Today, I'd like to thank Marcia Baird and Frannie Glossen.
Probably the strangest thing I'm doing these days has to do with garbage. As you may know, we are staying at someone's cottage located on the Lake. Since it is that kind of scenerio, there is no garbage pick up. I'm the one you'll notice lurking near any store's trash can. Each day I take a Target bag (or Walmart or whatever) full of trash, put it in my car and when I go to a store I take my trash with me and put it into the outside garbage can. SO the next time you are woofing about taking out the trash to your curb, trash shoot, or dumpster, just think of me. Do you know where You would put YOUR garbage? What would kind of trash would you feel comfortable getting rid of at the local Walmart? What would you do with your recycling?
Another convenience that we take for granted.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
You know you're from New Orleans...
You know you're from New Orleans and have survived Hurricane Katrina when....
1. pre-K has nothing to do with the year before Kindergarten.
2. The flies are bigger than your Chihuahua.
3. Your bank, dry cleaner, and grocery store are closed but your bar is not. (thank you, Cooter Brown's)
4. You judge your elevation by the brown horizontal line in the city.
5. You have to show an ID to get into your neighborhood.
6. Your neighborhood has no children, so you actually start to miss the little boys across the street who used to throw rocks onto your roof.
7. You go to Sam's Club, but instead of coming home with a case of poptarts, you buy masks, bleach, rubber gloves, and baking soda in bulk.
8. You know five remedies to get the smell out of your refrigerator.
9. You spend a lot of time talking with your friends about the five remedies to get the smell out of your refrigerator.
10. Ice becomes more precious than gold.
11. Your office goes from 40 employees to 5.
12. Living in a house with twelve other people is not a sign of how poor you are, but how rich you are with friends and family.
13. You know what a double-evacuee is. (Damn you, Rita!)
14. FEMA means "failure to effectively manage anything" and hearing the words "Red Cross" makes your blood boil.
15. You get sick of hearing people from Baton Rouge tell you how bad the traffic is now. You remind them that Baton Rouge traffic was terrible before ther were 200,000 more people in town.
16. The strip clubs on Bourbon Street have power before your house does.....
17. The salvation army, a firefighter from Michigan, and cops from Wauconda show up at your house to make sure that you are OK.
18. There is a pirogue on your roof.
19. You return to your home and all of your belongings fit into two boxes.
20. Contraflow just doesn't seem so bad.
21. You have to purchase hip boots to walk in your neighborhood.
22. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.
23. Lakeview becomes Lake.
24. The crosses on your wall and kitchen counter top remain despite the five feet of water in your house.
25. You know what it truly means to miss New Orleans!
1. pre-K has nothing to do with the year before Kindergarten.
2. The flies are bigger than your Chihuahua.
3. Your bank, dry cleaner, and grocery store are closed but your bar is not. (thank you, Cooter Brown's)
4. You judge your elevation by the brown horizontal line in the city.
5. You have to show an ID to get into your neighborhood.
6. Your neighborhood has no children, so you actually start to miss the little boys across the street who used to throw rocks onto your roof.
7. You go to Sam's Club, but instead of coming home with a case of poptarts, you buy masks, bleach, rubber gloves, and baking soda in bulk.
8. You know five remedies to get the smell out of your refrigerator.
9. You spend a lot of time talking with your friends about the five remedies to get the smell out of your refrigerator.
10. Ice becomes more precious than gold.
11. Your office goes from 40 employees to 5.
12. Living in a house with twelve other people is not a sign of how poor you are, but how rich you are with friends and family.
13. You know what a double-evacuee is. (Damn you, Rita!)
14. FEMA means "failure to effectively manage anything" and hearing the words "Red Cross" makes your blood boil.
15. You get sick of hearing people from Baton Rouge tell you how bad the traffic is now. You remind them that Baton Rouge traffic was terrible before ther were 200,000 more people in town.
16. The strip clubs on Bourbon Street have power before your house does.....
17. The salvation army, a firefighter from Michigan, and cops from Wauconda show up at your house to make sure that you are OK.
