I know I've been remiss. I haven't posted a damn thing in days. (Here ya go, Ashley! You told me to POST something so this is on you!) Here's the problem:
First, I had spent the week before Krewe du Vieux reading posts with comments that made NOLA seem like the Seventh Circle. Certainly it was a place that should be nuked immediately, clearly more threatening than Iran, which it appears Beavis is determined to nuke. Let's put that aside for the moment.
I was miserable. I read my usual blogs and news, read the comments. Everywhere were comments about how NOLA folks were a. drunk (sometimes, that's true), b. stupid (also sometimes true, hell Nagin and Jefferson got re-elected), and c. should be wiped off the face of the earth for various reasons ranging from our ineptitude, to corruption, to the murder rate, to some nebulous moralistic "you guys are having way too much fun" thing. (Please forgive the lack of links in the following text.)
I had had it. I love New Orleans. I was beginning to think I was insane for loving her as much as I do, me being a staunch heterosexual. I couldn't understand the insensitivity, the just flat out mean views of people outside of here. I was down and trying to find a way out of the sludge of negativity. I am the eternal optimist, I believe, I really do, just like the Saints' tshirts say. ::::::::::::freaking idiot:::::::::::maybe::::::::::maybe a pioneer?::::::::::::are we all pioneers?:::::::::::maybe:::::::::::::Hey, I really believe Blanche Dubois' comment about deliberate cruelty being the one unforgivable sin, and I was seeing what I thought was deliberate cruelty, or at least deliberate ignorance. (Case in point, Ashley's info on the signs at the Saints/Bears game. What the hell are these people thinking?)
Oyster posted an article by some amazingly shallow mall seeking moron, Derbyshire. BANG. Polimom wrote a beautiful, heartfelt piece on New Orleans, recovery and levees. Cross posted it at The Moderate Voice. I read the comments. BANG. State of the Union Address. BANG. Democrats 100 day plan. BANG. And the hits kept coming. Everywhere I looked I was informed that we shouldn't exist for whatever reason. It was 3AM one night and my brain wouldn't stop and I was done. What else could I write? Talk about abandonment issues. Where the hell is the rum?
This was followed by a string of crime reports. Murders all over the place, stats that make my skin crawl, and thoughts of hiring a sniper to sit outside Jordan's office (I'm basically a pacifist for crying out loud!). Did these people really go to law school? Of course, then, me being me, I started wondering what is the SOURCE of the problem. I've always been an advocate of what I call "peeling back the onion." Let's find out what the layers are covering. Hell, I do it with music, I do it with life. (Uh, kids, you hear that Zeppelin song you love cuz it's so retro? Ever heard of Robert Johnson? Listen to THIS! Yes, I really did that to some 16 yr olds years ago. They were flabbergasted.)
I posted a comment about gun control, and predictably, was put on the rack by Second Amendment folks. 3AM--DONE.
I put together in my head a piece about racism and classism. Kept thinking about EJ's comment to me about making sure I had a thick skin. I don't in some ways. (Still working on that piece, I think. . . . .) 3AM--DONE.
What wasn't done was my KdV float, costume, or throws. Too much fun. Too much juxtapositioning. I had wanted to be a member of KdV for nearly a decade after finding out what they were about. Finally it was here. Did I dare, DARE, enjoy it? 3AM--DONE, absolutely DONE:::::::::::::some sleep would be good but I have 30 blocks to dance through two days from now and an out of town dear friend visiting, and my daughter, her husband and my darling grandson living with me and my Entergy bill is from Mars, and money is tight and:::::::::::::hey with any luck I'll be tight soon too.
The week before the parade, I walked into the den after having planned on going there since the float creation process was first announced. Something always prevented it. So here I was, the rain pouring into the den, a paper mache C. Ray Nagin face down in a puddle in our space, cold as hell and knowing virtually no one in our krewe. I see Cathy Greenfelder, one of the officers of our sub-krewe. A brilliant, lovely and lively woman, we talk for a while and she puts me to work. Says, "Can you draw?" "After a fashion." "Can you paint?" "After a fashion." (I've been drawing and painting since I was nine.) Next thing I know I'm painting a shopping cart white to become a freezer and then am asked if I can paint William Jefferson's face in house paint on foam core in a mirror image. "Sure," I say gamely. (Shroeder, thanks, you have a great photo of Cathy's piece, and now I can see what dreadful job I did rendering the wide faced Jefferson for posterity!) Okay, now I'm jazzed.
I go home, set to work on our "Renters are roadkill on the Yellow Brick Road Home" shopping cart. My friend from out of town, bless his heart, takes a three hour nap while I paint and wire away on the thing. Clearly he thinks I'm crazy but having known me as long as he has, just puts this into his "par for the course" column and leaves it at that. I have my husband bring straw from the stables to jazz up our scarecrow costumes (which, of course is now ALL through the house and probably will be for a year.) I bleach my hair blonde as Harlow, exchange in a bizarre email conversation with fellow bloggers, dig out the 200 lbs of beads I've saved from last year for this very moment. Oh yeah, I'm ready. 3AM? I'm READY!
Day comes and we're gonna roll. As Adrastos said, we milled about forever it seemed, but damn the food next door to the den was spectacular. The den looked like something out of a Fellini movie---weird prisoners, strange doctors, people with Mad Hatter hats and lots of red stuff on, pink beauticians all over the place, a friend who's usually a soft sweet woman suddenly turned into a dominatrix FEMA inspector (downright scary she was!), people with neon lit collanders on their heads (yeah, I know, this sounds like I made it up!) I run into Wet Bank and his fabulous Uncle Sam wife, members of our sub-krewe. We spread out looking for other bloggers and checked out the finished floats. Never found half the people we were looking for but Wet looked great in white face as a poodle (although his tail was strangely missing). Our captain sees us pull a bottle of Myers out of our cooler and says, "I knew I liked you right away! Good taste in hootch!" We're doing okay. This is my idea of heaven---a grand leap from the Seventh Circle.
I hear that Dangerblond's krewe is behind us. So I head over there as fast as I could, miss seeing a bunch of bead bags and trip over them. Never found her. So very much wanted to meet her. Once I get headed back into our direction I find the parade has finally moved. Unfortunately our shopping cart has been left behind. I jog up to our krewe, find my husband pulling our float (no mule for us!), then jog back to find our cart. I run with the overweight cart over railroad tracks and through three other sub-krewes and catch up. Amazing. We're on our way.
The parade was fabulous. Danced for blocks to the sounds of the crowd and the great brass bands with us. Saw many friends on our way (had seen Maitri for 2 seconds as she was headed into the den and me out--never saw her again, but found out from reading her posts why that was!) and gave them our best booty. Had been warned that the State Palace was a dump (no pun intended) and that I should bring my own TP, so called my daughter and had her bring a roll to drop into our cart on Decatur Street near Molly's. (I shoulda charged for it! Everytime I headed up the staircase later that night, women in various costumes were begging me for a bit of it. I handed it out freely and was very glad I brought it.)
Got through the parade with nary a thought about being DONE. Had one of the best times of my life. Learned from Wet Bank's sister that it's okay to tell fellow krewe members to buy their own throws and not purloin yours. (Mark, your sister is a hoot! I love her!) Once at the State Palace I see Adrastos, looking like an acid burn victim convict (and yes, I DID say he looked "cherubic"), his forever lovely wife looking like he just beat the tar out of her, and several others, but lost my husband totally. Spent the first 45 minutes looking for him. He had the cooler (hey, SANDWICH in there!) and had told me on the way in that he was "really drunk." (Somewhere during a lag on Frenchman Street I find him slugging Myers straight out of the bottle telling me it's more "expedient.") I'm seeing him passed out somewhere. NO. He's just dancing at the front of the stage, at least that's what I found out when I found him leaned up against the wall on the once glorious staircase of the theatre. Loki shows up with his beautiful bride, we talk briefly and both at once, as we are wont to do, then he mysteriously disappears. Hours go by dancing and laughing and having a wonderful time. Humid Haney arrives in front of me, eight feet tall with wig, plastic boobs and some kind of Saints hardhat on and I hand him the rum and coke, which he liked but apparently the stuff made his plastic boobs sticky (like he CARED!). Met some others I've been wanting to meet, and there I am, flushed, probably slushed, bleached hair and scarecrow makeup. Oh yeah, it was my dream scenario for meeting the folks I seriously want to talk with!
We stay til the show closes. The next day my legs wouldn't work. My age kicked in and I wondered how I had managed to dance the 30 blocks AND dance til 4AM. 4AM--DONE.
Now I have to switch over into "Boba" (read "Grandma") mode, go to an elementary school and help out with the reading class, deal with a stomach bug that rendered our household useless for a day, AND think Streetcar Named Desire. We're doing Barkus on Sunday. I'm going as the Tarantula Arms and had to revamp the shopping cart to become a "Flowers for the Dead" thing. I've got everything done but my costume and my dog, Zola's costume (he's going as Shep Huntleigh, Blanche's never seen beau.) Hey, no problem. It's only the day after tomorrow.
As I'm re-painting the shopping cart, re-loading the shopping cart with another 200 lbs of beads and other throws, I'm reading about Vanessa Johnson sending her son out with a gun to kill them all after her son got beat in a fist fight (fist fights, in my view, are a damn better choice than a .38, but hey, I'm an anti-gun pacifist), a guy in Slidell who put a child's hand on a stove. I'm reading about how Robert Dawson had only been home for four hrs before he got shot down and his 54 yr old mother can't read or write. I'm getting emails about how we need to mobilize and others talking about tech stuff that I have no clue about. (WTF IS digest mode?) I'm reading about how one of our own close knit group is cracking under the strain. I'm reading about continuing corruption. I'm seeing Anna Nicole's death being front page news (yes, she was young, had a wee baby and it was tragic, but really---what did she actually contribute to this world? Or am I being a bitch?) I'm seeing possible lawsuits about the levee failures. I'm hearing my grandson telling me that thieves go to hell (he SOOOOO didn't get that from me!) and seeing money tossed into everyone's pocket but those who need it (I hope hell exists and that my grandson is right). I'm seeing articles about kids who can't get into school, estimates of 300 are probably more like 2000. I'm seeing tourists in the Quarter, which is a good thing. I'm seeing who's the grand poobah at what super-krewe parade. I'm seeing friends who work for Road Home with good hearts being skewered by the parodies and bad press. I'm seeing people who are being skewered by Road Home being upset, and rightfully so (btw, mominem's Road Home Math posts are brilliant and enlightening). I'm seeing Poppy Brite give up on public appearances but getting a new home. I see me, being totally schizophrenic---having a wonderful time and loving Carnival season but worried about our future and our schisms. I'm wondering if maybe they shouldn't just put Prozac in the water supply. I'm seeing Chris Rose turn into an apologist, and the Catholics, whose dogma spawned Mardi Gras, what with Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, having fits about Krewe du Vieux. I'm seeing Travelling Mermaid saying "Humanize the victims" and she's so right, but so many people won't be able to relate to the culture of the victim, so any humanization will become moot. I'm seeing joy and frustration and anger and angst and breakdowns and it's all so damn local. Forget about the larger set of issues, the national, the international, the corporations, the. . .the. . . .the. . .
So here's the deal. I'm gonna take my grandson to every damn parade he wants to see (his favorite is Krewe d'Etat--gotta love that! It really DOES skip a generation!) Then I'll get back to work. I'll find a way to fit American Zombie's oversight idea into my already overfilled plate. I'll get back to the writing I do other than the blog. I'll go back to figuring out what the hell Entergy is doing with my bill.
I'll put both sides of this schizophrenic situation together, in some kinda way. But since my sewing machine is gone, I guess I'll have to use Stitch Witchery and hope the fabric doesn't melt.
I'll be Blanche Dubois at the Tarantula Arms on Sunday and wonder why no one GETS that intentional cruelty IS the one unforgivable sin. Then I'll probably shut my pie hole for a little while, unless of course, as usual, I can't.
It's 12:35AM--DONE.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Tripod perform at a Comedy Festival
| Aussie comedy group Tripod performing their song "Make You Happy Tonight" at a Comedy Festival | |
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Not a Word. . . . .
. . . .not one word in the State of the Union address about New Orleans. So I will quote some other words:
THIS WAS ABOUT NEW ORLEANS
THIS WAS ABOUT IRAQ, (guess we're not "friends" that shouldn't be abandoned and I guess a "pledge" is not the same as a "promise.")
THIS WAS THE DEMOCRATIC RESPONSE (might be lip service, but at least the words were in there, like hey, we might possibly be part of the "all Americans" thing.)
This article about sums it up. Disappointment, not on the radar, etc.
Given how much time, money and focus is given to those countries holding our foreign oil supplies in their hands, i.e. infrastructure, schools, hospitals, job programs, perhaps we should follow Ashley Morris' advice and become a foreign power ourselves. Bush had a lot to say about domestic oil (um, US, we GOT it, George!) and how we needed to decrease our dependence on foreign energy sources, but still not a word about the Gulf Coast.
Is OPEC looking for any new members? Maybe if we join them we can get what we need here.
