from NOLA dot com
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development cleared the way Tuesday for the Louisiana Recovery Authority and local governments to use Community Development Block Grant funds to help people with toxic drywall in their homes.
This fall, the Louisiana Recovery Authority set aside $5 million to help Road Home applicants with problem drywall. Many homes that were built or repaired after Hurricane Katrina were constructed with wall board that emits sulfuric gases that many people believe are making them sick and are corroding metal fixtures and appliances in homes. Insurers so far have been rejecting claims for damage, leaving homeowners without a source of money to fix the damage.
Tuesday's announcement takes a major step toward making funds available to help drywall victims, but money cannot be disbursed until the federal government comes up with protocols on how to test for drywall and agrees on the proper way to remediate damage. Those decisions are expected to be made early next year.
"This is kind of like half the equation," Stephens said.
HUD's announcement also means that the Recovery Authority could make funds available to non-Road Home applicants with drywall problems, if money could be found.
Similarly, local jurisdictions could use their CDBG entitlement funds to help non-hurricane victims with drywall in their homes as long as such efforts were aimed at low- to moderate-income people, meaning people who earn less than 80 percent of the area median income.
Money could be used to remediate, demolish or acquire homes with bad drywall, or to move people into apartments while their residences are being fixed.
Bad drywall has been found in 35 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, but most of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's 2,360 complaints have come from Florida, Louisiana and Virginia. In recent weeks, the Recovery Authority has registered 574 people with problem drywall in their homes, and is continuing to collect more names.
Reporting the problem to the Recovery Authority will help the state document how big the problem is and make the case for federal assistance. Anyone who hasn't yet registered with the Recovery Authority should complete a form online at lra.louisiana.gov/drywallform or call the state's contaminated drywall hotline at 1.866.684.1713.
Most of the bad drywall was imported from China because domestic manufacturers couldn't meet demand for wallboard after the disastrous 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons and because of the housing boom. Recently, problems have also been discovered with some U.S. drywall.
In its announcement, HUD also reminded lenders using Federal Housing Administration-insured loans that they should use existing forbearance programs to work with borrowers in financial distress because of drywall problems.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
A Saintly Christmas Gift
From the advocate dot com website
PORT ALLEN — As the big white moving truck made a right turn down Village Street followed by a shiny black Cadillac truck with tinted windows, residents of the Village Street Apartments let out a roar.
They knew who was driving the Cadillac even though they couldn’t see inside.
It was Port Allen native and second-year New Orleans Saints cornerback Tracy Porter returning to the city he grew up in to deliver gifts to the children from his old neighborhood, known as The Village.
“Feels good when you put a smile on kids’ faces,” Porter said as one young man jumped on his new bike and sped off without saying a word.
“This is a struggling area,” Porter said. “To come back here and see all these kids so happy just warms me up.”
Deshawn Raymond, 12, watched the scene from the side of the street sitting on top of his brand-new lime green bike.
“I feel special,” Raymond said. “Especially because it came from Tracy. He used to stay back here and baby-sit me.”
The event, was sponsored in part by the Baranco-Clark Branch YMCA in Baton Rouge.
Earlier in the day, before the bike giveaway, Porter was at the YMCA, where he worked as a lifeguard and summer camp counselor during his summer breaks from Port Allen High School.
In the past two years, Porter has donated $25,000 to the facility. On Monday, the YMCA returned the favor holding a small dedication ceremony in the facility’s newly revamped weight room dubbed the Tracy O. Porter YMCA Wellness Center.
His mentors and former coaches Curt Richardson and Grover Harrison were on hand at both events to help out and poke some fun at the football player.
“He’s a little guy but he’s always thought he was big,” Harrison said, laughing.
“When he was in high school, he wanted to run a (recreation) center like the YMCA and then go to the NBA. Now he’s in the NFL, and he’s giving back,” Harrison said.
