News Notes

Katrina trial: New Orleans' truth commission

These two items made their way into the news the same day (April 22, 2009).

The MRGO is finally closed to navigation traffic after years of dedicated people fighting for this.


Six people are going to court to testify about their experiences during and after the storm. These people lost everything due to the MRGO.
From the csmonitor dot com:

This "first real Katrina trial" could pave the way for a class-action lawsuit against the Corps, as well as set the tone for future US coastal policy.


It's the only one of a series of lawsuits that Judge Stanwood Duval, Jr., has allowed to go to trial. US tort laws protect the Corps from damages directly related to flood control and levees. But the topic at the center of the case is a US navigation channel, not a flood-control project, so Judge Duval permitted the case.

"Someone has to take responsibility, if only to make sure processes and policy are improved and grievances are addressed," says Dr. Silas Lee, a sociologist at Xavier University in New Orleans, who adds that uncertainty over the city's flood control has stymied the return of a third of the city's residents. "People want closure to this."

To all those out there who will criticize and dislike Katrina survivors, ask yourself if you could experience this:

In the Lower Ninth Ward, Jimmy Braxton's sister climbed with her two small kids into the attic. Holding the kids, she craned for air as the water rose. Another relative swam to the house and busted through the roof. She had to let go of one of the kids to reach through the hole. Only one child survived.

The MRGO was created in 1960s,when the motto was "build anything". The waterway provided an alternate and shorter route for cargo ships from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico.

Coastal geologists have testified that the MRGO has also increased salinity in the storm-slowing swamps, marshes, and tupelo stands that protected New Orleans' east side, killing much of the vegetation.
From Save Our Lake dot org, is a publication that helped close the cover on MRGO's coffin.



The MRGO created "great pipe" to move storm surges straight into the city. In the late 90's - after 30 years of warnings - the Corps began moving to close MRGO, but "dragged its heels," according to expert witnessDr. Sherwood Gagliano, CEO of the Baton Rouge-based Coastal Environments, Inc.. A veteran advocate for the Louisiana coast and Louisiana's oldest coastal engineer, Gagliano states the dangers posed by MRGO amounted to "Coastal Geology 101." "One of the greatest catastrophes in the history of the US" was both predictable and preventable.

Gagliano has testified that a series of studies had warned of MRGO's impacts as far back as 1958, the year construction began. The threats included salination overload of sensitive freshwater swamps and erosion that would widen the channel over time. A 1984 Corps report acknowledged that large portions of St. Bernard and Orleans Parishes could be "exposed to a direct hurricane attack" because of a looming breach in the channel connecting it to Lake Borgne to the east.

I'm hoping that this one time victory is for the victims.

Katrina Recycling Project

After Hurricane Katrina gutted at least ten feet of the three story home, leaving only a skeleton of the original structure, a Waveland family is rebuilding using something else the storm destroyed: pine trees.

"They were all destroyed from the salt water from the hurricane as were the pine trees at Buccaneer State Park," Dr.Elliott Black said.

After getting the okay, Dr. Black moved hundreds of the park's dead pine trees to his Waveland property. Some of the trees were more than a century old. Now he's using the timber to rebuild his Hancock County home.

"Doing it this way is a slower process than doing it the other way," Dr. Black said.

"It goes through a drying process, a cooking process a curing process and then it gets cut on a sawmill," said James Ferrill a foreman overseeing the project.

"This is by far one of the biggest challenges I have ever taken," Ferrill said.



The home will maintain most of its original features, plus a few new ones like an elevator, an expanded porch and bigger bedrooms. And while the project is lengthy, both men are optimistic they will be pleased with the results.

The Blacks say it will take about a year to finish the home. However, they hope to move back in within the next six months.

Kill the Culture

In the last two weeks, there have been two high profile murder cases that involved the death of four innocent people.

Just yesterday the bodies of Calysse Perkins and Fitzgerald Phillips were found in an empty house. Perkins was killed because she was with Phillips when his dealing with illegal drugs caught up with him.

Calysse was a literacy tutor, someone who wanted to help those who could not read or write. She's gone because young men who obviously know no other life other than the thug-gangsta or whatever it's called lifestyle killed her in cold blood.

Last week there was an execution-style triple murder in Terrytown. Two of the three murdered were 6 years old and 23 months old; also shot was an 11-year-old girl.

It's beyond madness now, this "war" that's going on.

Cliff talks about the fact that the culture that breeds the thugs must be stopped. I couldn't agree more.

Scuzzbucket of the Week

Pauline R. Malone, a 30 year employee at Regions Bank, transferred thousands of dollars out of an 80 year old victim's account several times a month for about a year, totaling to about $65K.

from the T.P:

When she was brought in for questioning, Malone told investigators she began making the transfers after convincing the victim to loan her $7,000 last April, Foltz said. She told investigators she planned to repay the money and detectives discovered at least four credits of $100 each in the victim's account, he said.

