contractor bags that had accumulated and told us that we would have to empty them all. The debris removal teams have to be able to separate the different kinds of trash, she said. Therefore, everything we'd bagged would have to be shaken out onto the ground."

Read the whole thing.

From Your Right Hand Thief: Mad Fools

2006-04-10T16:22:00.000-05:00

Mad fools

In light of Sy Hersh's hair-raising story about the neocon's preemptive (nuclear) war plans for Iran, I thought I'd excerpt from a speech by libertarian Republican Ron Paul of Texas. He is a very, very lonely voice in his party. Paul gave the speech in mid-February and I've provided extended portions of it below, (although I recommend reading the entire thing if you want his take on why the dollar has no "real value" since Nixon took it off the gold standard in 1971). In short, Paul submits that the U.S. has used military might to "back" the dollar with oil in place of gold. It's titled "The End of Dollar Hegemony" and I found it via the Cunning Realist. Read that speech, as well as Rep. Paul's latest from April 5th, entitled "Iran: the Next NeoCon Target".

The rest of it all

Mayoral Debates Go On National TV

2006-04-08T16:57:00.000-05:00

Okay... the last Mayoral debate before the 4/22 election will be televised on MSNBC, NBC, and WDSU on the 17th.

Of the seven candidates, (out of something like 28), only one stands out in my mind, and that is Virginia Boulet. She HAS a workable plan.

I hope and pray that she does at least get into the runoff election. We need new blood and ideas down here.

From the Moldy City blog

From the Humid City Blog: Kalypso's New Orleans

2006-04-08T16:31:00.000-05:00

Here is a wonderful short film about New Orleans post-Deluge created by a ten year old girl. Please go to Humid City and watch this beautiful piece.

Kalypso... thank you so very much.

Rose- "Can't Can It"

2006-04-07T16:55:00.000-05:00

Alright, I know everyone in town is more than a little insane or medicated at this point post-Deluge, but this piece from Chris Rose really makes me wonder about whether it's the meds or the water that makes City Hall so strange.

Rose writes:

"This week's civic nightmare concerns city trash cans. They're methodically being removed from our streets. And this is a bad idea.

I noticed it a few weeks ago on Magazine Street, when trucks came by and picked up all those big brown plastic street-corner trash cans. No one complained at the time because the assumption was that they would be replaced with those modern arty steel trash can models that were installed with much ballyhoo around town two years ago -- the natty little compartments with pictures of local icons Charmaine Neville, Kermit Ruffins, Paul Prudhomme and Becky Allen on them.

But the Magazine Street trash cans were never replaced. That was three weeks ago. Then, on Monday, trucks rolled down Maple Street's commercial district and removed all the modern trash cans that had been installed there. Then I found out they've all been removed from Esplanade Avenue way across town."

After receiving the usual City phone merry go round, he finally gets an answer:

"This go-round, she said it was her "understanding" that "cleaning and servicing" was the plan afoot and maybe I'm being too cynical by asking: How is it that this beautification program has never been implemented before but now that the city is stripped of employees and there's no money and trash pickup has become a major public health crisis ... they decided that NOW is a good time to pick up all the city's trash cans and hit them with a dose of Formula 409?"

What ya's wanna bet we don't see those cans for months? We neat-niks paid for them, and now they are gone.

Here's my take: maybe this is a way to encourage folks to accept a smaller footprint for the City. "Well, look at how much trash is littering the streets of our vibrant areas due to the fact that we are broke. How can we provide services to Gentilly, and other struggling neighborhoods when we can't even keep up with the solid ones?"

Did Canizaro come up with this ploy? (Nagin ain't that swooft.) Are they being used as rip-rap to help protect the levees?

Inquiring and litter-conscious folks would like to know. How about it Ray? Spill the garbage!

OMG!- Former FEMA director might become consultant for St. Bernard Parish

2006-04-07T16:12:00.000-05:00

Okay folks, what's wrong with this possible scenario?

How about: Brownie couldn't do his job as Director of FEMA when the storm hit, and he definitely screwed up after the flood. Or, You screw up, resign, and then go into the counsulting business so as to make money off the misery and needs of those you damaged and they are discussing paying you?

What fresh Hell is this?

Obviously Junior Rodriquez just doesn't get it. (Remember he is fighting to save MR GO...) None of us ahould place trust in the "disgraced" when it comes to rebuilding SE Louisiana. Brownie will definitely "guide" St. Bernard, and he and his budzos will more than profit as the price of his "expertise" in helping he folks he tortured in the first place.

Junior? You are obviously on drugs.

Former FEMA director Michael Brown might be joining St. Bernard Parish as a paid consultant.

Brown, who resigned his FEMA post last September in the wake of stinging criticism of the agency's response to Hurricane Katrina, is expected to visit the parish next week. During his visit, Brown and parish officials will discuss the possibility of the parish contracting with Brown as a guide to help it navigate the bureaucracy of federal storm aid.

Brown now has a consulting business.

St. Bernard Parish President Henry "Junior'' Rodriguez said prices have not been discussed to this point, nor have any contracts been entered. Rodriguez and two council members met Brown recently during a trip to Washington, D.C.

Beads for Bush Update

2006-04-07T15:36:00.000-05:00

Okay, the Beads For Bush campaign for more levee protection has been updated since yesterday's admissions by the Corpse of Engineers that they basically just screwed up.

Scout says:

"Therefore we are suggesting a different message to George in the Beads to Bush campaign….Take Responsibility and Set Aside the Necessary Funds for Levee Construction.

Send some old or new Beads to George. (any ol beads will do)
Place them in an envelope and address it to:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Sign it and include either a "Friend of New Orleans" or a "Resident of New Orleans"

If you can.... please take a picture of yourself packing your beads. Email it to scoutp@charter.net and and we will post it to the Internets. (Ah need I say flash your beads only!)"

My little package of beads will go out this weekend.

Building Big Easy: Blackened Crow With A Side Of Humble Pie

2006-04-07T14:19:00.000-05:00

Good blog on yesterday's admission of fault by the Corpse of Engineers:

Building Big Easy: Blackened Crow With A Side Of Humble Pie

This Saturday with the GCIA

2006-04-04T14:20:00.000-05:00

Gentilly Civic Improvement Association General Membership Meeting & Community Partners Workshop:

Saturday, April 8th, 2006

General Membership Meeting
11 AM to 1 PM
Martin Chapel
Baptist Theological Seminary
3939 Gentilly Blvd.

Community Partners Workshop
2 to 4 PM
Same location as above

Sweet Victory: Uniting to Clean Up NOLA

2006-04-03T21:11:00.000-05:00

Now this is sweet! Seriously, it is!

After the Flood I wrote that this event would be a repeat of the effects of the 1927 Miss. River Floods. Created a reason for the last efforts by the flagging Progressive Party, getting FDR into Office. It's the only reason that our country survived the Depression, and how we could win WWII.

Coalitions are being formed in the wake of the NOLA Flood, and the Progressive Movement shall once again be in the ascendacy as far as the Government goes. It will be our turn, not the necons, repubs, demos, or the business set.

A new day is dawning... Blessed Be!