Oh yeah, but you would need a passport to come here to party.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
THIS WAS ABOUT NEW ORLEANS
And tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again.---George Bush on Jackson Square, September 15, 2005
THIS WAS ABOUT IRAQ, (guess we're not "friends" that shouldn't be abandoned and I guess a "pledge" is not the same as a "promise.")
Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned and our own security at risk.---George Bush, State of the Union Address, January 23, 2007
THIS WAS THE DEMOCRATIC RESPONSE (might be lip service, but at least the words were in there, like hey, we might possibly be part of the "all Americans" thing.)
Let me simply say that we in the Democratic Party hope that this administration is serious about improving education and health care for all Americans, and addressing such domestic priorities as restoring the vitality of New Orleans.--Sen. Jim Webb, D-VA, Democratic Response to the State of the Union Address, January 23, 2007
This article about sums it up. Disappointment, not on the radar, etc.
Given how much time, money and focus is given to those countries holding our foreign oil supplies in their hands, i.e. infrastructure, schools, hospitals, job programs, perhaps we should follow Ashley Morris' advice and become a foreign power ourselves. Bush had a lot to say about domestic oil (um, US, we GOT it, George!) and how we needed to decrease our dependence on foreign energy sources, but still not a word about the Gulf Coast.
Is OPEC looking for any new members? Maybe if we join them we can get what we need here.
Oh yeah, but you would need a passport to come here to party.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
Monday, January 22, 2007
World Record Beads at Jackson Square
I'm so proud of him! My grandson, that is! He decided to do this project and so out we went in July to measure Jackson Square, only to find out that it's actually a rectangle. He became the librarian of his first grade class and decided that the school needed more books for the kids to take home for their reading assignment each night, and decided to do this project as a pledge drive. (The original idea owes its genesis to our dear friend, Stuart Johnson, of New Orleans, currently in exile in Houston.)
The original flyer had the photo between all the dimensions you see below, but the Word doc didn't translate well to blogger, so it is what it is. Below is the flyer. We just wanted to let you know that we'll be out at the Square on Saturday with a butt load of beads and his good little heart.
349'
349'At 2PM on Saturday, January 27, 2007, William Oskay, a six year old student of Ms. McLaughlin’s First Grade class at McDonough 15, will attempt to connect Mardi Gras beads in one continuous strand around Jackson Square. William has collected what he calls “World Record Beads” for over a year in order to do this. (They are the old style clear plastic beads with connectors at the back.) He also decided that Mc 15 needs more “take home” books, so he will do this project as a pledge drive to raise money for Mc 15’s Green School library. The pledges are based on the number of strands it takes to go completely around the Square.
ALL MONEY RAISED GOES TO GREEN SCHOOL LIBRARY AT MC 15!!!
349’
329’ 329’
349’
TOTAL: 1356’ (approx.)
Yes, we really DID measure Jackson Square!
349’
329’ 329’
349’
TOTAL: 1356’ (approx.)
Yes, we really DID measure Jackson Square!
Please feel free to pass this around or just stop by to cheer him on!
Monday, January 15, 2007
HUD, Money and Martin Luther King Day
I really wanted to go to the march today, but it's not looking like I'm going to make it. I've been stashing this post for a while to post today, so am hoping that it will be a contribution to those who are marching.
A friend sent me an email with this link in it. I read it and sat screaming at my monitor. The author, Bill Quigley, is a human rights lawyer and a professor of law at Loyola. I am going to post the entire article here. You'll have to click the link if you want to comment on his post of this over at BuzzFlash, and please feel free to comment here as well.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide New Orleans Public Housing HUD
A friend sent me an email with this link in it. I read it and sat screaming at my monitor. The author, Bill Quigley, is a human rights lawyer and a professor of law at Loyola. I am going to post the entire article here. You'll have to click the link if you want to comment on his post of this over at BuzzFlash, and please feel free to comment here as well.
Bill Quigley: Why Is HUD Bulldozing Public Housing Apts in New Orleans When It's Cheaper to Fix Them?
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 12/28/2006 - 3:14pm. Guest Contribution
Tale of Two Sisters: Why Is HUD Using Tens of Millions of Katrina Money to Bulldoze 4534 Public Housing Apartments in New Orleans When It Costs Less to Repair and Open Them Up?
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Bill Quigley
Gloria Williams and her twin sister Bobbie Jennings are 60 years old. They are two of the over 4000 families who lived in public housing in New Orleans before Katrina struck who are still locked out of their apartments since Katrina. Their apartments are two of 4534 apartments that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced plans to demolish. Demolition is planned even though it will cost more to demolish and rebuild many fewer units than it does to fix them up and open them. Ms. Williams and Ms. Jennings, and thousands of families like them, are fighting HUD, they want to return.
Gloria and Bobbie started working early. As children they picked cotton, strawberries, snap beans and pecans before and after grade school every day in rural Louisiana. "We were raised up to work," they said.
They moved to New Orleans after their father drowned. Their home was marked by regular domestic violence. A few years later, their mother was murdered by a boyfriend.
As teens they moved in with an abusive relative. They ran away, came back, and stayed with other relatives. They can even remember nights when they slept under their aunt's bed in a hospital while waiting for her to recuperate.
As young women they continued working. They worked in restaurants before starting careers as Certified Nursing Assistants. Then they worked for years in nursing homes and in private homes caring for the elderly and disabled. They fed people, cleaned people, bathed people, cared for people. Each married and raised children and grandchildren. Like 25% of the households in New Orleans, neither owned a car.
Both sisters are now 60. In the past few years, their years of physical work took its toil and they could not longer work. Ms. Jennings had back surgery and suffers with high blood pressure. Ms. Williams has heart and lung problems, high blood pressure, and clots in her legs that prevent her from standing or walking for long periods. Each lives solely on about $600 a month from disability. No pensions.
When Katrina hit, they had been living in the C.J. Peete apartments for years. Ms. Bobbie Jennings had been there for 34 years. Her twin sister, Ms. Gloria Williams lived there for over 18 years.
Their combined families, 18 in all, evacuated to Baton Rouge to ride out the storm. When it was clear they would not be going home any time soon, their host family told them it was time to move on. In September 2005, the family of 18 moved into one daughter's damaged home in Slidell, about 30 miles away from New Orleans - all sleeping on the first floor because the roof was still damaged.
One of their sisters, Annie, was in the hospital with cancer when Katrina hit. It took the family weeks before the finally found her in a hospital in Macon, Georgia.
When the city opened, they got rides into town and checked on their apartments. No water had entered their apartments at all. But their doors had been kicked down and all their furnishings were gone. The housing authority told them they could not move back in for a couple more months while their apartments were secured and fixed up. The housing authority started fixing up and painting apartments in her complex, but abruptly stopped after a few weeks.
Slidell was getting tight, so they accepted an offer to relocate to California. After a month, they returned. Being 3000 miles apart from family was too heartbreaking. A four day bus ride brought them back to Slidell in January 2006. After hitching rides into New Orleans, Ms. Williams found a subsidized apartment. The only way the landlord would accept her, though, was if she paid him an extra $400 under the table. Otherwise, he would rent it to someone else who would.
So Ms. Williams paid the extra money and moved in with her grandchildren while she waited for her old apartment to reopen. She used FEMA money to buy new furniture. In late February 2005, Ms. Williams was hospitalized for three weeks for surgeries on her legs.
In June 2005, HUD announced they were not going to let any residents back in her apartment complex and three others (Lafitte, St. Bernard and BW Cooper) because they were going to be demolished. Over one hundred maintenance and security workers for the housing authority were let go. HUD took over the local housing authority years ago and all these decisions are being made in Washington DC.
The demolished buildings would make way for much newer and many fewer apartments which would be built by private developers. The demolition and private development would be financed by federal funds and federal tax breaks designed to help Katrina victims!
Nearly $100 million in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds were designated for the private developers. Another $34 million in Katrina Go-Zone tax credits were also donated to the developers.
In July 2005, Ms. Williams apartment caught fire and again she lost everything. Her landlord did not want to let her out of her lease. He told her that she and her grandson could still live there, all they had to do was clean the soot off the walls and ceilings.
At this, Ms. Williams broke down and went back into the hospital.
Ms. Jennings got an apartment and allowed her daughter and her grandchildren to live there because they have no place to stay. She also took her in her little sister, Annie, who was dying of cancer. Annie died on August 17, 2005.
Both sisters have severe problems every month making ends meet. Utility bills eat up most of their monthly checks. With no car and their apartments across the river from New Orleans, they cannot get to the doctor.
Christmas was very tough. Ms. Williams said "We didn't have a Christmas. We didn't have food to put on the table." Her grandson went to her sister's house to get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Ms. Jennings cried as she said "Behind Katrina and my little sister dying, my life just stopped. This is the second year we didn't have a Christmas. It is so hard to try to start over. I let my daughter and her two grandchildren sleep on the bed. I sleep on a pallet on the floor. Before Katrina I was on blood pressure medicine once a day. Now I take 4 blood pressure pills three times a day. I also take pills for depression, nerves and stress."
"We just want to go home," Ms. Williams said. "People knew us in our neighborhood. They never messed with us. I could leave my back door open when I went to the grocery. People don't understand that was our home. We want to go home."
Why would people want to go back into public housing? Aren't the developments dangerous and crime-ridden? Isn't this an opportunity to start over and make something better?
Public housing residents know full well the problems of public housing, but still they want to return.
Why? Start with the fact that New Orleans is in the worst affordable housing crisis since the Civil War. Tens of thousands of houses still remain in ruins after Katrina. Rents for the rest have gone up 70-80 percent since Katrina. Even before Katrina, there was a waiting list of 18,000 families seeking to get into public housing - now it is much, much worse. HUD's demolition plans target 4,534 apartments of public housing in the community. They plan to demolish 1546 apartments in BW Cooper, 723 in C.J. Peete, 1400 in St. Bernard, and 865 in Lafitte.
These are not the dense high-rise towers. Public housing in New Orleans is made up of development clusters of mostly two and three story buildings with six to eight apartments in each. New York Times Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, criticized plans to demolish these apartments, saying on November 19, 2006: "Modestly scaled, they include some of the best public housing built in the United States....Solidly built, the buildings' detailed brickwork, tile roofs and wrought-iron balustrades represent a level of craft more likely found on an Ivy League campus than in a contemporary public housing complex."
Most of the public housing apartments rented for very modest rents tied to the resident's incomes. Most did not pay separate utility charges. Leases were essentially for life, unless someone in the family was caught breaking the law.
HUD initially said they had to demolish because the buildings were so damaged they were dangerous to the residents.
That was not true.
John Fernandez, an Associate Professor of Architecture at MIT, inspected 140 of these apartments and concluded in papers filed in court that "no structural or nonstructural damage was found that could reasonably warrant any cost-effective building demolition...Therefore, the general conclusions are: demolition of any of the buildings of these four projects is not supported by the evidence of the survey, replacement of these buildings with contemporary construction would yield buildings of lower quality and shorter lifetime duration; the original construction methods and materials of these projects are far superior in their resistance to hurricane conditions than typical new construction and with renovation and regular maintenance, the lifetimes of the buildings in all four projects promise decades of continued service that may be extended indefinitely."
Residents promise to fix up their apartments themselves if given the chance. "I clean for a living," said one young woman resident at a recent public hearing where 100% of the residents opposed demolition. "I clean for a living and I am proud of it. I clean every body else's houses, I will sure clean up my own house - just let me back in to do it!"
After it the public understood that the buildings were not actually in such bad shape, the authorities then said it would cost much more to repair the buildings than to demolish and start over.
That too was not true.
The housing authority's own documents show that Lafitte could be repaired for $20 million, even completely overhauled for $85 million while the estimate for demolition and rebuilding many fewer units will cost over $100 million. St. Bernard could be repaired for $41 million, substantially modernized for $130 million while demolition and rebuilding less units will cost $197 million. BW Cooper could be substantially renovated for $135 million compared to $221 million to demolish and rebuild less units. Their own insurance company reported that it would take less than $5000 each to repair each of the CJ Peete apartments.
HUD suggests that less-dense "mixed income" communities are the way to go.
But residents and the community knows that if HUD has its way, only about 20% of the families who lived in these developments will be allowed to return.
New Orleans has suffered through the experience of HUD's "mixed income" policies before. The St. Thomas housing development, once home to 1510 families, was demolished with promises that people would be returning to a beautiful redeveloped community. Instead, there is now a Wal-Mart on the site and hundreds of cute gingerbread pastel houses. How many of the 1510 families who used to live in St. Thomas have been allowed to move back in? About a hundred. A few of these families have had to force their way in with litigation by the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center. The demolition of St. Thomas is hailed as a mostly-good outcome by nearby developers and some of the young professionals who moved into the surrounding neighborhood knowing what was coming. What do the 1400+ families who were moved out and not allowed to return think? Don't ask - no one else is.
HUD has the same plans for the neighborhoods where they are trying to demolish housing. According to documents filed with the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency: St. Bernard will go from 1400 apartments to 595 apartments, only 160 of which will be for low-income public housing residents. There will be 160 tax credit mixed income and 145 market rate units; CJ Peete will go from 723 units to 410, 154 will be public housing eligible, 133 mixed income and 123 market rate; BW Cooper will go from 1546 to 410, 154 public housing eligible, 133 tax-credit mixed income, and 123 market; And Lafitte will downsized in the same way.
