HumidCity

From the Third World Country of New Orleans to the Third World Country of Dominica and back, the last week or so has been amazing. There are so many parallels and yet so many opposites. You will see poverty there, a few buildings that reminded me of the flood zone, and a seeming distrust of local government. You will also see brightly colored houses, people you don’t know who wave at you on the street, and architecture reminiscent of some of our own.

Those similarities are counterpointed by the differences. There is a higher literacy rate than in the US, there is no crime to speak of, the environment is a top priority to the people and the government, and the cities are not smashed to pieces.The air there is also the cleanest and clearest I have ever breathed, unlike the dust and mold laden atmosphere of NOLA.

So why come back at all? Well for those Scrooges across the US who ask things like “hasn’t Congress paid for all the damage,” and “why build in a flood zone,” I highly recommend Bob Marshall’s excellent article in yesterday’s paper. I also advise it for anyone travelling as you will encounter these questions and it is always good to have the facts with which to fuel an informed response. We are still NOT okay, but it is home.

One thing in particular I found quite telling was a conversation with a rural farmer in the interior. This guy was working over a fire extracting bay oil out in the middle of nowhere, someone who empathized more with our situation than most Americans I have met. After trading a few tales of the last sixteen months his response was that America had treated us the way it treats the rest of the world and that it was thing of evil. Hmmm …

The trip was just what we needed, a respite from the obsessions of modern life in NOLA. We have returned with more fortitude having been reminded of the beauty that remains to be seen in this world. It is a good time to be back, despite the ongoing trials, Mardi Gras preparations are in swing as Twelfth Night aproaches. In addition Liquidrone is playing tonight at One Eyed Jack’s, a treat I get far too infrequently (If you have a love of music this is a MUST SEE!). We will wring some joy from this holiday season in our own self-satirizing way and continue to do what we have done since The Storm: persevere!

This is year two with blue tarps on the roofs and the National Guard in the streets for Xmas, think about that. Consider the people who are facing the cold in buildings with no power or heat, simply to be home for the holidays. Forget the marketing and the ubiquitous merchandising and remember the real spirit of the season. Be kind to someone. Find a New Orleanian, here or in the diaspora, and help them locate the joy misplaced by the Corps of Engineers and FEMA. Embrace this season with the values that are a constant in most religions - be a brother/sister to your fellow man/woman.

A bumper sticker we saw in Dominica says it all: “God Has NO Religion.”

Before we leave I abjure you, as always, to read da po’ blog. The excerpt below is my parting shot befre we leave the Bush Empire for the second part of our honeymoon…

On Friday, while gutting a veteran’s house with the Arabi Wrecking Krewe, an AWOL American soldier mentioned the wars and the recovery but made some connections:

“There are so many engineering units of the U.S. military - they should be here and not Iraq,” Pt. Kyle Snyder, 23, of Colorado Springs, Colo., said Friday.

Instead of flexing our military muscle to destroy buildings and lives in other parts of the world, we could be using that muscle to rebuild cities and lives in this part of the world.

A better world will not come by pointing the barrel of gun at it and commanding it to be better. You have to put the guns down and get in there and work on it.

One year ago:

trying desperately to turn my fear, pain, and shaking hands to good cause I continued to attempt to get an audio record of my fellow New Orleanians during this disaster. By this point I was rather wild eyed and crazy, just like most others.

Having just paid for our honeymoon and wedding, as well as having the Storm fall right before payday, L and I had practically no resources. We knew that wee only had a matter of two or three days in the hotel before we would be completely destitute in a foreign state a long way from home.

http://humidcity.com/2005/08/31/112550809130377077/
Michael Guilliot of Kenner speaks

http://humidcity.com/2005/08/31/112551409023146492/
File With FEMA Now (little did I realize at the time that this would be so useless to so many of us. My own adventures with FEMA, distasteful as they are pale in comparison to what others have experienced in the bungling of the last year.)

One year ago this minute I was crammed in a small car with all five of our cats, my business partner, my finacee, and a lot of general crap. It would be five hours yet before we would finally hit W. Memphis. It was obviously the Storm of the Century, we might even be gone three or four days. Little did we know.

The intervening year has been a tempest of emotion. Suddenly I really have  empathy when I see a natural/man made disaster strike. I mean really have empathy. The visions of Lebanese cities and towns after the bombings, the view of normally arid areas of India submerged, these images almost give me physical pain now. I have seen my friends and family suffer through the devastation. I know people who have died both due to the storm and by their own hand, unable to deal with the aftermath.

Like all the bloggers out there posting on the subject I wanted to put out a magnum opus, a tirade of Homeric proportion which would incite the people of elsewhere to rise up and shout, “Thou shalt not desert our countrymen!” Alas, illness and depression dictate not.

As I sat here, staring at the blank text field which waits for me to fill it’s taunting tabula rasa, I realized that I had no words. At least not the type of words that would fit the gravity of the occasion.

In lieu of the Battle Cry For New Orleans you will have to settle for more personal, simple sentences:

I miss my friends.

I miss streets devoid of looters, rubble, and fear.

I miss having even a shred of faith in the social contract.

After tomorrow the mass media will forget us, and so will the people.

I miss the phrase “oncoming hurricane,” meaning a day off and a beer run.

I can’t believe I’m actually glad the National Guard is back. Yes, me.

My family got here with Bienville, I’m fighting for my home!

Hold the Corps Accountable!

Sinn Fein! We Are NOT Okay! 

Rebuild, Reboot, Renew!

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.

Alan’s Blogometer / The Night Out Against the Night Out Against Crime

This morning it bothers me. My email inbox has invitations, from different neighborhoods, to join them in the Night Out Against Crime. I must respond that I’m going to be at the UNOP meeting. This is the planning meeting where we will be able to hear presentations from the different planning firms. This meeting scheduled in conflict with National Night Out Against crime, from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. It is the only meeting. It is a difficult choice to make, and a crime that we are forced to make it.

This is one of the ways that disorganization and deliberately conflicting scheduling are impeding our rebuilding efforts. The UNOP meeting really had no excuses for its scheduling. After all the Night Out Against crime is well known, well in advance, and very much in people’s minds after the continuing escalation of violence. The number of murders this month is only slightly lower than las year at this time. Not bad unless you factor in the fact that we have only a small percentage of the original population back in Orleans Parish. Take that into account and it has doubled at least.

Just like the Mayoral race, we are given a catch 22. I raise my glass in Joseph Heller’s general direction.

This message is being sent to NOLA bloggers, Louisiana bloggers, Katrina bloggers and those blogging from the Diaspora. The one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans will soon be here. On August 25-27, 2006, there will be a convention for all people who care about New Orleans, here in New Orleans. The Rising Tide Conference is being planned and hosted by bloggers and we are requesting your participation.

The Rising Tide Conference will be a gathering for all who wish to learn more and do more to assist New Orleans’ recovery from the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We will come together to dispel myths, promote facts, share personal testimonies, highlight progress and regress, discuss recovery ideas, and promote sound policies at all levels. We aim to be a “real life” demonstration of internet activism as the nation prepares to mark the one year anniversary of a massive natural disaster followed by governmental failures on a similar scale.  This e-mail is being sent to you to as part of an attempt to create a comprehensive e-mailing list of interested bloggers who would like to participate or attend. In the coming weeks, announcements will be made about venues and events via this list. Please forward this e-mail to anyone who may be interested in the Rising Tide Conference.

A Rising Tide Wiki has been assembled where you can find information, make suggestions, offer help and provide information.

Please go to the Blogger List part of the Wiki and check the entry for your blog and make sure the information is correct. If you see that a blog is missing, please add it to the list.

More information will be coming soon. Check the Wiki for updates.

Thanks from

Kim Marshall
Mark Moseley
Ashley Morris
Maitri Venkat-Ramani
Lisa Palumbo
Peter Athas
Jeffrey B.
Morwen Madrigal
Alan Gutierrez
Ray Shea
George Williams IV
and Blake Haney

Mosquito Farm

Originally uploaded by Humid City.

For those non-New Orleanians out there S&WB stands for Sewege and Water Board. This photo was taken on July 12 in Mid City and is a prime example of New Orleans attitude in action. When you cannot get anything done resort to mockery. (Sometimes if its good mockery it will end up on the news and suddenly someone shows up to fix it….)

My own contribution to the 4th of July can be found in my new Column on Powers and Morrison. In it a bring forth a selection of comments gathered from the local blogosphere as we, the black and blue, contemplate the red, white and blue.

The Flag above is flown according to the flag code for life threatening distress, something we still suffer on a day by day basis here. An excellent commentary on the image and it’s meaning can be found on Firedoglake in Scout Prime’s guest post.
Sinn Fein my lovelies!

Oh, and for those of you who appreciate honest and up front power madness here are some pics from last nights 10th Anniversary show by the Consortium of Genius. See mad scientists rock! See bloggers dance! See Love Zombie rock the Big Top. I even got a small video clip (lousy sound though). I’ll take Pinkerton over Dubya any day!

Chris Rose, our most eloquent voice after The Storm, takes a bike ride along the route of the city’s most famous streetcar/bus line: Desire. A line, alas, that will probably not be returning. It is a heartwrenching tour, especially if you know the neighborhoods and can be read here.

Thanks to AnimaMundi for pointing it out!

BTW- Stella is still missing, Stanley has his hands full with FEMA paperwork, and Blanche is relying on the kindness of strangers somewhere in the midwest…….

Ashley Morris: the blog: Sinn Fein: Ourselves alone

Ronnie Virgets had a great chapter in his book Say Cap entitled Sinn Fein, which means ourselves alone. That’s probably how we’re gonna get outta this mess, by ourselves. I’m not banking on anyone to do anything, because that’s part of the White House stragetizeing: wait us out until we’re bankrupt from mortgages and rent and no jobs, and then buy us out and create vinyl-sided McMansions. I think that they’re forgetting how hard-headed we are, and how we won’t bow down. They ain’t gettin’ nuttin’ from us. Especially Mardi Gras.

We have a good ten months now for that to sink in. A lot more people are taking to heart the folk wisdom of keeping a chainsaw in the attic (in case you have to cut your way out), especially now that they know help will arrive tardy and disorganised if it arrives at all.

I have been meaning to blog about this for a few days but have not really been able to compose my thoughts. Then I read Scout Prime’s post on First Draft about the NOLA Bloggers, and she mentions it there. Sinn Fein it is.

The Spanish regime burned us to the ground. The only building left was Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop (now a bar). We came back from that. as Johnny Sketch and The Dirty Notes said onstage at Tip’s this evening, “New Orleans is the funkiest city on Earth!” That fact, is anything, will be our salvation.