18. There is a pirogue on your roof.
19. You return to your home and all of your belongings fit into two boxes.
20. Contraflow just doesn't seem so bad.
21. You have to purchase hip boots to walk in your neighborhood.
22. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.
23. Lakeview becomes Lake.
24. The crosses on your wall and kitchen counter top remain despite the five feet of water in your house.
25. You know what it truly means to miss New Orleans!
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Photos of Katrina's New Orleans
http://spaces.msn.com/members/lightshadowss/
Before beginning your journey, I would ask that you take a look at the map of New Orleans. You will see the three major levee breaches that allowed the streets to fill with water. The areas covered by the grayish/blue grid are, for all intents and purposes, dead zones. Downtown New Orleans, home to the Superdome and the French Quarter, and the location most featured on the news during the ordeal is currently functional, as are portions of the Garden District, Audubon, and East Carrollton.
Much more of the city is empty, having sat in anywhere from 6 to 15 feet of water for as long as two weeks. Central City, Mid City, Gentilly, Lakeview, New Orleans East, Bywater, the 9th Ward, Lakeshore, and West End are all lost. Arabi, Meraux, Hopedale, Kenilworth, and Chalmette in neighboring St. Bernard Parish are as well. There are people trying to clean up…trying to rebuild…but what they face is total and absolute devastation. I can’t stress that point enough. Thousands and thousands of homes, businesses and schools have been destroyed. The scenes on television did not, and do not do the situation justice. This is very, very bad.
The reason I want so badly for everyone to understand the gravity of the situation is so that when the rebuilding effort is complete…when the city once again hosts a Sugar Bowl, or a Super Bowl…when Mardi Gras floats once again roll down Canal Street…when you can once again go to a Bucktown restaurant, order a platter of crabs or crawfish, and eat your entire meal without referring to “The Storm”….the feat that these people will have accomplished will not be underestimated.
Dave
Metairie, LA
http://spaces.msn.com/members/lightshadowss/
Before beginning your journey, I would ask that you take a look at the map of New Orleans. You will see the three major levee breaches that allowed the streets to fill with water. The areas covered by the grayish/blue grid are, for all intents and purposes, dead zones. Downtown New Orleans, home to the Superdome and the French Quarter, and the location most featured on the news during the ordeal is currently functional, as are portions of the Garden District, Audubon, and East Carrollton.
Much more of the city is empty, having sat in anywhere from 6 to 15 feet of water for as long as two weeks. Central City, Mid City, Gentilly, Lakeview, New Orleans East, Bywater, the 9th Ward, Lakeshore, and West End are all lost. Arabi, Meraux, Hopedale, Kenilworth, and Chalmette in neighboring St. Bernard Parish are as well. There are people trying to clean up…trying to rebuild…but what they face is total and absolute devastation. I can’t stress that point enough. Thousands and thousands of homes, businesses and schools have been destroyed. The scenes on television did not, and do not do the situation justice. This is very, very bad.
The reason I want so badly for everyone to understand the gravity of the situation is so that when the rebuilding effort is complete…when the city once again hosts a Sugar Bowl, or a Super Bowl…when Mardi Gras floats once again roll down Canal Street…when you can once again go to a Bucktown restaurant, order a platter of crabs or crawfish, and eat your entire meal without referring to “The Storm”….the feat that these people will have accomplished will not be underestimated.
Dave
Metairie, LA
http://spaces.msn.com/members/lightshadowss/
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Song for the ages?
http://www.filmstripinternational.com/index.php?play=asshole
Go to this site for a little tongue in cheek humor...OK, it's anti-Republican so don't blame me if you are offended. Speaking of Republicans, did you catch Sen. Shayes (?) from Connecticut on CNN today stating how embarrassed he is of the way Republicans are behaving these days. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Yah think! I can't believe I'm craving the Newt Gingrich days!
Go to this site for a little tongue in cheek humor...OK, it's anti-Republican so don't blame me if you are offended. Speaking of Republicans, did you catch Sen. Shayes (?) from Connecticut on CNN today stating how embarrassed he is of the way Republicans are behaving these days. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Yah think! I can't believe I'm craving the Newt Gingrich days!