As a result HUD plans to spend tens of millions of Katrina assistance funds to end up with far fewer affordable apartments.
The new Congress is looking into this. Representatives Barney Frank and Maxine Waters chair the committee and subcommittee with oversight of HUD. There is also a federal class action lawsuit filed by the Advancement Project, Jenner & Block, and local attorneys.
Residents of the St. Bernard housing development and their allies plan are not waiting any more. On Martin Luther King day, January 15, 2007, they are going in with or without permission. "What better way to celebrate Martin Luther King day than to risk going to jail for justice?" says Endesha Jukali, a neighbor who lived and worked in St. Bernard for years.
But the clock is still ticking. HUD, who has not "officially approved" its own announcement, says the demolition needs to get started to take advantage of the Katrina tax credits. Neither the Congress nor the federal courts have yet stepped in to stop the demolitions.
What do the sisters think about this? Ms. Jennings says: "I lived there for 34 years. That is my home. I just cannot afford to live outside the development. I don't know how else to explain it. I have the tears, but I do not have the words." Her twin sister, Ms. Williams cries and says: "That was my home for over 18 years. I never gave them no trouble. My home never flooded. I will clean it myself, just please let me back in. I wish I could make people understand. I just want to go home."
For more information about this matter see www.justiceforneworleans.org or contact the Advancement Project at (202) 728-9557.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Bill is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. Bill is one of the lawyers representing thousands of families who want to return to their apartments in New Orleans.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide New Orleans Public Housing HUD
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Saturday, January 06, 2007
The Naked and the Dead
Thanks for the title Norman Mailer. In his novel, which I just finished, he writes of a group of soldiers in WWII fighting and clawing their way through jungles and up mountains in the Phillipines. He details sheer exhaustion and unbelievable human endurance to complete what is, in the end, a futile endeavor. I should have chosen something more upbeat to read this week, huh? Ah well, I'm probably going to piss some people off with this post, so upbeat isn't really important at the moment.
This week it seems apropos to have read that book as New Orleans' problems are all the more naked, and more of her citizens are dead.
Over twenty years ago, when my daughter was the age my grandson is now, my husband and I had long discussions as we watched the rise of gangs. We talked about how when we were in school, the baddest ass in the place was some guy with slicked back hair and a switchblade. They liked souped up cars and easy girls and knew where to get beer. They mostly worked in gas stations, maybe committed some petty crimes, maybe ran off to join a biker gang when they got out of school. They weren't a real threat to us as long as we didn't go where their turf was, and we all knew the boundaries. West Side Story had a guy like that who got killed, but killing was something that the kids I knew, even the baddest asses, didn't do. I was in the hippie group. We smoked our pot and talked about peace and listened to music at the Fillmore East. The killing in my teen years was done in the jungles of Vietnam, beamed into our living rooms at dinner time, and we protested it. Killing was NOT cool. No "juice" came from that. "Street cred"--not a term we knew by the way--was based on things like scoring an all access pass to a Led Zeppelin concert, or having gone to Woodstock.
As the gangs took over streets in California, we were living in San Francisco, and while there were some gang problems there, they seemed minor compared to what was happening in Los Angeles. We felt insulated from them in a way, but wondered a lot what was going to happen when we had a generation of kids, reared in the gang neighborhoods, in poverty, with bad schools, too many guns and a culture of consumerism and violence. "What's gonna happen in 20 years when we have to DEAL with these kids?" Well, here we are, twenty years later and it's as bad or worse than we had thought.
At that time we lived on 23rd Street in San Francisco, just up from SF General Hospital where we could hear the sirens going to the ER. Just over our 20 foot fence was the Hunter's Point Housing Project, originally built during the war to house shipbuilders for the Navy, it became it's own fiefdom with the cops afraid to go in. Too many guns, they said. There were children in there then, and probably still are now. Cops were the enemy in Hunter's Point, and these kids grew up hearing that and living in that environment. The San Francisco school system was such a shambles that we sat out in lawn chairs to get our daughter into an "alternative school," which roughly translates to the charter schools here in New Orleans.
This wasn't just happening in San Francisco, though. It was happening in every city in this country including New Orleans. My daughter is 27 and so are the those other kids who grew up in the Hunter's Points and the Ibervilles and mega-projects of Chicago and New York and in Compton. The poverty, the bad schools, the marginalization continued and nothing was done about it. The gun manufacturers made better, faster, more lethal weapons with fingerprint proof grips, and they're all over our streets, in the hands of kids and addicts and maniacs of every stripe. The guns stolen from that law abiding guy down the street are out there too. Every major city in this country is now reaping what it sowed for twenty years or more.
Am I making excuses for the killers out there? Absolutely not. They are lost to us now in most cases, I fear. I don't think we can undo the damage of twenty years anymore than we can undo the horror these kids are unleashing. I am only saying that we are all so shaken up, so SHOCKED by the recent spate of killings here in our city, and we shouldn't be. It's been coming for a long time. What the hell did we think would happen when these kids grew up?
I live in the Marigny, not far from where Helen Hill was murdered. Two blocks away is a place called Buffa's. One of the cooks in there, a lovely woman named Miss Brenda, lost her brother this week. Multiple gunshot wounds. One victim white, the other victim black, the grief is the same. I am not going to arm myself to the teeth, nor am I going to be too afraid to go out. Neither of those options is viable to me. Besides, it's not just my neighborhood that's being hit by this destruction of human life.
Mayor Nagin said in his press conference the other day that it's "black on black crime" and "unfortunate." UNFORTUNATE? Is he fucking kidding? That's the best he can do? Yes the city is strapped for cash, yes we're dealing with entire neighborhoods that would be better suited to a scene out of Blade Runner than a city in the United States. We have problems and more problems here in New Orleans, and evidently, as Ashley Morris says, we're on our own. Sinn Fein. (All of this, contributes more to the marginalization problems.)
I will make an admission here. I was lucky to be chosen by the film company I was working for in 1984 to cover the Democratic National Convention in Moscone Hall, San Francisco. I also voted for Jesse Jackson in the primary that year. (Keep your groans to yourself!)
As we approach Martin Luther King's birthday, I gotta wonder what he would make of all this. Is racism a problem in New Orleans? Oh please, if you're asking you're not living here. (Is it any better where you are?) Is crime a problem here? It's over the top.
This year the voters of this city re-elected Nagin and William Jefferson, both black men with power and connections. We have Oliver Thomas on the city council, a man for whom I have great respect. Our police chief is also a black man. Where is Jesse Jackson? Where is Al Sharpton? Where are the black leaders? Why aren't they here holding these guys' feet to the fire? "Listen, you guys, we fought hard to prove we could do the job, now DO it! You're making us look bad. Some of us died to get the respect we deserved, now you're letting our kids get left behind and shoot each other in the streets and calling it unfortunate? Show the world that you can rebuild New Orleans without handing out contracts to people who are your buddies. Show the world that you can educate the children, ALL the children, so that twenty years from now their blood won't be rolling down the gutters to the still clogged street drains. Show the world that you can get these guns and the criminals wielding them off the streets---um, no, New Orleans Judges, not just for three days, for GOOD. And try to hire some cops who aren't just as bad as the criminals. How can we help?" I think the black leaders of this country need to tell it like it is. I think they should hand Nagin's head to him on a platter for pandering with lines like "black on black" and "unfortunate."
And what about us white folks? We have to stop being so complacent. We need to reach out to our neighbors, whoever they are, and band together as a community and say ENOUGH. I don't want my black neighbors assuming that I view them as a threat or that I wouldn't open my door to them if they needed help. I want them to know that I don't care if the victim of a crime is black or white. I want us to work together as a community and tell our elected officials that "unfortunate" is an understatement of monumental proportions. I want us to band together to make sure that my grandson and theirs don't have to deal with the effects of another twenty years of neglect and idiotic judicial systems and corrupt politicians.
Katrina exposed a lot of the problems of this city, and some of those problems should be like the canary in the coal mine for the rest of this country, but our city has other spectacular problems in addition to rampant crime. The problems have left us naked. Too many of us are already dead. We have to open our mouths and scream loud and long. We must keen on the corners of Mid-City and Uptown and the Marigny with the families of the murdered.
We cannot allow ourselves to be forced out of our love affair with, our defense of, New Orleans. We also can't forget that for decades the neglect happened on white leaders' watches.
Maybe we need to blast "I have a DREAM" on loudspeakers all over the city, and into City Hall, on Martin Luther King day. Or "I can SEE the promised land" but I'd have to change his words to I expect to get there with you. But I will not allow you to kill this city, Mr. Nagin, Mr. Riley, with your inaction.
Twenty years goes really fast, you know. What will shock you in twenty years, and could any of it have been avoided? Please don't take our exhaustion and human endurance in the face of catastrophe and have history view it as futile.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
This week it seems apropos to have read that book as New Orleans' problems are all the more naked, and more of her citizens are dead.
Over twenty years ago, when my daughter was the age my grandson is now, my husband and I had long discussions as we watched the rise of gangs. We talked about how when we were in school, the baddest ass in the place was some guy with slicked back hair and a switchblade. They liked souped up cars and easy girls and knew where to get beer. They mostly worked in gas stations, maybe committed some petty crimes, maybe ran off to join a biker gang when they got out of school. They weren't a real threat to us as long as we didn't go where their turf was, and we all knew the boundaries. West Side Story had a guy like that who got killed, but killing was something that the kids I knew, even the baddest asses, didn't do. I was in the hippie group. We smoked our pot and talked about peace and listened to music at the Fillmore East. The killing in my teen years was done in the jungles of Vietnam, beamed into our living rooms at dinner time, and we protested it. Killing was NOT cool. No "juice" came from that. "Street cred"--not a term we knew by the way--was based on things like scoring an all access pass to a Led Zeppelin concert, or having gone to Woodstock.
As the gangs took over streets in California, we were living in San Francisco, and while there were some gang problems there, they seemed minor compared to what was happening in Los Angeles. We felt insulated from them in a way, but wondered a lot what was going to happen when we had a generation of kids, reared in the gang neighborhoods, in poverty, with bad schools, too many guns and a culture of consumerism and violence. "What's gonna happen in 20 years when we have to DEAL with these kids?" Well, here we are, twenty years later and it's as bad or worse than we had thought.
At that time we lived on 23rd Street in San Francisco, just up from SF General Hospital where we could hear the sirens going to the ER. Just over our 20 foot fence was the Hunter's Point Housing Project, originally built during the war to house shipbuilders for the Navy, it became it's own fiefdom with the cops afraid to go in. Too many guns, they said. There were children in there then, and probably still are now. Cops were the enemy in Hunter's Point, and these kids grew up hearing that and living in that environment. The San Francisco school system was such a shambles that we sat out in lawn chairs to get our daughter into an "alternative school," which roughly translates to the charter schools here in New Orleans.
This wasn't just happening in San Francisco, though. It was happening in every city in this country including New Orleans. My daughter is 27 and so are the those other kids who grew up in the Hunter's Points and the Ibervilles and mega-projects of Chicago and New York and in Compton. The poverty, the bad schools, the marginalization continued and nothing was done about it. The gun manufacturers made better, faster, more lethal weapons with fingerprint proof grips, and they're all over our streets, in the hands of kids and addicts and maniacs of every stripe. The guns stolen from that law abiding guy down the street are out there too. Every major city in this country is now reaping what it sowed for twenty years or more.
Am I making excuses for the killers out there? Absolutely not. They are lost to us now in most cases, I fear. I don't think we can undo the damage of twenty years anymore than we can undo the horror these kids are unleashing. I am only saying that we are all so shaken up, so SHOCKED by the recent spate of killings here in our city, and we shouldn't be. It's been coming for a long time. What the hell did we think would happen when these kids grew up?
I live in the Marigny, not far from where Helen Hill was murdered. Two blocks away is a place called Buffa's. One of the cooks in there, a lovely woman named Miss Brenda, lost her brother this week. Multiple gunshot wounds. One victim white, the other victim black, the grief is the same. I am not going to arm myself to the teeth, nor am I going to be too afraid to go out. Neither of those options is viable to me. Besides, it's not just my neighborhood that's being hit by this destruction of human life.
Mayor Nagin said in his press conference the other day that it's "black on black crime" and "unfortunate." UNFORTUNATE? Is he fucking kidding? That's the best he can do? Yes the city is strapped for cash, yes we're dealing with entire neighborhoods that would be better suited to a scene out of Blade Runner than a city in the United States. We have problems and more problems here in New Orleans, and evidently, as Ashley Morris says, we're on our own. Sinn Fein. (All of this, contributes more to the marginalization problems.)
I will make an admission here. I was lucky to be chosen by the film company I was working for in 1984 to cover the Democratic National Convention in Moscone Hall, San Francisco. I also voted for Jesse Jackson in the primary that year. (Keep your groans to yourself!)
