Day 1091: The Night Before Rising Tide
August 22, 2008 - Filed Under We Are Not Ok, blogistas, federal flood, katrina, new orleans, rising tide conference
Although I want to shut it off and fall asleep on my keyboard, Rebirth Brass Band’s upbeat ”Four Leaf Clover” is playing in the background. I am exhausted from this week, but it’s time to gear up for this weekend’s Rising Tide conference. Go over to VirgoTex’s and read why what happened here three years ago still is a “Now! Now! Now!” wake-up call for America. Virgo is an American outside of New Orleans who gets it. That it’s never too late to turn our faces back towards the problems of this nation and face them head on, do the needful and become a superpower again, in the truest sense of the word. That it’s never too late to save ourselves. That it’s never too late to be real Americans.
… To most people going about their lives, sitting in front of their televisions, worrying about their own stuff, the disaster was over after a few weeks, when the water finally went down, when the news cameras left. In New Orleans, Katrina is still right now. Even after the changes that three years have brought, right now is a disaster. Entire communities disappeared. Families torn apart, spread all over the country. Schools, housing, crime, corruption, failure of government. The levees. The f-ing levees, inadequate before, being rebuilt at great cost, still inadequate.
There is much to do now, and when tomorrow and next month, and next year are now, in New Orleans there will still be much to do, and there will still be people in New Orleans doing it. Mostly all by themselves.
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 1040: New Orleans Keeping Up With
July 2, 2008 - Filed Under We Are Not Ok, crime, new orleans, recovery
So, how’s rooting folks out of their FEMA trailers coming?
Day 1039: Transparency, But Not The Good Kind
July 1, 2008 - Filed Under We Are Not Ok, government, new orleans, recovery
I was almost ready to gloss over Karen’s and E’s posts on the increasing likelihood of wrongdoings on the part of New Orleans Affordable Housing, Inc. and to chalk it up to just another carefully-placed hole in the New Orleans treasury. Everyone and their dog has been robbing New Orleans blind and for decades, so what is another 2 to 4 million dollars?
It matters because these houses were remediated using Community Development Block Grants a.k.a. your tax money and mine and … wait for it … are going to be demolished using FEMA funds anyway. Furthermore, forget the money, it is really important because these are homes of the elderly and disabled, these poor people were duped into believing their homes are alright and THEY ARE GOING TO BE DEMOLISHED. It is clear that the list that NOAH generated was never cross-referenced with the City’s Imminent Health Threat list. (And God alone knows who controls that list and how.)
And then Karen posted about a house on Willow St., a property that is a) owned by Orleans Metropolitan Housing, b) being remediated by NOAH, c) should be on the City’s IHT list and d) isn’t. NOAH’s mission is ”to develop, promote and administer housing initiatives, economic development programs, youth enhancement and senior services on behalf of the city of New Orleans via the Office of Planning and Development.” Orleans Metropolitan Housing doesn’t sound like Grandma Betsy to me so what’s NOAH doing remediating that property?
Karen provides us with a convenient reminder - a T-P article from May 2006 - which details the exploits of my former Councilwoman, Rene “God Sent Me That Dodge Durango” Gill-Pratt, her special friend and head of Orleans Metropolitan Housing, Mose Jefferson, and Jefferson’s family in and around real-estate dealings involving Orleans Metropolitan Housing and Care Unlimited. While Mose Jefferson, his sister and her daughter have been indicted recently “for allegedly skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars from non-profit groups they controlled,” it appears this network is quite pervasive. Where does it stop?
Reading again the last page of the 2006 T-P article, I found that
Care Unlimited’s mission, according to agreements the group signed when it accepted the cars from the city, is to “provide minor repairs to homes of senior citizens who could not afford the expense of repairing their homes”
with a forthcoming grant at the time to
“focus on pre-employment readiness skills.”
Funny then that, in the very next paragraph, Orleans Metropolitan Housing’s mission is
to perform minor repairs to homes - “renovation and weatherproofing, windows and doors … some cleanups of lots, painting.”
