Saturday, September 5, 2009

Samedi

More Letters Raise Concerns Over LSU/VA Proposal
~SaveCharityHospital.com


Jindal: Teaching Hospital will be built~Eric Paulsen
~In an exclusive interview with Eyewitness News, Governor Bobby Jindal said the teaching hospital planned for downtown New Orleans will be built, even though the state and FEMA are still far apart on what the federal government owes Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina damage to Charity Hospital.

Sides being drawn on offshore fish farming~Jeremy Alford
~Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Nap, said fish farming in the federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico would increase pollution in the ocean and spread disease to wild fish populations.Raising thousands of fish in confined spaces will create dangerous new pollution hazards in the Gulf, hurting our commercial and recreational fishermen,” said Melancon, who represents Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes.

No, Ms. Liberto…it’s not OK to use Katrina shorthand ~Levees.org

Hurricane storm surge effects in St. Tammany will be topic of meeting ~Representatives from the Louisiana State University AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant will present an exhibit and discussion Wednesday evening on how hurricane storm surge could affect St. Tammany Parish.

Superfund research center coming to LSU

Honest Scrap Award~Citizen K
~Editilla heaux'stuttas~ Geaux Citizen K! And T'ank You Fury Mush, for such an honor and for seeing not just us as Honest Scrap Yard Doggerel, but hanging the Ladder wit'so an estimable list of udda'scrappy dogs! We are still a little rough'risin fo'da tide down here, so it is pretty gratifying to get tagged like this from across the country --by a Sea Hawk no less!

Michael Brown Hypnotizes David "Little Brownie" Sirota

George Ohr Rising


A snowball art show on Freret Street
~Doug MacCash

~'Skeleton Lady Eats Her Snowball' by Shannon Kelley

Sale of all sales: Ernie and Antoinette K-Doe gear up for grabs today
~Keith Spera

~On Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Betty Fox, Antoinette's daughter, is hosting a garage sale at the Lounge.
Up for sale are most of Ernie and Antoinette's clothes, suits, gowns, shoes, hats -- as well as household items and such souvenirs as "K-Doe for Mayor" T-shirts.

Sweet Lorraine’s Community Jazz Festival: Sept. 4-6

~We will utilize green technology and sustainable energy to power the event, as well as maintaining a full set of environmentally friendly initiatives. Our commitment is focused here.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Vendredi

Governance agreement not fooling grassroots New Orleans
~SaveCharityHospital.com


Southern Decadence in full swing and sashee in New Orleans
~Mary Foster


Back To School sales tax holiday for guns, ammunition starts today~Jen DeGregorio

H209 Forum - Water Challenges for Coastal Cities~NY400

Report: N.O. flood controls unreliable, Public still waiting for Obama Administration response 3 months later

Got Myth? ~Ad Video
~Editilla Jeezes for Cheezus~As if We had our own Myther'fakirs!


~Award-winning poster produced by a Brazilian ad agency. The caption reads: "The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11.
The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it."


Behind the Scenes: To Publish or Not?~David W. Dunlap
~AP Photo / Julie Jacobson. It is a scene from which many of us would naturally recoil, or at least avert our eyes: a grievously injured young man, fallen on a rough patch of earth; his open- mouthed and unseeing stare registering — who can know what? — horror or fear or shock; being tended desperately by two medics in what are the first moments of the final hours of his life.
But then again, I saw this:
~AP Photo/Rick Bowmer. A dead body lies in the floodwaters on Canal Street in New Orleans, La., Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005.
The city is littered with bodies, some of them victims of the Federal Flood and some to post flood violence that gripped the city for several days before troops arrived.
~Eyeballing Katrina Dead
Yes. It comes to roost here too, and I can tell within 1 second if someone else saw it. I still find it hard to believe the role Our Press plays in either instance of Recording War Dead, abroad or in the city that care forgot and the Presidente left to die.