As we approach Martin Luther King's birthday, I gotta wonder what he would make of all this. Is racism a problem in New Orleans? Oh please, if you're asking you're not living here. (Is it any better where you are?) Is crime a problem here? It's over the top.
This year the voters of this city re-elected Nagin and William Jefferson, both black men with power and connections. We have Oliver Thomas on the city council, a man for whom I have great respect. Our police chief is also a black man. Where is Jesse Jackson? Where is Al Sharpton? Where are the black leaders? Why aren't they here holding these guys' feet to the fire? "Listen, you guys, we fought hard to prove we could do the job, now DO it! You're making us look bad. Some of us died to get the respect we deserved, now you're letting our kids get left behind and shoot each other in the streets and calling it unfortunate? Show the world that you can rebuild New Orleans without handing out contracts to people who are your buddies. Show the world that you can educate the children, ALL the children, so that twenty years from now their blood won't be rolling down the gutters to the still clogged street drains. Show the world that you can get these guns and the criminals wielding them off the streets---um, no, New Orleans Judges, not just for three days, for GOOD. And try to hire some cops who aren't just as bad as the criminals. How can we help?" I think the black leaders of this country need to tell it like it is. I think they should hand Nagin's head to him on a platter for pandering with lines like "black on black" and "unfortunate."
And what about us white folks? We have to stop being so complacent. We need to reach out to our neighbors, whoever they are, and band together as a community and say ENOUGH. I don't want my black neighbors assuming that I view them as a threat or that I wouldn't open my door to them if they needed help. I want them to know that I don't care if the victim of a crime is black or white. I want us to work together as a community and tell our elected officials that "unfortunate" is an understatement of monumental proportions. I want us to band together to make sure that my grandson and theirs don't have to deal with the effects of another twenty years of neglect and idiotic judicial systems and corrupt politicians.
Katrina exposed a lot of the problems of this city, and some of those problems should be like the canary in the coal mine for the rest of this country, but our city has other spectacular problems in addition to rampant crime. The problems have left us naked. Too many of us are already dead. We have to open our mouths and scream loud and long. We must keen on the corners of Mid-City and Uptown and the Marigny with the families of the murdered.
We cannot allow ourselves to be forced out of our love affair with, our defense of, New Orleans. We also can't forget that for decades the neglect happened on white leaders' watches.
Maybe we need to blast "I have a DREAM" on loudspeakers all over the city, and into City Hall, on Martin Luther King day. Or "I can SEE the promised land" but I'd have to change his words to I expect to get there with you. But I will not allow you to kill this city, Mr. Nagin, Mr. Riley, with your inaction.
Twenty years goes really fast, you know. What will shock you in twenty years, and could any of it have been avoided? Please don't take our exhaustion and human endurance in the face of catastrophe and have history view it as futile.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Dragging Out an Old Post in Time for Christmas. . .
. . .with a few additions.
First, French Quarter Computers (Mike Anderson) is going out of business. He sent me an email. Not only is he losing his business, but he also needs a place to live. I will be writing an entire post on this man in the next week as he is remarkable. To quote him, "I didn't even get flooded and lost everything. I'm ruined." If you're looking for a last minute computer geek gift, please drop your money into his hands. If you have a place you know of for rent, drop him a line as well. He probably only has til Jan 1 to move. Below is the email he sent:
Meanwhile, I am horribly off schedule publishing the Katrina Refrigerator posts. I had so hoped to do them in real time, and had managed to do that until my computer took a huge dump. I am a few behind over there and will have those up this week as well (that, btw, is thanks in toto to Mike Anderson's generosity.) Below is what I wrote December 18, 2005 in my series of emails to friends and family. Weird how much of it is still relevant. People are still without homes, FEMA is still an issue, the St. Charles streetcar line is running, albeit limited. There was singing in Jackson Square again this year, and we still won't let this city die. Read it all the way to the bottom, and follow the instructions. We're all still waving our kleenex's, but they're in need of a boost. Help us out, will ya?
Subject: It's the week before Christmas, and all through the house. . . .
Date: 12/18/2005 4:27:29 PM Central Standard Time
. . . . is the second trip to storage salvage. Really. Behind me as I write are dolls, lots and lots of dolls. All sitting in front of the electric heater, where they've been for days to dry out. I turn them like chickens on a spit. There's another tupperware full on the porch, still wet, but there's only so much room for salvage so I do it a little at a time.
Meg had a large doll collection, which was added to each Christmas for many years til she decided she'd rather have a stereo at 12, a car at 15. You know the way that goes. We had carefully packed them all up and brought them with us, figuring some day she'd probably want them. When we pulled them out of the sludge that is our storage, the porcelain was mostly okay, but the bodies and the clothes were soaking wet and starting to mold. I've discovered that salvaging this stuff is a three pronged operation. First you get it out of the storage unit, yes it's still in the dark out there, then you get it home and try to dry it out, then you try to clean it up. Some of what you think you can save you can't, some of what you think is just gone, you can. It's pretty schizophrenic. Once this batch of dolls is dry, I'll bring the other batch in and do the same thing. It poured yesterday. Some of the stuff on the porch got wet. Oh well, it's already wet. What else can happen to it?
Snapshots------OOOOOOOHH now there's a bad word for us this week.
Lemme back up a bit. We got into storage again on Wednesday. Apparently it won't be such a problem now as there's going to allegedly be someone there all the time. THAT is a big help. Of course it was still wet, of course it had no power, but we got smart and got little hangie lanterns. The coal miner idea is cemented in our heads now. It looks like a mine in there. So we open the door, get some carts, hang up the lanterns and move some more book sludge. The floor is very slippery and our unit is in the dead center of this maze like building. After a couple of trips in and out with the cart, I literally slipped/tripped and saved myself from falling completely in the dark by placing my face squarely onto the corrugated metal of the corner of the units that I didn't see. Hey, at my age the eyes don't adjust as fast as they did. Don't panic! Quit gasping! I'm okay. I had a fat lip and a couple bruises and a bad headache for a couple days. It was to be expected that one of us would fall. We had to sign waivers prior to going in saying that no matter what happened UHaul wasn't liable so they're off the hook and next time I wear better treaded shoes.
The books don't get any easier to toss out. Each box harder than the last. Then came the box of games, Monopoly, Scrabble, all the games everyone has and soggy Monopoly money flew around us as we tossed the pulpy scraps into the dumpster which is about 10 feet tall. It was a windy day and it drizzled a little, which made tossing things over one's head a redundant effort in a lot of cases. "Hey, honey, here's the FEMA money!" The great golden 500 dollar Monopoly bills going up towards the mouth of the dumpster and then back down on top of us, kinda like a really perverse jewel thief movie where the thieves put all the "take" on the bed and toss it in the air. We are a sick couple. We'll take our humor where we can get it.
Back into the mine we go and now I must issue a retraction of my last email. TUPPERWARE DOES NOT SAVE PHOTOS. We look down and find a gigantic green tupperware. Lid firmly attached, looked pretty okay, sitting on the floor. This was a coup in and of itself as getting to the floor level in this thing is done in little increments by taking all the sludge from the top, then the middle, then finally you clear an area and see floor. Neither of us had any idea what was in it. David opened the lid and the worst odor came out. We picked it up and it was incredibly heavy. We wheel it out, open it up and it's full of black water, then I realize what else is in it. Photos. Tons and tons of family photos. Baby pictures of me. Baby pictures of David. Baby pictures of Megan. The Christmas card I made of her when she was four in her leather jacket and hat eating a candy cane. I had several extra. No more. School pictures from every year of her school. Mine too. My mama had given my sisters and myself our "kid pictures" and they were gone in the black water. I felt like I had let her down, I hadn't protected them. Bullshit, I know, but it's one of those flickering thoughts which must be multiplied 100,000 times all over New Orleans every day. It was horrible. And there are more photos in that storage unit. I haven't gotten to them yet. We're still only about 2/3 of the way through. We figure it will be one more, maybe two more trips to the mine before we have dealt with all of it.
Snapshots, gone. Snapshots of the day, some of which made it through stage one of salvage. Bizarre things. Meaningless things that have become meaningful:
A temporary driver's license with my Guerrero St. San Francisco apartment address on it. Some old shoot schedule from Video Caroline. The complete Videowest staff list and contact numbers, which I typed on an ancient Xerox word processor years ago. A contact sheet of photos of a video shoot with Greg Kihn, the only picture still intact was one of Juanita, smiling up at me. I'm going to dry it out and send it to her. A sketch Joe Dea made 23 years ago of Meg with bunny ears. A postcard of the Jefferson Starship shoot. Meg wants that. Some sketches made for paintings that I had to throw away. Found the "heart" sketch from the Janis Joplin painting which did survive in my house. If it makes it through the drying process I'm giving that to Stuart and Lon, our dear friends here. A faded picture of me in a baton twirling recital when I was about 6 I'd say. I remember my Mama sewing every stinking green sequin on the yellow fabric and how proud I was of my boots. Pictures of two cats, now gone, the only pictures of pets that remain. Our beloved Dakota's photo was a mush. I had to ask David what had been in the frame. A photo of David's nephew and his dad fishing. We could only see their feet before we tossed it. Some touristy postcards and old newspaper articles from the Dalton Gang Hideout in Kansas. If any of that lives, I'm going to divvy it up between Meg and my nieces who were along for that trip. A Blue Angels tshirt that Meg got when she went to see them with David at age 6. I'll save that for her.
Talk about your life flashing before your eyes. It was all there in storage. I tossed out 30 years of my work. Any writing I'd done was gone, the paintings went into the dumpster, most of the sketches are pulp, and any photography I'd done was now matted blank space. Funny though, one painting that I was always unsatisfied with went into the dumpster but the sketch survived and it was better than the painting had ever been and having spent so much time in water on top of a water color that was in there, it's now a kinda cool piece of art itself. I'll try to keep that. It's a weird kind of numbness that overtakes you when you're sorting through the crap that we all save that reminds us that we were here, we created, we experienced. I actually am nuts enough that I took some photos of some of the stuff before it went over the top of the blue dumpster, especially some of Meg's stuff, so she knows what she had. And I need to tell Angie that I saved most of Meg's Barbie's, and the clothes that Angie had given her for them. At least I think I did. We'll see how stage two goes.
Now, put that kleenex away. This is one of those things that comes with living through Katrina. We'll sort through the rest after Christmas. What else can happen to it at this point? And we'll see Christmas. We'll be walking around dolls and boxes of other stuff that most people would call junk, but we'll be walking around.
David has a friend at work whose neighbor was so distraught that he took his own life this week. Those numbers keep climbing. He had been estranged from his wife prior to the storm, then his house went under water, and he lost his job. He hadn't gotten his FEMA money either (we're hearing that only 13% of people have, and I also heard a story which I've yet to be able to confirm that a large percentage of people were listed as "ineligible" because they had bad credit ratings. I don't get the relationship there. I'll let you know as soon as I can confirm that story.) He had started gutting his house, was getting on with rebuilding. Contractors were coming in. His house was in Mid-City and was reasonably stable. Unfortunately, the whole thing took it's toll on him and the contractors found him upstairs in the house, dead.
City Park did the Celebration in the Oaks this year, much to our surprise. I heard some people griping about that. How can one do a celebration of any kind, they asked. Tonight the traditional carolling on Jackson Square will happen. People with candles and song sheets singing in the Christmas lights and the shadow of the Cathedral. I hear several restaurants will manage to do reveillon dinners, the dinners traditionally served after Midnight Mass. Of course they must.
We are months past the storm, and still there is so much to be dealt with personally and in terms of planning what the future of the City will be. I was in Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop one evening and heard some guys standing at the bar discussing all this. One said, "Okay, it's time to STOP CRYING. We can go on crying forever, or we can get to work and get something done." No doubt we'll cry some more, it's unavoidable, but this guy made a good point.
One thing that will help is for people to celebrate. This is a city that five months ago would hold up traffic for any kind of parade. "Mayor Nagin's dog had a litter!" "GREAT! Let's have a parade!" "It's Wanda's birthday!" "Get a permit, we MUST do a second line!" "No parade today?" "Nope." "Why not?" "No reason." "WAIT, it's St. Theralian's feast day." "Who the hell is St. Theralian?" "No idea but let's have a parade!"
New Orleans won't be that way again for a long time, but celebration is needed. Hell, I saw an actual streetcar coming down Canal the other day! PARADE! There was no parade, but there should have been. Every little step has to be applauded, celebrated, and built on. There's so much depression and despair in this little corner of the world that every bit of joy has to be noted. Christmas lights up on houses, singing, reveillons, these things must be there however sparse. It will help so many get through the ongoing salvage and rebuilding process. And we'll all have to help those who have a real let down once the holidays have passed, because many will still not have a home, or will be going through one more room in their house throwing out everything in it and gutting the walls. David and I will still have to wade through the muck of storage and go through the trunks, the things we're dreading most. It has to be done and we'll do it along with everyone else in New Orleans.