Published on Monday, April 3, 2006 by The Nation

Sweet Victory: Uniting to Clean Up NOLA

by Sam Graham-Felsen and Katrina vanden Heuvel

Over half a year after Katrina, New Orleans remains in a shambles. But in the face of the federal government's shamefully lackluster reconstruction effort, progressive activists are stepping up.

Last week, the United Steelworkers (USW) union and the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice teamed up to address one of New Orleans' most pressing yet unaddressed problems: toxic soil. Currently, yards throughout New Orleans are contaminated with deadly heavy metals such as arsenic--some samples of which were 40 times greater than the permitted level--making it unsafe for residents to return to their homes.

"There are no acceptable levels of contamination for the thousands of hurricane victims now living in what resembles a sludge pit – no matter what state and federal environmental officials say," said Gary Beevers, Director of District 13, which encompasses Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas. "The government was doing next to nothing to remedy these hazards, so the Steelworkers felt like we had to step in and take some action."

The Steelworker volunteers bring an uncommon expertise to the "Safe Way Back Home" initiative. Their members work in the most dangerous industries of any union-- including oil refineries, chemical plants, and rubber factories--and they have been trained to work in toxic environments. USW's coupling with the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice is the latest in its attempt to create strategic partnerships with the environmental movement.

"Others have done a lot of work in the last 30 plus years to divide labor and environmentalists and its been hard work to break down the barriers," said Jim Fredericks, Assistant Director of the Health, Safety and Environment Dept at USW. "We share more than we differ and we truly need to continue to find our common initiatives."

The Steelworkers have recently announced a national strategic alliance with the Sierra Club, bringing the largest industrial union and the biggest environmental advocacy group together to fight for clean air, fair trade, and chemical plant security.

Out of Katrina's toxic sludge, activists are uniting to rebuild not only New Orleans, but the progressive movement.

Sam Graham-Felsen, a freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker, contributes to The Nation's new blog, The Notion, and co-writes Sweet Victories with Katrina vanden Heuvel.

New Orleans- Monday Musings From Marais Street

2006-04-03T12:39:00.000-05:00

"Oh Glorious Day"... yes it is: I get to have a hot bath again!

Life here in our little strange four shotgun compound has been a trial... bugged me at first, but I'm slowling getting used to all of us on this lot: It's like living in a Hostel where all share the potties, showers, and the kitchens. I've been a cookin' every night... let the guys share our fridge. (thank goodness they got one last Friday), they come over and listen to our boom-box and watch movies. They let me bathe at one of the back houses when they aren't overloaded with visitors. The boys come over and use our distilled water machine. They help carry the heavy stuffs in.

Thursday our next-door neighbor gets his gas turned on, and they're going to put a water extension from the hot water heater to our lines. To be able to wash dishes as they are used instead of piling them up and then heating water on a hot-plate will be a treat. (The boys can use alot of dishes!) Having my own bath running will be delightful.

I'm still worried about when my friend will get his washer & dryer working. Last night I said to him, "Hon? What do you think about me taking the laundry to a washateria on Rampart and then just hanging at the Starlight until I'm done?".

His response: "Girl! You'd better have an AK-47 and a 9mm when you go down there. When ever a washer opens up, you'd better be ready to defend it if you can." (Think I'll wait on buying the guns until I get some Zanax and Proloff... I'm too unstable right now. *grins*)

Oh... I have been working on what we refer to as the headwaters of the River Marais that springs from the bottom of our home. I wrapped the offending valves with sheet plastic and duct tape to at least keep it from spraying all over the courtyard only to flow into street as a wide river. It's channel width has been reduced to two feet, and it doesn't look like a marshy delta right in front of our house. Thinking that maybe I can get the Corps to build some levees for it, NOT!

I have gotten most of the trash out front into a neat stacked pile. Unlike some on the block, I won't create massive piles of bags, fast food wrappers, and other assorted junk. Maybe they'll notice that keeping this stuff from spreading in all directions might help with getting this garbage picked up. Mine is always removed, but the other mountains of trash remain. (Come on neighbors! Help these guys out. They are overloaded, and it's so much easier for them to throw bags into the truck than bringing in a front-loader and dump truck just to clean the block up.)

Yes, many of us in the city are under medication right now, but sheesh folks! It takes all of us working together to try and get some things back to "normal". Put the trash in a bag!

Well... that hot bath is looking good right now, and I have errands to run afterwards. Let's just see what other weird things can happen around here. (I haven't even told you about my "Post-Deluge interior design plan" yet... It's weird.)

Be Blessed!

Pacific Views- Things are okay

2006-04-03T11:55:00.000-05:00

Things are OK in New Orleans now.

Right?

Let's see what writer and New Orleans resident Poppy Z. Brite has to say:

1. Most of the city is still officially uninhabitable. We and most other current New Orleanians live in what is sometimes known as The Sliver By The River, a section between the Mississippi River and St. Charles Avenue that didn't flood, as well as in the French Quarter and part of the Faubourg Marigny. In the "uninhabitable sections," there are hundreds of people living clandestinely in their homes with no lights, power, or (in many cases) drinkable water. They cannot afford generators or the gasoline it takes to run them, or if they have generators, they can only run them for part of the day. They cook on camp stoves and light their homes with candles or oil lamps at night.
2. There is a minimal police presence, and most of it is concentrated in the Sliver. Homes in other parts of the city are still being looted, vandalized, and burned.

3. Many parts of the city have had no trash pickup -- either FEMA or municipal -- for weeks. Things improved for a while, but now there are nearly as many piles of debris and stinking garbage as there were right after the storm.

Brite has ten more points, which you can read here.

Via Dave's Wibblings.

What A Bad Day...

2006-04-02T19:13:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm coming down from some very bad days: PTSD has kicked in, we rented a shotgun house from a slumlord, (the River Marais' headwaters are under our house), still can't get gas service since Entergy took the meter out... my allergies flared up and I was getting really sick with the asthma and all.

Today though, it looked like a better day. Felt a little better, stopped shaking, could actually start to calm down, and we decided to go to the house and start to remove the survivable items to the shotgun. I was really feeling good.

90% of our wall art made it. Everything on my Altars are still mold-free, (but heck! I am a witch), and all of our glasses and dishes are fine. The bedroom stereo seems good, as does all of our burned CDs and DVDs. Everything seems fine untill we move the puter towers outside.

My brand-new IBM ThinkCenter is wrapped in plastic. Was above the Flood. I move the unit and hear moving water. Opened the bag and am looking at one dead puter. I have five years of research and writings on those HDs... can't find my backup discs. I'm freakin' screwed. Betts is in the same boat. (I hold out no hope for all of the monitors.) Looks like our older IBMs did better... I'll find out once we get a monitor.

(Betts just informed me that her industrial-strength expresso maker is functional. There goes half of my kitchen counter space. UGHH)

Noticed that our trailer poles had been wired to the grid, but no meters installed. Looked around at our tiny neighborhood... a couple dozen trailers, but only 3 or 4 with meters. Rhoeme Park's trailer city still is unfunctional, as is the one at St. Roch Bend. What the Hades is going on?

Now we are back at the shotgun. I'm wiping down the art, cleaning my special recreational device, ("Everybody must get stoned"), and wiping down some of our statuary.

Still, it was a good day: we have started the true clean-out, and all proceeds from there.

We ARE home.

Blessings!