States and Municipalities Aggressively Lobby Federal Government for Scarce Aid
~Dave Levintha


James Gill: State helicopters carry Governorcist Bobby Jindal nearer to God

Grading Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal ~BBuzz

Flag unveiling celebrates Gustav recovery ~Naomi King

Defense Hotline
~Anyone, whether a service member, civilian employee, defense contractor, or private citizen, who witnesses what he or she believes to be a violation of ethical standards and/or the law, including but not limited to fraud, waste, or abuse of authority, potential leaks of classified information, or potential acts of terrorism, should report such conduct through his or her chain of command, respective service Inspector General, or directly to his or her respective service Inspector General or directly to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense Hotline. ~H/T~Levees.org

Katrina Survivors Moving Home
~Tuquyen Mach


Katrina Cottages
~New American Village

~Immediately after Katrina, hundreds of designers descended on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans. Chief among them were purveyors of the New Urbanism movement.

Not to be confused with...
An integrated circuit of diodes, transistors and microprocessors in miniature scale all operating on a single piece of semiconductor, typically silicon.

How hot is the hot spot in the Church of What's Happening Now for Rigsby qui tam? ~slabbed

Quality Claims Management Reveals that Many 2007 Fire Victims Still Have NOT Been Able to Resolve Their Insurance Claims and Rebuild their Homes

Selective Insurance Group Announces Officer Appointments

Charter boats in Gulf accused of breaking laws~Cain Burdeau

Erasing Katrina: Four Years on, Media Mostly Neglect an Ongoing Disaster
~My corner of the Sandbox


Arctic temperatures the warmest in 2,000 years; 2009 Arctic sea ice loss 3rd highest
~Dr. Jeff Masters


The Fight for Food
~Peter Rothberg

~The emergence of food as a political and social issue worth organizing around is demonstrated by the abundance of projects, initiatives, blogs, campaigns and efforts to realign food production and consumption around goals of social justice, equality and nutrition. Slow Food USA's Time for Lunch campaign officially kick-offs on Labor Day with a National Day of Action featuring more than 280 scheduled Eat-Ins in all 50 states.

Music festivals in New Orleans, Seattle latest to go green, leave little carbon footprint
~Janet Mcconnaughey


Sweet Lorraine’s Turns 10
~Red Cotton


Suzanne Saunders
~Murals, commissions, original artworks, body painting, gallery shows, traveling exhibitions.

Get'Yer Soup Greens

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Jeudi

Letters to editor reinforce popular disgust with proposed LSU/VA, plus more second line
~SaveCharityHospital.com


Saving Charity Hospital : Privilege, Complacency and False Sense of Security~Cliff's Crib

Chabert Medical Center levee work gets under way
~Nikki Buskey

~Construction of a levee project aimed at protecting Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center and parts of east Houma from Lake Boudreaux floodwaters is scheduled to begin this week.

New Orleans gets new inspector general~Frank Donze

Jefferson Council calls for independent cost study of pump to the river plan~Richard Rainey

New Orleans City Council to start broadcasting meetings live on Internet~Michelle Krupa

Coupon Stigmata

REVIEW: Contemporary Urbanism in Brazil: Beyond Brasilia~Susanna Diaz

Federal agency approves plan for Gulf fish farming
~Cain Burdeau


Green Shoots in New Orleans
~Dayo Olopade


"Katrina of recessions"
~Your Right Hand Thief


Only about half of metro area homeowners carrying flood insurance~Katie Moore

Bad Week For Louisiana Taxpayers ~Jim Brown
~H/T~ Village of the Slabbed

N.O. businesses expect successful Decadence Fest
~Stephen Maloney

~For the first time in nine years, grand marshals for the Southern Decadence Festival have changed their parade route.
On Sunday, Sept. 6, Grand Marshals (SDGM) XXXV Tittie Toulouse and Paloma will address parade goers at
2 p.m. in front of da'lovey
Tubby's Golden Lantern,
1239 Royal at Barracks.
The parade will will go up Royal to St. Louis, turning right on St. Louis, right on N. Rampart,
right on St. Peter, left on Burgundy, right on St. Ann, and left on Bourbon ending at Cafe Lafitte in Exile.

