Samedi

The New Orleans Recovery Continues, Feds Welcome to Jump Aboard~Harry Shearer

'This Little Wet Spot' alarms experts
AP Photo/Bill Haber
~In this area, water seeps under the levee of the 17th Street Canal levee, background, Tuesday, May 20, 2008, in New Orleans. Outside engineering experts who have studied the project told The Associated Press that the type of seepage spotted at the 17th Street Canal in the Lakeview neighborhood afflicts other New Orleans levees, too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm.
~“I personally do not at all believe that this little wet spot is anything that is going to cause a breach or a failure of any kind,” Donald Jolissaint, chief of the corps’ technical support branch in New Orleans.
License: PE.0020426
Listed Disciplines: CE
Status: ACTIVE
Expiration Date: 3/31/2009
"It is all based on a 30-year-old defunct model of thinking, and it means that when they wake up to this one — really — our cost is going to increase significantly,"
said Bob Bea, a civil engineer at the University of California at Berkeley.

Licensee Name:	BEA ROBERT GLENN
License Type:	GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEER
License Number:	126
License Status:	CANCELLED-The license has been delinquent for more than three years. The right to practice has expired. Please Note: There is currently no inactive status for engineering or land surveying licenses; therefore, some licensees choose to allow their licenses to expire.
Expiration Date:	June 30, 2001
City:	MORAGA
State:	CA
Actions:	No

Licensee Name:	BEA ROBERT GLENN
License Type:	CIVIL ENGINEER
License Number:	15707
License Status:	CANCELLED
Expiration Date:	June 30, 2001
City:	MORAGA
State:	CA
Actions:	No

~~Robert G. Bea is professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He has 48 years of experience as a marine coastal and offshore engineering industry consultant and research scientist. Please follow the link. Bea has more structural experience in his little toenail than Jolissaint could piss into a thimble if he had a penis. Compare and Contrast~Jollisaint: shit in one hand half a dozen in the other, white bread (and) Bea: Diamond Vajra and Gumbo.
Editor's note and UpDate: Due to a reader/nola-blogger's come'upance, I reposted this article with the flippant statement by the Corps Tech Support Director, Donald Jolissaint, along with adding his engieering license, which I had been unable to locate when I questioned it in the original post: Jeudi. You may check the comments section of that post to see how said nola-blogger upbraided me without backing it up by providing said license number. So I went and found it listed with the state of Louisiana, realizing that I must have been typing the name wrong on the dozen or so previous attempts I had made to locate this man's engineering certification. My apologies for the lack of clarification.
The reason Donald Jolissaint's flippant remark about a "little wet spot" is so important to me--especially now that I see he has aquired a license from the State of Louisiana for what That is apparently worth--is because people had alerted the Corps to "little wet spots" in that very levee before it failed due to Corps of Engineers criminal malfeseance--and one of my best friends died in the flood, as well as: the 18 other bodies that I saw, Vera, the 27 bodies my nephew scraped off the floor of the Convention Center, with a snow shovel, in the first clean-up crew to enter the building, the senior citizens in St Rita's, another friend who just hung herself this spring 3 years later, and everything else that contributed to the crucifixion of New Orleans. People were telling the Corps that the levees were leaking and the Corps response was--AND CONTINUES TO BE--don't worry about it. Then the 17th Street Canal levee FAILED and the rest is some of the darkest history this country has ever pertetrated on its own citizens.

