Homecoming

Homecoming

The space shuttle Discovery is seen as it lands at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Tuesday, April 20, 2010. Discovery and the STS-131 mission crew--Commander Alan G. Poindexter, pilot James P. Dutton Jr. and mission specialists Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Rick Mastracchio, Stephanie Wilson, Clayton Anderson and Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki--returned from their mission to the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Treme Life (Documentary) Coming Soon

A documentary on Treme life will be out soon.

From his facebook page
...I am James Demaria. I made a movie about the Treme starring Kermit Ruffins and it's called "Treme Life." Hope you stay tuned. Here's the trailer:

The Music of Treme

 

 

Talk Video Get HBO Shop

Treme Newsletter

Music Lists and More From Rebirth Brass Band to Mystikal, Treme features music both from and inspired by the place historians call "the birthplace of Jazz." Visit HBO.com following each new episode of Treme for artists, track titles, and links to buy the featured songs. Support New Orleans' local artists. Start downloading now.

Making Treme Now that you've seen the first episode, go inside the making of this extraordinary new series. Watch Now

Treme Benefit When HBO and the cast & crew of Treme threw a benefit for the New Orleans Musicians' Clinic, The Buzz was there.

very cool: International Space Station

What a piece of engineering!! Click the link below to watch how the ISS was built through the years:

 http://i.usatoday.net/tech/graphics/iss_timeline/flash.htm

NYT Article on Treme

New Orleans Journal
Gathering to Watch Their City’s Star Turn
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: April 12, 2010
NEW ORLEANS — In the family center of the Charbonnet-Labat-Glapion Funeral Home on St. Philip Street, the local historic neighborhood association came together for a meeting on Sunday night. After a few mentions of “beautification issues,” they got down to the matter at hand: in a few minutes’ time, the city’s Tremé neighborhood, unknown to most and mispronounced by many, was about to become very, very famous.

The Ernie K-Doe Mother-in-Law Lounge was just one spot where people met on Sunday to watch the first episode of “Treme.”

“Uncle” Lionel Batiste, a musician and Tremé resident, on the set last month in Central City with the actor Wendell Pierce.

The viewing party at the funeral home — red carpet attire requested — was one of countless all over town on Sunday night for the first episode of the HBO series “Treme,” a narrative of the city that starts in the months after Hurricane Katrina and one of the mostly widely anticipated shows here in years. (The show’s name, unlike the neighborhood’s, is unaccented; both are pronounced treh-MAY.)

People crowded in to watch at bars, like the Ernie K-Doe Mother-in-Law Lounge and Buffa’s. Others horse-traded with friends who have HBO: I’ll cook dinner if I can watch at your place.

When the premiere ended and the lights went up at the funeral home, the floor was open for reactions.

“The Mardi Gras Indian,” a woman said, hesitating, “didn’t quite cut it.”

David Simon, the creator of “Treme” and, previously, HBO’s “The Wire,” realizes he is playing for a tough crowd. The show is packed with references tailor-made for the locals, from Brocato’s lemon ices to the bread pudding at Lil Dizzy’s, from the difficulty of staffing a restaurant in the months after the hurricane to the abomination of imported crawfish.

In an open letter to the people of New Orleans in The Times-Picayune on Sunday, Mr. Simon offered a preliminary defense of the parts of the show that deviate from fact. He began by offering an explanation as to why a Hubig’s pie shows up in the first episode when Hubig’s bakery did not reopen until months after the incidents in the episode took place.

The city’s obsession with getting it exactly right may seem a little defensive at times, but it is hard to second-guess a city that knows so well what happens when outsiders like, say, the government get it wrong.

This was at the root of much of the elation last fall when a judge held the Army Corps of Engineers liable for the flooding in certain areas after Hurricane Katrina. “Finally,” many people here said. “We’ve been saying it over and over, and they’re starting to get it right.”

Local television critics have heaped praise on “Treme” for doing just that, for being “the screen depiction that New Orleans deserves” and managing “to capture something of the undefinable essence of New Orleans.”

Mark Folse, a native of the city who is one of several bloggers at a Web site called Back of Town that was created to dissect the show, likewise gave it a rave.

