HumidCity

Go figure, people are people warts and all no matter where you go. This one is the first of many dedicated to those who continue to excoriate us rather than assist. It is not a hand out that we want or need. It is a hand up.

In that spirit allow me to shout about whats going on in Iowa. For them it is a manner of weeks since their flood, not the years we have had to navigate the dilirium, for them the red tape and greed factors are only just rearing their heads.

Via Iowa’s Gazette Online (hat tip to the inimitable Karen Gadbois for the this first one):

CEDAR RAPIDS � Three more residents have been accused of fraudulently claiming to be flood victims in order to receive money from the American Red Cross � taking more than $3,000 in assistance.

Patrice Howard, 36, and Willie Morris, 38, both of 1200 First Ave. SE, Apt. 1, were arrested this week on charges of second-degree theft, police said.

On June 21, the two gave Red Cross officials their previous address of 1806 M St. SW and said they lost their home in the flood. Investigators later found that house was not damaged by the flood.

For those keeping count that make seven so far in Cedar Rapids. I really feel for them, even a pale spectral version of what happened to our Crescent City is more than I would wish on anyone. It is close enough however that I can see the same pattern of news stories developing: thievery, red tape, failure of infrastructure. Just like home in that respect.

Wait, did I say red tape? Lets check back in on the Gazette, different article this time:

I called up John Gillick, who was flooded out of his house on 10th Street NW two months ago this week. His home was trashed, his Ellis Harbor boathouse was smashed, and the cops had his flooded car towed before he could get back into his neighborhood. He’s given up trying to get it back.

Still, Gillick is remarkably positive. I caught up with him Wednesday morning as he and his wife were moving into a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer in Hiawatha.

“It’s good and it’s bad,” said Gillick, who’s happy to have a place to live but laments how he got here. “At least it’s a place to stay.”

He figures the decision to pull out dozens of moldy FEMA trailers extended his wait for housing. “Tell Patty Judge thanks,” one of his moving helpers yells, referring to the lieutenant governor’s snap, late-night order last month to remove the tainted trailers.

Gillick’s house also has been on a bureaucratic roller-coaster ride. First it was yellow-carded. Then yellow turned to that infamous shade of purple. Then, for some reason, purple turned back to yellow. He’s weighing the costs of rebuilding or renovation or putting in a modular home. But for now, like a lot of people, he’s just waiting for the feds, state and city to make some key decisions.

Right now Katrina is on everyone’s mind (at least here on the Gulf where there is no choice), in the spirit of generosity shown to us by those who came from states away to help while the official effort floundered I would like to advise readers to remember all the victims of infrastructure failure across the country.

Levees are everywhere.

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

For a look at the buzz that is starting already about the “democratic process,” in place  and how easily hacked it is. Read the comments under the original post Alan’s Blogometer » How You Can Rig the UNOP Election

I’ve voted three times in the UNOP planner poll. I did so to see that I could. It was easy for me. I don’t have to do anything special to create email addresses. My email server lets me make up fake address to catch spam. All I do is type them out. I have a dozen accounts anyway.

Please, don’t accuse me of election fraud. There is nothing legal about an online poll. This is not an election. There is no voter roll. There is no definition of who has franchise. They’ve changed the rules as they went along, in response to the many complaints. It’s the election that is the fraud.

All you need in order to vote to choose your planner on the the UNOP web site is a valid email address. This means that anyone with an email address can vote in this process. They do not have to be a resident of New Orleans.

How will we be able to verify that a given email address belongs to a particular neighborhood and district, let alone to New Orleans? (Answer, you can’t.) How will we be able to independently verify the results? (Answer, it’s too late.)

For some people it’s easy to create as many email addresses as they would like. They can vote as many times as they would like.

Yet for many citizens of New Orleans, obtaining an email address, or getting access to a computer is now a major challenge.

The UNOP has managed to develop a polling system that is trivially easy to fool, while at the same time extremely exclusive and difficult to use.

Any reasonable technology professional would be honest about how unscientific online polls are. They should only be used for entertainment purposes. (This process could hardly be considered entertaining.)

If all of our efforts in this democratic process are to be captured in what amounts to a web site’s guest book, I have no problem with that. But please, stop calling this a “democratic process”. Let’s let this be the final insult to democracy.

Our planners will be appointed. What’s wrong with that?

See: Outsourcing Democracy for further discussion, and How You Can Rig the UNOP Election.

In the Golden age of MC Bush and the Neocons abridgement of Democracy is standard policy. Unfortunately that seems to have communicated itself to the New Orleans level as Alan points out in his post on Outsourcing democracy.

Think New Orleans / Outsourcing Democracy

The citizens of New Orleans have been asked to choose the planners that will guide them through the process of developing a city wide plan for rebuilding. The method to record the response of the neighborhoods is an online poll. The online poll is open to fraud.

* Suffrage is determined by the possession of an email address.
** For many residents an email address is very difficult to obtain.
** For anyone with knowledge of email, infinite unique addresses can be generated instantly.
* An email address does not define a resident of New Orleans.
** Anyone can vote without any indication of residency in New Orleans, let alone a specific neighborhood or planning district within New Orleans.
** Anyone on the Internet can vote, even people living in other countries.

It is a childish implementation of a poll, easily gamed, impossible to verify.

This voting is being conducted under the contract of an architectural firm, Concordia, LLC. It presents and obvious conflict of interest.

(Emphasis mine-Loki) Read the rest here! Now obviously I am a silicon geek, I’m a blogger after all, but even so the idea of using a purely internet based system for something like this would not have been practical even before the Storm. New Orleans has famously eschewed internet and email in favor of the more face to face approach that is a hallmark of our Euopean/Afro-Carribean culture.

The reason I actively support ThinkNOLA is because it is one of the only technology based efforts that actaully recognizes this, yet conitunes to use the digital arsenal available for positive change. This poll is not only blissfully unaware of this divide, but has all the relaibility of a Diebold voting machine!

Please read Alan’s full post. If it outrages you as much as it did me then take action. Call them on the bullshit, its vital.

EDIT: This in from New Orleans Indy Media

It’s unclear just how much the various planning firms that are selected in this process will truly incorporate the needs and desires of the residents represented. But the biggest problem of all with the process thus far is its lack of true democratic participation. With almost half of the city’s population still missing, with renters, public housing residents, and residents of the worst hit neighborhoods distracted by more mundane concerns like returning home, securing employment, a roof over their heads, or cleaning up property that Mayor Nagin will otherwise deem blighted within a month, it would appear that most resident of the Big Easy simply don’t have the resources to participate. Full Article Here.