Saturday, May 23, 2009

Samedi

Real Men Wear Pink Boxers
~David Bauder
~Spc. Zachary Boyd (in pink boxers) keeps watch from behind sandbags at his post in Afghanistan's Kunar province. "I was always telling him to pull up his pants," Sheree Boyd recalls. "I would give him a wedgie to make him do it. As a mom, you want your son to look nice. But he has always been one to run around in his boxers."
If Spc. Boyd wasn't mortified to appear in boxers on the front page of The New York Times, he might be when he hears his mother talking about wedgies.

Mistruths abound
~Thanks Katrina

~And recently, Congressman Joseph Cao sent a letter to President Obama stating "Charity Hospital was completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina..."
I'm not sure why a Congressman would make such an inaccurate statement unless he's in cahoots with the "let's build shiny new hospital" krewe. Shame on him if he is.

Corps increases levee inspection as the Mississippi River rises

Liprap's Lament - The Line

Me/Us and New Orleans
~Captains Dead


Liberty University Disappoints: Where's David Horowitz?
~The Huck Upchuck


Columbine~Citizen K

New Orleans transplant, neighbor serve up cold, refreshing summer treats with latest Loveland business venture
~Shelley Widhalm


Expert restoring Corps'flood-damaged antiques
~Ellen Couvillion


A Commonplace Thing
~Loren Scwerd's Katrina houses. "My current project, Mourning Portrait, began as a series of memorials to the communities of New Orleans that were devastated by the federal levee breaches that followed Hurricane Katrina. These commemorative objects are made from human hair extensions of the type commonly used by African-American women that I found outside the St. Claude Beauty Supply store," says Schwerd. "The series began with the small houses. Working from my own photographs, I create metal armatures that act as frameworks for weaving the hair into portraits of the vacant houses of the Ninth Ward neighborhood. By documenting private homes, I venerate the city's losses, both individual and collective."

Shotgun: Part 2 of post-Katrina drama trilogy~Susan Larson

The 2010 NEA Jazz Masters
~Rifftindes


Percussionist Anthony Cuccia on the creative souls behind The Other Planets~Chris Rose

Boon on the Bayou: Greek Festival New Orleans and Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo great way to enjoy holiday weekend
~Molly Reid


Charlotte *luvs* 101 Runners
~casa de Charlotte della luna


New Album from Buckwheat Zydeco Lays His 'Burden Down' ~Interview with NPR
~Buckwheat's Website
(And for all da'peoples fightin'wars in pink boxers!:)

Friday, May 22, 2009

Vendredi

Seismic testing of levees approved ~Sheila Grissett
~Regional levee commissioners agreed Thursday to use $30,000 worth of seismic testing to investigate potential trouble spots.
The work, which involves dropping weights on a levee section and timing the arrival of reverberations at various points, will start on a small patch of Metairie levee several hundred feet east of the Suburban Pump Station. Corps officials have been investigating that area, which periodically gets wet when it should remain dry.
The testing will be done by Juan Lorenzo, an LSU associate professor of geology and geophysics, who has adapted long-accepted technology used in energy exploration to solving levee-related problems, said Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East Commissioner George Losonsky.

Bohemia Spillway bill OK'd by panel~Robert Travis Scott

Landrieu urges disaster dollars formula~Jonathan Tilove
~With hurricane season on the horizon, Landrieu said local officials are no better off than they were before Katrina in knowing what recovery help they can count on from Washington during another catastrophe, and are left to wonder, "if my city is destroyed, what is it that I can expect? Right now, no one knows. It shouldn't be that way."

Provocative New Collection of Testimonies on Flood of '05
“Katrina: Eyes Have Not Seen, Ears Have Not Heard: The Story of How an American City was taken Under Siege by powerful forces in Government”
~Gavin Richard challenges readers to question the events surrounding Katrina - the role of racism, capitalism and politics - by chronicling the events that occurred before, after and during this tragic event.
“This book will appeal to readers because the images of the water and the people on their rooftops still ring in our heads,”
writes Richard.
“People sat there in shock when the levees broke and couldn’t believe what they were seeing. They never would have thought that this could have happened to American citizens. ‘Katrina: Eyes Have Not Seen, Ears Have Not Heard’ helps provide some type of closure for those that are from the Gulf Coast and others who still have questions on their minds as to what happened.”