“People here have spent their lives watching bad film and television about New Orleans,” he said in an interview, referring to Dennis Quaid’s attempt at a Cajun accent in the 1987 movie “The Big Easy.” “For people from New Orleans, it was a tremendous opening show.”

Mr. Folse, who subscribed to HBO just for the series, acknowledged the city’s “intrinsic Gallic chauvinism,” but said it was protective, the way a parent brags about a child.

Mr. Folse did worry, however, that the show was so authentically New Orleanian that the rest of the country would not be able to follow the plot from episode to episode.

Nonetheless, there is no question that “Treme” is a big deal down here, the biggest thing since, well, the Saints won the Super Bowl a couple of months ago. A “Treme” billboard towers over Canal Street; magazine advertisements for the show are tacked up in bar restrooms.

It is a chance for New Orleanians to watch themselves, often literally. The central characters are based, in varying degrees of looseness, on local D.J.’s and lawyers and Mardi Gras Indians. Then there are those, like the trumpet player Kermit Ruffins, who simply play themselves. And many more who show up as extras, like Olivia Greene, a jazz singer who was at the funeral home on Sunday night.

A 10-year Tremé resident, Ms. Greene said she had been filmed in six scenes herself. She had a blast. And like many, she wondered what the future may hold after the neighborhood has its turn in the spotlight.

“Am I going to be able to afford the rent anymore?” Ms. Greene asked.

The response to the show among many here was rather cool, but they are more invested than most in the authenticity of “Treme”: though it takes place all around the city, their neighborhood’s reputation is on the line.

“Who was the big guy?” asked Norman Smith, 56, whose roots in Tremé go back seven generations. “I thought he had it right.”

The anger of that character, a Tulane University professor named Creighton Bernette and played by John Goodman, was true to that time period, Mr. Smith said. On the other hand, Mr. Smith did not care for the foul language.

“Over all, I give it an eight,” he said.

Eight. Eight is pretty good.

“That’s because I know a lot of the people in it,” he said.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 13, 2010, on page A15 of the New York edition.

FQ Fest 2010

This was from the ACF (American Culinary Chefs) Booth in Woldenberg Park. Shrimp and white beans. Delish!


We had a wonderful time at this years French Quarter fest. The weather was unbelievably perfect (i.e. humidity levels in the 50's, temps in the 70's). Learning from past experiences, we left Slidell at around 9 A.M. and found great $10 parking on the corner of Decatur and Elysian Fields. This was just a block from the U.S. Mint, where some great happenings would take place later in the day.

Click on pictures for full-sized versions


Lookin like FQF may be going the way of Jazz Fest with their restrictions.

I'm not sure of the distance between the U.S. Mint and Woldenberg Park (next to the Aquarium of the Americas), but we made two round trips. So we walked off all of the food we sampled.

One hint to those of you who would like to attend French Quarter Fest and avoid the crowds: go early and leave early! As I intimated above, we arrived in NOLA about ten aye em, found fantastic parking and ventured out from the old U.S. Mint, through the French Quarter Market and on onto the Moon Walk (named after the very-future mayor Mitch Landrieu's dad, Moon), where we enjoyed the breezes emanating from the River all the way to the Aquarium. The crowds were managable and the atmosphere enjoyable.




Once we hit the fest, we commenced eating. Here are some of the fantastic foods we shared in no particular order

Restaurant Carmelo's Italian Sausage Poboy. Incredibly tasty

Court of Two Sisters Turtle Soup with Sherry. I could drink a quart of this stuff!

The Crepe Cart Strawberry & Nutella Crepe. Delectable.

My daughter enjoying a nectar snowball. How New Orleans is dat?

Rouse's excellent boiled crawfish.

Rouses sponsored the crawfish eat off. The winner was to eat as much of a 10 pound portion of crawfish in 10 minutes as he/she could.

The winner was this tiny Asian girl, she ate 6.5 pounds of mudbugs in 10 minutes.

Crawfish Fabric! Who'd a known? LOL

Jackson Square around 1:30 Saturday afternoon.

One of the finest part of the day was FINALLY meeting NOLA blogger Lance Vargas in person.....


I purchased some great stuff from Varg. All of you people who enjoy folk art, check out his website at leveeland creations or check out his great blog at The Chicory dot com.

Why should this end?