Morwen

Pacific Views: The attempted murder of New Orleans.

2006-04-01T21:29:00.000-06:00

The attempted murder of New Orleans.

I've been meaning to Mike Davis' piece about the 'reconstruction' of New Orleans for a few days now, but somehow it kept getting put on the back-burner — a fate it definitely didn't deserve. The piece is a brilliant indictment of local politicos, the [mostly] white business community, and Dubya's administration for their attempt to use the Katrina disaster as an opportunity for social engineering on a massive scale. Without, of course, the consent of the people being 'engineered.'

In greater New Orleans about 125,000 homes remain damaged and unoccupied, a vast ghost city that rots in darkness while les bon temps return to a guilty strip of unflooded and mostly affluent neighborhoods near the river. Such a large portion of the black population is gone that some radio stations are now switching their formats from funk and rap to soft rock.

Mayor Ray Nagin likes to boast that "New Orleans is back," pointing to the tourists who again prowl the French Quarter and the Tulane students who crowd Magazine Street bistros; but the current population of New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi is about the same as that of Disney World on a normal day. More than 60 percent of Nagin's constituents--including an estimated 80 percent of the African-Americans--are still scattered in exile with no obvious way home.

In their absence, local business elites, advised by conservative think tanks, "New Urbanists" and neo-Democrats, have usurped almost every function of elected government. With the City Council largely shut out of their deliberations, mayor-appointed commissions and outside experts, mostly white and Republican, propose to radically shrink and reshape a majority-black and Democratic city. Without any mandate from local voters, the public-school system has already been virtually abolished, along with the jobs of unionized teachers and school employees. Thousands of other unionized jobs have been lost with the closure of Charity Hospital, formerly the flagship of public medicine in Louisiana. And a proposed oversight board, dominated by appointees of President Bush and Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, would end local control over city finances.

Meanwhile, Bush's pledge to "get the work done quickly" and mount "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen" has proved to be the same fool's gold as his earlier guarantee to rebuild Iraq's bombed-out infrastructure. Instead, the Administration has left the residents of neighborhoods like Gentilly in limbo: largely without jobs, emergency housing, flood protection, mortgage relief, small-business loans or a coordinated plan for reconstruction.

With each passing week of neglect--what Representative Barney Frank has labeled "a policy of ethnic cleansing by inaction"--the likelihood increases that most black Orleanians will never be able to return.

Davis' article is a most definite must-read. You'll find the whole thing here.

Via The Nation.
Posted by magpie at April 1, 2006 02:10 PM | TrackBack(0) | Technorati links

S.O.S. KATRINA WE ARE NOT OK: KATRINA WE ARE NOT OK This is no APRIL FOOLS Joke Either

2006-04-01T13:19:00.000-06:00

This is mandatory reading for all folks who are concerned about the major screw job the Feds ar giving us here in S.E. LA:

S.O.S. KATRINA WE ARE NOT OK: KATRINA WE ARE NOT OK This is no APRIL FOOLS Joke Either

We Are Not OK

Link Think New Orleans

2006-03-28T13:56:00.000-06:00

Just setting up on the network. (grins)

Mayoral Debates

2006-03-27T20:34:00.000-06:00

Virginia Boulet for Mayor!

She has workable plans and a concept for broadening our economic base. She is also not part of the familial elites that has forsaken all of us "little" people.

I've made my decision... Boulet for Mayor.

'Nuff said... there's no other choice.

Blessings!

Morwen

http://gentillygirl.blogspot.com/2006/03/27/a-link-in-the-nola-virus-chain/

2006-03-27T16:14:00.000-06:00

I'm one of the founders of the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association. Set up their website and amm now their liason to Foundations, National community support orgs, and Coastal Restoration groups.

I've been a Nuclear Engineer, well grounded in geology and environmental processes. Am a historian, activist for many issues since the '70s. Helped found several NPOs during the years.

I run a very large cyber network, but I'm a WYSIWYG-type of person. I'm also a darn good researcher.

It's time to Link Think New Orleans.

http://gentillygirl.blogspot.com/2006/03/27/a-link-in-the-nola-virus-chain/

I'm a New Orleans Blogger.

Tech Day

2006-03-26T13:30:00.000-06:00

From the ThinkNOLA site:

Tech Day

Nathan Shroyer has begun to host an meeting at the Musician’s Union hall on Wednesdays. The purpose of this meeting is to bring the many different NPOs and neighborhood associations together, so that they can begin to work together.

Nathan Shroyer has proposed a Tech Day, were the technical people can meet to discuss how they can collaborate. I’m going to propose that we meet this Monday evening.

Pick up the phone and call me at (504) 717-1428 if you have any questions.
If you’ve been recording or organizing information, please indicate your interest in meeting in the comments of this article.

Alan Gutierrez

And on the 8th Day,she rested...

2006-03-24T17:55:00.000-06:00

Well, eight days ago we rolled into town after a 45 hour trek from Los Angeles. Windstorms, dust storms, and yet we would not stop driving to get here.

We tried to leave days earlier, but after loading the car up one night, we only made 40 miles from our friend's place when we blew the high-pressure Transmission line. I put the fires out with root beer and Coke. Had to have the car towed back the sanctuary, unload it, and make new plans.

The next day Betts rented an SUV thinking we'd tow the car back, the next day we donated it to a charity group in the name of Animal Rescue. That night I loaded the SUV and we took off. Interesting trip with my old Siamese and the three adopted kittens. (Took naps in rest areas cause I couldn't get a hotel room that would allow us that many cats.)

We pull in at the Starlight (Rampart) because we were ordered to show there first. We looked like death warmed over. Many of our friends were waiting to welcome us back home!

Stayed with a friend over the weekend since our rental house wasn't ready yet: like no stove, fridge... etc. Moved over to the Marais St. addy on Monday.

I couldn't get the gas turned on: turns out Entergy took the meter out from this shotgun a few years ago. Can't use any of our stoves from the old house now. Have a gas hotwater tank... no freakin' hot water here! Bellsouth told me July for a landline phone... Cox is putting their phones in next week. My wireless Broadband works like a charm.

Guess this is "Welcome back to the new New Orleans...

Friends are helping us out with the little things. We get to use a neighbor's bath, and another neighbor is sharing the cooking with us. We bought one of his cars in order to get around. Friends helping friends.

That's one reason I so love this city. Even with all of the poop we've run into getting home, I am a very happy girl! (who still demands Reparations for all of the victims of the Flood.)

New Orleans redevelopment plan = another naked land grab

2006-03-03T12:11:00.000-06:00

This article is so poignant...

We fought agaisnt this kind of stuff in S.F. back in the Late '80s. Thought we had won.

Folks... "Eternal Vigilance" must be our position. We cannot let the the LRA or Nagin's Commission call the shots.

Blessings!

New Orleans redevelopment plan = another naked land grab

by C.C. Campbell-Rock

New report offers candid look at numbers

Adorning the Krewe of Chaos Mardi Gras float in New Orleans are FEMA head Michael Brown, left, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin watching Black people cook in their gumbo pot.

Photo: Lucas Jackson, Reuters

“There is not a sign outside of New Orleans saying if you’re poor, sick, elderly, disabled, a child or African American, you cannot return. But there might as well be,” said attorney Bill Quigley, a Loyola Law School professor and Katrina evacuee who has since returned to New Orleans.