And funnier still when you compare these to NOAH’s varied mission.
… to develop, promote and administer housing initiatives, economic development programs, youth enhancement and senior services on behalf of the city of New Orleans … newly constructed homes, housing rehabilitation projects, homeownership opportunities, home maintenance, job training and development and the development of safe, decent, affordable rental units … the exterior of the home is painted with minor repair to weatherboard, fascia and soffit replacement … assist owner0occupied homeowners with the replacement or repair of roofs.
Cut and paste much?
You can see right through all of this, not that they wanted you to or care that you can.
Update: The Gambit catches wind of NOAH’s Lark.
Day 1024: Floods Past, Present And Future
June 16, 2008 - Filed Under We Are Not Ok, culture-society-history, new orleans, photographs, weather, wisconsin
This past weekend’s visit to Wisconsin was tailed by an earnest and eerie soundtrack: everywhere we went, every TV channel we landed on were newspeople, chyrons and footage that screamed Flood! Flood! Flood! More rain coming! On Friday, Julie informed us that her grandmother was being evacuated from her southern Wisconsin home as were a number of the residents of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Those who lost their homes to the catastrophic draining of Lake Delton, Wisconsin are preparing to sue the town for not signing its FEMA paperwork and for allowing said residents to build their million-dollar homes on sand instead of bedrock. Gays Mills seriously considers picking up the entire town and relocating to higher ground after the second flood in less than a year. Residents reason that such a move is preferable to “the trauma of being repetitively flooded.”
Someone asked me if this reminds me of Katrina. Looking at him as if he were sprouting a third ear, I said, “Nope. This is someone else’s disaster, someone else’s pain. Also, the two floods were not made equally. The geologic, meteorological, political and sociological causes and aftermath are vastly different, not to mention that this is 2008 and that was 2005. I’ll give you one upsetting similarity, though - FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers. These two agencies simply cannot handle preparation and emergency.”
And then, I come home to this:
… the intersection of St. Charles and Louisiana avenues was pronounced impassable, even for fire trucks … New Orleans reported that Sewerage & Water Board pumps had functioned well but could only handle 1 inch of rain in the first hour and 1/2 inch every subsequent hour.
And this:
AP: NOAA: New Orleans at risk from Cat. 2 hurricane
Daily Kos: Matt McBride - Corps of Engineers protects NOLA with duct tape, rope, and rusty pipes
I’m worried, guys, I really am. My life thus far, like that of many others on this planet, cannot be described as placid or uneventful, but what the hell?* Nor will I state that nowhere is safe, but every last one of us lives at the mercy of this planet. What’s next? More importantly, are we prepared for what comes next? While those in Wisconsin currently plot their paths into this unexpected future, what do New Orleanians imagine will happen here? What are our contingency measures and how many will endure FEMA, the ACoE, insurance companies, Road Home and contractors all over again? Is America prepared for this and are we prepared for them?
We have so much to live for, so much to protect and enjoy, so much to live and learn. Times like this make me wonder how humankind made it this far. Is it because we helped one another or pure, stupid luck? Our endurance to date may be evidence that we will make it, but our increasing blunders and hubris make me wonder.
I don’t see clear answers right now, only the thin rope between here and … where?
Day 1014: NOLA All Set For Hurricane Season!
June 6, 2008 - Filed Under WTF, We Are Not Ok, city planning, government, new orleans, photographs, recovery, weather
Folks must leave their trailers by July 1st and New Orleans emergency connectivity having problems
Assessor Hell by nolareno
No, no, this isn’t a problem. To the contrary, it is a foolproof plan concocted by the architects of our recovery. See, folks in trailers will be safe from any possible hurricanes and flooding because they will still be standing in line at City Hall on November 1st, waiting to prove that their homes are as yet unlivable thanks to the scarcity of reliable contractors and loads of time previously sacrificed to standing in line at City Hall to lower their erroneous home assessments and to get pieces of paper permitting intermittent progress on their respective properties. And they will be right there to get those NOLAReady messages, which will be yelled out over a generator-powered PA system instead of texted to cellphones. All while the mayor is safe in his Dallas home. Mission accomplished!
