Saturday, May 24, 2008

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.


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


Thursday, May 22, 2008

Vendredi

NOLA/Gulf: Deja vu all over again~Mike Stagg~Two news stories conspired this week to remind New Orleans residents just how fragile their recovery is — and how indifferent the Bush administration it to that recovery.
The first story was that a combat brigade of the Louisiana National Guard has been notified it will be heading back to Iraq.
The second story was that, after millions of dollars spent re-engineering and re-building one of the levees which failed after Katrina, the 17th Street Canal levee is leaking now.
~Editilla has been so in need to see a hot'shot smart blogger jump on this Levee Leak Set'Up, as I am way to psychologically disqualified to deal with true criminals such as the Corps of Engineers as Dictated by the current Junta Disaster Response Team.
~After yesterday's near complete breakdown upon seeing that new wet spot in front of the new levee, Editilla has gotten a grip and come to feel that the Corps may indeed be planning to flood the city again with obvious engineering malfeseance because they can and get away with it as we have seen. Why else would they sanction stuffing newspaper into levees? Why else would they call a 40 foot long "boil-seepage" a "little wet spot"?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Hardly a simple leak,
those levees are failing right before our lyin'eyes.

So when the city floods this next time Michael Chertoff can swing into action with DHS under Presidential Declaration, keen like a velociraptor to make up for his Operation Crucifix Assfuck of New Orleans in August '05 with an even more coldly efficient, much greater assfuck (ubberlative) replete with more Black Water Security and established camps in Texas and Arizona and bum'fuck whereva for evacuees. This is settled Law.
Remember how NeoConCons hate to get caught with their pants down. Laugh all you want, Gentle'Rillas.
What I
see in the AP Photo throws me all the way back to that first week of the flood. You do not want to go there.
Oh No No No.
I have met the enemy and he ain't us.


Living on Sponge Cake
~Wet Bank Guy


Forecast predicts unusually active storm season

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!

Review~The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast~Mark Holden

New Orleans Is Not a Libertarian Experiment~John McQuaid

An improv on New Orleans
~pico @ Docudharma


Firms controlled by New Orleans Building Corp. CEO owe taxes
~Editilla grouses and hazards a guess~
Is this what they mean by: "ReInventing Accounting"?

McCain's Katrina Shame~Patriot Daily News Clearing House

Indian Guest Workers in New Orleans: "We Are Slaves Here"
~Citizen Orange


Katrina art an indelible watermark~Lolis Eric Elie

US Senate Passes 8.7B Appropriations For Louisiana and Gulf Coast~Bayou Buzz


Bill would send $6 billion to N.O.~Advocate

Senate OKs bill with Katrina relief~Picayune~Out of the three articles on this bill I will leave it to our Gentle'Rillas to decide the most informative. However, considering the Picayune least, Editila is more interested in the way the Picayune did not mention not a word of Senator Landrieu's statement for the record, from the Senate floor, pointing to the yesterday's article on the recently failed levees (leaks) (that means they are failing) as further evidence that the whole flood control system should be reorganized, and that this cast more doubt on the Corps ability to exute their mission as mandated by Congress. Why has the TP not pursued this failed levee story? Why coddle the Corps of Engineers that flooded their newspaper's offices? Must we have to fight the local newspaper as well to establish the 8/29 Commission?

Travelers shift gears as costs rise

How An Illinois Gal Got "Katrina Brain"~Spirit of Louisiana 1976

An Event Apart New Orleans~David Sutoyo

Gulf Coast preps for pet shelters during hurricane

Jeudi

New Orleans Levees Failing!!!
'This Little Wet Spot' alarms experts~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
Mr. Donald E. Jolissaint
PELSB

"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.
~~Robert G. Bea is professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He has 43 years of experience as a marine coastal and offshore engineering industry consultant and research scientist. He has successfully developed and implemented more than 40 significant industry- and government-funded cooperative research programs. Mr. Bea, a former member of the NRC Marine Board, has served on numerous national and international research and advisory committees, including seven NRC committees. He is currently a member of the Committee on Human Performance, Organizational Systems and Maritime Safety and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He conducts research on human and organizational factors and on design, construction, and operation of marine structures. Mr. Bea has a B.S. degree in civil engineering and a M.S. degree in engineering from the University of Florida.
AP Photo/Bill Haber~Hat T'n'T-dsbnola
Demand safe levees! Demand the 8/29 Investigation! Saturday, May 31 is our Day of Action!
Corps of Engineers addressing repairs made during rapid-response phase~March 9th Times Picayune~"We are going to finish these repairs, but I don't think a 1-inch separation between a floodwall and a slab of concrete 10 to 20 feet wide would let enough water in to cause a catastrophic failure," said Kevin Wagner, the corps' senior project manager for levees and floodwalls in Orleans Parish. Editilla cannot find this creep's engineering certification anywhere. I did find out from the ASCE that he has not been an active member of the ASCE since 1995 and even then had only an "affiliate" membership apprently reserved for non'engineers. This is the man who signed on stuffing the levees with newspaper?
To quote the founder of Levees.org, Sandy Rosenthal: "Protecting New Orleans from catestrophic flooding ain't rocket science--it is geo-technic science."
"Most of that (Task Force) Guardian work was just done so fast that I don't know how much design or forethought could have gone into it," said Larry Ardiron, director of the state transportation department's Hurricane Protection Operations, "I think they're probably doing the best they can, and they probably have too much to do, but sometimes they do things that just don't make sense."
Poor Editilla just needs to hear from an engineer goddamn it.