The noted civil rights lawyer’s comments appear in “The Mardi Gras Index: The State of New Orleans by the Numbers, Six Months After Katrina,” a special report by Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch.

The 36-page index released Tuesday, Feb. 28, Mardi Gras Day 2006, by the Institute for Southern Studies, contains more than 130 fact-based indicators which outline the stark realities confronting those who portend to rebuild New Orleans.

“In spite of a few hopeful signs, progress has largely stalled on the key issues that will shape the city’s future,” the attorney said.

For example: a lack of housing is keeping many from returning to New Orleans. No action is being taken to help renters, two thirds of those displaced by the storm; many homeowners remain in limbo; and 11,000 FEMA trailers stand idle in Hope, Arkansas.

“Health and safety concerns are keeping residents away — from rampant mold to pollution ‘hot spots,’ such as four city neighborhoods with 100 times accepted safe levels of arsenic. Regulators have offered no clean-up plan — creating a public health threat compounded by the city’s gutted health care system.

“Only 17 percent of the city’s public schools have re-opened — a fact that will prevent many families from returning. The absence of progress in hurricane preparedness will cause many to think twice about coming back. With just three months remaining until the 2006 hurricane season, there is no funding for full-scale wetland restoration or levees that could survive a hurricane the strength of Katrina (Category 3) or more,” according to the index.

The report also finds that those hurt most by the nation’s lack of commitment to rebuilding are those who suffered most from the catastrophic storms of 2005.

Bring New Orleans Back Plan is developer’s dream

The plan proffered by the Bring New Orleans Back Commission’s Urban Planning Committee offered far fewer statistics than the Institute.

However, plans for private-public development partnerships, target development areas, eminent domain and immediate opportunity areas belie the fact that the plan, which will be reviewed on March 8, 2006, at 6 p.m., in the Sheraton Hotel in New Orleans, boils down to a naked land grab.

Also, given the fact that Wallace Roberts & Todd, LLC, designed the master plan for the redevelopment of New Orleans and that the company has offices in San Francisco, among its office locations in six cities nationwide, some aspects of the plan sound eerily similar to the proposed Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan Amendment.

The notice of the public hearing on that plan reads like the redevelopment plan for New Orleans.

Whereas, under the San Francisco plan, 137 acres in Hunters Point (Project Area A) has been developed over the past several decades, the announced amendment adds approximately 1,361 acres of new land (Project Area B), which encompasses all of the Bayview Hunters Point community, with the exception of a few streets.

According to the Commission of the Redevelopment Agency of the City and County of San Francisco, the purpose of the redevelopment plan amendment is to “assist in the revitalization of those portions of the Bayview Hunters Point community affected by physical and economic blight conditions.”

The plan would provide for the “development of extremely low, very-low, and moderate income affordable homeownership and rental housing units and assist with the preservation and rehabilitation of existing home units, improve the existing public infrastructure, including streetscapes and other public space, create a more vibrant and balanced mixed-use commercial district, and balanced transportation and parking options, including improved access for transit, pedestrians, and bicycles.”

While couched in socially redemptive language, many in the Bayview Hunters Point community aren’t buying it and are calling Mayor Gavin Newsom’s redevelopment plans a “racist redevelopment” plan, and the mayor’s Redevelopment Agency, the “Removal & Relocation Agency.”

In a call to action, opponents of the plan are calling for solidarity. “Join us March 7, 3 p.m., outside on the steps of our city hall. While inside the relocation and gentrification agency continues its plans to evict and dispossess the community and residents of Bayview Hunters Point to provide more unaffordable housing and condos, to further enrich a few at the expense of many, now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their brothers and sisters. Save Bayview Hunters Point. Say no to New Orleans in San Francisco.”

New Orleans plan skips San Francisco’s altruistic guise

Interestingly, while San Francisco’s commission unabashedly decided to grab the whole pie, instead of a piece, and said so in no uncertain terms, the Bring New Orleans Back Commission’s housing redevelopment plan doesn’t bother with altruistic motives or the fact that the levee breaches damaged 92 percent of homes in New Orleans.

In fact, the New Orleans commission plan targets the least damaged areas for redevelopment first, those that had little or no damage, in the affluent areas of the city, while leaving the most damaged areas last on the list of redevelopment priorities.

Worse, in listing out what the project will cost, of the approximate $17.5 billion in redevelopment funds the group hopes to get its hands on, only $10 million will come from a source listed as “other.” The rest will come from various federal agencies like FEMA, CDBG funds, DOT, FTA etc. In short, developers, such as Joseph Canizaro, the chair of the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, plan to pony up $10 million from private sources and use federal disaster relief money for the rest. Not a bad return on investment.

Like San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point, a key factor in the New Orleans redevelopment plan is the building of a light rail transit system and parks and green spaces. The maps accompanying the New Orleans commission report indicate that large tracts of the Lower Ninth Ward will be converted into recreational parks and green spaces.

The plan also suggests that the city administration “aggressively support a modified Baker bill to accommodate buy-out of homeowners in heavily flooded areas.” Although Louisiana Congressman Richard Baker’s H.R. 4100 failed to win President Bush’s support or get the necessary votes for passage, Baker’s initial comments still reverberate like a stink bomb: “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” God did what? Read: Get rid of Blacks.

The plan’s designers also “advise the city to not issue any permits to build or rebuild in heavily flooded and damaged areas until FEMA issues its base flood elevations, neighborhood planning teams have completed their plans and made recommendations to the city, and adequate and efficiently delivered utilities and city services are available.”

Those heavily flooded areas just happen to be situated in predominately African American neighborhoods like Bayview Hunters Point.

Translation? Don’t let homeowners rebuild until we determine if the neighborhoods are going to be rebuilt.

After calling for the “immediate” formation of the Crescent City Recovery Corp. (CCRC), which can only be done by amending the City Charter, amending the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority governance, policies and procedures to accommodate the CCRC formation, and making modifications to the Baker bill to establish a subsidiary entity, the plan’s developers called for a state legislated commission through which to delegate authority.

Voila! We now have the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which was created during the recent special session of the Louisiana Legislature. Before the ink was dry on most of the bills that came out of the session, the Louisiana Recovery Authority had produced a “‘draft concept’ for addressing the challenges of recovery and rebuilding from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.”

Both N.O. and S.F. would use eminent domain to grab Black land

However, the most telling aspect of the true motive behind the plan – the naked land grab – was hidden in plain view within the description of the CCRC’s powers: Receive and expend redevelopment funds, implement redevelopment plan, buy and sell property for redevelopment, including use of eminent domain as a last resort, issue bonds, coordinate with and enhance City Planning Commission capacity.

Somehow, there was no mention of rebuilding, repairing and replacing homes, as allowed in the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief Act. In fact, the only time homeowners were mentioned was in relation to being bought out.

Additionally, if homeowners and those who wish to return are depending on the Blacks on the Bring New Orleans Back Commission’s Urban Planning Committee to look out for their interests, they should think again. Those on that body have a track record of working with the establishment, of being the tokens, of being sell-outs.