Over 4,000 Petition signatures supporting Ivor van Heerden sent to LSU Chancellor
Last month, in response to public outrage over Louisiana State University's decision to terminate Dr. Ivor van Heerden, Levees.org posted a petition on its website.
This morning, Levees.org sent an excel sheet listing over 4,000 petition signatures to LSU Chancellor Mike Martin in support of Dr. van Heerden.

The handing over of the signatures comes on the heels of a meeting between Dr. van Heerden and a representative of the Governor Bobby Jindal's office. Dr. van Heerden says he discussed the potential of his collaborating with the Governor's Office of Coastal Activities in the future.

In 2005, Dr. van Heerden led a team of independent geotechnical engineers who investigated the levee failures in metro New Orleans after Katrina. Van Heerden was openly critical about the design and construction mistakes by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Observers believe that has caused LSU officials to worry that federal funding might be put in jeopardy.

In addition to the petition, Levees.org had launched a letter campaign to Governor Jindal who received over 1,000 letters from Louisiana constituents urging him to talk to the Chancellor and ask him to reconsider.
Levees.org also held a rally at LSU Health Science Center in New Orleans that drew dozens of chanting protesters.

Next week, Levees.org director Sandy Rosenthal and research director HJ Bosworth Jr. will travel to the Netherlands with Senator Mary Landrieu on a congressional delegation visit to see the Dutch world-class integrated water management system.
Look for the story tonight on Fox 8 evening news.

Lawsuit Aims to Prevent Razing of New Orleans Historic District
~Shawn Kennedy


New Orleans May Get Major Green Space In Middle Of City ~BBuzz

Why is this man smiling? ~slabbed
~"He looks more like an everyday smiler to me, a generally pleasant person, not one who saves smiles for special occasions. I hope so as he is none other than L.T. Senter, Judge for the Federal Court, Southern District of Mississippi – and king of Katrina litigation on the Coast."

Witness Says State Farm Didn’t Thoroughly Investigate Katrina Claims

MS Gov. Barbour urges increase in recovery aid, was for it before he was against it before he was for it again?

Economist predicts rapidly hardening Insurance market
~Steven Weisbart, chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, speaking on a webinar hosted by Advisen, a New York-based research firm, likened the potential impact for the insurance market from proposed reforms in financial regulation to the steep hard-market price push following rating agencies’ changes adopted after Hurricane Katrina.

Five boaters in Dularge wreck identified~Daily Comet

Darrell Bourque reappointed as Louisiana's Poet Laureate
~Susan Larson


Cajun Heartland State Fair: Filled with fun~Cody Daigle

Tipitina's set to host 'Musicians Bringing Musicians Home V'

Bayou Boogaloo and music galore keep us attuned
and in tune~Geraldine Wyckoff


Thursday, May 21, 2009

Jeudi

Rumsfeld ripped on Katrina
~Gerard Sheilds
~Former Gov. Kathleen Blanco on Wednesday called for a congressional investigation in response to a news account contending that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld prevented federal troops from responding to Hurricane Katrina for five days.
Blanco said she asked for federal troops from the outset of the storm’s landfall. Marines and Army infantry didn’t arrive until the weekend after New Orleans flooded, she said.
“I thought something was going to happen and it never did,”
Blanco said. “It was like we were being blocked out.”

Industrial Canal job to be late, corps says~Sheila Grissett
~Interim storm surge protection for '09 in the Industrial Canal won't be finished as planned by the peak of hurricane season late this summer, Army Corps of Engineers official PR confirmed.