PORT ALLEN — As the big white moving truck made a right turn down Village Street followed by a shiny black Cadillac truck with tinted windows, residents of the Village Street Apartments let out a roar.
They knew who was driving the Cadillac even though they couldn’t see inside.
It was Port Allen native and second-year New Orleans Saints cornerback Tracy Porter returning to the city he grew up in to deliver gifts to the children from his old neighborhood, known as The Village.
“Feels good when you put a smile on kids’ faces,” Porter said as one young man jumped on his new bike and sped off without saying a word.
“This is a struggling area,” Porter said. “To come back here and see all these kids so happy just warms me up.”
Deshawn Raymond, 12, watched the scene from the side of the street sitting on top of his brand-new lime green bike.
“I feel special,” Raymond said. “Especially because it came from Tracy. He used to stay back here and baby-sit me.”
The event, was sponsored in part by the Baranco-Clark Branch YMCA in Baton Rouge.
Earlier in the day, before the bike giveaway, Porter was at the YMCA, where he worked as a lifeguard and summer camp counselor during his summer breaks from Port Allen High School.
In the past two years, Porter has donated $25,000 to the facility. On Monday, the YMCA returned the favor holding a small dedication ceremony in the facility’s newly revamped weight room dubbed the Tracy O. Porter YMCA Wellness Center.
His mentors and former coaches Curt Richardson and Grover Harrison were on hand at both events to help out and poke some fun at the football player.
“He’s a little guy but he’s always thought he was big,” Harrison said, laughing.
“When he was in high school, he wanted to run a (recreation) center like the YMCA and then go to the NBA. Now he’s in the NFL, and he’s giving back,” Harrison said.
Homesick for Christmas
Southeast Louisiana is rich in its people, food and traditions. So it's no wonder that people who've had to move away for jobs or other reasons become homesick at this time of year. The Houma today dot com website carries this story about cajuns yearning for home:
Published: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 11:21 a.m.
HOUMA — There’s no place like home for the holidays, and Louisiana natives who’ve moved away for jobs, love and adventure say there are always things that make them blue for the bayou, especially near Christmas.
“I miss the traditions,” said David Chiasson, a former Thibodaux resident. “The nostalgia is hard to get over. There are some things you just take for granted.”
Chiasson, 41, left the swamp for the desert two years ago to move to Phoenix for a job. Thanks to the wonders of modern shipping, the family has taken to ordering things they miss from their home state over the Internet and by phone, like beef jerky from Bourgeois Meat Market in Gray, Community coffee and king cakes.
But there are some things about the bayou that just can’t be replicated.
When Chiasson tried to introduce his new Arizona friends to a south Louisiana tradition, the crawfish boil, he said he was met with challenges and confusion.
Chiasson had 50 pounds of crawfish shipped live by plane from Lafayette to Phoenix and invited his neighbors to a crawfish boil at his house. Stores in Phoenix didn’t carry crawfish pots, so he had one shipped from a Sam’s Club store in Louisiana.
After all that trouble, when his neighbors spied the live crawfish, he said, they were turned off.
“Nobody ate them,” he said. “They said, ‘What are these things?’ I think they didn’t like the fact that they were alive just a few minutes ago.”
Troy LeBoeuf, a former resident of Montegut, Houma and Thibodaux, moved to South Carolina after meeting a girl from Charleston and following her home.
“Halloween night on Bourbon Street in The Famous Door I met a girl and danced until the wee hours of the morning,” LeBoeuf said. The two spent a whirlwind weekend together, and a few days after he dropped her off at the airport, she invited him to come visit her in Charleston. He loved it, and decided to relocate. But, especially this time of year, he finds his mind drifting back to the bayou.
“I miss the Christmas boat parade passing in front my Dad’s house in Montegut,” LeBoeuf said. “Cajun eggnog daiquiris, going from one house to another on Christmas Eve, having snacks and drinks with friends, and most of all, the food.”
The food is one thing most relocated Louisianans mention missing from their lives elsewhere.