~H/T~Maria Montoya

LGBT New Orleanians struggle to recover after Katrina
~Michael K. Lavers


Blake Haney / Wonder Around Saturday, September 5th
Works on film shot with Mamiya 645 and Holga cameras in New Orleans, New York and Brazil. Framed using Plexi mounting and aluminum backing. Prints also available.
Work will run through September.
Refreshments provided.
CANARY Gallery • 329 Julia St

Gallery Hours - Wed-Fri 2-5 or by Appt:
(504) 208-3882

Interesting St. Aloysius Photo ~YatPundit

Stone beer, coming to NOLA
~Todd A. Price


What is Project 30-90?
~"Project 30-90 is an environmentally conscious music festival being held in New Orleans on September 5, 2009. Our stages will be run on solar and wind turbine power, we'll offer paperless green tickets, recycling, carbon offsets and more. Put simply, we are going to rock your world and leave no carbon footprint behind. So, do you believe in sustainability?
In green technology? In a double bottom line? Cool. So do we. Explore our site and see what we're all about."

Katrina: The Anti-Versary; Re-Define 8/29~motel de moka


~Special Thanks ~NOLA RISING













New Orleans Goatwhore Serves Up Satanic Southern Sludge
~Mike R. Meyer


Nathan “Raddy” Thomas Sent Home in Style

The Ballad of Eddie Garrison

~H/T~ all about Jazz

New Orleans is #1 music city ~Don Ames

New singers wanted for New Orleans Black Chorale
~Sheila Stroup

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Mercredi~day 4

Walk the Dog Ride the Sword
~Editilla notellas~ As we mentioned earlier in the Anniversary, the event of the storm happened on the 29th,
then the Levees failed thereabouts and thus began my story.
The Event stretched time, unfolds literally, as a screaming comes across the sky, familiar, but with nothing to compare it to now.
I'm going to take this little bone in my heart.
I'm gonna put it in a glass box
with some candles and some broken clocks
just to see the sea of faces
stopping in the dark dark.
I had not thought of it this way until now, that each day after the 29th marks a particular movement through this history until
7 days hence when I escaped New Orleans.
So, I have tried to post "memories" or a "memory" from each day. There were no good days, no art, no music, birds, safe laughter. But some days there were happenings which did not rise to the level of trauma. This day is a nightmare.
Please forgive me for this truly gruesome tale.
This happened as I remember it still. The nature of the trauma simply doesn't lend itself to tasteful grammar or elegant pacing.

Left boot: 8" folded serrated produce knife,
Right boot: 8" folded Buck knife,
Right Belt: 2, 4" folded Buck knives,
Left Belt: 2 foot long antique Navy Sabre,
Left wrist: push carpet razor and ice pick,
Right wrist: bicycle chain wrapped tight and tied,
Right Back pants pocket: Big Maglight,
Left back pocket: small Maglight...
OK, now we are ready to take out the dog,
on the 4th dark dark night after the levees failed.


She has to go outside, and frankly so should I, but the dog just won't do it in the building for obvious memories of Hell House Training. It is around 9 pm and I know she's got to go.
We don't want to go out because of the total darkness, where it was not the procedure to shine your flashlight as that would announce your presence to whoever might be ahead.
You had to be Very Quiet at night. It is hard for me to describe such an awareness of the quickness of death. I had already seen 3 people killed all by gunfire. I could smell someone in the darkness 30 feet away even without a good wind.
I could smell their fear and knew that they smelled mine. Smell mattered despite the cadaver blanket lain over the city. I was on my tenth dead body seen. It was getting pretty damn grim.
So you moved very slowly at night due to all the debris kicked down from the storm and because you did not want to meet anyone in the dark. No. No. No. No.
The neutral ground of Elysian Fields was a labyrinth. By the 4th day a sort of pathway had developed which looped around and under the trees and large piles of limbs. How can I describe such utter darkness, but to liken it to the inside of the Reaper's Cape. There was no moon, no glow on the horizon, no little red lights flashing and it seemed no stars as if they too had fled the scene.
It is hard to achieve such darkness in the modern world.
That world was gone that first week of the flood, at least at night. Daylight offered even more avenues of Kafkatrina Nightmare.
Why the neutral ground, you might ask? Why not wherever closer to my place of refuge? Well, 2 reasons at least: 1) During what I euphemistically refer to as "The Troubles" during that first week of the flood, I came to realize that taking a shit is THE MOST VULNERABLE position to be in if trouble starts --and Trouble was starting earlier each day-- so I didn't want to be near my place of refuge in that event. 2) Dog Flora was also tweaked by this whole scene, and it just sorta worked out that way.