Coastal chief eases concerns
~Mark Schleifstein

~More than 400 New Orleans residents veto Army Corps of Engineers pump plan

Two reps from Levees.org to accompany Senator Mary Landrieu to the Netherlands

U.S. Coast Guard stresses hurricane awareness

Gulf of Mexico low growing more organized~Jeff Masters

New Orleans moves to sell bonds to fund rebuilding~Alan Sayre

Federal indictments handed down today in New Orleans area
~Arlene Culpepper


"Welcome to New Orleans", said the black hooker shoe.
~Von Trapper Keeper


What Would Cheezus Do? ~slabbed

Slave recalls her time spent in Louisiana~Bill Ellzy

Garage sale Saturday to benefit St. Francis Animal Sanctuary
~Sheila Stroup


Lazy Magnolia Brewing Company
~The Dieline


Welcome to the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience

New York Loses Its Jazz Festival ~Ben Sisario

Vagabond Opera: The Zeitgeist Beckons~Here Comes the Flood

Queensryche and more music in New Orleans tonight!
~Keith Spera


Midnite Disturbers
~Trevor C. Jones


Help Madd Wikkid Further The NOLA Sound!
~The New Orleans Bingo! Show

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Mercredi

Neighbor takes care of Bayou Terrebonne ~Naomi King
~A self-described jack-of-all-trades,
Ed Jackson has made special tools to help him fish ice chests, doors, tires, tree limbs and grass out of Bayou Terrebonne.

Massive Corps Project To Address West Bank Flooding ~WDSU

Halliburton Whistleblower Gagged by US Army Corps of Engineers after Testifying in Congress
~Bunnatine H. Greenhouse


LEAP scores released today show marked improvement for New Orleans public schools
~Sarah Carr


EPA finds suspect materials in foreign drywall~Cain Burdeaux

Hope Yet For Flood Safety
Dear Editilla,
Last month, Dr. Ivor van Heerden, the coastal scientist who led the state's independent Team Louisiana investigation into the levee failures after Katrina, was given notice by Louisiana State University that he would be dismissed in one year.

But today there is encouraging news.
Dr. van Heerden has met with a member of the Governor's office who inquired about his issues at Louisiana State University and discussed the potential of Dr. van Heerden's collaborating with the Governor's Office on Coastal Activities in the future.

Your efforts made a difference!
But this is not a "done deal," so if you haven't yet, please take action for your safety!
There are two things you can do!

1.
Sign a petition <-Click here to urge the LSU Chancellor to reconsider his decisions.
2.
Send a letter to Governor Jindal <-Click here and ask him to urge the LSU Chancellor to reconsider.

DEADLINE IS MIDNIGHT THURSDAY MAY 21.
On Friday morning we shall present the petition signatures to the Chancellor of LSU.


Click here for more on Ivor van Heerden's firing from LSU.


Thank you for your help in making sure the citizens of south LA are safe!

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.org
New Orleans Headquarters
www.levees.org


California Chapter~kc.costa@levees.org
Florida Chapter~DrLevine@levees.org
Illinois Chapter~derbes@levees.org
~Follow us on Twitter!


Louisiana Governor Jindal and Legislatures: See No Evil,
Tell No Evil
~Stephen Sabludowsky


Hump'Day Dump'dee ~Slabbed

There's more than one queen of mean in this deck~Moldy City

New Orleans Public Schools: Still Under Water?~David Parker Jr.

Nicolas Cage Cuts Price On New Orleans Estate

New Orleans~Solar

Old New Orleans star shines bright again~Don Ames

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Mardi

New Orleans Lands Superbowl! For 2013~BBuzz

A Katrina mystery explained
~Paul Krugman

~Editilla Notellas~ As it rolls and bowls, we will try to carry just a bit more the different takes on this story of who left us to die in New Orleans. Out of that entire GQ article about current history's Biggest Fuctard, the reality of 8/29/05 is rising to the top as one of the 3 major points of discussion.
Hence, we enjoy the way the comments section here at the NYT comes from all over. It is gratifying to see how so many other Americans still wonder the same thing: Who made that Call on 8/29? Everyone in the country saw that. Everyone saw the Bush Administration leave 1000s of our citizens to die.

100-Year Flood Protection Near, But Is It Enough?~WDSU
~"There is a couple of areas where they are slipping a bit. But by in large I think we're in pretty good shape," said Billy Marchal, an engineer with the Flood Protection Alliance.

Disaster recovery flawed
~Todd Dorman

~Will it be the oatmeal box heard ’round the world?
I’m referring to media kits sent recently to the nation’s major news outlets with hopes of drumming up interest in Cedar Rapids’ continued struggle to recover from the flood of 2008.
Inside a familiar cylindrical Quaker oatmeal box with a Cedar Rapids Flood Story label, local public relations pros stuffed a book filled with story ideas, brochures, a small USB computer flash drive with flood videos, a Quaker snack bar and a box of soy milk to wash it down. Just think what those oats might do.
There’s no good reason why struggling Americans in one part of the country should be forced to compete against hurting Americans in another region for federal resources. Stricken communities should not feel the need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire lobbyists just to plead their cases. Instead of an efficient, responsive system, we get an ill-fitting, politicized bureaucratic hodgepodge. We’re not crying for a handout or a bailout. We simply want promises made to be promises swiftly kept. The fact that it’s not fixed years after Katrina is hard to swallow. Even with soy milk.