An awesome documentary of the Space Shuttle Program.
After almost thirty years of watching launches I STILL get goose bumps watching a launch.


The launch footage at the end of the documentary is very, very exciting.

Enjoy!

NOPD Officers gone bad

Testimony of former NOPD Officer Michael Hunter on what went down on September 4, 2005. Isn't "protect and serve" in their motto somewhere? May these S.O.B.s rot in hell

Here is a link to the "factual basis" that follows

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA * CRIMINAL NO.:
v. * SECTION:
MICHAEL HUNTER * VIOLATIONS: 18 U.S.C. § 371
18 U.S.C. § 4
* * *
FACTUAL BASIS

If this matter were to go to trial, the Government would prove beyond a reasonable
doubt, through the introduction of competent testimony and admissible tangible exhibits, the following facts to support the allegations in the two-count Bill of Information now pending against defendant MICHAEL HUNTER, charging the defendant with one count of conspiring to obstruct justice in the investigation of the Danziger Bridge shooting that occurred on September 4, 2005, and with one count of misprision of a felony. Specifically, Count One charges that defendant HUNTER conspired with other New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) Officers, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, to commit the following offenses against the United States:

a. to knowingly falsify and make a false entry in a document with intent to impede,
obstruct, and influence the investigation and proper administration of a matter within federal jurisdiction, and in relation to and in contemplation of such a matter, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1519; and
b. to knowingly engage in misleading conduct toward another person with intent to
hinder, delay, and prevent the communication of truthful information to a federal law
enforcement officer and judge of information relating to the commission and possible
commission of a federal offense, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section
1512(b)(3); All in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371.

Count Two charges defendant HUNTER with misprision of a felony, in violation of
Title 18, United States Code, Section 4, for concealing crimes he witnessed on the Danziger Bridge. From September 4, 2005, until March 2010, the defendant knew that officers with NOPD had engaged in deprivations of rights under color of law, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 242, and that these deprivations of rights had resulted in bodily injury and death to civilians on the Danziger Bridge in New Orleans on September 4, 2005.

The defendant concealed these crimes and provided false statements to investigators; All in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 4. The Shootings and the Start of the Conspiracy
In 2005, defendant HUNTER was an officer assigned to NOPD’s Seventh District.
On September 4, 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the defendant and his fellow Seventh District officers were working out of a temporary station at the Crystal Palace on Chef Menteur Highway. In response to a radio call that officers on the I-10 high-rise bridge had taken fire, defendant HUNTER and other NOPD officers loaded into a large Budget rental truck, which HUNTER then drove from the Crystal Palace to the Danziger Bridge.

En route to the Danziger Bridge, Sergeant A asked to borrow an assault rifle
defendant HUNTER had placed in the cab of the Budget truck. HUNTER hesitated
initially, but then relented and agreed to let Sergeant A use the assault rifle.
When defendant HUNTER first observed the Danziger Bridge on September 4, 2005,
he saw in the distance a handful of people casually walking on the roadway on the bridge. HUNTER realized that the people on the bridge would not know that the Budget truck held police officers who were responding to a call for assistance, so he used his left hand to fire warning shots, with his NOPD-issued handgun, out the window of the truck.

As defendant HUNTER fired these warning shots, the people on the bridge scattered
and ran toward a concrete barrier separating the roadway from a pedestrian walkway. The civilians, who did not appear to have any weapons, began to climb or jump over the barrier. Defendant HUNTER stopped the Budget truck a short distance from where he had seen people climb over the concrete barrier. As the truck rolled to a stop, Sergeant A fired an assault rifle down toward the civilians on the walkway. At one point before HUNTER got out of the truck, he saw an older black male raise his head above the barrier, and he saw Sergeant A fire at the black male. The black male did not appear to have a weapon and did not threaten the officers.

In addition to the people who jumped over the concrete barrier, defendant HUNTER
saw civilians running westward, toward the top of the bridge. HUNTER got out on the
driver’s side, ran to the front of the truck, and fired his handgun in the direction of the people running away up the bridge. Sergeant B, who had also run to the front of the truck, stood nearby, firing an M4-type assault rifle at the same civilians. HUNTER did not see any weapons on these civilians, and did not see them stop or turn around. They did not appear to be a threat to the officers as they ran up the bridge. HUNTER fired his handgun numerous times in the direction of these fleeing civilians, but did not believe that he struck them.

