Interesting Sites

I'll be out of town on bid-ness this week, so I'm leaving a few links to interesting sites and information

A pictoral tour of Tulane Avenue in NOLA, 1+ years post Katrina


NOPD's "youtube" flik of Katrina's aftermath (thanks to adrastos)

Clayton Cubitt's portraits If you haven't ever seen it, take the time. You won't be sorry.

Ashley's post on the Saints latest win.

Some answers to why New Orleans is worth rebuilding

Schroeder's latest thoughts...always worth reading

Flood Markers in New Orleans?

Ideas on inclusion POSITIVE NOLA news items in local blogs.

A complete listing of NOLA - area bloggers. Bookmark it!

5 and 1

Bless you Boys!!!

Sun 9/10 at Cleveland W 19-14
Sun 9/17 at Green Bay W 34-27
Mon 9/25 Atlanta W 23-3
Sun 10/1 at Carolina L 18-21
Sun 10/8 Tampa Bay W 24-21
Sun 10/15 Philadelphia W 27-24

VOW FEST

VOICE OF THE WETLANDS FESTIVAL

Southdown Plantation
October 13-15th...FREE ADMISSION

It’s important to keep the festival free to the public, so the information about the wetlands crisis is available to everyone,” Rueben Williams, festival promoter and VOW member explains. Donations throughout the year’s benefit events, along with sponsorship, have kept the festival running the two previous years.

Friday, October 13 - Festival Kicks Off at 5:30pm (festival hours 5:30pm to 10pm) – Community involvement and national initiatives are being addressed throughout the weekend with political stump speeches kicking off the festival Friday evening. Local politicians and wetland experts are invited to take the stage and share what actions are taking place and the involvements necessary for results. Exhibitors are being sought to provide information for the festival-goers to learn about the wetlands.

Festivities follow with the X-Treme Guitar Showdown featuring Tab Benoit. He’s inviting special guests to join him on stage for an unyielding dose of blues, rock and roots music.

Saturday & Sunday All Day Events (festival hours 12:00pm to 10pm both days) – The festival swings into full gear with local, regional and national music acts based in Louisiana’s diverse musical roots and culture. Performances include Louisiana LeRoux, Cyril Neville and Tribe 13, The Chubby Carrier Band, The Treater Band, The Waylon Thibodeaux Band, Southern Cross, The Pershing Wells Louisiana Songwriting Revue, The Dream Junkies and The Hurricane Levee Band.

VOW Allstars, which include
Tab Benoit
Anders Osborne
Johnny Sansone
Cyril Neville
George Porter Jr.
Waylon Thibodeaux
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux

Festival promoters are also excited to announce Dr. John (Mac Rebennack) will take the stage with Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars as part of Sunday evening’s finale. Prior to the hurricanes, the VOW All-Stars were already working together to raise awareness of coastal erosion. Their message has become even more critical now than before with the threat of losing this area’s unique culture, heritage, wildlife, people and way of life. Each one of the musicians involved in the project appreciates the influence that Louisiana has had on them musically.

Scuzz-buckette of the week

from CNN
LAWRENCEVILLE, Georgia (AP) -- The "runaway bride," who took off days before her lavish wedding in 2005, is suing her former fiance for $500,000, claiming he defrauded her out of her share of their assets, including a ladder, a gold sofa and gifts.
ugh...a gold sofa?


Google eyed Jennifer Wilbanks is seeking $250,000 as her share of a home she says John C. Mason purchased through the partnership with proceeds from $500,000 received for selling their story to Regan Media in New York.
gold digging bitch

She also wants $250,000 in punitive damages for alleged abuse of the power of attorney she granted for Mason to handle their financial affairs.
She is seeking the return of personal property she claims he has kept, including the ladder that belonged to her father, a gold sofa and wedding shower gifts. Mason's attorney in July wrote to Wilbanks attorney that his client had agreed to deliver those items.

Wilbanks and Mason broke up for good in May, about a year after her excursion to Las Vegas and New Mexico made international headlines while hundreds of friends and family members searched for her back home in suburban Atlanta.


This little money hungry bitch. I hope she enjoys sitting on her tacky gold sofa alone for the rest of her google-eyed life.

Again, my blog, my opinion.

Go Guard!

Guard soldier shoots driver in torso
He thought cell phone was gun, officer says


The guardsman, Sgt. Robert Lawrence, was patrolling in the 1400 block of Arts Street, near N. Robinson Street on Monday about 4:30 p.m. when he was flagged down by a man who said a driver had just run over his friend, said Maj. Ed Bush, a Guard spokesman. Lawrence then spotted the vehicle, "driving crazy," and pulled the driver over, Bush said. When the driver got out, he began waving an object the soldier believed was a gun, Bush said. Lawrence told the man three times to drop his weapon and get down on the ground. Bush said. The man refused, and Lawrence shot him, Bush said.
So the perpertator was trying to tell the National Guard officer there was a call for him?

Bush said investigating officers found evidence to indicate that someone may have been run over, but he could not specify what that evidence was.
no screaming, squished person?


It is the first time a patrolling soldier has discharged his weapon while on temporary assignment in New Orleans, National Guard spokesman, Lt. Col. Pete Schneider said.