Flood of Criticism
~Berkley Science Review

“If it had been built as it should have been built, we would be repairing some shingles and mopping up some wet carpets.” Thus Dr. Robert Bea, UC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering, sums up the flood control system in New Orleans and its failure during Hurricane Katrina. But rather than merely tearing off some shingles and soaking carpets, Katrina wreaked its by now all-too-familiar devastation, flooding around 80 percent of New Orleans, killing over 1,500 people, displacing far more, and causing tens of billions of dollars in damage. Bea is part of a team of investigators based at UC Berkeley that has spent the last year trying to figure out exactly what went so horribly wrong during Katrina. The team’s conclusions, published July 31, 2007 in the 1,300 page, Independent Levee Investigation Team Final Report, are a scathing criticism of the engineering and organizational failures preceding the 2005 disaster—a disaster, they argue, that could have been prevented. Moving toward a brighter future, they say, will require nothing less than a total overhaul of the system that creates and maintains flood protection infrastructures not just in New Orleans, but in the United States as a whole. Image courtesy of USGS.

A writer's take on the new New Orleans lest we forget to know what it means when levees fail

Why a Gulf Wetland May Become a City~Lessons from Hurricane Katrina have been quickly forgotten as developers plan to turn an important wetland in the region's fourth largest city.~"If we don't nip this [project] in the bud, the pressure will be to develop more and more, and the Corps is critical to stopping that," says Bob Davis, a former Corps engineer and an agency critic.

Jindal-backed voucher bill for New Orleans advances


Post-Katrina Tax Shelter Expiring When It Is Most Needed

NetSquared Mashup Challenge: Bringing Together Government, Nonprofit and Grassroots GIS in the City of New Orleans
~Alan Gutierrez


nola~a tee, a rock, a cloud

School Group Heads To New Orleans

Preserving New Orleans
~Eureka Dejavu


Foodies, sidewalks and the rest of it

Meet Mr. Paul Konar, hunger strike strongman

Comforting Traumatized Rescue Animals

Go Leveeland!

Summer Festivals in Louisiana 2008~misc New Orleans stuff

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Mercredi

Louisiana Farms~Go Green NOLA ~Y'all know how we d'Aphasias like da'Maps. This one comes from local harvest.org ...whence came the lead to the GGNOLA site, thence somehow to New Orleans 1st Bike Lane hung below. Hence we wander the wee hours out on this long road home, thusly searching for the lights of the City still scattered about our sleeping nation like broken diamonds split from the fist of a dreaming monkey. Ambular SomNOLAncy.

New Orleans gets 1st bike lane
~Yesterday, motorists and bicyclists found a new feature on St. Claude Avenue: the city’s first striped bike lanes. A ribbon cutting ceremony marked the opening of the St. Claude Avenue bike lanes covering a three-mile stretch, eastbound and westbound, between Elysian Fields Avenue and the St. Bernard Parish line...more Buzz.

Motorola to Rebuild Technology Infrastructure for New Orleans Area School

Recovery Projects Information Website.
You can view current information on recovery projects managed by the City of New Orleans' Office of Recovery and Development Administration.


Historic trust takes aim at Charity~casa de Charlotte della luna offers a survivor's requiem

Katrina survivors struggle years after hurricane~A documentary report from New Orleans presents voices of Katrina survivors still fighting for survival

Transparency lacking in city service contracts~Jaime Guillet

ZANA Network Works to Revive New Orleans Small Businesses

Hell Hath No Fury Like That Of The Uninvolved*
~Liptrap's Lament - The Line


I'll Stop Calling This Crew "Orwellian" When They Stop Using 1984 as an Operations Manual~Your Right Hand Thief

Orwell Lives in Burma Today

Cyclone Recovery Just Propaganda, Say Rangoon Residents

Burma Photography~Lin Let Kyal Sin

All Burma I.T Students' Union
Now where have we seen this before?