Monday, October 17, 2005
The Washington Post
October 3, 2005
9th Ward: History, Yes, but a Future?;Race and Class Frame Debate on Rebuilding New Orleans District
BYLINE: Ceci Connolly, Washington Post Staff Writer
No one here wants to say it aloud, but one day soon the bulldozers will come, shoving away big hunks of a neighborhood known for its poverty and its artists, its bad luck and its bounce-back resilience.It is likely to be the largest demolition of a community in modern U.S. history -- destruction begun by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and finished by heavy machinery. On Saturday, firefighters put red tags on hundreds of homes deemed "unsafe," the first step in a wrenching debate over whether the Lower Ninth Ward should be rebuilt or whether, as some suggest, it should revert to its natural state: swamp.A neighborhood tucked into a deep depression between two canals, railroad tracks and the Mississippi River, New Orleans's Lower Ninth has spent more of the past five weeks underwater than dry. Entire houses knocked off foundations. Barbershops and corner groceries flattened. Cars tossed inside living rooms. What remains is coated in muck -- a crusty layer of canal water, sewage and dirt. Mold is rapidly devouring interiors.The question now is whether the Lower Ninth Ward, which was devastated 40 years ago by Hurricane Betsy, should be resuscitated again. The debate, as fervent as any facing post-hurricane New Orleans, will test this city's mettle and is sure to expose tensions over race, poverty and political power. The people willing to let the Lower Ninth fade away hew to a pragmatist's bottom line; the ones who want it to stay talk of culture and tradition.The flooded sections "should not be put back in the real estate market," said Craig E. Colten, a geography professor at Louisiana State University. "I realize it will be an insult [to former residents], but it would be a far bigger insult to put them back in harm's way."The notion is not without precedent. In the 1800s, cities such as New York, Boston and Chicago rebuilt on filled-in marsh. More recently, the federal government has paid to relocate homes destroyed by the Mississippi River floods of 1993; the Northridge, Calif., earthquake; and the Love Canal environmental disaster in Upstate New York.But never on the scale being contemplated here. And never in a predominantly black, low-income community already smarting from previous wrongs, perceived or real."This is a natural disaster; it's nobody's fault," said Lolita Reed Glass, who grew up in the Lower Ninth with her parents and 10 siblings. "My daddy worked. He did not sit on his bottom. You're not giving us anything. What we rightfully deserve as citizens of this country is the same protection we give to other countries."Of the 160,000 buildings in Louisiana declared "uninhabitable" after Katrina, a majority are in the New Orleans neighborhoods that suffered extensive flooding. Mayor C. Ray Nagin, an African American who worked in the private sector before entering politics, has spelled out plans to reopen every section of the city -- except the Lower Ninth. His director of homeland security, Col. Terry Ebbert, said in an interview that most homes in the Lower Ninth "will not be able to be restored." Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson told the Houston Chronicle he has advised Nagin that "it would be a mistake to rebuild the Ninth Ward."The mayor himself has spoken ominously about the need for residents to come in, "take a peek," retrieve a few valuables and move on. Historic preservation advocates fear that the city will capitalize on a program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that pays to tear down damaged buildings but not to repair historic private properties."There is a built-in incentive to demolish," said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "The first instinct after natural disasters is almost always to demolish buildings. It is almost always wrong."New Orleans, with 20 districts on the National Register of Historic Places covering half the city, has the highest concentration of historic structures in the nation, Moe said. That includes the Lower Ninth's Holy Cross section, with its shotgun houses and gems such as the Jackson Barracks, the Doullut Steamboat Houses and St. Maurice Church.In a news conference Friday, Nagin was noncommittal about the future of the Lower Ninth, noting that portions are still flooded, there is a "significant amount of debris and mud," and environmental tests must be conducted."I am sensitive to the Ninth Ward and people talking about it like it's not people's homes," he said. "If we do have to do any mass demolition in the Lower Ninth Ward, I hope we figure out proper compensation" for property owners, he