My statement still stands about Kevin Wagner, the corps' senior project manager for levees and floodwalls in Orleans Parish. I reconfirmed from the ASCE that he has not been an active member of the ASCE since 1995 and even then had only an "affiliate" membership ususally applied to non'engineers. No, apparently one does not have to Be an Engineer to belong to the American Society of Civil ENGINEERS. Is this the man who signed-off on stuffing the levees with newspaper? Whoever inspected that job and signed-off on it had to have know they were using newspaper. Did an Engineer sign that inspection? Tim, or anyone else, if you can find this project director fuckmook's license then I will post it. Come on, Tim the data'mining engineer, I'm waiting.
Do you know the difference between paper mache and ShiNola? You pay for the Corps to take classes in this bullshit, so they can continue to make public statements quite often uttered by Public Relations spokespeople-- NOT ENGINEERS. They do this regularly. They have proven themselves to be liars and incompetent--and haughty too boot--but damn good at PR. My father graduated 17th in his class from Georgia Tech and was both a Civil and Electrical Engineer (certified many states). His opinion of the US Army Corps of Engineers? NOTHING IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN A LYING ENGINEER. Nothing.
Tim had asked me to question Robert Bea's engineering qualifications. There you have them, stunning in the dim glare of such Bourgeois Naivety as Tim is also an engineer, he says, though I am at a disadvantage in my new hobby of questing for engineering credentials to verify that since Tim also failed to provide his own. Tim, it is not my fault that the Corps of Engineers is ruining the trust we have placed in your trade. Sorry. That is an even bigger shame than what they did to New Orleans when you think about it because the Corps has built suspect structures ALL ACROSS AMERICA. This is why there is such an uproar in the Engineering community over the ASCE Public Relations mis- directing whitewashed IPET study regarding those failed levees. This is why we know of Robert Bea. And, to quote Tim's own post about "The Line", this is why I am here and not in New Orleans.
The Line. I saw the real line, wading the green mile.
Now I finally truly understand Liptrap's Lament,
bless her heart.
Thank you, Tim, for showing me what it really means and for the heads-up on your fondness for that forking icehole, Jolissaint. I hope I have fixed the problem and addressed your concerns for accuracy. Again my apologies for any offense towards your trade. Now go take it up with your fellow engineers...and I would suggest you get it straightened out before hurricane season, which starts June 1st. Your new home may depend on it. Hell, your life may depend on it. And don't forget the Day of Action!

I try to back up my statements and I expect the same from someone who accuses me of shoddy blogging. I launched the NO News Ladder November 11th. I am not a blogger, as considered by the Nola blogging community. If I have publicly led anyone to think that I consider myself part of this community I will never make that claim again and sorry if readers have been misled. You do not find me listed on 9 out of 10 Nola blogs as connected to that community. If the presence of Ashley's picture on my site offends any of you other nolabloggers who have it on your sites, like Tim, then I let me know and I will suck up my own grief over losing him and take it all away from the New Orleans News Ladder. I don't need this kind of shit from friends of Ashley's and have no intention of disparaging his good name in the blog-o-sphere. So if any of you think I am being a presumptuous impertinent asshole outsider then let me know and we can change that view. I may take it all down anyway. I liked Ashley alot, loved his blog and respect the hell out of his blogging. I really do not want to offend his memory. I do not want to be percieved as getting my rocks off on the tragedy of that Federal Flood. I remain a dues-paying member of WWOZ. I have that connection still to the city. It keeps me out of McDonald's with a rifle. It keeps me alive. It is the very reason that I have DSL Ultra and a bad'ass computer system custom'built by a 60 year old hacker...well, I also wanted to make sure the Ladder would hang every day too. This day last year I did not own a computer and checked my email at the Library. This time last year--indeed only a couple of weeks ago--I had to put down my dog Flora, named for the Cafe, my protector in the darkness and the entire reason I stayed for the flood until she could go too. Now there was no one around me who had even the slightest clue of what went down, what it means...then over the summer my cat died and another friend committed suicide and I went to observe the 2nd anniversary of the flood in New Orleans and meet the Rising Tide. It was the first time since the Federal Flood that I felt at all safe or comfortable around a group of more than 6 people. As Ashley pointed out when he handed me a beer: I was the only goober at Buffa's with a computer. I know I am an ignorant fool college drop'out, but what is your excuse for defending a member of the Corps That Flooded New Orleans and put me out and down the road to Hell?
Do you work for the Corps, Tim? What?
You claim to be an engineer, Tim, so what gives?
I apologized for what? Not being able to find this creep's license because I could not stop crying? I made a mistake and asked readers to fill me in but you decided to just hit me, with no information. No, Tim. I apologized for a lack of clarity that pissed you off. I am all about clarity, so since you came onto my playground it is time for you to back up your support for the Corps of Engineers. Trust me, more people from around the country and the world will see it here on the Ladder than on your blog. So, come off it, Tim. Show us that you have more than raisins between your legs and shit between your ears.