If you think the above scenario is absurd, how about the City’s decisions and ineptness that brought New Orleanians to this point?
Day 1008: Hello, Hurricane Season 2008!
June 1, 2008 - Filed Under We Are Not Ok, government, new orleans, recovery, weather
Are we ready? Oh hell no.
Independent experts to review 17th Street Canal repairs
… Water is believed to be leaking beneath or through new, deeper sheet piling on which the eastern wall along the canal was built after Hurricane Katrina.
Corps officials contend a combination of gates and pumps at the northern end of the canal prevents the wall from failing again during a hurricane, as the gates would prevent surge from Lake Pontchartrain entering the canal, and procedures are in place to shut down pumping into the canal if rainfall drainage water becomes too high.
Another sign that we are doomed:
… President George W. Bush has taken a personal interest in preparations for the upcoming hurricane season.
How far have we come?
Georgianne Nienaber: Deconstructing Ray Nagin’s State of the City Report
… For all of the money, for all of the rhetoric, all you have to do is take a stroll down Banks Street in mid-city to see the formaldehyde FEMA trailers, blighted, abandoned, rat-infested buildings, pot-hole filled side streets, and enough mufflers and hub caps along Carrollton Avenue to open a small auto parts store. And this was a middle class neighborhood before Katrina.
… The Times-Picayune reports that LRA money is still untapped. Officials said they are working with the Nagin team to plan the expenditures. “161 recovery projects have reached the drawing board, with some minor jobs under way. Other projects, such as rebuilding libraries, police stations and playgrounds, are in design or contracting phases,” the Times-Picayune said in a mid-term assessment of Nagin’s job performance.
People still in trailers while the levees are still leaking and recovery is still at Phases 1 and 2 out of 9. Mission accomplished.
Day 1003: Coming Down For Air
May 27, 2008 - Filed Under We Are Not Ok, culture-society-history, energy, government
Newsgator says I’ve skimmed only 1,034 posts and that there are 1,635 posts to peruse before I’m all caught up with two to three weeks’ worth of your blog posts. Guess the Arts & Letters Daily and Jezebel feeds will have to be purged unread in the name of Feedreader Zero. The sad sacrifices of the internerd. Don’t weep quietly, just send cash.
Suspect Device, Virgotex and First Draft have the political butt-kicking covered and with appropriate vigor, which helps during these moments in 2008 CE when a politician opens his or her mouth and I develop a rash and/or a nicotine-fit-esque urge to use this space to tell them to shut their self-serving mouths and go frak themselves but a computer or internet connection is not available and, even if it were, who wants to read a bunch of asterisked-out expletives wrought of travel hypnosis? Besides, who really wants to read anything but Virgotex’s thought-provoking latest, which reminds me that even my fatigued questioning and fist-shaking at those who pretend to shepherd America and their sheep is better than not caring at all, right now?
… We’ve been deliberately and painstakingly conditioned to be cynical and dispirited and complacent. No one in this administration gives a rat’s ass that Bush stumbles and slurs and tap dances his way through another press conference, that every speech and interview is just a succession of nervous tics and malapropisms. They don’t care any more than anyone cared when your principal would stammer through the morning announcements over the school intercom. No one in this administration wants us to be inspired. If they want anything from us, it’s our disinterest.
… There are plenty of us, including Clinton voters and for that matter, Republicans and Independents, who are weary and beat down and ready for change. The thing is, people want the change to be quantifiable and recognizable, they want to know what they are getting into before they jump. They want their change to look familiar and welcoming, and above all, safe. And if possible, easy.
The thing is, we are miles past that being able to happen. We are so far past safe and easy that it would take the light from safe and easy decades and decades to reach us. Taking our country back is not going to be safe and it certainly isn’t going to be easy and it’s going to take a long time.