What we need the rest of you to do is not to forget us. Don't let the current quick fix levee solution become a permanent, neglectful patch so that this happens again. The storm would have been a bad one, but it was the failure of the levees that caused this wholesale destruction. I got a great email from a friend in Montana. Showed the system London uses to keep water out, then showed the Netherlands system, then showed the New Orleans system. Appalling. (I'll forward it to you if you want it.) Write the Army Corps of Engineers and tell them that we can do better. Write your representatives and tell them thank you for the 3 billion, but we're going to need so much more than that, then those of you who are versed in "finance speak" can tell them how it wouldn't be a lump sum but would be spread out over the life of the project and it will cost so much less than rebuilding New Orleans a second time. Tell them the insurance industry lobbyists will thank them in the end and contribute more to their campaigns. (Hey, whatever works!) Tell them that if we can afford to run an outrageous deficit to rebuild Iraq, which we spent over 300 billion on last year, that we should be able to make this city safe for it's citizens. Oh, and tell them that you know people here, and that they're tenacious and willing to throw them a parade if they just make it seem like they give a shit.
Tell them that a phoenix rose from the ashes, and that there are a bunch of us here waiting to see what kind of glorious City rises from the sludge. Tell them we won't let them bury any more of us in it.
Now, after you've done that, take that damn kleenex in your hand. That's it. Good. Hold that hand up in the air. GREAT. Put on a brass band CD. Got it? Okay. Now, stand up, wave it in the air. Move your hips around to the music. Get a few of your friends to join you. Now take it to the streets. People will look at ya funny, but they'll get over it. Now you've created a second line. Have fun with it! Pour another eggnog if you want! Keep going, don't wimp out.
Now imagine how wonderful it will be to do that in a renewed New Orleans, knowing that you're in a City that wouldn't let itself die.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
First, French Quarter Computers (Mike Anderson) is going out of business. He sent me an email. Not only is he losing his business, but he also needs a place to live. I will be writing an entire post on this man in the next week as he is remarkable. To quote him, "I didn't even get flooded and lost everything. I'm ruined." If you're looking for a last minute computer geek gift, please drop your money into his hands. If you have a place you know of for rent, drop him a line as well. He probably only has til Jan 1 to move. Below is the email he sent:
This is a pre-public notice. I won't put this information up publicly until tomorrow [Friday 12/22] afternoon, to give you an opportunity for first-dibs.
I have been borrowing for medicines and am having difficulty paying back. I am losing my housing in a matter of days and must raise cash to get a place to live for myself and my natural family of three cats, Sylvester, Chrissy and Lil Joe - I am willing to live on the streets, but I cannot allow that to happen to them.
I must sell all of the shop's equipment... Small Sony TV's [3], VCR's [4], Spirit of Saint Lois Boom Box with Tape Player, 8 Track Tape Player, Canon ImageClass D760 Copy Machine, Black GE Apartment-sized Refrigerator, Brother Intellifax 775 Fax Machine, Shuttle XPC SK41G Liquid Cooled Computers [5], Computer carts [5], Flat Panel Monitors [7], Bubble Gum Machines [2], Keyboards [many - new in boxes], Mice [many - new in boxes - wireless, optical, ball], Cables, Adapters, Extensions, Combo Digital Card Reader/USB Hubs, Canned Air, Desk Chairs, Stools, Panasonic Video/Audio Digital Effects Generator WJ-AVE3, Sentry Electronic Safe, Sharp XE-A292 Electronic Cash Register, Other Stereo Equipment and cables, Surplus and New, and much, much more - everything must go!
Great, inexpensive Christmas gifts!
Please call me at the shop at 525-4660.
Thank you, and Merry Christmas,
- mike anderson
Meanwhile, I am horribly off schedule publishing the Katrina Refrigerator posts. I had so hoped to do them in real time, and had managed to do that until my computer took a huge dump. I am a few behind over there and will have those up this week as well (that, btw, is thanks in toto to Mike Anderson's generosity.) Below is what I wrote December 18, 2005 in my series of emails to friends and family. Weird how much of it is still relevant. People are still without homes, FEMA is still an issue, the St. Charles streetcar line is running, albeit limited. There was singing in Jackson Square again this year, and we still won't let this city die. Read it all the way to the bottom, and follow the instructions. We're all still waving our kleenex's, but they're in need of a boost. Help us out, will ya?
Subject: It's the week before Christmas, and all through the house. . . .
Date: 12/18/2005 4:27:29 PM Central Standard Time
. . . . is the second trip to storage salvage. Really. Behind me as I write are dolls, lots and lots of dolls. All sitting in front of the electric heater, where they've been for days to dry out. I turn them like chickens on a spit. There's another tupperware full on the porch, still wet, but there's only so much room for salvage so I do it a little at a time.
Meg had a large doll collection, which was added to each Christmas for many years til she decided she'd rather have a stereo at 12, a car at 15. You know the way that goes. We had carefully packed them all up and brought them with us, figuring some day she'd probably want them. When we pulled them out of the sludge that is our storage, the porcelain was mostly okay, but the bodies and the clothes were soaking wet and starting to mold. I've discovered that salvaging this stuff is a three pronged operation. First you get it out of the storage unit, yes it's still in the dark out there, then you get it home and try to dry it out, then you try to clean it up. Some of what you think you can save you can't, some of what you think is just gone, you can. It's pretty schizophrenic. Once this batch of dolls is dry, I'll bring the other batch in and do the same thing. It poured yesterday. Some of the stuff on the porch got wet. Oh well, it's already wet. What else can happen to it?
Snapshots------OOOOOOOHH now there's a bad word for us this week.
Lemme back up a bit. We got into storage again on Wednesday. Apparently it won't be such a problem now as there's going to allegedly be someone there all the time. THAT is a big help. Of course it was still wet, of course it had no power, but we got smart and got little hangie lanterns. The coal miner idea is cemented in our heads now. It looks like a mine in there. So we open the door, get some carts, hang up the lanterns and move some more book sludge. The floor is very slippery and our unit is in the dead center of this maze like building. After a couple of trips in and out with the cart, I literally slipped/tripped and saved myself from falling completely in the dark by placing my face squarely onto the corrugated metal of the corner of the units that I didn't see. Hey, at my age the eyes don't adjust as fast as they did. Don't panic! Quit gasping! I'm okay. I had a fat lip and a couple bruises and a bad headache for a couple days. It was to be expected that one of us would fall. We had to sign waivers prior to going in saying that no matter what happened UHaul wasn't liable so they're off the hook and next time I wear better treaded shoes.
The books don't get any easier to toss out. Each box harder than the last. Then came the box of games, Monopoly, Scrabble, all the games everyone has and soggy Monopoly money flew around us as we tossed the pulpy scraps into the dumpster which is about 10 feet tall. It was a windy day and it drizzled a little, which made tossing things over one's head a redundant effort in a lot of cases. "Hey, honey, here's the FEMA money!" The great golden 500 dollar Monopoly bills going up towards the mouth of the dumpster and then back down on top of us, kinda like a really perverse jewel thief movie where the thieves put all the "take" on the bed and toss it in the air. We are a sick couple. We'll take our humor where we can get it.
Back into the mine we go and now I must issue a retraction of my last email. TUPPERWARE DOES NOT SAVE PHOTOS. We look down and find a gigantic green tupperware. Lid firmly attached, looked pretty okay, sitting on the floor. This was a coup in and of itself as getting to the floor level in this thing is done in little increments by taking all the sludge from the top, then the middle, then finally you clear an area and see floor. Neither of us had any idea what was in it. David opened the lid and the worst odor came out. We picked it up and it was incredibly heavy. We wheel it out, open it up and it's full of black water, then I realize what else is in it. Photos. Tons and tons of family photos. Baby pictures of me. Baby pictures of David. Baby pictures of Megan. The Christmas card I made of her when she was four in her leather jacket and hat eating a candy cane. I had several extra. No more. School pictures from every year of her school. Mine too. My mama had given my sisters and myself our "kid pictures" and they were gone in the black water. I felt like I had let her down, I hadn't protected them. Bullshit, I know, but it's one of those flickering thoughts which must be multiplied 100,000 times all over New Orleans every day. It was horrible. And there are more photos in that storage unit. I haven't gotten to them yet. We're still only about 2/3 of the way through. We figure it will be one more, maybe two more trips to the mine before we have dealt with all of it.
Snapshots, gone. Snapshots of the day, some of which made it through stage one of salvage. Bizarre things. Meaningless things that have become meaningful:
A temporary driver's license with my Guerrero St. San Francisco apartment address on it. Some old shoot schedule from Video Caroline. The complete Videowest staff list and contact numbers, which I typed on an ancient Xerox word processor years ago. A contact sheet of photos of a video shoot with Greg Kihn, the only picture still intact was one of Juanita, smiling up at me. I'm going to dry it out and send it to her. A sketch Joe Dea made 23 years ago of Meg with bunny ears. A postcard of the Jefferson Starship shoot. Meg wants that. Some sketches made for paintings that I had to throw away. Found the "heart" sketch from the Janis Joplin painting which did survive in my house. If it makes it through the drying process I'm giving that to Stuart and Lon, our dear friends here. A faded picture of me in a baton twirling recital when I was about 6 I'd say. I remember my Mama sewing every stinking green sequin on the yellow fabric and how proud I was of my boots. Pictures of two cats, now gone, the only pictures of pets that remain. Our beloved Dakota's photo was a mush. I had to ask David what had been in the frame. A photo of David's nephew and his dad fishing. We could only see their feet before we tossed it. Some touristy postcards and old newspaper articles from the Dalton Gang Hideout in Kansas. If any of that lives, I'm going to divvy it up between Meg and my nieces who were along for that trip. A Blue Angels tshirt that Meg got when she went to see them with David at age 6. I'll save that for her.
Talk about your life flashing before your eyes. It was all there in storage. I tossed out 30 years of my work. Any writing I'd done was gone, the paintings went into the dumpster, most of the sketches are pulp, and any photography I'd done was now matted blank space. Funny though, one painting that I was always unsatisfied with went into the dumpster but the sketch survived and it was better than the painting had ever been and having spent so much time in water on top of a water color that was in there, it's now a kinda cool piece of art itself. I'll try to keep that. It's a weird kind of numbness that overtakes you when you're sorting through the crap that we all save that reminds us that we were here, we created, we experienced. I actually am nuts enough that I took some photos of some of the stuff before it went over the top of the blue dumpster, especially some of Meg's stuff, so she knows what she had. And I need to tell Angie that I saved most of Meg's Barbie's, and the clothes that Angie had given her for them. At least I think I did. We'll see how stage two goes.
Now, put that kleenex away. This is one of those things that comes with living through Katrina. We'll sort through the rest after Christmas. What else can happen to it at this point? And we'll see Christmas. We'll be walking around dolls and boxes of other stuff that most people would call junk, but we'll be walking around.
David has a friend at work whose neighbor was so distraught that he took his own life this week. Those numbers keep climbing. He had been estranged from his wife prior to the storm, then his house went under water, and he lost his job. He hadn't gotten his FEMA money either (we're hearing that only 13% of people have, and I also heard a story which I've yet to be able to confirm that a large percentage of people were listed as "ineligible" because they had bad credit ratings. I don't get the relationship there. I'll let you know as soon as I can confirm that story.) He had started gutting his house, was getting on with rebuilding. Contractors were coming in. His house was in Mid-City and was reasonably stable. Unfortunately, the whole thing took it's toll on him and the contractors found him upstairs in the house, dead.
City Park did the Celebration in the Oaks this year, much to our surprise. I heard some people griping about that. How can one do a celebration of any kind, they asked. Tonight the traditional carolling on Jackson Square will happen. People with candles and song sheets singing in the Christmas lights and the shadow of the Cathedral. I hear several restaurants will manage to do reveillon dinners, the dinners traditionally served after Midnight Mass. Of course they must.
We are months past the storm, and still there is so much to be dealt with personally and in terms of planning what the future of the City will be. I was in Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop one evening and heard some guys standing at the bar discussing all this. One said, "Okay, it's time to STOP CRYING. We can go on crying forever, or we can get to work and get something done." No doubt we'll cry some more, it's unavoidable, but this guy made a good point.
One thing that will help is for people to celebrate. This is a city that five months ago would hold up traffic for any kind of parade. "Mayor Nagin's dog had a litter!" "GREAT! Let's have a parade!" "It's Wanda's birthday!" "Get a permit, we MUST do a second line!" "No parade today?" "Nope." "Why not?" "No reason." "WAIT, it's St. Theralian's feast day." "Who the hell is St. Theralian?" "No idea but let's have a parade!"
New Orleans won't be that way again for a long time, but celebration is needed. Hell, I saw an actual streetcar coming down Canal the other day! PARADE! There was no parade, but there should have been. Every little step has to be applauded, celebrated, and built on. There's so much depression and despair in this little corner of the world that every bit of joy has to be noted. Christmas lights up on houses, singing, reveillons, these things must be there however sparse. It will help so many get through the ongoing salvage and rebuilding process. And we'll all have to help those who have a real let down once the holidays have passed, because many will still not have a home, or will be going through one more room in their house throwing out everything in it and gutting the walls. David and I will still have to wade through the muck of storage and go through the trunks, the things we're dreading most. It has to be done and we'll do it along with everyone else in New Orleans.