Malone told investigators she gambled with the money she took and used some of it to pay her bills, Foltz said.

It is the policy of Regions to reimburse the victim fully in these kinds of cases, said Evelyn Mitchell, a spokeswoman for the bank.

There is evidence that Malone may have taken up to $10,000 from another victim over the last six weeks, and investigators are trying to locate that victim's family, Foltz said.

Malone was booked into Slidell's city jail on Friday with two counts each of theft, identity theft and bank fraud. She is being held on a $30,000 bond.

Good ole Pauline looks like she'll be quite comfy in womens' prison.
May she rot there.

French Quarter Fest '09

Lord David has quite nicely covered the music experience of French Quarter Fest here .

We ventured down to FQ Fest on Friday ready for a gourmandtastic walking tour from the Aquarium to the U.S. Mint and back. We were a little disappointed with some of the food, but all in all it was a good time.

We rolled into town at about 11:15 A.M. and found our usual parking lot full. So, we headed toward one Canal Place's parking lot and ended up on level 10, which I think is the highest level of this parking structure.

click on pictures for larger versions



The view from this height was quite nice.



But if you don't like heights, don't look straight down!

We headed for Jackson Square, hoping to catch Pete Foutain, but he wasn't there. We did happen to catch our "neighbor" Ronnie Kole, being briefed for his performance.



Jackson Square had some of the better food offerings, from Mrs. Wheats Meat and Crawfish Pies



To Jacques-Imo's slow-roasted duck poboy and Crepes a la Cart's hazelnut and strawberry crepes.





The crowd in the square was pretty mellow, which made for an enjoyable moveable feast.

Deciding to walk off the calories we just ingested, we headed for the U.S. Mint, which supposedly had a lot of good food to offer. Of course, our route took us thru the newly-renovated-and-still-in-renovation French Market, where we spotted this beautiful frieze or bas relief just on the outside of the Market



The Market looks much better than it had been looking and hopefully it will be completely renovated come Creole Tomato-New Orleans Seafoood-Zydeco Fest in June.





The crowd at the U.S. Mint wasn't so bad and the weather that day made it bearable. We looked around, trying to decide what to eat first when we located "Eat New Orleans" booth, serving Black Eye Pea Salsa and Coconut Buttermilk Pie and we ordered both.




The Salsa was pleasant, with just the right amount of cilantro. The pie was ho-hum.

Around to the back of the Mint we found Bravo Cucina Italiano's Crawfish Ravioli



Served tepid, it was pretty good; I would love to have tasted it at the proper temperature.

We headed over to Jack Dempsey's booth to experience their mac and cheese while hubby made a beeline for The Original New Orleans Po-Boys for a French Fry Po-Boy with Roast Beef Gravy......I hate to say we wasted $10 on these two dishes.





The mac and cheese was starchy with no cheese flavor whatsoever and the poboy's "roast beef gravy" was nothing but watered down gravy from an envelope. We threw both dishes away after a few bites. Bleck.

Disappointed, we headed back to Woldenberg park, where we knew the food had to be better and we were right.

Emeril's Delmonico had Confit (cooked in fat) pork cheeks (the best part of the pig) with creole dirty rice. Good stuff



After some people watching along the river, enjoying the fantastic breezes and cloud cover, we decided on each of the three tacos offered by Serranos Salsa Company




Yummy

Our last stop was Four Power Bakery's booth for a strawberry creole cream cheese bavarian. It was so good, we couldn't get a clear picture of it.

All in all it was another enjoyable FQ Fest and hopefully we walked off all we consumed.

Texas Scuzzbuckette

Betty Brown of the great big state of Texass.


From thinkprogress dot org


On Tuesday, State Rep. Betty Brown (R) caused a firestorm during House testimony on voter identification legislation when she said that Asian-Americans should change their names because they’re too hard to pronounce:

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told [Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey] Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

Yesterday, Brown continued to resist calls to apologize. Her spokesman said that Democrats “want this to just be about race.”


It's hard to fathom that there is so much ignorance out there. The audacity of this elected official makes me wonder about the people who put her in office. What a closed minded old broad.

HT to Oyster.

LSU Chancellor Petition-Ivor van Heerden

Here's an excerpt from the editorial in today's TP about the canning of Hurricane Expert Ivor van Heerden


photo from nola dot com


In the days immediately after Katrina, the world thought New Orleans had been ravaged by a huge storm simply too large for the high-tech flood protection system built at great cost by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And according to some members of Congress and many media commentators, that's just what we deserved for living here, below sea level.


photo from wikipedia

In fact, that was the official story being put out by the corps.