So step by step we needle our way into the neutral ground
--not onto, but into the scene.
It was so dark my eyes were sweating.
About middle of the block I smell humans, more than one, at least two different scents. They were drunk too. Gin.
Then I hear their blades click open on either side of me and dog Flora, limbs breaking as they advanced. It happened that fast and I drew my sabre across the chest at my left and into a thigh on the right. Back again to the Left into a human shoulder I think. Down, crouch, sideways to the right into probably the same thigh this time screaming from the right, running through the limbs away to the left... I raise my sabre and begin hacking down into probably the head of remaining movement. They never laid a hand on me or dog Flora, but their blood began to drip down my cheeks and all over my arms, warm. Yet I continued to swing my sabre now calmly intent on killing this person. My soul seemed at a distance unconcerned. This person was now on their back on the ground screaming crawling backwards beneath some limbs when I believe I saw their face in that darkness. Perhaps it was a reflection from a Ship in the river. I swear I could hear them bleeding.
I swung between their eyes and hit a limb just above their head.
My sword stuck in the wood and it was in that moment that I came back into my body as if sliding into base on my ass, a long fast slide down a tunnel of broken glass and fire in my ears.
I smelled burnt rubber and tasted copper beneath my tongue.
I fell to my knees, listening, as the "person" slid away through the brush, and hearing this "person" I used to be falling deeper into Hell. I grabbed dog Flora still on her leash and also covered in blood though I don't remember her joining in the fight,
goddamned wet with it all over us...
and headed for the river a few blocks away.

I stripped off all my weapons and blood-soaked clothing down to my boots like some creature from Lord of the Flies meets Jacobs Ladder, picked up dog Flora and waded into the current down by the wharf. The water was low and there were streaks of light from distant ships on the surface. With a viscous sheen of something other than oil, bits of debris and garbage floated by as I covered her nose and dunked us both beneath the waves... suddenly the screaming inside stopped. A hopeful coldness surrounded me as I realized we were sinking deeper into the current. I released dog Flora who immediately made for air... but thought myself to continue further, honestly damned, soul'stripped and gone.
But Goddess wasn't having any of that.

I popped into the air, just before striking a pylon beneath the wharf square on my back. It was then that I saw the City silhouetted by a rhesus grin. Dog Flora was barking incessantly, as if there was yet more to come, when indeed a body struck mine in the current... fully clothed face down and I think... male.
I made for the bank retching breast strokes.
As I lay on the gray rocks, looking into further darkness, dog Flora began to lick away some of the blood still caked in my brow and continued over me for a long time, until the trembling filled.
Since I had thrown all of my clothing into the river but for the belts, boots, bicycle chain, torches and weapons, I strapped up best as possible naked and we made our way, again so quietly and by another route, back to our building and studio two floors above this broken plane. By now it was probably around 2am, I guess, as even the choppers had mostly gone to bed.
The city rested as if in a Benzedrine dream.
You could still hear the dogs left as hellhounds though, as they had begun to grow in number, packs and tenor, howling, calling,
crying across the abyss with the rest of us.