added.Although it is less than two miles northeast of the French Quarter, the Lower Ninth Ward is far removed from the money and clout pulsating through downtown. From the high ground along the banks of the Mississippi River, the ward gradually slopes down. Closest to the river, the flood was five or six or seven feet deep; farther down into the neighborhood -- away from the river -- the water lapped at rooftops.Firefighters, called in by the New Orleans Department of Safety and Permits to help decide what should stay and what should go, peered up at those ruined roofs over the weekend. They left behind the fluorescent red warning tags on the worst hulks."If you go in the house, you are entering at your own risk," said Jamie Grant, area leader for the Buxton, Maine, fire department, one of several out-of-state teams brought in for the unpleasant task. City Attorney Sherry Landry said "full structural assessments" have not been conducted on the tagged houses, but the damage appears so severe it "could make occupancy dangerous."Originally a cypress swamp, the community of 20,000 is overwhelmingly black; more than one-third of residents live below the poverty line, according to the 2000 census. The people of the Lower Ninth are the maids, bellhops and busboys who care for New Orleans tourists. They are also the clerks and cops now helping to get the city back on its feet. The ward is home to carpenters, sculptors, musicians and retirees. Fats Domino still has a house in the Lower Ninth. Kermit Ruffins -- a quintessential New Orleanian trumpeter whose band likes to grill up some barbecue between sets -- attended local schools. About half the houses are rentals."It's a scrappy place where people don't take a lot of guff, but a place where people really respect each other," said Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association. "It has heart and soul and beauty."Dashiell is annoyed by comments by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and some developers suggesting there is no point in restoring the most flood-prone parts of the city -- the Lower Ninth, everyone knows, even if it is not mentioned by name. She wants "an independent expert who can be trusted" to assess the condition of buildings there and a hefty investment in levees that can withstand a Category 5 hurricane.Yet even some liberal activists, people who have worked to buoy the fortunes of the Lower Ninth, are beginning to talk favorably about clearing it away -- if residents are well compensated and given suitable housing elsewhere."It would be negligent homicide to put people in the Lower Ninth," said Russell Henderson, a veteran community organizer who has formed the Rebuilding Louisiana Coalition. "If you put people back in there, they're going to die."But scraping away the Lower Ninth would most certainly change the already delicate equations of racial and economic politics in one of America's poorest cities, a city that was 67 percent black but is likely to have a smaller black majority once it is resettled. LSU's Colten fears middle-class Gentilly and wealthy Lakeview -- just as prone to severe flooding -- will nevertheless be rebuilt, while the Lower Ninth is abandoned.The temptation will be to "open up spaces where there has been a lot of poverty," similar to the urban renewal projects of the 1960s, he said: "Those were seen as a way of cleansing a problem. It didn't eliminate poverty; it just moved it."Lolita Reed Glass is suspicious that property owners such as her mother will be offered $5,000 for land that is resold for $500,000. Dubbed a "Betsy baby" because she was born nine months after that hurricane brought water to the eaves in the Lower Ninth in 1965, Glass grew up hearing how her mother and seven older siblings punched a hole in the roof to escape the deluge. When they returned, her father added three bedrooms, a bath and laundry onto the pale-blue shotgun house to accommodate his growing family."We weren't rich; we weren't poor," she said, but those things did not seem to matter to the family. All they knew was what they had. The day before Katrina swept through, Glass evacuated with her husband and three children, her mother, six siblings and an aunt. More than a month later, they are waiting to go back."My mother's thoughts and prayers are that she can go home," Glass said. But if that is impossible, she at least wants to give her goodbyes to a structure built in part with her father's own hands. "I've not seen my history, not seen where I come from," she said. "We need to have an opportunity to do that."Katrina ripped off the front porch and laundry room. The floodwaters tossed the contents like a salad, still moist. The house next door floated away. But 1939 Lamanche St. is there. And for now at least, without a red tag.