Defendant HUNTER then walked to the passenger side of the truck, where Sergeant
A and other officers were lined up in a position to fire at or behind the concrete barrier. HUNTER saw Sergeant A and one or more other officers firing at or behind the barrier. Seeing that there was no threat to the officers, defendant HUNTER shouted, “Cease fire!” When the officers stopped firing, defendant HUNTER walked toward the back of the truck on the passenger side. While defendant HUNTER was still on the passenger side of the truck, near the walkway, he saw several civilians, who appeared to be unarmed, injured,and subdued. Sergeant A suddenly leaned over the concrete barrier, held out his assault rifle, and, in a sweeping motion, fired repeatedly at the civilians lying wounded on the ground.

The civilians were not trying to escape and were not doing anything that could be perceived as a threat. Sergeant B and other officers started running up the bridge, as defendant HUNTER moved up the bridge to where two female civilians were lying on the walkway, behind the concrete barrier. The two females were lying on the ground, hugging each other and crying in apparent pain. HUNTER saw that at least one of the females had suffered serious gunshot wounds, and that both appeared terrified. One of the females had a gaping wound on her leg, and had a large chunk of flesh missing from her calf. The other civilians were also seriously wounded, including one man who was lying face-down, not moving.

Defendant HUNTER did not see any weapons on or near any of the civilians when
they were in the roadway, and he did not see any weapons on or near the civilians as they lay dead or wounded on the walkway. No officers on the east side of the bridge said that they had seen guns on or near the civilians after the shooting, and nobody asked the civilians where the guns were. At no time did any of the civilians make any statements about having fired at anyone.

Defendant HUNTER returned to the Budget truck, where he observed the assault rifle
that Sergeant A had borrowed from him. The magazine that had started off fully-loaded was now empty, and the rifle was hot to the touch. Defendant HUNTER and Sergeant A entered the cab of the Budget truck and HUNTER drove to the crest of the bridge. On or near the crest of the bridge, they met Sergeant B, who said that civilians running toward the bottom of the west side of the bridge had fired at him. HUNTER saw three black males running down the bridge, but they did not appear to have weapons or to be a threat to the officers. Sergeant B may have fired an assault rifle at the fleeing civilians.

An unmarked car driven by an officer with the Louisiana State Police (LSP)
approached from the east side and stopped near the crest of the bridge. Defendant
HUNTER, Sergeant B, and Officer A entered the car. Sergeant B sat in the back seat, on
the driver’s side. Officer A sat in the front passenger seat. HUNTER sat behind Officer A.

As the car moved down the bridge, defendant HUNTER saw three black males
running away, near the bottom of the bridge. None of the civilians appeared to be armed or to be a threat to the officers. Two men, later identified as Lance and Ronald Madison, ran down the right side of the road, while a third, older man ran down the left side. As the LSP car drove down the bridge, defendant HUNTER focused on Lance Madison, who was wearing black clothing, and Ronald Madison, who was wearing a white t-shirt, with blood on it.

As Lance Madison ran toward the Friendly Inn, a motel at the bottom of the bridge,
Ronald Madison trailed approximately 20 to 30 feet behind him. The LSP car moved to cut off Lance Madison and, in so doing, briefly pulled slightly ahead of Ronald Madison, who continued to run after his brother. As Ronald Madison then ran past the slowing LSP car, heading toward the motel, he passed by defendant HUNTER and defendant HUNTER had a clear view of him. Defendant HUNTER saw blood on Ronald Madison’s shirt, and thought he might have been shot. Ronald Madison, who was running with his hands in view, had no weapon and posed no threat. Ronald Madison did not change his direction, turn around, or stop running as he passed the LSP car. Instead, Madison continued to run away, following his brother, who was a short distance ahead of him. At no time as Ronald Madison ran, did defendant HUNTER see him turn toward the officers, reach into his waistband, or make any threatening gestures.
As the unmarked LSP car pulled to a stop, Officer A, without warning, fired a shotgun
at Ronald Madison’s back as Madison ran away in the direction of the motel. Defendant
HUNTER immediately got out of the car and went to where Ronald Madison was lying on
the ground. Ronald Madison was alive, but appeared to be dying. He was lying on his side, with two officers standing nearby. Neither defendant HUNTER nor either of the other officers searched Ronald Madison for a weapon.