“The food is not the same,” said David Toups, a former resident of Thibodaux who now lives in Juneau, Alaska. “They have seafood up here, but it’s bland.”
About a year-and-a-half ago, Toups found himself getting restless at his job at Fort Polk in Leesville and applied to a hospital lab job in Alaska on a whim. He got it, and decided to move.
He acknowledges that living in the cold tundra of Alaska is about as far removed from Louisiana as you can get.
“You don’t have to wish for a white Christmas up here,” he said.
Toups said he misses houses decorated with tons of Christmas lights and popping firecrackers out in the streets with his friends. People in Alaska also enjoy hunting and fishing, he said, but “the people up here bring back moose meat, bear meat and caribou meat.”
When he lived in Thibodaux, he said, during the holidays he and his family would have big get-together. One year he invited a friend from Illinois to join his family during a Louisiana State University football game.
“Boy, he was scared,” Toups said. “Everyone in my family was hooting and hollering at the T.V., even my grandma. I think it was a little too much for him.”
But it’s the packed houses, the gregariousness and the hospitality that many away from the bayou area miss most around Christmas.
“I miss that kind of tradition,” Toups said. In Louisiana, “it’s a little bit more lively. People are a little bit more reserved here,” he said.
Published: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 11:21 a.m.
HOUMA — There’s no place like home for the holidays, and Louisiana natives who’ve moved away for jobs, love and adventure say there are always things that make them blue for the bayou, especially near Christmas.
“I miss the traditions,” said David Chiasson, a former Thibodaux resident. “The nostalgia is hard to get over. There are some things you just take for granted.”
Chiasson, 41, left the swamp for the desert two years ago to move to Phoenix for a job. Thanks to the wonders of modern shipping, the family has taken to ordering things they miss from their home state over the Internet and by phone, like beef jerky from Bourgeois Meat Market in Gray, Community coffee and king cakes.
But there are some things about the bayou that just can’t be replicated.
When Chiasson tried to introduce his new Arizona friends to a south Louisiana tradition, the crawfish boil, he said he was met with challenges and confusion.
Chiasson had 50 pounds of crawfish shipped live by plane from Lafayette to Phoenix and invited his neighbors to a crawfish boil at his house. Stores in Phoenix didn’t carry crawfish pots, so he had one shipped from a Sam’s Club store in Louisiana.
After all that trouble, when his neighbors spied the live crawfish, he said, they were turned off.
“Nobody ate them,” he said. “They said, ‘What are these things?’ I think they didn’t like the fact that they were alive just a few minutes ago.”
Troy LeBoeuf, a former resident of Montegut, Houma and Thibodaux, moved to South Carolina after meeting a girl from Charleston and following her home.
“Halloween night on Bourbon Street in The Famous Door I met a girl and danced until the wee hours of the morning,” LeBoeuf said. The two spent a whirlwind weekend together, and a few days after he dropped her off at the airport, she invited him to come visit her in Charleston. He loved it, and decided to relocate. But, especially this time of year, he finds his mind drifting back to the bayou.
“I miss the Christmas boat parade passing in front my Dad’s house in Montegut,” LeBoeuf said. “Cajun eggnog daiquiris, going from one house to another on Christmas Eve, having snacks and drinks with friends, and most of all, the food.”
The food is one thing most relocated Louisianans mention missing from their lives elsewhere.
“The food is not the same,” said David Toups, a former resident of Thibodaux who now lives in Juneau, Alaska. “They have seafood up here, but it’s bland.”
About a year-and-a-half ago, Toups found himself getting restless at his job at Fort Polk in Leesville and applied to a hospital lab job in Alaska on a whim. He got it, and decided to move.
He acknowledges that living in the cold tundra of Alaska is about as far removed from Louisiana as you can get.
“You don’t have to wish for a white Christmas up here,” he said.
Toups said he misses houses decorated with tons of Christmas lights and popping firecrackers out in the streets with his friends. People in Alaska also enjoy hunting and fishing, he said, but “the people up here bring back moose meat, bear meat and caribou meat.”