What we need the rest of you to do is not to forget us. Don't let the current quick fix levee solution become a permanent, neglectful patch so that this happens again. The storm would have been a bad one, but it was the failure of the levees that caused this wholesale destruction. I got a great email from a friend in Montana. Showed the system London uses to keep water out, then showed the Netherlands system, then showed the New Orleans system. Appalling. (I'll forward it to you if you want it.) Write the Army Corps of Engineers and tell them that we can do better. Write your representatives and tell them thank you for the 3 billion, but we're going to need so much more than that, then those of you who are versed in "finance speak" can tell them how it wouldn't be a lump sum but would be spread out over the life of the project and it will cost so much less than rebuilding New Orleans a second time. Tell them the insurance industry lobbyists will thank them in the end and contribute more to their campaigns. (Hey, whatever works!) Tell them that if we can afford to run an outrageous deficit to rebuild Iraq, which we spent over 300 billion on last year, that we should be able to make this city safe for it's citizens. Oh, and tell them that you know people here, and that they're tenacious and willing to throw them a parade if they just make it seem like they give a shit.
Tell them that a phoenix rose from the ashes, and that there are a bunch of us here waiting to see what kind of glorious City rises from the sludge. Tell them we won't let them bury any more of us in it.
Now, after you've done that, take that damn kleenex in your hand. That's it. Good. Hold that hand up in the air. GREAT. Put on a brass band CD. Got it? Okay. Now, stand up, wave it in the air. Move your hips around to the music. Get a few of your friends to join you. Now take it to the streets. People will look at ya funny, but they'll get over it. Now you've created a second line. Have fun with it! Pour another eggnog if you want! Keep going, don't wimp out.
Now imagine how wonderful it will be to do that in a renewed New Orleans, knowing that you're in a City that wouldn't let itself die.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
My Computer is on the Fritz. . .
. . .so posting will be light. I'm behind on my Katrina Refrigerator posts as well, but will get those up to speed in a couple days.
But for those who saw Left Behind, the documentary about NOLA schools, here's a CNN piece on how many of these kids are raising themselves here.
But for those who saw Left Behind, the documentary about NOLA schools, here's a CNN piece on how many of these kids are raising themselves here.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
A Slow Burn, for Now
I went to see "Left Behind" the night it debuted. Devastating and left me with mixed feelings, but will write a piece on that later. It's a definite must-see.
Earlier this week a friend sent me a piece he'd culled from an email newsletter he subscribes to. It came from an organization called the Center for American Action Fund (www.americanprogressaction.org). I'd never heard of them, but what he sent to me infuriated me, and not at him and not at the Center for American Action either.
Naturally, I knew of the insurance pullout and had been following the news stories and the blog posts. But for some reason this particular piece struck the very last nerve I had. I think it was gems like "to save money" and "scaled back" and "scoured away" that really got me.
I had remembered hearing somewhere years ago that the California legislature had passed a law after the Earthquake in 1989 forcing insurers to keep homeowners' policies up and running in the state or lose the lucrative automobile/boat/etc. market. I searched for a couple of hours in vain and then came across a blog by a California attorney with the unlikely name of George Wallace here. He had some really interesting posts about insurance issues in California so I wrote him asking if he knew what the law I thought I remembered was. He very kindly and graciously responded with this:
There, again, were interesting terms: "California Earthquake Authority," "clamped down," "insurance they need at prices they are willing to pay." What about a Gulf Coast Hurricane Authority? Is it possible? What about an Insurance Commissioner who was willing to "clamp down?" Fascinating ideas. But what really struck me was the "insurance they need" part.
The articles saying that 30% of our current residents are considering leaving in the next year are discouraging, but I don't know anyone I talk to regularly who would fall into that category. Most of the people I know are gutting and rebuilding their pre-Katrina homes or are trying to purchase new ones. And there's the rub. How can you close on a home loan without insurance? The short answer is: You can't. No insurance, no mortgage. No mortgage, no home. No home. . . . . .well it's anyone's guess where it goes from there, unless you're so incredibly rich that it barely matters to you. But that's not the case for most.
I am absolutely no fan of insurance companies, or corporate entities that value bottom lines, CEO salaries and stockholders over regular people including their employees. Mark Folse, at Wet Bank Guide wrote the ultimate piece on insurance companies as criminal monopolies a couple months ago (can't find the link--look through his archives and you'll find some brilliant pieces). I can't do better than that.
Altogether now, with gusto: IT'S THE LEVEES, PEOPLE.
I find myself in the curious position of saying that until or unless the Federal government holds the Army Corps of Engineers accountable and shows the political will to rebuild the levees (please re-visit this post at Ashley's if you're unclear on what I'm talking about), the insurance companies can make a fairly reasonable, if immoral, argument against issuing policies in any of the Gulf States.
So where does that leave us? That is exactly the problem. We don't know.
Sinn Fein, Ashley Morris' battle cry, is a rallying point for more than just the occupants of this house. His Rebuilding piece is a masterwork. Are we, indeed, in this on our own?
Many have talked about shutting down the port. Let all y'all up there in Minnesota (home of Travellers Insurance) have no toilet paper, wrapping paper (Oh Scrooge, ya don't mean it!), no oil, no natural gas, no NOTHING that comes through this port. Until these levees are rebuilt, you can all freeze and use newspaper to wipe your butts. Sounds cold, no pun intended, and you're right. You live in the United States. This stuff is taken for granted--pay your bill, get your heat. Uh uh. Pay your bill, build some levees for the rest of us who allegedly live in the United States with you, and THEN we'll open the port so you can get warm. Hope your axe is sharpened for all that wood you'll be cutting. (Ours down here are kept mostly for hacking through roofs.)
A friend of mine has also coined the term "economic secession." Let's all pay our Federal taxes. Do it early, but withhold them. I know, I know. An idea from some fantasy world (um, remember where we live?) We tell the Feds that we are willing to pay our income taxes provided that every stinking penny of it goes to build the levees, nothing but nothing else. All that money must go into a separate account, not Federal coffers. We'll pay for the damn things out of our own pockets willingly. Tell Blanco not to back down on this, to support us and we'll re-elect her (or not--hey, it's politics---no WAIT--it's LEVEES!)
These ideas sound seditious, eh? Hey you, up in Dubuque, not liking this? Think we're all a bunch of wild eyed radicals? WRONG, although we could be, soon. As Ashley said, in post-WW2 Europe people rebuilt their city themselves, in some cases brick by brick. Okay, is that what it will take? Tell us and we'll do it. Quit dicking around. We'll get the voter registration rolls and put everyone to work in shifts. Most of us would willingly tote wheelbarrows and trowels if it meant that we'd be safe, a term used often and with great effect in the "War on Terror."
The dictionary defines seditious as:
seditious
adj 1: arousing to action or rebellion [syn: incendiary, incitive, inflammatory, instigative, rabble-rousing]
2: in opposition to a civil authority or government [syn: insurgent, subversive]
Is that really what it's going to take? We've already found out that FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers are not here to help us as Americans. (BTW, see da po' blog's post on FEMA's tale of woe. It's a beaut'. We should never have expected them to help, that's not their job. What on earth were we thinking?) If we're on our own, then tell us and we'll behave accordingly. We'll do what we have to do to rebuild this little blip on George Bush's radar.
We have our own terror here, and our terror isn't some religious zealot with a dirty bomb. The terrorists in our neck of the bayou are the ACoE, the insurance companies, and the inanimate levees that may or may not hold. These terrorists are keeping people from rebuilding with any semblance of confidence in their "safety"---a word that's been bandied about in the last six years more disingenuously than Anna Nicole Smith's wedding vows.
People who live with terror every day will eventually take action. Do we have to become insurgents in our own country in order to get this done?
The other night at the documentary premiere, there were two women of about my vintage who said, after seeing the film, "This time it was water. Next time it will be fire."
I truly hope they're wrong.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
Earlier this week a friend sent me a piece he'd culled from an email newsletter he subscribes to. It came from an organization called the Center for American Action Fund (www.americanprogressaction.org). I'd never heard of them, but what he sent to me infuriated me, and not at him and not at the Center for American Action either.
Under the Radar
KATRINA -- NEW ORLEANS LEVEE WORK SLOWS AS COMMERCIAL INSURER PULLS OUT OF CITY: The Army Corps of Engineers for months "frantically" prepared for hurricane season, "patching broken levees and building floodgates." "That repair work is essentially complete and the corps has moved on to the task of strengthening flood protection in New Orleans beyond its pre-Hurricane Katrina level, hoping to entice residents back," the New York Times reports. "But lately the bulldozers have been idle, and the trucks motionless." "To save money, the corps will skip interim steps on some projects and go straight for the higher, 100-year level of protection." The move "will leave the city at risk until 2010 at least." The corps "has also scaled back plans to armor the levees against being scoured away when water flows over the top." Meanwhile, "Louisiana's largest commercial insurance provider" has announced it has plans to "cancel all its commercial property policies in the New Orleans area next year, sparking fears that other insurers will follow and slow the region's economic recovery." "This is sending a shock wave through the business community," said one economic development official. "We cannot exist as a business community without insurance." Another commentator says the announcement could be "disastrous to the recovery of New Orleans."
Naturally, I knew of the insurance pullout and had been following the news stories and the blog posts. But for some reason this particular piece struck the very last nerve I had. I think it was gems like "to save money" and "scaled back" and "scoured away" that really got me.
I had remembered hearing somewhere years ago that the California legislature had passed a law after the Earthquake in 1989 forcing insurers to keep homeowners' policies up and running in the state or lose the lucrative automobile/boat/etc. market. I searched for a couple of hours in vain and then came across a blog by a California attorney with the unlikely name of George Wallace here. He had some really interesting posts about insurance issues in California so I wrote him asking if he knew what the law I thought I remembered was. He very kindly and graciously responded with this:
"I don’t recall specifically, but as best I remember California never reached the point of threatening to cut off insurers entirely if they pulled out of the homeowners’ market. In fact, the long term result of the San Francisco/Loma Prieta earthquake and of the Northridge earthquake was to shift nearly all earthquake coverage to a separate entity, the California Earthquake Authority. Not having to answer directly for most earthquake losses, the private insurance industry has happily pushed along writing homeowners coverage.
I know some states have tried the approach you mention – it seems to me that New Jersey and/or Massachusetts, for instance, clamped down when insurers tried to pull out of the private auto insurance market, and I know there have been regulatory pressures on insurers who have tried to pull out of Florida in recent years (after that state’s string of hurricane losses). There is a lot of debate over whether this sort of approach actually works in creating a marketplace in which consumers can get the insurance they need at prices they are willing to pay.
All of that is a roundabout way of saying that I can’t point you to any specific law of the kind you are asking about. The idea you are talking about, though, is one that other states have tried. Since I don’t practice in those other states, I regret that I can’t give you anything more specific."
There, again, were interesting terms: "California Earthquake Authority," "clamped down," "insurance they need at prices they are willing to pay." What about a Gulf Coast Hurricane Authority? Is it possible? What about an Insurance Commissioner who was willing to "clamp down?" Fascinating ideas. But what really struck me was the "insurance they need" part.
The articles saying that 30% of our current residents are considering leaving in the next year are discouraging, but I don't know anyone I talk to regularly who would fall into that category. Most of the people I know are gutting and rebuilding their pre-Katrina homes or are trying to purchase new ones. And there's the rub. How can you close on a home loan without insurance? The short answer is: You can't. No insurance, no mortgage. No mortgage, no home. No home. . . . . .well it's anyone's guess where it goes from there, unless you're so incredibly rich that it barely matters to you. But that's not the case for most.
I am absolutely no fan of insurance companies, or corporate entities that value bottom lines, CEO salaries and stockholders over regular people including their employees. Mark Folse, at Wet Bank Guide wrote the ultimate piece on insurance companies as criminal monopolies a couple months ago (can't find the link--look through his archives and you'll find some brilliant pieces). I can't do better than that.
Altogether now, with gusto: IT'S THE LEVEES, PEOPLE.
I find myself in the curious position of saying that until or unless the Federal government holds the Army Corps of Engineers accountable and shows the political will to rebuild the levees (please re-visit this post at Ashley's if you're unclear on what I'm talking about), the insurance companies can make a fairly reasonable, if immoral, argument against issuing policies in any of the Gulf States.
So where does that leave us? That is exactly the problem. We don't know.
Sinn Fein, Ashley Morris' battle cry, is a rallying point for more than just the occupants of this house. His Rebuilding piece is a masterwork. Are we, indeed, in this on our own?
Many have talked about shutting down the port. Let all y'all up there in Minnesota (home of Travellers Insurance) have no toilet paper, wrapping paper (Oh Scrooge, ya don't mean it!), no oil, no natural gas, no NOTHING that comes through this port. Until these levees are rebuilt, you can all freeze and use newspaper to wipe your butts. Sounds cold, no pun intended, and you're right. You live in the United States. This stuff is taken for granted--pay your bill, get your heat. Uh uh. Pay your bill, build some levees for the rest of us who allegedly live in the United States with you, and THEN we'll open the port so you can get warm. Hope your axe is sharpened for all that wood you'll be cutting. (Ours down here are kept mostly for hacking through roofs.)