As Ronald Madison lay dying on the pavement, Sergeant A ran down the bridge
toward Ronald and asked an officer if Ronald was “one of them.” When the officer replied in the affirmative, Sergeant A began kicking or stomping Ronald Madison repeatedly with his foot. Sergeant A appeared to be striking Madison’s torso with as much force as he could muster. Defendant HUNTER charged toward Sergeant A, who backed off from Madison. As defendant HUNTER walked away, an officer standing nearby appeared shocked that HUNTER had confronted Sergeant A.

Shortly thereafter, Sergeant A approached defendant HUNTER and apologized for
being “out of line.” Sergeant A then asked HUNTER if HUNTER “[had] a problem” with
the shooting on the east side of the Danziger Bridge. While on the west side of the Danziger Bridge, defendant HUNTER heard Lance Madison ask the officers why they had been shooting at him and his brother. Lance Madison never said that he or his brother had possessed a gun or had fired at police, and Lance Madison did not have a gun in his possession.

HUNTER knew without question that the shootings he saw on the bridge were “bad
shoots,” meaning that they were legally unjustified. HUNTER later heard that the civilian, Ronald Madison, was a 40-year-old severely disabled man.

Later that day, back at the Crystal Palace, defendant HUNTER met with the sergeant
assigned to investigate the case (the Investigator), along with a lieutenant and other NOPD
officers who had been in the Budget truck on the Danziger Bridge. During a roundtable
discussion of the shootings on the Danziger Bridge, defendant HUNTER admitted that he
had fired his weapon many times on the bridge. During this meeting, the lieutenant turned to an officer next to him and said something to the effect of, we don’t want this to look like a massacre.

During the days and weeks that followed, the Investigator, Sergeant A, and Sergeant
B met repeatedly with other officers to discuss the shootings. The Investigator was writing the NOPD report about the incident and defendant HUNTER understood that he would “take care of” the shooters, meaning that he would make the shootings appear justified. During the same time frame, defendant HUNTER understood through his own observations and his conversations with others that the supervisors were meeting with Officer A, who had shot and killed Ronald Madison, to work with him on his statement.
At some point after the shooting, defendant HUNTER heard that the Investigator was
claiming to have found a gun at the scene on September 5, 2005, the day after the shooting.

Defendant HUNTER concluded that the story about the gun was false, as he had not seen
any of the civilians with guns and had not seen any guns at the scene on the day of the incident.

The Meeting and the Taped Statements
On or about January 25, 2006, prior to giving a formal, audiotaped statement, defendant HUNTER attended a meeting called by the Investigator. The meeting, attended by defendant HUNTER and the other shooters (except for the one who had resigned from NOPD), was held in the abandoned and gutted-out Seventh District station. At the meeting, the Investigator instructed the shooters to make sure they had their stories straight before they gave their formal statements on tape. Sergeant A then took the lead in explaining the false
story that he would tell to justify the shooting, and the other officers discussed what they would say in order to remain consistent with that story.

Immediately after the meeting, defendant HUNTER met with homicide detectives and
provided a false account of the shootings that was consistent with the false stories the shooters had just discussed. In his audiotaped statement, defendant HUNTER told numerous lies, and concealed the fact that he knew of and participated in a cover-up of the Danziger Bridge shootings. Specifically, HUNTER lied when he said that he saw civilians with firearms on the bridge; he lied when he said that Sergeant A or any other officer yelled “police” before shooting; he lied when he said that officers were “taking fire” on the Danziger Bridge; he lied when he said that Lance and Ronald Madison were armed and that one or both fired at police; and he lied when he said that he continued on foot to the west side of the bridge. HUNTER also intentionally misled investigators when he omitted any reference to the fact that he and other
officers had ridden down the bridge with an LSP trooper; when he omitted that he and the LSP trooper were present during the shooting of Ronald Madison; when he omitted that he had seen officers shoot unarmed civilians; and when he omitted that Sergeant A had repeatedly and violently kicked or stomped a wounded and dying man.