Mercredi

Wow! What a Turnout!
~SaveCharityHospital.com

Can you believe it?
Twelve hundred people out
in the streets parading and protesting for the rights of Lower Mid-City residents and for the gutting and rebuilding of Charity Hospital. It was an inspiring sight to see and to experience, and we'd like to thank everyone who attended from the bottom of our hearts for their support.
~Photo:

Corps' plans to extract clay has too many holes, local leaders say
~Bigad Shaban

~Plaquemines Parish president Billy Nungesser said following Hurricane Katrina, the corps dug more than 60 pits as an emergency maneuver to find the clay needed to harden the levee system, but he said the corps never filled the ditches back up.
"And to leave all those holes in the parish, takes that land out of commerce, takes it out of development and if we continue to allow that to happen we're going to have levees protecting nothing,” said Nungesser.

Video on Dutch Flood Protection rockets to top of YouTube charts

Army Corps of Engineers says it may spend $1 billion to restore wetlands damaged by levee work
~Mark Schleifstein


Processors go on defense, work congressional delegation
~Jeremy Alford


BP makes "giant" discovery in Gulf of Mexico

Scoping Meetings Discuss Future of Missouri River Ecosystem~James E. Ducey

City blight agency faces money, legal challenges~Deon Roberts

Zurik leaving WWL; contract negotiations broke down, both parties say ~Kevin Allman
~More from Adrastos


Will Child-Governor Jindal Ride The NO To BR Rail?
~Stephen Sabludowsky


Maddow Interviews Tom Ridge About Iraq Intelligence, Hurricane Katrina, Politicized Threat Levels

Four Years Later, Challenges Remain~Nathan Rothstein

National Service Agency Opens AmeriCorps NCCC Campus in Vicksburg

Fantasia ready to pitch in for Katrina survivors

New Orleans Roast Now Available at Rouses


Coffee with chicory-Stand Up!
~New Orleans Can Thrive


Shrimp, zydeco to be celebrated this weekend

Bird’s eye view~Cody Daigle

Project 30-90’s shrinking footprint~Noah Bonaparte Pais

Jason Berry expands on his
New Orleans music history primer in a reissue of 'Up from the Cradle of Jazz'
~Susan Larson

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Mardi~NOLA Sinn Féin!

Charity Hospital arbitration process becomes clearer~T-P

Hospital Appears Clean After Storm~SaveCharityHospital.com

Tropical Storm Erika
~Hurricane Jimena

Belle Chasse firm wins $12 million contract to raise Lake Cataouatche levee

Protecting Coastal Communities:
The Dutch Say Yes, We Do
- In America, We Can, Too
~Levees.org
~Levees.org has created a video documentary using footage captured by an Amsterdam-based filmmaker while in The Netherlands this past May as part of US Senator Mary Landrieu's Second Congressional Delegation (CoDel) excursion to Holland. Unlike the first CoDel, which studied peripheral barriers (floodgates), the goal of the Second CoDel was to see how the Dutch live with - and manage - water in urban settings.
~More from Corrente on this and Honoré

Levee leaders fire back over Morganza questions
~Daily Comet


An analysis of four years since America's biggest engineering disaster~Chris Dier

Stephanie Grace: Obama pushes New Orleans' Katrina recovery from a distance

Katrina Flood Recovery:
Bush vs Obama~Deon Roberts


Four years on, Mississippi's misplaced priorities hamper recovery ~Desiree Evans

Petition to Save Alligator Bayou
~Red Stick Irene


Levees Not War, New Layout!

The Murder of New Orleans

Caught, in an E-maelstrom
~We Could Be Famous


'American Zombie' blogger outs himself while facing libel suit from City Hall employee
~Molly Reid

~More from Library Chronicles

Oh to Remember
the slabbed of September


Disingenuous~CenLamar

How Could They Have Stayed Behind?~Lee Drutman

California Fire Situation Today

All those ships that never sailed
~Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans


The Day Before the Day After
As regards the bug'out with Editilla the Pun...