A friend of mine has also coined the term "economic secession." Let's all pay our Federal taxes. Do it early, but withhold them. I know, I know. An idea from some fantasy world (um, remember where we live?) We tell the Feds that we are willing to pay our income taxes provided that every stinking penny of it goes to build the levees, nothing but nothing else. All that money must go into a separate account, not Federal coffers. We'll pay for the damn things out of our own pockets willingly. Tell Blanco not to back down on this, to support us and we'll re-elect her (or not--hey, it's politics---no WAIT--it's LEVEES!)
These ideas sound seditious, eh? Hey you, up in Dubuque, not liking this? Think we're all a bunch of wild eyed radicals? WRONG, although we could be, soon. As Ashley said, in post-WW2 Europe people rebuilt their city themselves, in some cases brick by brick. Okay, is that what it will take? Tell us and we'll do it. Quit dicking around. We'll get the voter registration rolls and put everyone to work in shifts. Most of us would willingly tote wheelbarrows and trowels if it meant that we'd be safe, a term used often and with great effect in the "War on Terror."
The dictionary defines seditious as:
seditious
adj 1: arousing to action or rebellion [syn: incendiary, incitive, inflammatory, instigative, rabble-rousing]
2: in opposition to a civil authority or government [syn: insurgent, subversive]
Is that really what it's going to take? We've already found out that FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers are not here to help us as Americans. (BTW, see da po' blog's post on FEMA's tale of woe. It's a beaut'. We should never have expected them to help, that's not their job. What on earth were we thinking?) If we're on our own, then tell us and we'll behave accordingly. We'll do what we have to do to rebuild this little blip on George Bush's radar.
We have our own terror here, and our terror isn't some religious zealot with a dirty bomb. The terrorists in our neck of the bayou are the ACoE, the insurance companies, and the inanimate levees that may or may not hold. These terrorists are keeping people from rebuilding with any semblance of confidence in their "safety"---a word that's been bandied about in the last six years more disingenuously than Anna Nicole Smith's wedding vows.
People who live with terror every day will eventually take action. Do we have to become insurgents in our own country in order to get this done?
The other night at the documentary premiere, there were two women of about my vintage who said, after seeing the film, "This time it was water. Next time it will be fire."
I truly hope they're wrong.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
Friday, December 01, 2006
And While I'm At It. . .
I went down to Walgreen's on Decatur today and came back with a $48 faboo hat for $9.99, and a lust in my heart for a gorgeous coat that was originally $350 marked at $175. Okay, so it's cold here today, no not Midwest cold, but cold. Oh, I didn't tell you where I found these cool bargains? At The Bag Lady store at 827 Decatur. Great bags, scarves, hats, gloves, coats, sweaters, clothing. Tons of cool stocking stuffer wallets. (Psst, everything is basically from Macy's but here off-market.) I was told that for the holidays (starting NOW) if you buy $35 worth of merchandise, you get a $10 item free. Oh yeah, and they have a "locals only" card that gives you 10% off. They do have a website, but it's not really shop-able, although there are tons of ways to contact them. Worth the visit.
CAUTION: SHAMELESS PLUG AHEAD--Since my husband drives a carriage down there, I would be in big trouble if I didn't recommend (and I really do highly recommend it) that you take yourselves or your visitors for a French Quarter carriage tour. These guys are out there all the time and they don't own the rig or the mule, they live on a small percentage of the fare and TIPS. Yup, that's right, TIPS. There are a lot of good guys out there, but in my opinion the best tours can be had if you ask for David, Marlon, Dennis, Diane or Mickey. And no, they don't all work for the same company!
And in the interest of fun, big fun, and charity and making a political statement, head for the Snowflake site. This site allows you to make a virtual paper snowflake, just like you did when you were a kid only using a mouse instead of scissors. For every snowflake that is created, they somehow get more money for Salvation Army (hey, different from the mall Santa's with bells and buckets, huh?) THIS IS FREE and my six year old grandson absolutely loved it.
Your snowflake will float down and if it's clicked on, your message will appear. My message (snowflake #3039628) is "We want levees for Christmas." I figure I'll make a few more with the same message and maybe if enough of us do it, people will see them. The flakes are printable and searchable.
I'll avoid the obvious "I'm a flake, you're a flake" jokes, but hey, a few flakey New Orleanians putting a message out there AND having fun might not be bad, eh?
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
CAUTION: SHAMELESS PLUG AHEAD--Since my husband drives a carriage down there, I would be in big trouble if I didn't recommend (and I really do highly recommend it) that you take yourselves or your visitors for a French Quarter carriage tour. These guys are out there all the time and they don't own the rig or the mule, they live on a small percentage of the fare and TIPS. Yup, that's right, TIPS. There are a lot of good guys out there, but in my opinion the best tours can be had if you ask for David, Marlon, Dennis, Diane or Mickey. And no, they don't all work for the same company!
And in the interest of fun, big fun, and charity and making a political statement, head for the Snowflake site. This site allows you to make a virtual paper snowflake, just like you did when you were a kid only using a mouse instead of scissors. For every snowflake that is created, they somehow get more money for Salvation Army (hey, different from the mall Santa's with bells and buckets, huh?) THIS IS FREE and my six year old grandson absolutely loved it.
Your snowflake will float down and if it's clicked on, your message will appear. My message (snowflake #3039628) is "We want levees for Christmas." I figure I'll make a few more with the same message and maybe if enough of us do it, people will see them. The flakes are printable and searchable.
I'll avoid the obvious "I'm a flake, you're a flake" jokes, but hey, a few flakey New Orleanians putting a message out there AND having fun might not be bad, eh?
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Are We Open for Business--a Potpourri of Answers
First the great news that Greg Peters, Suspect Device, is progressing well. The best news of the day.
A couple weeks ago, someone spammed several NOLA blogs anonymously asking "Are you open for business or not?" I was annoyed, started to respond to Anonymous, but decided not to as it appeared that this person was clearly baiting several blogs.
The question is now being discussed over at ThinkNOLA in the comments section of a post on Microsoft's blatant use of Katrina recovery as a marketing tool. It's interesting because with the republishing of all the emails from last year over at Katrina Refrigerator, I've been re-reading them and in one I talked a bit about how difficult it was to respond to the question "how are things down there?" That was a year ago. It's still difficult. Last year we felt we were doing a great disservice to New Orleans by answering, "It's okay" to that question, but we also were not always in the mood to go off on a rant about the problems. Here we are a year later, and the same issues remain in terms of how to respond to that question.
Let's start with SOME things are better.
Some people are coming back. Houses are being gutted and repaired. Some of the pre-Katrina Christmas events will be taking place this year, making some things seem normal. Some schools are up and running (although a recent report said that Katrina was the biggest educational upheaval in history with so many children losing from 7 weeks to one year of schooling). Some people have street lights in a relatively consistent way on their streets. I can hear the calliope on the Natchez most weekends now, and that's nice. The Saints are back and doing well, the talk of the town. Some hospitals are open. There are some, but not enough, beds for mental health patients. Some stores that said they wouldn't come back, have. Some grocery stores are open but many neighborhood ones are not. Some of the musicians are coming home. Some of the artists have returned to Jackson Square.
Some Friday and Saturday nights in the Quarter look more like pre-Katrina than they did last year at this time when the streets were full of mostly military vehicles and contractors. Some of our restaurants have re-opened.
::::::::Anonymous hollers, WAIT! You make it sound like no one should come down there! What the hell do you MEAN, "some" of the restaurants are open. You should be telling people that everything's great! Come down, spend your money, enjoy New Orleans!::::::::::::
Well, Anonymous, I do, in fact, say that regularly to people I talk with. There is plenty to do and plenty to spend your money on here---yes, right now----tons of entertainment from theatre to sports and everything in between. Please, conventioneers, tourists, please come to New Orleans, and have a wonderful time. It absolutely can be done with very little effort. That part is easy. Hey, the QE2 is coming to town. Things are looking up! But please don't expect me to gloss over the problems that remain.
What's not easy, for us living here to deal with or for those not here to understand, is how much is still NOT open for business. I hope that some of those tourists and conventioneers will notice how many empty storefronts there are in the Quarter alone. Maybe they'll even wonder why. I hope they venture out into the neighborhoods and see how much has not been done, how much of this city is absolutely NOT open for business--or living for that matter. I hope they talk to some of the people in the neighborhoods who are working tirelessly to form neighborhood associations and to monitor local politicians' "plans" for their neighborhood. These people, many of whom are still in FEMA trailers (a little less than 500 sq ft I understand), are the real pioneers, the ones who remember civics class.
Would Anonymous prefer that we all tell people a sweetness and light story of one year after Katrina? It's really too bad that it can't be tied up like a one hour TV show, with no loose ends and a happy ending.
The problem with doing that, the sweetness and light approach I mean, is that we do ourselves a disservice. As we here already know, many many people across the country think everything is peachy here now. I mean, hey, look at all that money that's been coming from the Feds (not), look at all the various fundraisers they've given to to help us (we appreciate it very very much). In a many corners of this country, folks think that we're all rolling in folding green (that most of us here didn't deserve to begin with in their estimation, and the truth is that I know very few who got anything at all) and they see us in the Superdome painted and cheering, so things have to be okay now. I mean, we HAVE football, what else could we need? Besides, President Bush said "as much as it takes for as long as it takes." Unfortunately it's turned out to be kinda like the No Child Left Behind edict he issued---great soundbite, no funding, and still--not to harp on this or anything but----NO LEVEES that can keep this from happening again.
If we don't keep talking about it, people will forget it. Besides, how can bodies floating in the streets of an American city keep the attention of a country that's more concerned with Britney text messaging Kevin to notify him of their impending divorce and whether or not they should go to Zales to make sure their significant other has a diamond bigger than the neighbor's holly berries for Christmas? Some American's attention spans are short and overall they prefer to not go too deeply into something that's disturbing.
I don't understand why people across this country aren't appalled at what's happened here. Why they don't notice how much we're spending to fight a war across the world for some vaguely messianic crusade to spread freedom and democracy to people who may or may not want it, but they kvetch about money for the Gulf Coast. I don't get it. Oh wait, I forgot, TomKat's wedding just happened and we really want to know what a Scientology wedding is like. Forgive me.
There are many people who write to me asking what they can do. They do realize there are still problems here, and many are totally disgusted with what they're seeing, or not seeing. They ask how they can help, but most are very leery of gigantic charities or funds. They want to actually hand their money to someone here who needs it.
So, for Anonymous and all those who ask me how they can help, here's a small list of businesses and organizations that can use the help. If you're still not done with your Christmas shopping, and you weren't up at 5AM to head to the mall on Black Friday, or you just want something different that can make a difference, then consider shopping New Orleans. If you're here in NOLA, stay out of Best Buy and Walmart if you can. Shop local. If you're not in NOLA, some of these businesses and organizations can still accomodate you. This is a very short list. Travelling Mermaid has a more extensive one here. (Thanks, TM!) I highly recommend that you take a look at her well compiled list.
Other local entities with websites:
Dirty Coast tshirts are a bargain at $20 bucks each. Great designs, locally owned and operated (these are the guys who made my "Be a New Orleanian Wherever You Are" shirt that some of my visitors have wanted to steal!) I asked a few weeks ago for a link ad for this blog, but they must be (hopefully) swamped. They offer gift cards so you can buy a shirt for someone and let them pick their own from an extensive collection.
EDIT: I found the code so that cool add flashing over on the right hand side is the Dirty Coast link. Just click it and it will take you right there. Their link is also on the Katrina Refrigerator site.
Two groups who really needs some help as their membership has dropped by more than half are Save Our Cemeteries and Friends of the Cabildo. Save Our Cemeteries does some great projects and has a fun little shop on its website under the tab "merchandise." Looking to weird out your boss? How about a replica of Marie Laveau's tomb? SOC has that and more. Friends of the Cabildo helps to keep several of our best museums up and running, including the Cabildo, Presbytere, 1850 House and Madame John's Legacy (which still hasn't opened.) They lost so much of their membership that they had to lay off most of their staff. If you get a membership or just donate some money to them, you'd be helping a lot. Besides, the membership will give you free entry into those museums when you come down for a visit.
Music of interest to you? Maybe instead of Amazon, you could buy a CD for that friend from The Louisiana Music Factory. Great regional music and a store that we have to keep in business. Tower Records, now a casualty of a corporate merger, will be gone, but Louisiana Music Factory is a gem that we can't afford to lose.
Don't want a CD? Okay, how about helping out a real life musician? So many of them lost instruments, or have no place to live. Both Tipitina's and WWOZ Radio have been doing "direct into the hands of musicians" help. And I know some of you are listening to OZ on your computers wherever you are right now. Help them out in someone else's name if you have a friend who already has way too many reed vases in their house, or give it as a gift to yourself.
And finally, on the website list, is WRBH Radio. Go to their site and you'll see a link for iGift.com, which will allow you to buy anything from soup to nuts with a portion of the proceeds going to help keep WRBH in business. Not one of the big stations, it is an important station. WRBH is "reading radio for the Blind and Print Handicapped." They read news stories from various sources in their entirety, as well as fiction, non-fiction, kid's books 24/7 for those who are unable to read themselves. A very worthy station.
