Day 1095: The New Orleans Speaks Symposium
August 26, 2008 - Filed Under new orleans, recovery
On August 30th, the New Orleans Insitute will host a New Orleans Speaks Symposium at UNO. Among many notable others, Karen Gadbois will be speaking in the afternoon about her work with Squandered Heritage, Latoya Cantrell of the Broadmoor Improvement Association will moderate a morning roundtable and Pam Deshiell of the Holy Cross neighborhood association will also speak in the afternoon. [SCHEDULE]
What interests and heartens me about the institute is how many individuals and organizations it has been able to bring together, and that one of its main interests is taking the message beyond New Orleans for help and to help.
Now watching a sneak preview of Ken McCarthy’s “The Katrina Myth: The Truth about a Thoroughly Unnatural Disaster.” Sandy Rosenthal of levees.org introduced it. 0 comments #
Day 1088: Crime March Part Deux?
August 19, 2008 - Filed Under We Are Not Ok, crime, new orleans, recovery
ReX of NOLA Rising just wrote a beautiful letter to the City of New Orleans which touches on the same emotions of frustration and indecision I brought up yesterday. Please read the post in its entirety before coming back here.
Here are some of ReX’s words that stuck with me:
… I am a father to two girls who no longer live in New Orleans because their mother had the foresight to move them to another city far away from the madness. I didn’t argue with her moving because sadly I knew it was the right thing. Yet, I am still a citizen of New Orleans who has stayed behind to try and make our city a better place. I am a New Orleanian who came back home when I could have gone anywhere because I believed we could build a better New Orleans. Up until last week, I held that belief fervently but now I am not so sure at times.
… I am an artist, not an anti-crime activist. I am one man with a voice and I am not afraid to use it. If my words reach one set of ears and it produces something positive, then I have served my purpose. BUT, I am no longer content being a lone voice while our city is falling apart. A city is a place full of citizens and we must get involved, be involved and stay involved if we are going to make our city a better place.
At the end, ReX invites us to participate in a United For Peace anti-crime march on Saturday, September 20th. I am inclined to participate, but am simultaneously hesitant when pausing to consider what a Saturday march will accomplish. We should be there to demand change from a government forced to witness the deaths and anger of its people. To that end, I suggest that the march take place on a weekday and that it end at City Hall, like the last time. Make the mayor, DA and police chief come out in the open again. Have them be physically answerable to their citizens and media instead of hiding behind their buildings and schedules, as we’ve allowed them to do for too long.
If you’re a planner of this march or know someone who is, please consider this. I love the concept of the UFP march, but on a Saturday when Ray Ray and City Council are barbequeing in their backyards, it’s not marching for system change, which is what is required in New Orleans today.
Day 1087: Neither Here, Nor There
August 18, 2008 - Filed Under family & friends, midwest, new orleans, recovery, the game of life
After a good chunk of last week in Houston for work, I spent another glorious weekend in Ohio visiting family and friends.
Each time I see my family, they are older, the products of time, work, declining health, the usual and unusual wear and tear. When we are children, we see our parents, siblings and other members of the family all of the time; we cannot observe them age as they do not see us growing up right in front of their watchful eyes. Also, as kids, we think of our parents as rocks, as constants who aren’t going anywhere soon. Death happens mostly to the aged, and that is a long way off from the cognition of youth. In a blink of an eye, we’re transported to our 30s and 40s and, guess what, our parents are much older, too. Dissonance. Disbelief. Discombobulation.
My mother is not doing well and is most likely in for more surgery, this time on her back. At this year’s Varalakshmi Puja, a ritual very important and exclusive to certain Hindu families (so it has to be done right, or else), Mom’s hands shook while she attempted to steady herself and simple things like sitting, standing and walking were nothing but sources of immense pain for her. My beautiful, smart, agile, strong, strident, able busybody of a mother had a really hard time keeping it together and, to her helpless and onlooking daughter, it seemed like an invisible someone taking a knife to Mona Lisa, a hammer to David, a match to a monument. Why does life build us up just to take us down? I want to say you can’t imagine my anger and frustration, but you’re a child, too. You know.
Before leaving the area, D and I spent some time with my 92-year-old grandmother who taught me how to wear a nine-yard sari (the more common version of the sari is only six yards in length) while admonishing me in Tamil, “You knew how to wear a sari like this when you were only eleven, and now you stand before me having forgotten it all. Keep it in your head this time and pass it on.” D took approximately a hundred pictures of the process and I’ve promised my grandmother the definitive blog post on How To Wear A Nine-Yard Sari. This is my mother’s mother, whom I have spoken off before, who has now twice beaten cancer, but is a physical shred of her former self. While her mind is as sharp a tack - she wants to travel between the homes of her children, learn a new style of painting from my father, take singing lessons, talk up a storm about the past, present and future - her body does not cooperate.