9th Ward: History, Yes, but a Future?;Race and Class Frame Debate on Rebuilding New Orleans District
BYLINE: Ceci Connolly, Washington Post Staff Writer
No one here wants to say it aloud, but one day soon the bulldozers will come, shoving away big hunks of a neighborhood known for its poverty and its artists, its bad luck and its bounce-back resilience.It is likely to be the largest demolition of a community in modern U.S. history -- destruction begun by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and finished by heavy machinery. On Saturday, firefighters put red tags on hundreds of homes deemed "unsafe," the first step in a wrenching debate over whether the Lower Ninth Ward should be rebuilt or whether, as some suggest, it should revert to its natural state: swamp.A neighborhood tucked into a deep depression between two canals, railroad tracks and the Mississippi River, New Orleans's Lower Ninth has spent more of the past five weeks underwater than dry. Entire houses knocked off foundations. Barbershops and corner groceries flattened. Cars tossed inside living rooms. What remains is coated in muck -- a crusty layer of canal water, sewage and dirt. Mold is rapidly devouring interiors.The question now is whether the Lower Ninth Ward, which was devastated 40 years ago by Hurricane Betsy, should be resuscitated again. The debate, as fervent as any facing post-hurricane New Orleans, will test this city's mettle and is sure to expose tensions over race, poverty and political power. The people willing to let the Lower Ninth fade away hew to a pragmatist's bottom line; the ones who want it to stay talk of culture and tradition.The flooded sections "should not be put back in the real estate market," said Craig E. Colten, a geography professor at Louisiana State University. "I realize it will be an insult [to former residents], but it would be a far bigger insult to put them back in harm's way."The notion is not without precedent. In the 1800s, cities such as New York, Boston and Chicago rebuilt on filled-in marsh. More recently, the federal government has paid to relocate homes destroyed by the Mississippi River floods of 1993; the Northridge, Calif., earthquake; and the Love Canal environmental disaster in Upstate New York.But never on the scale being contemplated here. And never in a predominantly black, low-income community already smarting from previous wrongs, perceived or real."This is a natural disaster; it's nobody's fault," said Lolita Reed Glass, who grew up in the Lower Ninth with her parents and 10 siblings. "My daddy worked. He did not sit on his bottom. You're not giving us anything. What we rightfully deserve as citizens of this country is the same protection we give to other countries."Of the 160,000 buildings in Louisiana declared "uninhabitable" after Katrina, a majority are in the New Orleans neighborhoods that suffered extensive flooding. Mayor C. Ray Nagin, an African American who worked in the private sector before entering politics, has spelled out plans to reopen every section of the city -- except the Lower Ninth. His director of homeland security, Col. Terry Ebbert, said in an interview that most homes in the Lower Ninth "will not be able to be restored." Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson told the Houston Chronicle he has advised Nagin that "it would be a mistake to rebuild the Ninth Ward."The mayor himself has spoken ominously about the need for residents to come in, "take a peek," retrieve a few valuables and move on. Historic preservation advocates fear that the city will capitalize on a program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that pays to tear down damaged buildings but not to repair historic private properties."There is a built-in incentive to demolish," said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "The first instinct after natural disasters is almost always to demolish buildings. It is almost always wrong."New Orleans, with 20 districts on the National Register of Historic Places covering half the city, has the highest concentration of historic structures in the nation, Moe said. That includes the Lower Ninth's Holy Cross section, with its shotgun houses and gems such as the Jackson Barracks, the Doullut Steamboat Houses and St. Maurice Church.In a news conference Friday, Nagin was noncommittal about the future of the Lower Ninth, noting that portions are still flooded, there is a "significant amount of debris and mud," and environmental tests must be conducted."I am sensitive to the Ninth Ward and people talking about it like it's not people's homes," he said. "If we do have to do any mass demolition in the Lower Ninth Ward, I hope we figure out proper compensation" for property owners, he added.Although it is less than two miles northeast of the French Quarter, the Lower Ninth Ward is far removed from the money and clout pulsating through downtown. From the