Donelon works with FEMA to secure insurance waivers for government, nonprofits
~Rebecca Mowbray


First Invest of the year peters out; Florida gets soaked
~Jeff Masters


New Orleans Rep. Abramson Talks Louisiana Ethics, Budget ~BBuzz

Kathy Reidlinger, NOLA Charter Schools' Top Scammer
~Schools Matter


Interrupted Frequencies
~New Orleans Murder Blog


Interview with New Orleans Chef John Besh~Seattle Tall Poppy

Andre Williams And The New Orleans Hellhounds - Can You Deal With It? ~Steady Bloggin

New Orleans Indie Rock Collective presents Park the Van showcase June 12th
~Static Television


Anders Osborne, Lucky One
~Captain's Dead

Monday, May 18, 2009

Lundi

Obama to New Orleans:
Drop Dead?~Harry Shearer


Measuring delta health on a global scale~Lacoastpost
~I wonder if the change from a “smoother” coastline to the more “birdsfoot” river-dominated morphology has mostly to do with the land use changes? That is,
a more restricted river course would preclude frequent avulsions and construction of the distributive dispersal pattern.
A more restricted river course would result in more spatially focused growth. I don’t know … just thinking out loud.

Army Corps PR belies safe water levels in canals
~Sheila Grissett


Landrieu Leads Second CODEL To Netherlands to Study Dutch Flood Protection ~Levees.org

Comment period for "Big Straw" extended until July 27
~hummingbirdminds


Gathering extratropical storm set to drench Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas~Dr. Jeff Masters

Report on Interim LSU Public Hospital says costs too high, efficiency too low~Jan Moller

LSU System to cut 300 jobs at New Orleans public hospital

New Orleans to Promote City’s Bio-Boom

Disaster Capitalism Paying Off Big for Charter School CEOs in New Orleans~Schools Matter

Monday Revival~slabbed

They laugh alike, they walk alike, At times they even talk alike
~Firedoglake
~Editilla can't help it... nice to know we scooped one of our Big Fav Blogs yesterday morning. Sure did.
Rumsfeld threw truck-size obstacles in the way of deploying troops to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Claiming that there’d be problems with “unity of command,” Rumsfeld was adamant that only the National Guard be sent out—but they were slow in arriving and did little to stem the chaos. Bush snapped at him for the disorder in a meeting about the situation: “Rumsfeld, what the hell is going on there? Are you watching what’s on television? Is that the United States of America or some Third World nation I’m watching? What the hell are you doing?” Five days after the hurricane hit, Bush told Rumsfeld he had to deploy troops. “If we had put those troops in on Thursday, the narrative of Katrina would be a very different one,” one senior official said. ~Daily Dish

Michael Dell ordered to testify in New Orleans case

Making Butter at Home
~Serious Eats


Artist Jonathan Blum restores rabbi mural on St. Roch Avenue
~Doug MacCash


NolaFunk Lagniappe

Swing Territory, Part II
~3quarksdaily

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Dimanche

ObamaBush, Obushama...
--The Can'churian Candidate--
(Hell, we no longer know what to call this... Promise Breaker) EPA "fixes" 42 of 48 new tortuous mountaintop removal mining permits!~Ken Ward Jr.

~The Obushama administration has cleared more than three dozen new mountaintop removal permits for issuance by the Corps of Engineers, drawing quick criticism from environmental groups who had hoped the new president would halt the controversial practice. ~More rape scene photos here.
~Editilla gotta ax~What Is Wrong With This Picture?
At least 2000 acres of stripped mountain top in the photo above, at least. So the Promise Breaker has now approved the stripping of well over 85,000 ACRES of NEW STRIP MINES? HELLO?
Judas fuck me with a broom! How is this "Clean Coal"?
Looks like a goddamn heinously stupid tar baby pit to me!
We voted with such Hope ---but we get nothing but DOPE!!!
Editilla would apologize for my foul language here. But I cannot, having voted for this Promise Breaker. I thought I voted for more than simply an end to the Bush Status Que (BSQ).
The last thing
I expected this administration to do would be to Expand Strip Mining! However, it appears that our great Hope offers nothing more than another Rope from which the fossil fuels industry can hang us again and again. Great. Just Fucking Great. Oh well... whoever said anything about Peace, Love and Understanding probably did not understand the difference between Politics and Governance, unlike Presidente Bush --who, it should be noted, never said anything as stupidly can-can Bourgeois Naivety as the "Audacity of Hope"--and not once misunderestimated the Power of Moloch to Change the World.