When he lived in Thibodaux, he said, during the holidays he and his family would have big get-together. One year he invited a friend from Illinois to join his family during a Louisiana State University football game.
“Boy, he was scared,” Toups said. “Everyone in my family was hooting and hollering at the T.V., even my grandma. I think it was a little too much for him.”
But it’s the packed houses, the gregariousness and the hospitality that many away from the bayou area miss most around Christmas.
“I miss that kind of tradition,” Toups said. In Louisiana, “it’s a little bit more lively. People are a little bit more reserved here,” he said.
The Winning Attitude
From the NY Times fifthdown blog:
in New Orleans, the Saints are more than a football team. In Central City, they have become a beacon to a community that needs as much hope and positive reinforcement as possible.
For the last 17 years, Saints players have conducted a Thanksgiving program in which players distribute thousands of baskets.
The day after the Tampa Bay game on Nov. 22, 26 Saints players went to the Y.M.C.A. and distributed Thanksgiving baskets.
“The players do a lot of great things with us,” said Douglas Evans.
Evans has been the president and chief executive of the Dryades Y.M.C.A. for the last 39 years.
The Saints helped Dryades organize the midnight basketball program as an anticrime approach in the community to get kids off the street. The Benson Hoops Midnight Basketball program is anchored at the Y.
Evans said that the Saints’ success had generated a winning attitude.
“When you look at a Dallas, the expectation in that community is that they win, when you look at New York, the expectation in that community is that the Yankees win. That in and of itself raises the expectation level of everyone when you are expected to do something.”
The Saints lost their first game of the season on Saturday night, but Evans said the atmosphere surrounding the team continued to be jubilant.
“We’ve already won in the sense that you still have this outpouring inspirational moment in the community,” he said.
“Are we disappointed? Yes. But therein comes the hope and the desire that we will make it to the Super Bowl.”
hattip: Voices of New Orleans blog .
in New Orleans, the Saints are more than a football team. In Central City, they have become a beacon to a community that needs as much hope and positive reinforcement as possible.
For the last 17 years, Saints players have conducted a Thanksgiving program in which players distribute thousands of baskets.
The day after the Tampa Bay game on Nov. 22, 26 Saints players went to the Y.M.C.A. and distributed Thanksgiving baskets.
“The players do a lot of great things with us,” said Douglas Evans.
Evans has been the president and chief executive of the Dryades Y.M.C.A. for the last 39 years.
The Saints helped Dryades organize the midnight basketball program as an anticrime approach in the community to get kids off the street. The Benson Hoops Midnight Basketball program is anchored at the Y.
Evans said that the Saints’ success had generated a winning attitude.
“When you look at a Dallas, the expectation in that community is that they win, when you look at New York, the expectation in that community is that the Yankees win. That in and of itself raises the expectation level of everyone when you are expected to do something.”
The Saints lost their first game of the season on Saturday night, but Evans said the atmosphere surrounding the team continued to be jubilant.
“We’ve already won in the sense that you still have this outpouring inspirational moment in the community,” he said.
“Are we disappointed? Yes. But therein comes the hope and the desire that we will make it to the Super Bowl.”
hattip: Voices of New Orleans blog .
Monday, December 21, 2009
HELP Needed in the Parish
St. Bernard Parish sheriff's detectives are looking for the SCUZZBUCKETS (my word) who stole Christmas from dozens of kids and seniors, in a break-in at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Violet.
The church was preparing to give toys and clothes to 60 children, when someone broke in over the weekend the took everything.
"They actually unwrapped every single gift, and took what they wanted and left very little," said Pastor John Arnone of Lady of Lourdes.
The church had just reopened last month after being shuttered by Hurricane Katrina. Father Arnone said some parishioners took it hard when they came to church Sunday morning and learned of the break-in.