The day before Katrina made landfall, almost 12 hrs exactly, the Math Shopper and I were walking dog Flora on the neutral ground (what we in New Orleans call the grassy median) between Elysian Fields, smoking a nice joint beneath the trees and kicking logic theorems around like they'z jail-house punks, when I spied a dozen fat trademark New Orleans Nightcrawler cock roaches lined up on a tree end to end, nose to tail, completely still but for their long antennae that wriggled about either side like fishing poles off a parade of longboats.
These legendary beasts usually stand about 3 1/2 inches long
by 2 inches wide. Though rarely seen in broad daylight, you can actually hear them walk across a street. When you do see them (and you will see them) at night, crawlin' across the banquette in the Quarters you must stop, look & listen. More often than not the roach will stop too, as if...considering you.
If you somehow find the need, gonads or ova to mount one when it charges, or even manage to Pop It under both feet, every person within a block will duck as from the sound of gunfire.
{Perhaps I embellish juuuust a bit:)
But there they were, lined up and down the side of a Live Oak tree. "What the fuck?!?", we wondered. What if they notice us? Should we run now or just back away slowly, no sudden movements? Can they even see in broad sunlight? Aren't they blind, like so many in this city who find themselves somehow awake in the middle of the day? And hey! Why that particular side of the tree anyway and why nearly six feet off the ground? Duuuuherah...it turned out.
In the aftermath, we realized from the various & sundry debris nailed into the tree's windward side that the roaches had aligned themselves aerodynamically on the tree's leeward side to ride out the storm's approach, exactly. Bugs know...or at least next time we see nature going so oddly with her own grain perchance we should, errra, pay more attention? Ya' t'ink?
~Editilla Sew'tellas~
For me there was freak-out in the 2 weeks leading up to this year's Anniversary. It is so every year. Bad weirdness.
But then I come home to the City for the Commemorations and Commiserations, and now everyt'ing is way'mo'betta. I did miss some hanging out da'Ladda, which makes Editilla a bit dinked.
But the weather was sublime and the locals lapped it up.
I really want everyone to know, there is no stopping Nola.
Hence, I may try to "post" some of the "other" "memories" of each day from the 29th until I excaped the city in a pick-up truck with dog Flora, guitar, backpack and bicycle. No lie, like in a long line of fleeing refugees in a frickin'damn Apocalypse NO movie, over the bridge with civilization burning to the ground behind.
Everyone will Note the Day Our Heart Stood Still.
But then the Levees Failed, and Life took on several new meanings in the valley of the shadow of Death.

And me, I think about this stuff every morning, all day, into the night, still in my dreams on the long road home the back hand path... just the way it is and will be until it ain't I suppose.
I'm in no hurry never was, as such, so thus began to realize harsh differences in Marking such an unending scenario as the flood of New Orleans, as if it has merely happened and is past, after the Deluge so to speak, since for me it will remain 2 separate stories, to wit: The Storm and The Flood. The Storm, Katrina, was a truly bad-ass extravaganza to be sure. It lifted me, literally and physically, to a new appreciation of my own place within the bosom of our Earth Mother. Suffice to say, had She taken me that day in August, I would have at least understood the passing.

However, what came after our levees failed is The Never Ending Story, to which I have devoted the past 4 years (and every day of Your New Orleans Ladder) to figuring out, with and without therapy and no proper endings. Frankly, what I saw then sorta freaked out my therapists. What I see now in New Orleans leaves me sufficiently breathless and never alone.

Shake the Devil Off~Gambit

Actress Sandra Bullock purchases home in New Orleans' Garden District
~Rebecca Mowbray


Upper Arlington Labor Day Arts Festival

St. Francis student worries about loss of music in
New Orleans


Playing For Change Announces Nationwide Tour and PBS Special~Dirty Linen

The International Music Festival Conference Announces 2009 Agenda and Panelists

Detroit International Jazz Fest
Complete schedule


9th Ward, I Ain’t Looking Back
~Hip Hop Galaxy


CSNO hosts evening of jazz and history Thursday