False Statements to the State Grand Jury
On or about October 25, 2006, defendant HUNTER testified before a state grand jury
investigating the Danziger Bridge incident. Under oath, HUNTER again lied about what
happened on the bridge, and again concealed the fact that he knew of and participated in a cover-up of legally unjustified police shootings.

On the day defendant HUNTER was indicted by the state grand jury, a female officer
from the Budget truck called defendant HUNTER’s home and stated that she had been on
the bridge on the day of the shooting, and that things would be okay because she saw the civilians’ guns on the bridge and saw someone kick them off. Defendant HUNTER knew
that the statement from the officer was a lie.

Miscellaneous Matters
At no point during the investigation of the Danziger Bridge incident did defendant
HUNTER make any compelled statement to an NOPD investigator. At no point did
defendant HUNTER learn of any administrative interviews done in the Danziger Bridge
investigation. Defendant HUNTER, like every sworn officer with NOPD, had been trained about the proper use of physical force, including deadly force, and about the consequences for a use of excessive force. The defendant, along with every other sworn NOPD officer, was taught that one of the consequences of an excessive use of force was that the FBI could investigate the incident as a criminal matter. The defendant and every other sworn NOPD officer also learned that an incident of excessive force could result in a federal civil suit and/or criminal prosecution in federal court.

Defendant HUNTER never heard anyone mention a suspect who had gotten away
during the incident on the Danziger Bridge, and never heard anyone mention a civilian on the bridge with an assault rifle. And at no point did anyone ever mention Lance Madison having admitted that either he or his brother had possessed or fired a gun on the bridge that day.

Both the Government and the defendant, MICHAEL HUNTER, do hereby stipulate
and agree that the above facts are true, and that they set forth a sufficient factual basis for the crimes to which the defendant is pleading guilty. Both the government and the defendant also agree that this factual basis does not contain all of the relevant information known to the defendant. This is a sufficient factual basis, but it is not an exhaustive statement by the defendant.

READ AND APPROVED this day of April 2010.
MICHAEL HUNTER DATE
Defendant
TOWNSEND MYERS DATE
Counsel for Defendant
BARBARA “BOBBI” BERNSTEIN DATE
Deputy Chief, Civil Rights Division
U.S. Department of Justice
JULIA K. EVANS DATE
Assistant United States Attorney


NOLA blog Library Chronicles cites certain documents that identify who Sergeant A, and Sergeant
B are.

A Post Katrina Discovery

After almost five years post Katrina, volunteers recently discovered a house that was washed into a marsh by the storm from Bay St. Louis' Second Street




From The Sun Herald dot com

BAY ST. LOUIS — Volunteers from Idaho, Massachusetts and Wisconsin worked Friday to free a house from its swampy domain where it has rested since Hurricane Katrina blew it off Second Street.

Bay resident Chris Lagarde found the house in Magnolia Branch Marsh after investigating a bit of yellow and white painted wood he has noticed poking out of the swamp for two years.
He said he never dreamed there might be a house under it.

Lagarde, who works for U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, organized a field trip of college volunteers to begin pulling the debris out. They used planks to make their way about 400 yards to the house, which was surprisingly somewhat still intact.
The volunteers began dismantling the one-story wood house Tuesday. The debris piles are being placed in dumpsters, which will be emptied by the city, he said. Metal found in the home is being recycled.

“It’s probably one of those that washed off the block and when the tide went down, it settled in the marsh,” said Judy Steckler with Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain.

She said removing the debris will do much for the conservation of the wetlands there. “Once this is out, those grasses should grow back in that area,” she said.
David Weir with Mission on the Bay said volunteers found a surprise in the dishwasher. “It still had the dishes in there,” he said. “They’re all intact. Dirty, but intact.”

The home is believed to belong to Ed and Sandy Conrad, who lived on
View Map">Second Street during the hurricane, but relocated to Kentucky. Calls to the Conrads were unanswered.
The volunteers are trying to salvage some of the family’s personal belongings, Lagarde said.




Here's a transcript from NPR where Mr. LaGarde discusses finding the house:



NOAH ADAMS, host:

Think of the motion picture "Up." it's about a house carried away in the skies. In Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, you can make a picture called "Down," about a real house submerged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Chris Lagarde helped find this house. He works for a local congressman. He drives around a lot. Mr. Lagarde, you've been seeing this painted what -painted wood in the water for a long time?