Burma and Heroine

Rambo Speaks

China: Earthquake buried 32 sources of radiation
~
With death toll rising, unexpected rescues

Disaster Recovery: Five Things You Might Have Overlooked

Cottages make for perfect storm brewing over Gulf's future look

Indian Guest-Workers in
New Orleans on Hunger Strike


Environmental Espionage: Inside a Chemical Company's Louisiana Spy Op~Mother Jones

Feds make toxic brew at Fort Reno Park~When it comes to finding and cleaning up toxic waste in the nation’s capital, I’m not sure the federal government is to be trusted. We need look no further than Spring Valley to see a history of lies and cover-ups perpetrated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, aided and abetted by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Shrimp: Another high-water victim

Big Al's Seafood Restaurant

Grilling: Sweet Potato Salad ~Serious Eats









BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet at Arts in the Museum Park

Democracy and Hip-Hop Compares NOLA and KC

Three new books illuminate and celebrate the history of jazz and one of its masters

From Work At Home Guitar Teacher To Full Music School

Piety Street Recording
~Radio Free Amsterdam


The Beating Heart of Jazz

Mardi

New Orleans Wine and Food Experience 2008~May 20-24th
Royal Street Stroll Sponsored by ROUSES Thursday,May 22, 2008 5:30 p.m. ~ 8:30 p.m. 400 Royal Street $75 in advance, $90 on-site
As always, [what must be the world's most expensive 2nd Line] will be joined by the Krewe of Cork with 2008 Grand Marshall, Kix Brooks of Brooks & Dunn, as they parade down Royal Street. Brooks & Dunn? OK'ville!

NADA donates to New Orleans high school through quarterback's foundation

Charter Schools Remedy Education Woes in New Orleans?

Judge bars lawyers from State Farm case

MS Supreme Court to hear wind vs. water

Architecture and Reality Collide in
New Orleans

~New Orleans architect David Waggoner worries the quest to reinvent the shotgun misses the point. "The type of architecture we were building here in the 19th century was pretty darn good," he said.
Vernessa Rogers is one of the few to opt for Kieran Timberlake's less conventional, asymmetrical concept. But that's because she liked the way the designers fit three bedrooms plus a studio apartment into the drum-tight footprint of a typical New Orleans cottage. "It has a nice high porch and a trellis," Rogers swooned. "And it's going to be a green house, and that will save me a lot of money on electricity. Sometimes, my baby says to me, 'Let's go ride by the house.' And I say, 'It's not there anymore.' But then I drive her over anyway," Rogers said with a chuckle, "We park on our land, and she does her homework in the car. It makes her so happy." ~More pics here!

Burma, China and America: Perspective on How Nations Handle Natural Disasters

Burma begins three days of mourning, neglects to notify own citizens

Cruel Burma regime bans mercy

World Bank denies aid to Burma~The World Bank says it is not currently in a position to give aid to Burma, saying the cyclone-hit country has been in arrears since 1998.

It's an Emergency, We're Not Prepared?

One Brick National trip to New Orleans! Help Rebuild
St. Bernard Parish!


New Orleans Journal: The New Yorker~Recording Katrina

Arlo Guthrie fishes for Dylan~"I don't have a lot of songwriting advice," Guthrie said, "but when people ask, I say, 'Do whatever you want, man, just don't be sitting downstream of Bob Dylan. I even wrote to Bob years ago and asked him to throw the small ones back every once in a while. He didn't think it was funny."~Photo: I Rock N Roll

Dubai-based DJ Zahra brings musical gold back from Jazzfest 2008

Drumming up support for music students

Lincoln Teams with Harry Connick, Jr. on New Orleans Musician’s Village Home

To the bone Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue to Perform at Marilyn’s on K

Phister sisters bring jazz stylings to Natchez festival

Susan Cowsill 2008 Summer Tour And Benefit Schedule Kicks Off

Six Things To Do This Weekend

Monday, May 19, 2008

Lundi

Thank you: photo-Editor B~Hat T'nT-Alan

Neighborhood Coworking: A GIS Guided Block by Block Survey of Mid-City~Alan Gutierrez

Interactive Map of New Orleans
~APPA National Conference

~Information about the American Public Power Association National Conference in New Orleans.


Virtualization and Data Center Disaster Recovery

How to improve disaster recovery plans~Now's a smart time to revisit your enterprise disaster recovery plans. Thanks to techniques including virtualization, WAN optimization and email backup appliances, CIOs have better disaster recovery options and more negotiating power with vendors.