And while New Orleans Mayor Nagin vowed not to buy into the “shrinking the footprint of the city” language that was floated out initially by the developer-led commission, it remains to be seen if he will have the courage to prevent the wholesale gentrification of the city of New Orleans.

CC Campbell-Rock, a native New Orleanian, veteran journalist and Katrina evacuee, is now the editor of the Bay View. Email her at campbellrock@sfbayview.com.

Mardi Gras Day...

2006-02-28T14:04:00.000-06:00

It's Mardi Gras Day and I'm still in SoCal. Poop!

It rained cats and dogs last night around here. Betts and I went to Pasadena to have dinner and later pick up the last of the things we'll need to drive home. It was sorta depressing looking at the soaked streets... reminded us of home.

The plan last month was to be living in our trailers and not be exiles anymore. Two weeks ago we figured to be back, but in our rented shotgun house. Today, I'm still waiting on the delivery of a wireless BB modem... they won't ship it to my P.O. Box back home. This is holding us up for our return.

Tomorrow's my B'Day and I'm gonna spend it here in Cali. Guess that's fair: Betts had her B'Day in Houston right before Rita hit. (At least she got to celebrate at Mary's... it's too dull around here for me to have a party.)

I'm following the news about Carnival in N.O., and that helps a little. Goddess! How I so miss being home. (And I rarely went to the parades... it was meeting up with friends and sharing that made the time so fun.)

All I can say to myself is "soon".

Thoughts on Oliver Thomas' Words...

2006-02-26T00:49:00.000-06:00

Okay, Oliver has pissed many off by his position about those who return, but is he wrong?

Malcolm X described the Welfare State is a form of slavery. It is! It promotes dependence, not growth.

I live in a similar world: I'm permanantly disabled, and they, the PTB, tell me what I can do, and what I can't. Screw them: the bitch is going back to work.

When we get back home, I'm going back to work. We need the extra money to fix the house, need to cover what FEMA won't pay for, and yes.... I want to help rebuild the city. I can help, and I should help. This is what we, here on the Coast, have always done through the centuries.

We need working folks now. Gone are the days when one could just recieve their check and sit on the porch for the rest of the month. This city needs to rebuild, and that means hands and minds to do that rebuilding. This is vital...

It's not about race, it's about responsibilty. Do these protesters of Thomas' words want to return to the Past, or do they want to strive for something higher, better? Will they grow, or just sit in the quakmire that has been Life for over 40 years?

Prior to the Flood, we had problems in New Orleans. Led to other probs too, especially the ones involving guns and mayhem. Now we have a chance to right the wrongs, give opportunities to those that didn't have any... give a freakin' Future.

Okay, here's the latest about Oliver's words in the T-P:

"Thomas stands by rules for re-entry

Job requirement has strong support, he says

Saturday, February 25, 2006

By James Varney

Staff writer

It may be causing an uproar in Houston, but New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas said Friday that he has encountered solid support at home for his view that only employed residents, or those willing to train for a job, should be allowed back into the city's public housing developments.

Since Thomas expressed that position at a Housing Committee meeting on Monday, he said, his opinion has often been misconstrued.

For example, he didn't mean to imply that the elderly and disabled should be excluded from returning to their homes in the developments. But he does believe that residents of publicly subsidized housing must display the moxie New Orleans needs during its gravest crisis, instead of a sense of entitlement. And he will not "back down" from a view that resonates across the town's political and racial spectrum, Thomas said.

"Out of more than 50 phone calls to my office from black and white residents, only two were opposed," he said. "Look, I'm as bleeding a heart as anyone, but people know where I'm coming from, and I think black leaders need to say what has to be done, not what some people may want to hear.

"We need to teach our people independence," Thomas said, again addressing the city's African-American community and citing Malcolm X's argument that the welfare state was a modern form of slavery. "If someone is given a chance to better their life, why would they say no? What does that say about them?"

Excerpted...

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We do not need or deserve what was created by the Feds over the last 40 years: we deserve, all of us, a new start. Mr. Thomas has started that dialogue, and it's time to pay heed to his sentiments.

Counting down for the Descent into Hell...

2006-02-23T18:49:00.000-06:00

or Nirvana. Depends on one's point of view.

Six days from now we fire up the old Buick and point her in the direction of New Orleans., I-10 all the way! I hope to see my cousin in Houston during the trip, and that she can put us up for the night with all of the cats. This way we will be rested up when getting to the new place.

The new place? Hmmm... will that be FEMA trailers with working lights, or the shotgun we leased? Have no freakin' idea, just know that as long as I can fill up our air bed, we will be sleeping back home.

We'll have missed Mardi Gras, but I'll consider this trip to be my B'Day present this year as we are leaving on that day.

What a wonderful giftie! Going home to be with all of the wonderful folks we know, doing things with friends in ways we have never done before... to embrace the "Wholeness" of living in the best place in America... Oh my YES!

Of couse, the next day will see us slogging through the red tapes in order to fix everything up, but that's another day. And another day, and another...

It's going to take years to rebuild this place. There will be losses and wins. That's just the way it is: Hell and Nirvana.

We are coming home!

New Orleans: Will we ever see its likes again?

2006-02-19T06:47:00.000-06:00

I watch the night, gleaning bits and pieces from the press concerning the city. This one is so very poignant, except that I differ from the authors final thoughts: We will rebuild New Orleans, as much as we can...

Jerry Large
New Orleans: Will we ever see its likes again?

All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put New Orleans back together again.

They're partying in New Orleans right now — Mardi Gras. But it's a stripped-down version, sucking on the fumes of its past, hoping the organic mix of cultural material that fueled the city's identity can be restored. So much of what was New Orleans bubbled up from poor people and displaced peoples, Arcadians chased out of Canada, Haitian slave owners dragging along their human property after the revolution, French, Italian, Spanish.

It was also a magnet for people from across the South who wanted to live in the South but have some breathing room, liberals, gay folks and maybe a few rascals.

How do you put something like that back together?

Memphis tried to re-create Beale Street. Without the poor folks, without the crime. The home of the blues, but safe for tourists. It is a wonderful thing, but not exactly the real thing.

To be sure, New Orleans thrived on tourism, and much of that was limited to just a few areas of the city. But all of the stuff outside the Garden District and away from the French Quarter sustained and fed the culture that attracted people to New Orleans.

The tourist areas came through the hurricane and flooding well enough to be open for business again. It was the poor areas that washed away, places whose cheap restaurants inspired cuisine in restaurants that poor cooks could never afford to eat in; the homes of people who made music, did labor and created a way of looking at life that permeated New Orleans.

What the rest of us loved about New Orleans didn't come from its upscale neighborhoods.

You can make a wild place from scratch and with money. Las Vegas was a business idea, and it works. It's a place to party like New Orleans, but it is a chain restaurant to New Orleans' funky Mom-and-Pop place.

Las Vegas is clean and efficient, but not soul stirring. It could be rebuilt and not miss a beat. It could be restocked with a different set of people and still be Las Vegas, at least in the eyes of visitors.

New Orleans is a character. If our country were a family, Seattle would be the bookish daughter, sitting off in a corner behaving herself, while New Orleans would be the roguish cousin who has great stories to tell and who reminds everyone else not to take life too seriously.

You don't want to be him, but you get a kick living vicariously through him. The rest of us need New Orleans in that way.