I am just a not very smart guy, a former artist, who used to live in New Orleans until six days of that Federal Flood. I am older than you. Now I work as an apt building maintenance man, in training to learn how to do livingry and finding refuge on the long road'ho...doing whatever it is one's gotta do and still trying to get sane again. Ain't that much to running from fear really...you just do it. Despite regular, costly returns, I don't know if I will ever be able to live in New Orleans again due to what I went through those six days and dark nights. My physical and emotional trauma was such that when I saw the picture above of that "little wet spot" and read Engineer Jolissaint's remark I fell into a pretty bad way, snapped back immediately to August 30th, which remains in my psyche. I did not expect this and it ain't funny. I'm talking about insanity, not just a bad mood or simple depression but trembling dry heaves and real breakdown, back to not sleeping through the night, back to the nightmares. I have not slept more than a couple of hours at a stretch since seeing the picture of those FAILED LEVEES minutes after the article hit the internet Wednesday night.
THAT IS NOT A LITTLE WET SPOT---IT IS A FAILED LEVEE BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF STORM SEASON!!!! HELLO GODDAMN IT???
IS THERE A FORKING ENGINEER IN THE HOUSE?
YEA'N'VERILY--MAY I HAVE A WIT'N'AAASS?
Who ya'gonna believe? Me? Or your own lyin'eyes?
I see in that picture the same arrogant lying bullshit from the Corps that nearly killed me the first time their levees failed. I see in that picture and Jolissaint's remark that they may have every intention of deliberately flooding the City again for reasons known only to the Exquixotic Corps of Engineers.
I see in that picture no future...only the past.
I must thank you as well, as this exchange has served to illustrate to me something that I have been thinking of in relation to my own lost feelings of connectedness to New Orleans since the Federal Flood. There is a real difference between the people who stayed for the storm and survived that first week of the flood and the people who evacuated before the storm. The only faith that I have left lies in Buddha's 1st Noble Truth: Pain is Real---FOR EVERYONE! That is all I have to say about "Your Fucking Line", Tim. You are there. I am here. That says it all, eh? I may not be a Nolablogger but as a Nolafugee I can take whateva whereva it lands
on the long road or in the middle of my broken heart,
one step, one day, one peace at a time...
Sinn Féin!
I am most gratified to find people still posting photos of the flood. Thank you 911review ~cynthia yoo.

Demand safe levees! Demand the 8/29 Investigation! Saturday, May 31 is our Day of Action!

River crests, begins a slow fall

Flood Stage Levels current 'real-time' guage readings ~USGS
Editilla ax'in everyone to get on the horn to the USGS about the Corps' levees failing again. The USGS is civillian and has proven that we can trust them in the way Mark Twain did
--with his Life, on the Mississippi.
This is the crux of the biscuit. Nothing else matters but sound levee constuction. Without adequate levees you can hang it up on the Rising Tide. There will be no NOLA blog-o-sphere. There will be no internet. There will be no community cohesion. There will be no WWOZ. There will be nothing but darkness, mahem and Black Water and Michael Chertoff unleashed. I was there.
The Corps has proven that they will kill us all rather than face their criminal negligence. Do I sound like I am kidding? We must take matters into our own hands. We cannot depend on the Times Picayune to cover this set-up for the next flood. Please join Levees.org in opening the new Hurricane Season with Our Day of Action May 31st!

Morganza review panel gets acquainted with levee system

Swiss Blackwater probe concludes

Lafayette Cemetery No 1 of New Orleans~Spectral Review

Maverick at NOMA

Solo Sun. brunch: Galatoires or Com. Palace?~Chowhound New Orleans

Post-Katrina Music (NOLA/GULF BLOGATHON) ~mlharges-Daily Kos

Music Of My Mind: Belong
~Noah Bonaparte Pais

Renard Poche–The new P in Funk~Toulouse Street

Jazz Vipers, “Blue Drag”
~Voices of New Orleans

To Miss New Orleans
David Steinberg