Does FEMA need more power?
~Homeland Stupidity


HR 3247, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Recovery Facilitation Act of 2008

Monks fill cyclone aid void in Burma

Rescue and Recovery
~Fresh Bilge


Earthquake in China and Hurricane in US - a brief comparison of relief efforts~Pakistan Defense

158 Relief Workers in China Are Killed by Landslides,
NationWeeps


Hacker compromised Red Cross earthquake relief site

Broadmoor Fest...
and My Students
~The Monkey Speaks Its Mind


Tulane University attracting idealists~Mary Grace

IRS Encourages Business to Help Katrina Victims

ICF International Blocked From Sending Katrina Victims To Collection Agency

Report: New Orleans prison lacking in care for mentally ill

Department of Justice Efforts to Rebuild New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina

U.S. Attorney General pledges more support for New Orleans

$1.7 Billion In Katrina Grants Remain Unspent

New Orleans leaders face tentative futures
~Mark Singletary


Was a permit necessary to build local levee?

Grants for New Orleans
The National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express have chosen five historic New Orleans sites to receive preservation grants for restoration projects. Photo: St. Alphonsus, courtesy of Coliseum Square Association

'Third Phase' of Disaster Recovery: We're On It~jspot.org

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Dimanche


Week 31 Lesson Plans: Louisiana
~Little Acorns


Burma's children 'starving to death' while Junta prospers from aid. IRC death toll est: 148,000

Regime Cronies Win Contracts for Cyclone Reconstruction Work

Sunday From The Porch
~New Orleans Murder Blog


Organizations share water safety information during festival~The Corps of Engineers offered life jacket fittings and free life jackets for children. Uh'oh...

Flood Stage Levels current 'real-time' guage readings~USGS

HARGREAVES SELECTED FOR PHASE ONE OF NEW ORLEANS: REINVENTING THE CRESCENT
Hargreaves Associates has been selected as Lead Designer for Phase One of New Orleans’ Reinventing the Crescent, as part of the team chosen by the
New Orleans Building Corporation.
New Orleans-based Eskew+Dumez+Ripple is Prime and
Executive Architect, for the $116,935,000 budget, with three distinct areas of focus distributed along 4.5 (mi) of the Mississippi River. Hargreaves Associates will translate the 2007 master plan into three design packages geared toward transforming defunct wharves into an ecological park; forging stronger pedestrian connections between the French Quarter’s Jackson Square and the Moonwalk at the river; and retrofitting existing wharf structures into a Marigny/Bywater neighborhood park.
~aka: Poland Ave. Cruise Facility
So here are directions to the neighborhood park'ing:
From the west, take I-10 east to New Orleans, veer left onto I-610, go to Elysian Fields exit. At base of ramp turn right onto Elysian Fields. From the east, take I-10 west and exit at Elysian Fields. At base of ramp continue straight on Elysian Fields. Once on Elysian Fields, go approximately one mile to Rampart St. Go one block further, and make U-turn back to Rampart St., then turn right. Go approximately two miles on Rampart (the name changes to St. Claude Ave.) to Poland Avenue (do not cross bridge) and turn right. Go five blocks to dead end and turn right on Chartres St. Go over the railroad tracks and turn left up ramp to Poland Avenue Cruise Facility. Parking is in lot adjacent to terminal. Parking cost $14 per day for conventional vehicle, $28 per day for oversize vehicles. Please have your cruise ticket available as you will need to show them to enter the lot. Lot is secure, lighted and patrolled.
Green anole lizard-New Orleans Daily Photo.

Of Bratwursts and Beer~NO Bull

1953 New Orleans Rum Recipes Magazine ad

Review of Coops, Dragos, Dante's Kitchen, and Casamentos ~Chowhound

Riding the Dirty Hands Bus~Dean Kennedy on the road with the Dirty Hands Bus helping hurricane victims in
New Orleans.


New Orleans second line parade honors dogs lost in, after Katrina--moved to today!

Gila Rayberg - New Orleans Mosaics
...and all that jazz!~Stacy Alexander

~When you have a minute, cruise around on Gila's great web site.
There seems to be some- thing there for everyone....pictures of her world journeys, more mosaics than you can shake a stick at, art furniture.... workshops....all sorts of fun. Oh, and if you're interested, Gila is available for commissions. Oh, and if you'd like to see even MORE eye candy, Gila has a flickr site as well!


John Rankin to unveil new music during a "Guitar Summit"

City That Care Forgot~Dr. John The Night Tripper has come again to heal our wounded souls with a new CD and a heavy helping of friends like Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson and Ani Di Franco to name a few. Release Date:
June 3rd
Photo: Warehouse

Music Of My Mind: I, Octopus