If you're local and want to avoid big box stores, below are some of my favorites. Granted they are near my house, but they are also of interest to all those tourists and conventioneers we want to attract, so come on down from the Irish Channel or Uptown or Lakeview, wherever you are. I know parking is a mess, but it'll be fun and the residents have already started putting garland on the balconies and galleries.
If you need something different, really different, head for Yesteryear's at 626 Bourbon. Okay, you're saying, you can't seriously be sending me to a Bourbon Street shop. Oh, but I am. While Yesteryear's does have tshirts (of exclusive designs, absolutely NOT the "I puked on Bourbon Street" variety), it also carries some of the most exquisite porcelain dolls you've ever seen, in many sizes and price ranges. This place can turn you into a doll collector even if you're not one now. And you can completely avoid the big jewelry shops as Yesteryear's has some very unique and beautiful gemstone pieces, again in a wide variety of prices and styles. The clothing carried in this shop is fun, affordable and here's the big one, wearable. This store has been in business for more than 26 years, acting as a counterpoint to the schlock commonly found on Bourbon Street. Let's keep her in business now.
Need computer stuff? Some peripheral for a PC or a Mac? Head for French Quarter Computer Services at 824 Chartres. This guy has been going without his meds to keep the business open. He is the only computer store in the Quarter, and for those of us in the area who might not necessarily want to go Uptown for that new mouse when this one craps out, he's a life saver.
Books? New or used there are plenty of places to support. My personal favorites:
Arcadian Books, 714 St. Peter, right down from the Cigar Store Indian (oh yeah, and if you are looking for cigars, go check out that Indian. You'll find Armando in there will be happy to help!)
Faulkner House Books, 624 Pirates Alley, great selection of regional, trade and used books.
Librairie Book Shop, 823 Chartres (yup, right across the street from the Computer store!). The guy there knows just about every book in the store, and like the owner of Arcadiana, if he doesn't know for sure that it's there among the stacks, he sure knows where to look.
So, Anonymous, if you live here, I hope that you'll keep these places "open for business," and if you don't, then please buy a plane ticket, come down and carol with us at Jackson Square, and drop by some of the above-mentioned establishments. Maybe talk to the proprietor's about how they're managing with only half the locals back in town and a much smaller tourist pool. You might get a better idea of what's really happening here, and better yet, you'll be able to DO something by handing your dollars to someone here, right into their hands.
And please don't spam the comments sections of blogs anymore, or if you absolutely must, then at least be brave enough to sign your name.
Any locals who want to add to this list of local businesses in the comments section, please feel free to do so!
__________
EDIT: Thanks to rcs (although thanks isn't the right word) for this: "Unfortunately, according to this post (NOLA.com forums) FQ Computers is closing down for good today. Shame."
You can find the link in rcs' comment. FQ Computers will be closing. Another one lost.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
A couple weeks ago, someone spammed several NOLA blogs anonymously asking "Are you open for business or not?" I was annoyed, started to respond to Anonymous, but decided not to as it appeared that this person was clearly baiting several blogs.
The question is now being discussed over at ThinkNOLA in the comments section of a post on Microsoft's blatant use of Katrina recovery as a marketing tool. It's interesting because with the republishing of all the emails from last year over at Katrina Refrigerator, I've been re-reading them and in one I talked a bit about how difficult it was to respond to the question "how are things down there?" That was a year ago. It's still difficult. Last year we felt we were doing a great disservice to New Orleans by answering, "It's okay" to that question, but we also were not always in the mood to go off on a rant about the problems. Here we are a year later, and the same issues remain in terms of how to respond to that question.
Let's start with SOME things are better.
Some people are coming back. Houses are being gutted and repaired. Some of the pre-Katrina Christmas events will be taking place this year, making some things seem normal. Some schools are up and running (although a recent report said that Katrina was the biggest educational upheaval in history with so many children losing from 7 weeks to one year of schooling). Some people have street lights in a relatively consistent way on their streets. I can hear the calliope on the Natchez most weekends now, and that's nice. The Saints are back and doing well, the talk of the town. Some hospitals are open. There are some, but not enough, beds for mental health patients. Some stores that said they wouldn't come back, have. Some grocery stores are open but many neighborhood ones are not. Some of the musicians are coming home. Some of the artists have returned to Jackson Square.
Some Friday and Saturday nights in the Quarter look more like pre-Katrina than they did last year at this time when the streets were full of mostly military vehicles and contractors. Some of our restaurants have re-opened.
::::::::Anonymous hollers, WAIT! You make it sound like no one should come down there! What the hell do you MEAN, "some" of the restaurants are open. You should be telling people that everything's great! Come down, spend your money, enjoy New Orleans!::::::::::::
Well, Anonymous, I do, in fact, say that regularly to people I talk with. There is plenty to do and plenty to spend your money on here---yes, right now----tons of entertainment from theatre to sports and everything in between. Please, conventioneers, tourists, please come to New Orleans, and have a wonderful time. It absolutely can be done with very little effort. That part is easy. Hey, the QE2 is coming to town. Things are looking up! But please don't expect me to gloss over the problems that remain.
What's not easy, for us living here to deal with or for those not here to understand, is how much is still NOT open for business. I hope that some of those tourists and conventioneers will notice how many empty storefronts there are in the Quarter alone. Maybe they'll even wonder why. I hope they venture out into the neighborhoods and see how much has not been done, how much of this city is absolutely NOT open for business--or living for that matter. I hope they talk to some of the people in the neighborhoods who are working tirelessly to form neighborhood associations and to monitor local politicians' "plans" for their neighborhood. These people, many of whom are still in FEMA trailers (a little less than 500 sq ft I understand), are the real pioneers, the ones who remember civics class.
Would Anonymous prefer that we all tell people a sweetness and light story of one year after Katrina? It's really too bad that it can't be tied up like a one hour TV show, with no loose ends and a happy ending.
The problem with doing that, the sweetness and light approach I mean, is that we do ourselves a disservice. As we here already know, many many people across the country think everything is peachy here now. I mean, hey, look at all that money that's been coming from the Feds (not), look at all the various fundraisers they've given to to help us (we appreciate it very very much). In a many corners of this country, folks think that we're all rolling in folding green (that most of us here didn't deserve to begin with in their estimation, and the truth is that I know very few who got anything at all) and they see us in the Superdome painted and cheering, so things have to be okay now. I mean, we HAVE football, what else could we need? Besides, President Bush said "as much as it takes for as long as it takes." Unfortunately it's turned out to be kinda like the No Child Left Behind edict he issued---great soundbite, no funding, and still--not to harp on this or anything but----NO LEVEES that can keep this from happening again.
If we don't keep talking about it, people will forget it. Besides, how can bodies floating in the streets of an American city keep the attention of a country that's more concerned with Britney text messaging Kevin to notify him of their impending divorce and whether or not they should go to Zales to make sure their significant other has a diamond bigger than the neighbor's holly berries for Christmas? Some American's attention spans are short and overall they prefer to not go too deeply into something that's disturbing.
I don't understand why people across this country aren't appalled at what's happened here. Why they don't notice how much we're spending to fight a war across the world for some vaguely messianic crusade to spread freedom and democracy to people who may or may not want it, but they kvetch about money for the Gulf Coast. I don't get it. Oh wait, I forgot, TomKat's wedding just happened and we really want to know what a Scientology wedding is like. Forgive me.
There are many people who write to me asking what they can do. They do realize there are still problems here, and many are totally disgusted with what they're seeing, or not seeing. They ask how they can help, but most are very leery of gigantic charities or funds. They want to actually hand their money to someone here who needs it.
So, for Anonymous and all those who ask me how they can help, here's a small list of businesses and organizations that can use the help. If you're still not done with your Christmas shopping, and you weren't up at 5AM to head to the mall on Black Friday, or you just want something different that can make a difference, then consider shopping New Orleans. If you're here in NOLA, stay out of Best Buy and Walmart if you can. Shop local. If you're not in NOLA, some of these businesses and organizations can still accomodate you. This is a very short list. Travelling Mermaid has a more extensive one here. (Thanks, TM!) I highly recommend that you take a look at her well compiled list.
Other local entities with websites:
Dirty Coast tshirts are a bargain at $20 bucks each. Great designs, locally owned and operated (these are the guys who made my "Be a New Orleanian Wherever You Are" shirt that some of my visitors have wanted to steal!) I asked a few weeks ago for a link ad for this blog, but they must be (hopefully) swamped. They offer gift cards so you can buy a shirt for someone and let them pick their own from an extensive collection.
EDIT: I found the code so that cool add flashing over on the right hand side is the Dirty Coast link. Just click it and it will take you right there. Their link is also on the Katrina Refrigerator site.
Two groups who really needs some help as their membership has dropped by more than half are Save Our Cemeteries and Friends of the Cabildo. Save Our Cemeteries does some great projects and has a fun little shop on its website under the tab "merchandise." Looking to weird out your boss? How about a replica of Marie Laveau's tomb? SOC has that and more. Friends of the Cabildo helps to keep several of our best museums up and running, including the Cabildo, Presbytere, 1850 House and Madame John's Legacy (which still hasn't opened.) They lost so much of their membership that they had to lay off most of their staff. If you get a membership or just donate some money to them, you'd be helping a lot. Besides, the membership will give you free entry into those museums when you come down for a visit.
Music of interest to you? Maybe instead of Amazon, you could buy a CD for that friend from The Louisiana Music Factory. Great regional music and a store that we have to keep in business. Tower Records, now a casualty of a corporate merger, will be gone, but Louisiana Music Factory is a gem that we can't afford to lose.
Don't want a CD? Okay, how about helping out a real life musician? So many of them lost instruments, or have no place to live. Both Tipitina's and WWOZ Radio have been doing "direct into the hands of musicians" help. And I know some of you are listening to OZ on your computers wherever you are right now. Help them out in someone else's name if you have a friend who already has way too many reed vases in their house, or give it as a gift to yourself.
And finally, on the website list, is WRBH Radio. Go to their site and you'll see a link for iGift.com, which will allow you to buy anything from soup to nuts with a portion of the proceeds going to help keep WRBH in business. Not one of the big stations, it is an important station. WRBH is "reading radio for the Blind and Print Handicapped." They read news stories from various sources in their entirety, as well as fiction, non-fiction, kid's books 24/7 for those who are unable to read themselves. A very worthy station.
If you're local and want to avoid big box stores, below are some of my favorites. Granted they are near my house, but they are also of interest to all those tourists and conventioneers we want to attract, so come on down from the Irish Channel or Uptown or Lakeview, wherever you are. I know parking is a mess, but it'll be fun and the residents have already started putting garland on the balconies and galleries.
If you need something different, really different, head for Yesteryear's at 626 Bourbon. Okay, you're saying, you can't seriously be sending me to a Bourbon Street shop. Oh, but I am. While Yesteryear's does have tshirts (of exclusive designs, absolutely NOT the "I puked on Bourbon Street" variety), it also carries some of the most exquisite porcelain dolls you've ever seen, in many sizes and price ranges. This place can turn you into a doll collector even if you're not one now. And you can completely avoid the big jewelry shops as Yesteryear's has some very unique and beautiful gemstone pieces, again in a wide variety of prices and styles. The clothing carried in this shop is fun, affordable and here's the big one, wearable. This store has been in business for more than 26 years, acting as a counterpoint to the schlock commonly found on Bourbon Street. Let's keep her in business now.
Need computer stuff? Some peripheral for a PC or a Mac? Head for French Quarter Computer Services at 824 Chartres. This guy has been going without his meds to keep the business open. He is the only computer store in the Quarter, and for those of us in the area who might not necessarily want to go Uptown for that new mouse when this one craps out, he's a life saver.
Books? New or used there are plenty of places to support. My personal favorites:
Arcadian Books, 714 St. Peter, right down from the Cigar Store Indian (oh yeah, and if you are looking for cigars, go check out that Indian. You'll find Armando in there will be happy to help!)
Faulkner House Books, 624 Pirates Alley, great selection of regional, trade and used books.
Librairie Book Shop, 823 Chartres (yup, right across the street from the Computer store!). The guy there knows just about every book in the store, and like the owner of Arcadiana, if he doesn't know for sure that it's there among the stacks, he sure knows where to look.
So, Anonymous, if you live here, I hope that you'll keep these places "open for business," and if you don't, then please buy a plane ticket, come down and carol with us at Jackson Square, and drop by some of the above-mentioned establishments. Maybe talk to the proprietor's about how they're managing with only half the locals back in town and a much smaller tourist pool. You might get a better idea of what's really happening here, and better yet, you'll be able to DO something by handing your dollars to someone here, right into their hands.
And please don't spam the comments sections of blogs anymore, or if you absolutely must, then at least be brave enough to sign your name.
Any locals who want to add to this list of local businesses in the comments section, please feel free to do so!
__________
EDIT: Thanks to rcs (although thanks isn't the right word) for this: "Unfortunately, according to this post (NOLA.com forums) FQ Computers is closing down for good today. Shame."
You can find the link in rcs' comment. FQ Computers will be closing. Another one lost.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide
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