Mr. CHRIS LAGARDE (Special Assistant, Office of Congressman Gene Taylor): For the last two years or so, yes.

ADAMS: And what does it look like or what did it look like?

Mr. LAGARDE: It looks like the roof of a house or the front part of a shed, maybe.

ADAMS: But you didnt suspect it was a house

Mr. LAGARDE: No, no, I just thought it was a part of a house.

ADAMS: Because there's lots of stuff in the water in a lot of places there.

Mr. LAGARDE: Right, everywhere down here, you still find debris. If you know where to look, you can find plenty of it.

ADAMS: Where is this one?

Mr. LAGARDE: It washed into a marsh. I think it's called Magnolia Branch. And it ended up in kind of the corner of a marsh, and it looks like when the water receded, the house just collapsed.

ADAMS: So you've been driving around for years now, looking at this piece of wood in the water, and how did you figure out it was a house?

Mr. LAGARDE: Well, I actually got the opportunity last week - some kids from the University of Idaho had come down. They I asked them if they were interested in walking through the marsh on boards, and they said, yes. They were foolish enough to tell me yes, and they were actually the first ones to get on top of the house, and they started screaming at me: Mr. Chris, it's a house, it's a house. And of course, I'm still thinking it's a shed. And I'm like, what do you mean, it's a house? It's a whole house.

ADAMS: And were you able to get inside of it?

Mr. LAGARDE: No because it had collapsed on itself. You could get in one of the dormers, but you could see the bathtub. There was a Viking kitchen range hanging off to one side. We were able to contact the owner. One of the kids had found an ice cooler with a name written on it. Dialed him up on the phone a couple hours later and told him what had happened, and they were pleased that we were going to take the house apart and anything we found, we're going to give to them.

And but a lot of the stuff we're finding is beyond use, but things like china and some crystal and some dishes were able to put on the side, and hopefully, we'll get them to the family.

ADAMS: Now, the family is where? Where do they live now?

Mr. LAGARDE: Well, the last I heard, the mother was in Prospect, Kentucky. I dont know where the two sons are and apparently the father is around. All I really know about the family was they lived in Bay St. Louis and they had a business on the Mississippi River.

ADAMS: You know, I've heard stories about houses being in the Bay St. Louis and out on the gulf. The Coast Guard said there were houses out there, but I had never heard of a house being in a bayou or a marsh.

Mr. LAGARDE: Yeah, it's amazing how close it is. I mean, from the top of the road, three minute walk. So you can, if you know what you're looking for, you can see the highway, and you can see the billboard on the highway. And it's just one of things, I guess we were all so busy with everything else after Katrina, you know, it was hard to rally troops to go pull a house out of the marsh. You know, as we get further and further away from Katrina, those things are making more sense.

And, you know, the idea would be to certainly get these people back anything we can and then restore that wetland, let the sunlight shine on it, and let it do what it's supposed to do.

ADAMS: Chris Lagarde, talking with us from Bay St. Louis. He drives around and looks for whatever he can find to help with in that city. Thank you, Mr. Lagarde.

Mr. LAGARDE: Thank you, have a good day. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Sad Anniversary 2010

It's been two years since husband, father, professor, NOLA lover and blogger Ashley Morris passed away. There still is a void without him.




His wife Hana occasionally posts on the blog. Ashley and Hana had three children together. There is a fund set up to take care of his family at this link if anyone feels generous.

Here's a link to a tribute to Ashley from producer David Simon who - by the way - has crafted a character in the upcoming HBO series Treme after Ashley.

We all miss you Ashley....thanks for the help with the Saints this year!!!

Virtual Vietnam Wall

The link below is a virtual wall of all those lost during the Vietnam War
 with the names, bio's and other information on our lost heroes.  Those who remember that timeframe, or perhaps lost friends or family can look them up on this site.  Pass the link on to others, as many knew wonderful people whose names are listed
Here is the link.
First click on a state. When it opens, scroll down to the city and the names will appear. Then click on their names. It should show you a picture of the person, or at least their bio and medals. This really is an amazing website.  Someone spent a lot of time and effort to create it.

I hope that everyone who receives this appreciates what those who served in Vietnam sacrificed for our country.