Salmon is healthful and tasty, but sometimes you need some spice.

And yet, you can't blame those folks who want a new New Orleans to be more like Seattle, clean, well-behaved, well-off and mostly white. Um, well, there is that demographic thing. Race has always been a critical component of the New Orleans mix.

New Orleans was 70 percent black before Katrina, but black neighborhoods suffered the most damage and often lie in areas that are low and subject to flooding.

People in those areas don't have homes to come home to. For them to return, there would have to be a major upgrade in the levee system. They can do it in Holland, but who knows if that will happen in New Orleans.

Mayor Ray Nagin put the last nail in his political career when he said New Orleans would be Chocolate City again. He was trying to reassure black New Orleanians that their city wants them back, but he did a poor job of it; not unusual for him.

He didn't say that New Orleans would be a poor city again, but that was a key ingredient in its mix.

Remember how as gentrification swept across Seattle, neighborhood after neighborhood mourned its lost soul, the old places and old people who once gave them character and made each one distinct yielded to a more affluent sameness.

It's an odd thing; moving on up always leaves something to miss.

People need more than comfort. People who live in nice houses go camping. People who work at safe and sedentary jobs scale mountains, suburban kids play at being from the 'hood.

People move from the 'hood to the burbs and come back to eat greens and feel real. But nothing goes back to the way it was, maybe not even New Orleans.

Jerry Large: 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com

Back in SoCal...

2006-02-18T02:25:00.000-06:00

Okay... we are back in SoCal. A one week trip home to get our trailers set-up and prepare for our permanent return home turned into three. The generator be bought to be the backup for the entire house can't be used: one FEMA trailer burned because someone screwed up, and now none of us can use the damn things in lieu of Entergy.

We leased a shotgun house in the New Marigny so that we can be home whilst waiting on the trailers that might be delivered in 45 days... (Yes, the bastards started calling me two months ago for mine. ) I've transferred my phone and power accounts to the temporary place, including my mail-forwarding.

Today I get a call: "Your trailers are onsite and will be powered in 3-5 working days. Freakin' crap! We dropped over 6 Grand doing what they told us to do! And now, miracuosly, by the power of whatever god these assholes worship, "Things are in place".

We went, we signed, and we got screwed. Fucking FEMA and their B/S. (The shits had better pony-up with replacement funds for this crap.)

Another snag in the plan, (Capitalism happens when you make plans for a life), I can't afford a truck to take our new stuff home and tow the car. It's about the Spring Break stuff and students moving their stuffs to yet another "center of learning". The rates are 40% higher now than when I planned to get the truck two weeks ago. Now we have to ship everything we bought for replacing what we lost, and then drive back in our car. (six cats and the two of us slleping in the car on I-10 in the Winter.)

No, this isn't a conspiracy nut writing here: it's a frustrated person almost at the end of her rope. I can't plan shit without FEMA, in their bungling ways, getting in the way. "FEMA happens when one makes plans".

Screw FEMA... fuck the "poly"ticians. We are going home starting on my birthday.

This should never happened to any of us.

Okay... I'll stop channelling Louis Black and then make some more plans...

Day 19...

2006-02-11T19:36:00.000-06:00

You know... I hate losing "time".

I lost it today when I couldn't sleep, couldn't move, was watching an internal movie of the Hell that has become New Orleans for so many people, and I still can't just breakdown and cry it out.

The reason for this is that when things happen to folks normally that would bring emotional stress, they are short-term events, and we all know that Time heals all wounds, but... we have all been living this emotional event for six months and there's no end in sight.

The family member doesn't die just once, but every second of every day, every month... It's wearing us all out.

I have lost a few friends during this process: they have already truly broken down emotionally, and for them I fear there will be no return. All I see is their "Thousand Mile Stare", and what I hear are words totally disconnected to Reality. I wonder when I will become one of them.

What keeps me going are the folks that are "surviving" this moronic inferno, trying to keep it together to the end when all is repaired here in the city. Yes, we all seem to be a little nuts at times, and yes we all accept the fact that alcohol is a Food Group, but we carry on, and that's what folks down this waay have always done: Continue.

Here's an excerpt from a blog that I've been following since the Flooding hit:

"We know we're in this together, and we're going to make it happen together, over oysters and wine, crawfish and beers, Mardi Gras and beads, costumes and parades, marching bands and doubloons, jazz and the blues -- and speaking of the blues -- over moldy sheetrock and soggy furniture and ruined photo albums as well, because that's all a part of our lives now too. This is our city, and its strength is in the character of its citizens, and in the community traditions we're struggling to uphold. This is living culture, and it's the people who bring forth all of its bounty. It's the people who bring joy to the life of the city.

We won't allow a knucklehead in the White House to ruin it. We'll fight, and we'll kick, and we'll scream, until we get what we want, because preserving this city should be the nation's most important priority. Why? Because living in New Orleans is in many ways like living in a Norman Rockwell painting. New Orleans is more like America than America itself -- an essential American city -- for all of its history and the diversity of its people and its culture, and yes, for all of the good as well as for all of the bad. We have it all, and if we can't make it work here, then we might just as well give up on the rest of the country as well."

It's from People Get Ready. (Have him on the links section here) Please read the entire blog, and you will see how we are all coping here.

America, if you're out there, please help us save this place.

May the Lady Bless!

Been Home For Nine Days...

2006-02-02T00:54:00.000-06:00

Hmmm... how to sum up this part of the visit home?
Simple: UGHHH!!!

It's not enough to know all the details of the city
post-Katrina, you've got to be there. It makes me
want to scream, cry, rage, and then cry all over
again. This is depressing. I can't even work on my
blog about this "new" place.

The house fared much better than we thought: the
mold isn't so bad, the clothes in the wardrobe look
as if I had just washed and dried them, and  there
are pictures on the walls that look perfect. The
puters look good.

I have to take down the front fence tomorrow along
with cutting down the bushes and sago palms that
grace the front yard. (This is so I have a place
for my FEMA trailer. Betty's goes in the double
driveway.) The front gardens are all dead, so I
guess I get to redo the front my way.

We signed all of our stuff for the trailers to
be put into place in a few days. Bought a massive
generator to run the whole house if we ever lose
power again. The insurance adjuster is putting
in for two new roofs, ceilings, and all of the
outside structures. The Treehouse will become a
sweeter place than before.

Also, the SBA is giving us the maximum to fix
the flooded parts of the house and cottage, and
will give us a second mortgage at 2&7/8 %. Add
that to the Block Grant that's come to us for
being outside of the Flood Plain... pure freakin'
magic!

BUT! So much of the city is vacant. So many folks
haven't even started working on their homes. It
feels lonely even during the daylight, not to
mention the downright spooky feeling during some
night drives through many parts of the city.
Stores are few and far between.

The Quarter is alive, but most places close
early. There aren't enough locals or tourists 
to sustain them. "Accepting Applications" signs
are everywhere. There's just not enough here to
keep New Orleans alive the way it was. It will
never be the same, and I'll miss that.

Folks are different also. We hug old friends,
then sit and stare at each other wondering which
horror stories should any of us start with. Locals
you never knew want to talk, and after a time,
they become friends. There is a closeness growing
amongst those of us from pre-Katrina. Must be all
of the newcomers that are here for construction
from other places. They're like aliens, and they
do not fit in.