high ground along the banks of the Mississippi River, the ward gradually slopes down. Closest to the river, the flood was five or six or seven feet deep; farther down into the neighborhood -- away from the river -- the water lapped at rooftops.Firefighters, called in by the New Orleans Department of Safety and Permits to help decide what should stay and what should go, peered up at those ruined roofs over the weekend. They left behind the fluorescent red warning tags on the worst hulks."If you go in the house, you are entering at your own risk," said Jamie Grant, area leader for the Buxton, Maine, fire department, one of several out-of-state teams brought in for the unpleasant task. City Attorney Sherry Landry said "full structural assessments" have not been conducted on the tagged houses, but the damage appears so severe it "could make occupancy dangerous."Originally a cypress swamp, the community of 20,000 is overwhelmingly black; more than one-third of residents live below the poverty line, according to the 2000 census. The people of the Lower Ninth are the maids, bellhops and busboys who care for New Orleans tourists. They are also the clerks and cops now helping to get the city back on its feet. The ward is home to carpenters, sculptors, musicians and retirees. Fats Domino still has a house in the Lower Ninth. Kermit Ruffins -- a quintessential New Orleanian trumpeter whose band likes to grill up some barbecue between sets -- attended local schools. About half the houses are rentals."It's a scrappy place where people don't take a lot of guff, but a place where people really respect each other," said Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association. "It has heart and soul and beauty."Dashiell is annoyed by comments by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and some developers suggesting there is no point in restoring the most flood-prone parts of the city -- the Lower Ninth, everyone knows, even if it is not mentioned by name. She wants "an independent expert who can be trusted" to assess the condition of buildings there and a hefty investment in levees that can withstand a Category 5 hurricane.Yet even some liberal activists, people who have worked to buoy the fortunes of the Lower Ninth, are beginning to talk favorably about clearing it away -- if residents are well compensated and given suitable housing elsewhere."It would be negligent homicide to put people in the Lower Ninth," said Russell Henderson, a veteran community organizer who has formed the Rebuilding Louisiana Coalition. "If you put people back in there, they're going to die."But scraping away the Lower Ninth would most certainly change the already delicate equations of racial and economic politics in one of America's poorest cities, a city that was 67 percent black but is likely to have a smaller black majority once it is resettled. LSU's Colten fears middle-class Gentilly and wealthy Lakeview -- just as prone to severe flooding -- will nevertheless be rebuilt, while the Lower Ninth is abandoned.The temptation will be to "open up spaces where there has been a lot of poverty," similar to the urban renewal projects of the 1960s, he said: "Those were seen as a way of cleansing a problem. It didn't eliminate poverty; it just moved it."Lolita Reed Glass is suspicious that property owners such as her mother will be offered $5,000 for land that is resold for $500,000. Dubbed a "Betsy baby" because she was born nine months after that hurricane brought water to the eaves in the Lower Ninth in 1965, Glass grew up hearing how her mother and seven older siblings punched a hole in the roof to escape the deluge. When they returned, her father added three bedrooms, a bath and laundry onto the pale-blue shotgun house to accommodate his growing family."We weren't rich; we weren't poor," she said, but those things did not seem to matter to the family. All they knew was what they had. The day before Katrina swept through, Glass evacuated with her husband and three children, her mother, six siblings and an aunt. More than a month later, they are waiting to go back."My mother's thoughts and prayers are that she can go home," Glass said. But if that is impossible, she at least wants to give her goodbyes to a structure built in part with her father's own hands. "I've not seen my history, not seen where I come from," she said. "We need to have an opportunity to do that."Katrina ripped off the front porch and laundry room. The floodwaters tossed the contents like a salad, still moist. The house next door floated away. But 1939 Lamanche St. is there. And for now at least, without a red tag.
Katrina updates
In a few weeks, it will be two months that we've arrived at this lovely home. We are very grateful to have a place that we could use. Particularly the first month when we were still in the throes of post Katrina trauma. It was wonderful to have one less thing to worry about.