Let’s talk about change. As an example, this weekend, I watched a CNN snippet on rising oil prices and could swear it was the same segment from last summer and the summer before that and so on, only with the price of oil higher. Every summer, we have the same freakout party we had the previous year, yet I haven’t seen a marked drop in the number of low-efficiency vehicles out on the roads. Even in Madison, WI, which oozes EnviroGreenOrganic out of every pore, there are as many single-driver gas guzzlers per capita as in, say, Dallas, Houston or New Orleans. Granted that Madison has more bike paths than all fifty states put together and those bike paths are very well-utilized, but the point I make here is that either Americans aren’t too concerned with the high price of oil or they are but aren’t going to change their current habits because change is scary and hard and its results are not already known.
Again, I’m not talking simply of lifestyle changes because Oh My God The Sky Is Falling And Polar Bears Are On The Off The On The Endangered List, Let’s Debate, but also the kind in which we stop being assholes to one another and make peace with the fact that we’re all here to stay, so get over it. It’s easy to write off change as a basic human impediment, but that’s a cop-out. What puzzles me about older people, normally the most conservative of voters, is they are the ones who should know that life is nothing but change. Look at everything they have been through in the fifty to ninety plus years of their lives, and living couldn’t have been, didn’t come easy. In fact, some of the most difficult battles ushered in positive changes for blacks, women and immigrants, for Americans. Wasn’t it worth it? Are your descendants not worthy of similar? So, it hurts me to hear Democratic voters of those generations, the ones with a longer view of history than someone like me who was nowhere close to being a Snickers bar in my dad’s back pocket in the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s, slamming the candidate they dislike with non-arguments like their sex, skin color, religion and choice of spouse. This prejudice is what you fought against! Long-term immigrants who state they will not vote for Obama because he is “a black,” men who will not vote for Hillary because she is “a woman,” Christians and Hindus who will not vote for “a Muslim” and so forth, take a minute to listen to yourselves. I expect this non-issue-focused behavior of the neocon wing of the opposing party who see your Wright and raise you a Hagee, not from folks who label themselves as liberal or intellectual. Change once came in forms that were not quantifiable and not recognizable. You were a part of that scary change and look where it got you and those who followed. It comes again. It’s our turn. Let go so we can enter the unknown to make it right for our children and theirs.
I am far from emptying the glass of Obama or Democrat KoolAid. If anything, having lived in New Orleans for little more than half a decade, especially after August 29th, 2005, has made me suspicious of anyone who runs for political office. (Tell me you wouldn’t be if Ray Nagin and Renee Gill Pratt were two of your parish’s Dem superdelegates.) The current process is dead to me. This does not mean that I am jaded or complacent; I am just the opposite, very actively not buying the bullshit. Voters like me need the promise of a better political infrastructure - one not caught up in maintaining itself at the cost of the country itself - as well as someone competent and inclusive at the helm. As John McQuaid recently posted, “Yes, government at all levels has failed New Orleans. And individuals have done their best to make up for it, often with minimal government support and a great deal of government interference. But that doesn’t mean those people wouldn’t be a lot better off with a government that actually was working to help them.” So, this is my request of the next president and those who put him or her in office: we’re Americans, we’re yours. Ask us to step up to the plate, but give us well-built bats, real helmets and a good game, not one in which members of our own team turn against us or we have to pummel the opposing team to a pulp to win. Or we’ll leave America, mentally then physically. It’s not deserting America. It is America deserting us.
The solution to this ultimatum is, of course, a change of current ways. Ask us to look at each other as people, tell us to stop averting our eyes from the realities of poverty and homelessness, ask us to drive fuel-efficient cars and push us onto trains, quit taxing us and not the corporations and calling it capitalism, demand that we meet challenges of necessity and innovation after first advising us to define what necessity and product means, ask us to support an overhaul of schools, call for an America which makes us demand the most of ourselves and each other. And, for God’s sake, stop placating us and, in turn, yourselves. We don’t need coddling, money and stuff for today, we need a future for all the days beyond. We need value. And you need us. Just ask, damn it.
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