Patti has been a permanent fixture in my life and never had I given a thought to her not being there. People die, so will my grandmother, so will my mother, so will I, so will my children and so on. Right here, right now, however, is as important in its gravity as it is in its fleeting weightlessness, its tiny speck of meaning in the larger cosmic timeline. The urgency of my grandma’s current stage in life and the importance of my visit didn’t faze me until I gave her a goodbye hug, inhaled her scent, kissed her cheek and a pang of understanding seared its way into my heart, scrambled up my chest and gushed out of my eyes as hot tears. Before I let go of my grandmother and let her see my face again, I willed my eyes to suck those tears back in, for I would not allow her to see me upset. I would not force her to consider her mortality at that moment, not because of me. She would see her happy and vibrant granddaughter and think of all the good times we’ve had together.
The dam broke last night when I sat in front of D and cried my heart out while asking, “How do you deal with your mother being gone? I can’t deal with her death, how can you?” It was not simply questions on mortality that arose, but also queries on what I want from my life and what exactly I’m doing down here when I should live close to my family and be a helpful daughter. A job, a career, it cannot be as important as my Mom and Dad, nieces, godbabies and everyone back home. They are not replaceable. What the hell am I doing more than thousand miles away from the people I love the most?
On returning to New Orleans, I’ve discovered that the city wrongly demolished a home, Jessica Hawk (from Ohio) was found murdered in her home on the 3000 block of Chartres in the Bywater, two people were shot to death at an Uptown intersection where my friend takes frequent afternoon walks, McSame and Bush will make their obligatory New Orleans visits this week (for more cake, I’m sure) and, to top it all off, Mayor Ray Ray will be presented with “The Award of Distinction For Recovery, Courage, and Leadership” by a group called “The Excellence in Recovery Host Committee,” led by a prominent member of our City Council. I feel like a bit character in a poorly-reenacted mashup of The Enemy Within and Mirror Mirror set in New Orleans.
Yes, corruption and incompetence are found wherever power and money are to be had, but not like this, not when we should all be extra-vigilant during this reconstruction. Returning to pre-Katrina dysfunctional bullshit is not recovery. It makes me want to run screaming back to Ohio or Wisconsin. The Upper Midwest is not exempt from flood, government incompetence and crime, but it’s not an excuse to dodge the issue that there are serious problems down here, and that almost 25% will leave if we as a city don’t address them. Wisconsin and Ohio don’t have Mardi Gras, Jazzfest, jazz funerals, the architecture, running through the Quarter in a red dress, the glory of Audubon Park and City Park, the food, the music and whatever it is you love about New Orleans, but no amount of culture and cool can overcome fear, assault and death.
Understand that these are not easy statements to make, nor are they concrete in their utterance. While crafting and reading emails and talking with members regarding Krewe du Vieux functions, finances, floats and costumes, I ask myself how I could ever stop being a part of an event so amazing, planning so much fun in its utter chaos, a group so goofy and unreal. How could I not own the streets of New Orleans with the Krewe of Chartreuse on Mardi Gras Day? How could I walk away from dear friends as unique as this city? There’s one thing more, I miss the one I care for, more than I miss New Orleans.
The pull of the South and my career here is strong. The push of home and family is stronger. Logistics and commitments prevent us from leaving any time soon, but the decision to stay or to go is going to be a big weight on my mind in the coming months. It’s not an easy one, so please hold the “New Orleans sucks, leave!” or “Go, you’re not wanted here!” comments, because it just isn’t like that. When faced with decision gates like this in the past, I’ve shut down or punted, taking the course of an inanimate leaf in the wind, with decent as well as disastrous results. Suddenly (to me), I’m an adult, it’s not a coin toss or a decision I can leave to someone else or fate. Suddenly, I’m an adult and I am forced to contemplate my parents’ mortality and accept that human life is something borrowed, not owned. Suddenly, I’m an adult, and I’m neither here, nor there.
Day 1082: Karen Gadbois In The New York Times
August 13, 2008 - Filed Under blogistas, government, new orleans, recovery
With picture and all!
Light blogging while on the road for work and to visit family, but I have to take the time out to celebrate the New York Times’s spotlight on Karen Gadbois and Sarah Lewis and their tenacity and hard work in exposing the NOAH fraud.