Anyone wanting to help can call the church at (504) 281-2267. Anyone with information about the crime, or wanting to help, can also call the sheriff's office at (504) 271-2501.
Friday, December 18, 2009
An embarassment
A lot of attention has been given to the "Unknown Who Dat" in the two weeks since the Washington Redskins game. Some people have romanticized the fan as the "typical New Orleans Saints Fan" of 40 plus years. I beg to differ. This guy - while a true Saints Fan - is an embarassment. Watch this and decide for yourself
Do you know what the national media is going to do with this? Ugh. The Who Dat Nation deserves better than this. This is the unknown fan's 15 minutes. Call me a snob, but I don't find this man a poster child for the New Orleans Saints Fan.
I like what "Hakim Drops the Ball" has to say at this link .
| The Unknown Who Dat comes to New Orleans |
Do you know what the national media is going to do with this? Ugh. The Who Dat Nation deserves better than this. This is the unknown fan's 15 minutes. Call me a snob, but I don't find this man a poster child for the New Orleans Saints Fan.
I like what "Hakim Drops the Ball" has to say at this link .
Sunday, December 13, 2009
We're not the only mis-pronouncers
A great website that provides the correct prononciation of common words.
examples
100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English Now that Dr. Language has provided a one-stop cure for the plague of misspelling, here are the 100 words most often mispronounced English words ("mispronunciation" among them). There are spelling rules in English even if they are difficult to understand, so pronouncing a word correctly usually does help you spell it correctly. Several common errors are the result of rapid speech, so take your time speaking, correctly enunciating each word. Careful speech and avid reading are the best guides to correct spelling.
Don't say Do Say Comment
ANo: acrossed | Yes: across
It is easy to confuse "across" with "crossed" but better to keep them separate.
No: affidavid | Yes: affidavit
Even if your lawyer's name is ''David,'' he issues affidavits.
No: Old-timer's disease | Yes: Alzheimer's disease
While it is a disease of old-timers, it is named for the German neurologist, Dr. Alois Alzheimer.
No: Antartic | Yes: Antarctic
Just think of an arc of ants (an ant arc) and that should help you keep the [c] in the pronunciation of this word.
No: Artic | Yes: Arctic
Another hard-to-see [c] but it is there.
No: aks | Yes: ask
This mispronunciation has been around for so long (over 1,000 years) that linguist Mark Aronoff thinks we should cherish it as a part of our linguistic heritage. Most of us would give the axe to "aks."
No: athelete, atheletic | Yes: athlete, athletic
Two syllables are enough for "athlete."
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
11 & 0
"You have to give New Orleans credit,” Belichick said. “They were obviously the better team tonight. It wasn’t a competitive game like we thought it would be or like we needed it to be. We got to coach better, we have to play better. We have to do a lot better than we did. … We have to do a lot better to compete with a team of this caliber.”
New England Patriots' Sore Loser Coach
WHO DAT!
How loud was the crowd in the dome? Check it out here!
New England Patriots' Sore Loser Coach
WHO DAT!
How loud was the crowd in the dome? Check it out here!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Plaques of Bay St. Louis Bridge
A few weeks ago we walked the Bay St. Louis Bridge to photograph the bronze plaques. Here's a slideshow.
Six Month Reprieve
A collective sigh is going out all along the Gulf Coast and eastern seaboard.
Today is the end of the 2009 Hurricane Season!
Today is the end of the 2009 Hurricane Season!
A Must See Photo Exhibit
Visual Story of the Lower Mississippi River Delta
The Port of New Orleans will host an exhibit “The End of the Great River: Photographs of the Lower Mississippi River Delta” December 1st through 18th featuring the work of New Orleans-based photographer Matthew White.
The showing of White's work will consist of fine art landscape images of the Mississippi River Delta, from Port Sulphur in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana south to the end of the three passes that drain the river into the Gulf of Mexico: Pass a Loutre; South Pass and Southwest Pass.