Drove my Chevy to the Katrina Canal Breaches Consolidated Litigation (part 1) ~slabbed
~Today is the day we start the mind-boggling task of looking at the Katrina Canal Breaches Consolidated Litigation.
Inclusive of Robinson v US Army Corps of Engineers, MRGO, we begin with an examination of the impressive infrastructure of the case established in Case Management Order Number 1:
Protocol for Case Management.
Please click pic to enlarge.

New study has found that 67% of the fatalities in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit resulted from direct impacts of the flooding that occurred when the levees collapsed.
~Mortality rates were highest in areas near levee breaches, particularly the severe breaches in the Lower 9th Ward where flooding occurred extremely rapidly and the velocity of the water caused drowning and collapsed buildings.
In all, 518 out of the analyzed 771 deaths in New Orleans resulted from direct exposure to the flooding, according to the results of the study “Loss of Life Caused by the Flooding of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina: Analysis of the Relationship Between Flood Characteristics and Mortality,” which is reported in the May issue of the peer-reviewed journal Risk Analysis, published by the Society for Risk Analysis.

Terrebonne Parish releases draft of emergency plan~Naomi King

AND HE SHALL BE JUDGED
~Robert Draper

~Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has always answered his detractors by claiming that history will one day judge him kindly. But as he waits for that day, a new group of critics—his administration peers—are suddenly speaking out for the first time. What they’re saying? It isn’t pretty.
“What Rumsfeld was most effective in doing,” says a former senior White House official, “was not so much undermining a decision that had yet to be made as finding every way possible to delay the implementation of a decision that had been made and that he didn’t like.”
A final story of Rumsfeld’s intransigence begins on Wednesday, August 31, 2005.
Two days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans—and the same day that Bush viewed the damage on a flyover from his Crawford, Texas, retreat back to Washington—a White House advance team toured the devastation in an Air Force helicopter. Noticing that their chopper was outfitted with a search-and-rescue lift, one of the advance men said to the pilot, “We’re not taking you away from grabbing people off of rooftops, are we?” “No, sir,” said the pilot. He explained that he was from Florida’s Hurlburt Field Air Force base—roughly 200 miles from New Orleans—which contained an entire fleet of search-and-rescue helicopters. “I’m just here because you’re here,” the pilot added. “My whole unit’s sitting back at Hurlburt, wondering why we’re not being used.”
The search-and-rescue helicopters were not being used because Donald Rumsfeld had not yet approved their deployment—even though, as Lieutenant General Russ Honoré, the cigar-chomping commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, would later tell me, “that Wednesday, we needed to evacuate people. The few helicopters we had in there were busy, and we were trying to deploy more.

Sunday Funnies~Citizen K

Joe Longo's "warning to us all"
~Library Chronicles
~Longo's main trick is to compare Stacy Head's widely-discussed "Wal-Mart" email with a Salon.com blog entry by local art gallery employee Leeandra Nolting elegantly entitled, A Guide to the Douchebags Who Come Into My Gallery. That's right. We're reading someone start with the ridiculous assumption that the statements of a public official are weighted equally with those of some art-chick's blog entries and then run with that.

James Carville has returned to Louisiana~Allan M. Johnson Jr.

Planting a perennial border in New Orleans~Colleen Smith

Sidewalks~Squandered Heritage

Pittsburgh's GTECH Strategies helps to remake New Orleans
~Bill Toland


Swiss Roll With a Simple Raspberry Filling~Tung in Cheek

Savory, Spicy Yams
~In Gillette's Kitchen



Louisiana Gets Crafty
~MissMalaprop


Day at Arthur Roger,
McGarrell at Heriard-Cimino
~Inside Art New Orleans


Gibsland aims for success with Bonnie and Clyde Fest
~Cynthia V. Campbell


Buddy Montgomery Is Gone
~Rifftides