Amid Ruined New Orleans Neighborhoods, a Gadfly Buzzes
… The F.B.I. on Monday raided the agency running the program, the local United States attorney announced last week he was investigating, and Mayor C. Ray Nagin, hauled grudgingly before the City Council, complained about what he called “amateur investigations,” a reluctant nod to Ms. Gadbois and her followers in the news media.
It’s a better and lot-less condescending piece than Adam Nossiter usually pens on New Orleans. The phrase “followers in the news media” is a bit awkward and puzzles me, though. Groupies at WWL? Fanboys at the T-P?
Go, Karen! The bangs and “I’m gonna knock you out” glare look great on you!
Day 1075: Karen Gadbois In The Levee
August 6, 2008 - Filed Under blogistas, funny, media, new orleans, recovery, rising tide conference
First it was the Wall Street Journal, followed by the Gambit (1, 2) and then, off and on and when they absolutely-positively could not avoid mentioning her, the Times-Picayune. Finally, New Orleans’s own version of The Onion has discovered and used the phrase “local activist, Karen Gadbois” in a cover article. It’s a journalistic miracle! The mainstream media admits that this amazing woman, who neither works for a newspaper nor carries a press pass, exists!
The New Orleans Levee | Mayor Blames Lee Zurik For … “Everything”
… As a result, the FBI, HUD, the city’s inspector general, numerous mental health experts, activist Karen Gadbois and others have begun investigating the mayor’s latest program of buying thousands of Crimestoppers-like billboards throughout New Orleans that offer up to a $5,000 reward for Zurik.
Come see The Zohan Zurik, Karen Gadbois, Kevin Allman, Cliff Of The Crib and … wait for it .. Eli Ackermann, Dedra Johnson, John Barry, author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America AND all of your favorite bloggers at the third annual Rising Tide Conference held on the weekend of August 22-24 [SCHEDULE | REGISTRATION]. Conference day lunch catered by the makers of the best fish sandwich in my neighborhood and all of New Orleans, J’anita’s.
Related: The American Zombie | It’s Official …
Day 1073: Findings Of The Latest New Orleans Index
August 4, 2008 - Filed Under federal flood, new orleans, recovery
The New Orleans Index Anniversary Edition: Three Years after Katrina
Greater New Orleans approaches the end of its third year of recovery from a position of strength, with the vast majority of its pre-storm population and jobs. But many recovery trends have slowed or stagnated in the past year as tens of thousands of blighted properties, lack of affordable housing for essential service and construction workers, and thin public services continue to plague the city and region. A strong federal-state-local partnership must continue to further the hard work of recovery, which is now well underway.
… The city may be confronting fully 65,000 blighted properties or empty lots. Rising rents, now 46 percent higher than before the storm, threaten the ability of many essential service workers to afford housing, as wages are not keeping pace. The labor market remains tight as the service and construction industries seek workers. The public service infrastructure in the city remains thin, especially public transit, which saw ridership grow by 45 percent in the past year. And, the latest maps from the Army Corps of Engineers suggest that a number of neighborhoods in the city remain at risk of six to eight feet of flooding from a “1 percent” storm, signaling the need to commit to a coastal restoration plan that goes well beyond levees.
65,000 blighted properties sit unremoved, while affordable housing is impossible to find and recovered neighborhoods are still at risk from flooding. People are coming back, however, which makes real recovery that much more urgent.
Note that the report uses the correct technical term “1 percent storm,” i.e. a storm that has a 1 in 100 chance of occurring in any given year. Not a “100-year storm,” which I heard an Army Corps of Engineers representative use on TV just last night when describing flood protection in surrounding coastal parishes. Read John Barry’s latest in which he explains why it is critical that we use proper, descriptive flood protection terminology, especially when a lot more Americans are only beginning to deal with the legal and financial, leave alone the physical and emotional, tolls of flooding.
Day 1060: WWL TV Investigates NOAH
July 22, 2008 - Filed Under movies/tv, new orleans, recovery
Back at the beginning of July, this blog lamented numerous inconsistencies and the lack of transparency in the City-sponsored New Orleans Affordable Housing program, as investigated by Karen Gadbois of Squandered Heritage. Last night, Lee Zurik of WWL TV presented the results of his own investigation into the matter. Interviewees include Karen and Recovery Czar, Ed Blakely. As usual, the principal architects of New Orleans recovery wash their hands off the matter while City Council promises to investigate shortly. Go, Karen and Lee, for this wonderful example of cooperation between online activism and traditional media!
Click for video:
