recovery

August 29th, 2011: Six Years

August 29, 2011

Today’s New Orleans Times Picayune A new Army Corps of Engineers rating system for the nation’s levees is about to deliver a near-failing grade to New Orleans area dikes, despite the internationally acclaimed $10 billion effort to rebuild the system in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, corps officials have confirmed. As Ray drove us through [...]

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My Favorite Rising Tide 6 Photo

August 28, 2011

Three of the six winners of the Ashley Morris award for excellence in New Orleans blogging to date. These are phenomenal people. Ashley winners from left to right: Cliff Harris (2010), Dedra Johson (2011) and The Zombie (2009). Photo by Derek Bridges.   Tweet

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New Orleans ca. January 2007

May 23, 2011

I started Back Of Town.  So, I love Treme, but simultaneously harbor a small fear that New Orleans and its post-Katrina history will henceforth be viewed solely through the lens of the show. The story must be told. It’s just a television show. The story is told very well in this tv show for the [...]

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Narratives a.k.a. Of Happy Hive Minds And Prevailing Versions Of History

September 3, 2010

It appears America up and exploded in these past few weeks. Specifically in the last few days. But It’s All Under Control. As you were. On August 22nd, a 400-person riot broke out in the peaceful, hippie-beatnik town of Ft. Collins, Colorado. Irony: It happened right after Earth, Wind & Fire performed at something called [...]

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Rising Tide 5 Has Hit The Road

August 28, 2010

We’re all here after last night’s pre-party. Hurdle #1 overcome. Kim, Alli and Loki are in fine form. After intros, acknowledgments and ground rules, we are off with the criminal justice panel. Twitter – The Rising Tide twitter account is @risingtide with tweets from our attendees using the hashtag #rt5. Most of my liveblogging will [...]

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Five Years

August 23, 2010

Last night, D and I watched CNN’s New Orleans Rising special on rebuilding in the historically-black Pontchartrain Park neighborhood of New Orleans. So many stories. So many lives. Back in the 1950s and 60s, these black families built their lives and educated their children in the shadow of overt segregation. Cut to the 2000s – [...]

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Rising Tide Conference 5

August 5, 2010

It has indeed been almost five years since The Storm. The fifth annual Rising Tide conference on the recovery and future of New Orleans will take place on Saturday, August 28th at the Howlin Wolf in New Orleans, Louisiana. Mac McClelland, human rights reporter for Mother Jones and bad smartass or is it smart badass, [...]

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Day 38 Top Underkill

May 27, 2010

“If the disasters themselves are not preventable, sometimes the way we handle the aftermath is.” – Adele Barker in Disaster’s Aftermath President Obama just got done meeting the press. Other than his showing genuine concern about the disaster and verbally owning it, color me unimpressed. See, I don’t want Obama to take responsibility for things that [...]

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“Just One Rig”

May 3, 2010

A friend pointed out that A Village Called Versailles, a show about the travails of New Orleans’ Vietnamese community following The Storm, will air on PBS this month. In a New Orleans neighborhood called Versailles, a tight-knit group of Vietnamese Americans overcame obstacles to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, only to have their homes threatened by [...]

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Treme

April 9, 2010

The creators of Homicide, The Corner, and The Wire are at it again, this time in a city not wholly unfamiliar to readers of this blog: New Orleans.  Treme premieres on HBO this Sunday at 10PM Eastern. David Simon fans everywhere are working themselves into a tizzy, but keep in mind this isn’t The Wire: New Orleans [...]

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