This delta-full of history, culture, and industry-is sparsely populated and rarely seen in detail by outsiders, but is a landscape of vast beauty.
Lower Plaquemines Parish was decimated by Hurricane Katrina, and has quite a long history of fighting coastal erosion with other notable storms of the past. The goal of this photo collection is to raise awareness for the unique beauty of this fragile locale through an artist’s eye and to encourage the creation and preservation of images of the Mississippi River Delta and its disappearing habitat for future generations.
Photography for the project began in the spring of 2000, shot on both black and white film and in color digital and has continued to the present day. In this collection, White has shot nearly every named location in lower Plaquemines Parish and has compiled a sizable collection of documentary-style often contemplative photographs of the most remote areas of the parish.
One such location is Pilottown, where the Crescent River Port Pilots’ Association has maintained an outpost for piloting ships for the last 100 years. After it was almost destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, White returned in April 2008 to photograph this one-of-a-kind town, the last manned outpost on the Mississippi River before you reach the Gulf of Mexico. He was able to document a few pilot houses that were being rebuilt, while the remainder of former homes along the river completely vanished.
To see previews of this exhibit, go to this link.
About Matthew White
Matthew White Grand Isle Juried Art Exhibit, The New Orleans Photo Alliance Elemental/Environmental Space Exhibit, and as part of a permanent museum exhibit for Parks Canada in New Brunswick. White is represented by Big Vision Media (www.bigvisionmedia.com).
Sponsored in part by Plaquemines Parish Economic Development, the exhibit is being held in conjunction with PhotoNOLA, an annual showcase of photography in New Orleans. The exhibit is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm in the lobby of the administrative building at the Port of New Orleans. A reception will be held on December 10, 2009 from 4:00 to 6:00 pm and the public is invited to attend.
The Port of New Orleans will host an exhibit “The End of the Great River: Photographs of the Lower Mississippi River Delta” December 1st through 18th featuring the work of New Orleans-based photographer Matthew White.
The showing of White's work will consist of fine art landscape images of the Mississippi River Delta, from Port Sulphur in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana south to the end of the three passes that drain the river into the Gulf of Mexico: Pass a Loutre; South Pass and Southwest Pass.
This delta-full of history, culture, and industry-is sparsely populated and rarely seen in detail by outsiders, but is a landscape of vast beauty.
Lower Plaquemines Parish was decimated by Hurricane Katrina, and has quite a long history of fighting coastal erosion with other notable storms of the past. The goal of this photo collection is to raise awareness for the unique beauty of this fragile locale through an artist’s eye and to encourage the creation and preservation of images of the Mississippi River Delta and its disappearing habitat for future generations.
Photography for the project began in the spring of 2000, shot on both black and white film and in color digital and has continued to the present day. In this collection, White has shot nearly every named location in lower Plaquemines Parish and has compiled a sizable collection of documentary-style often contemplative photographs of the most remote areas of the parish.
One such location is Pilottown, where the Crescent River Port Pilots’ Association has maintained an outpost for piloting ships for the last 100 years. After it was almost destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, White returned in April 2008 to photograph this one-of-a-kind town, the last manned outpost on the Mississippi River before you reach the Gulf of Mexico. He was able to document a few pilot houses that were being rebuilt, while the remainder of former homes along the river completely vanished.
To see previews of this exhibit, go to this link.
About Matthew White
Matthew White Grand Isle Juried Art Exhibit, The New Orleans Photo Alliance Elemental/Environmental Space Exhibit, and as part of a permanent museum exhibit for Parks Canada in New Brunswick. White is represented by Big Vision Media (www.bigvisionmedia.com).
Sponsored in part by Plaquemines Parish Economic Development, the exhibit is being held in conjunction with PhotoNOLA, an annual showcase of photography in New Orleans. The exhibit is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm in the lobby of the administrative building at the Port of New Orleans. A reception will be held on December 10, 2009 from 4:00 to 6:00 pm and the public is invited to attend.
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