And it's about time! Not that I'm for shootin up the populus, but these sons of bitches driving like crazy, running over people, not listening to an officer of the law deserve this kind of treatment. I'm tired of listening to the ACLU, the NAACP, PETA and all those wimpy-snot-nosed-civil-libertarians-who-need-to-get-a-life stick up for this kind of trash.

"It turned out to be a cell phone, but it looked like a gun," Bush said. "Everything looks good on the question of whether the soldier did the right thing. But he'll go through all the procedures that any cop would. He'll see a psychologist and a chaplain, and the case will be investigated and forwarded to the DA"

He should get a promotion.

Here's a story of another hero of mine!


All opinions expressed are my own. If you don't like them, go away and don't come back.

An escape

My honey and I had a mutual day off on Friday and decided to check out Fountainbleu State Park to see how it made out from Katrina. It's not open to the public yet. Well, you can camp out there, but you can't visit the park. Apparently several hundred trees were taken down by the storm.

Less than a mile down the road toward Mandeville is the Northlake Nature Center , a four-hundred acre park that is absolutely beautiful. (click on the pictures below to see the full sized version)




This park offers the opportunity to witness four different ecosystems AND a first hand look at an historic example of crooked Louisiana politicians.

At the end of the initial boardwalk, you will come to an unfinished "hideaway" club house



As stated in the photo below, this exclusive hideaway golf course initially was the idea of Louisiana Governor Leche in the late 1930's for his political cronies.




Leche and several of his cronies were indicted in what were termed the "Louisiana Scandals"

The hideaway fell to disrepair and is now unaccessible to tourists.




Beyond this piece of history is lush, serene swampland and forest.



The boardwalk crosses what is purported to be an active beaver pond



But on this day we only spotted friendly turtles



There are several benches along the boardwalks and paths through the woods.


This area seems to be where they hold nature seminars or perhaps is used for the yearly Great Louisiana Birdfest that happens here.

We spotted this cypress at the edge of the pond.


Notice how the lower branches are bent down as a result of Katrina's winds.

We journeyed into Madisonville and visited Fairview Riverside State Park, aptly named.

Located on the banks of the very pretty Tchefuncte (shi-funk-ta) River,
It offers camping, picnicing, fishing and beautiful landscapes.






At the entrance to the park is an old mansion - Otis House.



Originally built in the 1880s as the family home for sawmill owner William Theodore Jay, it was later purchased and renovated in the 1930s by Frank Otis, serving as his summer home until his death in 1962. Mr. Otis left the property to the State of Louisiana to be developed into a recreational site for visitors. The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

We managed to leave Katrina behind for one beautiful afternoon. Well worth the trip.

Nagin-ites

All you wacko's who reelected Ray Nagin, you're getting your just desserts.

Not only is he unethical , it comes to light today that he wants his constituents to vote for another unethical politician

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who rarely misses an opportunity to tout his efforts to rid City Hall of corruption, said Thursday that he will enthusiastically urge voters to re-elect U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, the target of a sprawling federal bribery probe that has cost the veteran congressman his seat on an influential House committee

I'm going to keep an eye on the comings and goings of the two companies who were just awarded a $25M contract for garbage pickup. I'm wondering if this has any connection to the riff between Ray Ray and the Waste Management company regarding the Chef Menteur landfill. Just casual speculation here. But it looks like I'm not the only curious one.

And let us not forget the constant black eyes we get every time he opens his mouth

For more evidence of this man's incompetence, see this link

Read Ghosts of the Flood

Mark Folse has written a beautiful post.

The ghost of the Flood is now a part of who we are. Ultimately it doesn’t matter if it is ectoplasm or the synchronized firing of a million neurons in ways science does not yet understand. In the end we have to come to term with it. This is something that we as Orleanians, the people who live next to our dead in their exclusive farbourgs of marble and white-washed stone, should be able to do.


Here is the link
Wet Bank Guide: Ghosts of the Flood

Help for NOFD

For some reason the City of NOLA does not want to pay their firefighters any more than what pimple-faced kids make at Burger King.

Well, SOMEONE cares....

from the Times Picayune


With nearly half its firehouses still in a state of disrepair, the New Orleans Fire Department on Wednesday received a $100,000 grant from the Leary Firefighters Foundation to repair three of its facilities.

The foundation also supplied the department with 15 flat-bottom rescue boats valued at about $100,000.

Created in 1999 by actor-comedian Denis Leary after a firefighter cousin was killed in a Massachusetts warehouse blaze, the foundation has dedicated itself to providing for firefighters across the country. Leary said Wednesday that the storm-battered NOFD and its firefighters, like many other departments, are "underfunded," "underappreciated" and "always the last guys that get help."

Thanks, Mr. Leary!

Chris Rose

Chris Rose
Eternal Dome nation
The symbolic and economic significance of the Superdome's reopening has been lost on many in America. So we'll say this one more time for anyone who still doesn't get it: It's the recovery, stupid.

Chris tries to answer the question

Why are people from other places spending so much effort to tell us that, as a community, we are wrong, misguided, amoral and racist? Why are they making things up?