Well, the city (New Orleans) still isn't as up to speed as the press makes you think. Some folks are finally returning to their homes while others don't have much house to return to. My friend is living on the westside of Baton Rouge and comes into NO as best as he can. That's like commuting from the westside of Madison to Milwaukee.
I am trying to find a hotel room so that I can go back down between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Thanks to Sidna and Marvin Bookout and the Slinger Brownies and Girl Scouts.
Well, the city (New Orleans) still isn't as up to speed as the press makes you think. Some folks are finally returning to their homes while others don't have much house to return to. My friend is living on the westside of Baton Rouge and comes into NO as best as he can. That's like commuting from the westside of Madison to Milwaukee.
I am trying to find a hotel room so that I can go back down between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Thanks to Sidna and Marvin Bookout and the Slinger Brownies and Girl Scouts.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Thanks Update
This week, I need to thank Ewa Barczyk, St. Robert's Catholic School, and Scott Temperly, again. If I was a better person, I'd get that letter of to the Slinger School District, they have adopted us, in a way.
Other information: I spoke today with a friend who has a comparable job to mine with the New Orleans School District. His house was underwater to the ceiling and now the mold is thick. When he got in, he was smart enough to take down the drapes to make sure the mold didn't grow into his second story. He said it was eerie to go to the second floor after seeing the first floor destruction. The 2nd is virtually unscathed and looks the same as when you return from a long weekend. The first floor, however, is something else. Besides the mold, everything was turned upsided down by the water's current. The refrigerator was on its side. As you may have heard, the School District laid off more people and he is among them. In the interim, he is trying to find work as videographer. As you can imagine, there isn't a lot of work for video people in New Orleans these days! Sadly, the projects he will be working on is documenting the demise and rebuilding of the city.
I asked him about the politics in the city. He said that things have gotten worse instead of better. In a time when you'd think everyone would come together, it seems as though everyone is clamoring for their own piece of the pie. Trust me, it was that way when I was there, so I can't imagine how much worse it could be. I suppose instead of being selective who council members exclude, now they must be excluding everyone. I wouldn't want Mayor Nagin's job, for certain. An interesting aside is that he is worried he won't get elected if the African-Americans don't get back in the city. There is some interesting speculation about his re-election to be sure. I can almost guarantee that Gov Blanco is out of there. She projected a really ineffective response, regardless of the reason. And my guy, Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish (aka the "crier" from Meet the Press), is supposedly in hiding because he told the staff of the pumping stations to evacuate, and, therefore, didn't have employees to turn on the pumps to get the water out.
Lots of brilliance and blame to go around.
Other information: I spoke today with a friend who has a comparable job to mine with the New Orleans School District. His house was underwater to the ceiling and now the mold is thick. When he got in, he was smart enough to take down the drapes to make sure the mold didn't grow into his second story. He said it was eerie to go to the second floor after seeing the first floor destruction. The 2nd is virtually unscathed and looks the same as when you return from a long weekend. The first floor, however, is something else. Besides the mold, everything was turned upsided down by the water's current. The refrigerator was on its side. As you may have heard, the School District laid off more people and he is among them. In the interim, he is trying to find work as videographer. As you can imagine, there isn't a lot of work for video people in New Orleans these days! Sadly, the projects he will be working on is documenting the demise and rebuilding of the city.
I asked him about the politics in the city. He said that things have gotten worse instead of better. In a time when you'd think everyone would come together, it seems as though everyone is clamoring for their own piece of the pie. Trust me, it was that way when I was there, so I can't imagine how much worse it could be. I suppose instead of being selective who council members exclude, now they must be excluding everyone. I wouldn't want Mayor Nagin's job, for certain. An interesting aside is that he is worried he won't get elected if the African-Americans don't get back in the city. There is some interesting speculation about his re-election to be sure. I can almost guarantee that Gov Blanco is out of there. She projected a really ineffective response, regardless of the reason. And my guy, Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish (aka the "crier" from Meet the Press), is supposedly in hiding because he told the staff of the pumping stations to evacuate, and, therefore, didn't have employees to turn on the pumps to get the water out.
Lots of brilliance and blame to go around.
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