In time, we will become the old New Orleanians
within a New New Orleans society. Oh well... We
will regale the new ones with tales of the Olden
Days: those times before the Deluge, and of how
so few of us are left here. It's an Atlantis-type
thing.

Must go now: pool to play, and folks to meet.
Then try to get some sleep without the nightmares,
and wake up to start another day. Thank the
Goddess for whisky and sodas!

Be Blessed!

Gentilly Civic Improvement Association...

2006-01-28T18:03:00.000-06:00

Today was the first GCIA Clean-up I've been able to attend. (Not that I did cleaning... I was involved with cyber, outreach, and Board issues.)

Many folks showed up. New friends made... info shared. Feels damn good getting back in touch with people in New Orleans. The Church of the Holy Comforter is such a good friend to all of us, as is the Episcopal Church. Fed all of us and are helping folks like me to get their places cleaned out.

This is a wonderful thing!

I talked with folks, and they are angry about the lack of help promised by the "Government". They're taking things into their own hands in order to bring their lives into some sense of order.

Funny thing: NYC was immediantly helped after 9/11.... Florida gets taken care of right away after each storm that hits. What the Hell is it about us that causes things to move so slowly?

It ain't about New Orleans dear readers. It's about a power-mad culture that only worships the dollar.

You see, our world isn't about living things anymore, it's about "things". And it's our freakin' fault! We let it happen.

So many of us, your's truly included, forgot what is truly important in Life, and that is each other... community. (Maybe that's why I came back here years ago: to reclaim a lost portion of my soul.) I "see" what folks are going through... I'm an empath. The pain is unbelievable.

We run into old friends... stare, and then hug, breaking into tears, but the tears aren't just about joy, they are weepings of shared pain. That's all the Powers-That-Be have left us: PAIN!

Well, that pain can be forged into something useful: hatred of what Amerika is doing to plain old folks that just "happened" to have Federally-built projects fail us. And how freakin' dare we have this happen whilst our noble leaders are waging an unjust war and trying to cut taxes for the 5% of the citizenry that are screwing all the rest of the country?

I must lay down now... exhausted, sick, scared, furious... this is just too much.

America? Please don't forget us.

The First Four Days in New Orleans

2006-01-27T21:19:00.000-06:00

I'm back home... and I'm really freakin' pissed!

Almost five months post-Katrina and so little has been done. Been talking with many people, and we are all in the same boat: no money to get our personal recoveries started.

I sense dispair here. The city in a way is dying, and it's death is not our fault, it's the State's and the Fed's damn fault. Where are the Block Grants? Where are the FEMA trailers? (Saw the trailer city set up at Rhoeme Park near our home, but nobody seems to be living there.) Where the Hell are those billions of dollars for rebuilding our wonderful little city?

People are hurting here, losing their minds... watching their lives just molding away.

Gone are the more genteel manners and ways that used to be a staple of our culture. Rude outsiders roam the streets. I have been propositioned in so many horrible ways. Women I've met are afraid to travel alone. Most of Gentilly and St. Roch are ghost towns at night.

The smell of mold and rotting wood is overwhelming in much of the city. I'm already getting sick from all of this.

America! Please help New Orleans... please!

Going Home in Four Days

2006-01-19T18:48:00.000-06:00

Oh my Goodness!

Betts and I have not been home since the night before Katrina hit New Orleans.

Next Tuesday morning we step off the plane at the airport. I pretty much know that things will fairly normal there, but it's what we'll see as we approach the Orleans Parish border. It's the beginning of a weeklong trip to measure what we have to do to get the place back up and running.

The house is probably going to freak me out. It's going to be a mess: I already have interior photos. It's just that I had cleaned the house two days before the storm hit. This really sux.

There's the inspectors to be contacted. The salvagables to be removed. Our computers to clean and test. Gutting and whatnot... having my FEMA trailer delivered and hooked up.

There will also be good things: meeting old friends and new. Helping with the GCIA Cleanup. Having a real po-boy from the Nellie Deli, and shooting pool at the Starlight. Getting to stay at the Prince Conti!

Just to see the city again makes me start weeping. I soooooo very much miss home. Outside of travelling half-way around the world twice, I've never been away from home this long. It like really, truly, "gag me with a spoon", freakin' sux!!!

All of us in New Orleans must have Reparations made by the Federal Government for the failure of the trash levees their minions "constructed". Every last one of us...

Counting down and packing... We are finally coming home.

Gambit Weekly- Why Not New Orleans?

2006-01-18T23:15:00.000-06:00

Expatriate Roger Wilson returns home and, like former Mayor Marc Morial, asks why we aren't getting more.

By Roger Wilson

It seems that we as a nation, for whatever reason, are satisfied to learn in hindsight from our disasters rather than do what it takes to actually prevent one. And while there are few precedents to explain the confusion and despair still being suffered by the people of New Orleans (and surrounding parishes), there are, owing to this strange fact, available lessons to be learned from cities that have managed to recover from a cataclysmic tragedy such as Hurricane Katrina. What this offers to the people of New Orleans is the hope that the ring of darkness still encircling this city need not be an everlasting one, and that it may sooner rather than later brighten and disappear.

One way to understand how that might happen is to study and draw from the lessons of 9/11. Within the discussions and actions that followed that seminal event lie the cause and rationale to rebuild build New Orleans as it was, not how some perceive it should be -- and, though it rarely gets mentioned, to honor with equal dedication the more than 1,000 souls who perished in the early days of September 2005.

As if some mystical force had chosen to drive this point home, observe as you pass the countless houses and buildings that were destroyed by Katrina's floodwaters the date most commonly spray-painted by FEMA inspectors, in a variety of fluorescent colors, on the front of them: 9/11, marking the date when inspections kicked into full gear. Such is the curious and repetitive nature of history, I suppose. As former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial pointed out to a crowd of displaced locals in eastern New Orleans on Jan. 7, it is towards history that we should look for the solace and determination it will take to rebuild this entire area, as well as for the reasons we must do so.

Beneath a phalanx of camera lights being powered by generators some five months after the fact, Morial spoke in eloquent terms about the previous fates of places such as San Francisco, Chicago and New York City, and how each had been "reborn, rebuilt and revitalized" following events (earthquake, fire and kamikaze terrorists, respectively) that threatened their very existence. In each case, ashes somehow gave way to opportunity. Perhaps because in each case these cities and their traumatized populace were given the time, the money and the chance to rebuild; without compromise, without exclusion, and without explaining their need to do so. Sitting there listening to Morial, one question kept bouncing across my mind, "Why not New Orleans?"

To me, this question is the question in our city's most uncertain hour. Its utterance has been made necessary by the fact that many Americans, and far too many officials in high office, have unabashedly, almost cockily, debated the merits of making this city whole again. And by that, I mean putting it back exactly as it was before being consumed by the world's first man-made tsunami. The optimist in me would like to think such a thoughtless and casual attitude towards the future of nearly a half-million Americans, never mind the memory of a thousand more who died only God knows how horribly, owes more to an ignorance of New Orleans' place in American history than to some undeserved animosity towards its beleaguered people.

Yet this suggestion of a "smaller New Orleans," what some have called a "better" New Orleans, has for these last five months maintained a remarkable legitimacy around the globe, making my optimism seem about as sound as the walls along the 17th Street Canal. Inside the corridors of our own national government, rather than being excoriated for the blasphemous dialogue it truly represents, this talk of "not wasting money on New Orleans" has assumed the personage of a genuine political discourse. A point wholly laughable in the face of what we spend monthly in Iraq, and one in which our state's national representatives are asked to grovel for assistance, while the government and private sector are allowed to demure. What makes this even more difficult to accept is the culpability this same government bears in the very unfolding of New Orleans' present crisis. You know you're in trouble when the assessment of your worth lies at the very feet of those in great part responsible for its annihilation.

"How," I want to ask our current president, can it be deemed unjust and un-American to abandon the democratization of Iraq, while at the same time you "cut and run" on an American democracy? "Why" is the rehabilitation of a foreign nation, no matter what it costs ($600 billion and counting), more economically viable than the rehabilitation of America's most important port, the cradle of its already compromised need for oil and gas? I would bring up the point of New Orleans being a unique cultural Mecca, and the birthplace of American's sole indigenous creation -- jazz -- but something tells me the guy would have escaped on his mountain bike by then.

What this diffusion of New Orleans' importance to the nation has done, whether by design or not, is bring to the forefront various blueprints for the city's reinvention that in appearance and quality seem much like what the makers of diet soda chose to heap upon the once "real thing" -- a product not as dark and sweet, but not as bad for you either. "New Orleans Lite" if you will.

As someone who lived in New York City both during and after Sept. 11, I can assure you there was never a moment's doubt as to "if" or "how" that city would be rebuilt. The only question was how quickly it would get done. Nor was there a word mentioned about minimizing the space available to that world of criminals, derelicts and professional hucksters, some of the latter posting six- and seven-figure salaries, who regularly floated across the trade tower's neighborhood. It was all to be remade in honor of what had been in place before that tragic day, a different design but the same spirit, reinstating both the good with the bad, and doing so without any hint of reluctance or reproach.

So again, "Why not New Orleans?"

Could it be that the identification, sometimes fairly, of the city's (and the state's for that matter) corrupt nature was being co-opted into an argument against restoring New Orleans to its original essence; a truly eccentric, culturally kaleidoscopic, painfully backwards yet irreplaceable place? Were people out there, for whatever reason, taking advantage of this low-point in the city's history to impart upon those who are mostly unknowing and non-participating souls in the cycles of municipal graft some long overdue justice? Well, if cleanliness of character and reputation is to be the requisite for rebuilding American institutions in the wake of their destruction, then how come no one took pause when it came time to rebuild the Pentagon or the heart of Wall Street? Have any two spheres of influence perpetrated more dubious activities and results than those two? If we are to equate daily sin, or misguided intentions, with the need to protect and rebuild, God help Las Vegas should anything bad happen to it.

No, the answer is the Pentagon and World Trade Center had to be rebuilt, for countless reasons, brick by brick, block by hallowed city block, and so should New Orleans. What will need to accompany that effort is a rehabilitation of the city's psyche as well. For while it is easy to point to the watermarks left behind by the flooding, it is far more difficult to identify in sum the emotional wounds that are just as prevalent and in need of cleansing. With this in mind, it seems fairly obvious that the need to restore any American city to its original state in the wake of such physical and emotional devastation is not a matter of debate, but merely one of civic obligation. Holding the inhabitants of such a city hostage to the moral and financial posturing we are currently witnessing, when doing so accomplishes little more than to toy with the hearts and minds of those that have been toyed with enough, is in fact "unjust and un-American."

Maybe the real problem New Orleans is having in obtaining the kind of compassion New York received in the aftermath of 9/11 is that the deed which unfolded on that day was in itself so unexpected, so horrifying to behold, with the perpetrator's beliefs so visibly alien and easy to loathe. It's hard to stir up that kind of emotion for a tragedy that has been just lying in wait to happen, and the bad guys involved not in some fiery jihad, but a slow and methodical campaign of official malfeasance.

Sadly it seems, the majority of Americans don't care to know how or why New Orleans drowned. If they did, they could have easily learned by now. ("I mean, it was the hurricane, right? All that wind and rain and stuff?") But something tells me if they did find out, if they somehow absorbed in full detail the official incompetence and skullduggery which lies at the heart of this story, they could suddenly relate it to their own fragile existence, their own inherent need to be protected by those elected to protect, and they would start to get mad, they would begin as the gospel suggests, "to see the light."

They would understand en masse that it was not a hurricane that wasted New Orleans. It was the people next door. It was the state's long line of self-serving governors and representatives, certain levee boards and their crooked business schemes, and even higher up the political food chain -- Congress, the White House, and the Army Corp of Engineers. Maybe if people across America were made to understand that the corn they grow, the seafood they relish, the fabrics they manufacture, the gas they guzzle, the jazz and blues they have long enjoyed, never mind the economic wealth all that created and was subsequently passed down from one generation to the next, if people realized all that was intangibly aligned with this crazy place and the port of departure it represents, they might have a change of heart as to whether it is worth saving. If all that was made to happen, the people of America and their elected leaders could perhaps more easily accept their own role -- their own obligation -- to help rebuild New Orleans as quickly as possible, as safely as possible, no matter what it costs, no matter how they feel about the place or the people who run it. Millions regularly derided New York City and its abrupt, often-indefensible mannerisms prior to 9/11. But hardly anyone contemplated letting it die a slow and painful death in the days and months that followed the attacks. What people need to realize is that the very groups who botched the Katrina tragedy, and so brazenly continue to do so, will most likely do the same should something of equally dark proportions befall their own community. If that were to happen, my bet is they would start to yell and scream like the people down here because what Katrina represents is not the devastation of an American township, but rather a lethal assault on the American ideal.

The forces that enabled New Orleans to be destroyed are not particularly Southern in nature, either. Greed, avarice, denial and deceit are conditions that belong to all mankind, and their continued presence in our modern way of life have created a strange, prevailing sense that nothing matters anymore. As a result, things that do matter no longer receive the attention they deserve and the people of this great nation no longer experience the mutual respect they know is theirs to claim. This is what you call a self-fulfilling prophecy whose only purpose is to destroy a nation's sense of self, out of which nothing good ever comes to pass. But, deep down inside, I believe we each know that everything we do ultimately matters, and how we look out for our families and each other is what matters most. If citizens define the integrity of their city, it is only logical that a city defines the integrity of its citizens. Moreover, when the need arises to rebuild one at anytime, for any reason, we need not fear the call to do so, but instead we should relish the historical fact that almost any place can be made whole again, no matter what has transpired. Which once more raises the question -- why not New Orleans?

Roger Wilson was born in New Orleans and educated in Virginia. A stage and screen actor, he has also been a screenwriter for more than a decade. He recently moved back to New Orleans and is developing a feature film and documentary about the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina.

A Chocolate City

2006-01-18T02:19:00.000-06:00

Well... Mister Nagin has lost his compass, or has spent way too much time with the ganja over in Jamaica. Such a shame. (Why didn't he invite moi?)

Okay... this is just a Test Post. the real stuff starts from now on.

Blessings!, and keep the Dream of New Orleans alive!!!