But about a week after the storm, as van Heerden and engineers on his staff began inspecting the deadly breaches in that system, the story began to change. They were expecting to see evidence of over-topping, signs Katrina was just too big for the system, the very scenario the center had predicted the day before the storm came ashore.

What they found was something else: Signs of catastrophic engineering failures.

In other words, the floodwalls and levees failed not because they were too small, but because they had been either poorly designed, poorly built -- or both.

But van Heerden's real danger to LSU was his threat to funding.

The federal government is the largest source of research funding for universities, and LSU was lining up tens of millions of dollars for coastal and wetlands work -- much of which might be partnered with the corps. Having one of its professors lobbing bombs at the feds made some at the university fear for the LSU pocketbook.

That's why members of Team Louisiana, as well as researchers from other universities, were warned to shut up or risk their careers. Fortunately for all of us they decided their ethics -- as professors, engineers and citizens -- compelled them to continue to work for the public good.

The decision has been brewing ever since van Heerden agreed to head the forensic investigation team in the days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005. Within days of the team's formation, van Heerden was frequently quoted in national newspaper and television reports, and most of his comments were highly critical of the Army Corps of Engineers' levee and floodwall construction policies and designs.

In November 2005, he was called to a meeting with two LSU assistant chancellors who van Heerden said told him to stop talking to the press, because it threatened the university's ability to get research dollars from the federal government.

Levees dot org has a petition to LSU Chancellor Martin urging him to reconsider his decision.

C MURDER and AntiCrime

Do what?
C-Murder, a rapper under house arrest while awaiting trial on a murder charge, is hosting an anti-crime news conference at 11 a.m. today (April 14, 2009).



This is the alternate universe aka the New Orleans area.



The Rev. Toris Young, who heads the Louisiana Ministerial Alliance Of Churches For All People, says rapper Corey Miller is among a new group joining forces to fight violent crime in the New Orleans area. Tuesday's news conference will take place at the Kenner home of Miller's grandmother, where he is being detained.



Young, whose group is also leading an effort to recall U.S. Rep. Joseph Cao, has also had run-ins with the law. In 2006, Young pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud and identity theft. He was released from federal prison last year and is currently on probation.

Miller, who performed under the name "C-Murder" is accused of killing a teenager in 2002 at a now-closed nightclub in Jefferson Parish. He has denied involvement in the killing. He is charged with second-degree murder. If convicted, he would face life in prison.

Scuzzbucket of the Week

Dayshawn Young, murderer. Not only is this mook a murderer, but he's been booked for the of execution-style triple murder in Terrytown. Two of the three murdered were 6 years old and 23 months old. He and his still-at-large accomplice also shot an 11-year-old girl several times before shooting the two babies in the head, execution-style, in another bedroom.

It's beyond sick. As a commenter suggested, anyone who would do this is without a soul.

Sigh

Good News for Lakeview

Nearly four years post Katrina, Lakeview is getting its postoffice back.


View Larger Map

The Lakeview neighborhood, devastated by Katrina flooding, has made steady progress in rebuilding its housing stock and residential population; based on house-to-house surveys it's estimated that more than 16,000 people now live in the area. There were about 22,000 Lakeview residents before the 2005 storm.

Happy Easter

Looking for something to do?

Knowing Stuff

Lord David over at HumidCity dot com pens a great post about the absent mindedness of the Nagin Administration and the hopeful outcome.


You’ve almost completely destroyed our city, hopes and rebuilding efforts to further your own greed. You’ve made backroom deals with all your friends and given away the farm for your own profit. You’ve blamed the Times-picayune, WWL-TV, Lee Zurik and Stacey Head. You’ve hurled the name ‘RACIST’ at anyone who stood up to your criminal bullying.


read it in its entirety here.

Shot of the Week

While attending the Picayune Street Fair this morning, hubby and I spotted this lady who is probably my age (54).



A truely "What Not to Wear" Moment

Let's compare disasters, shall we?

First Draft takes the opportunity to answer those pathetic hateful souls who
take every advantage to beat down the the people of New Orleans with their closed- minded comments.

Here's a snippet


Is 80% of Fargo under water at present? Is it flooded to the rooftops? That was the case for much of NOLA and well you can't do much BUT go to the rooftop and hope help comes.

Did 90% of Fargo evacuate? Because 90% of So LA did so. It was the largest and most successful evacuation in US history. Over 1 million people evacuated...most in just 24-48 hours. My God the whole population of the state of North Dakota (640,000) would have to evacuate TWICE to make that argument meaningful.



Thanks, Scout!

Are you listening, Governor?

How is Bobby Jindal going to convince people in Michigan, California, Pennsylvania, Florida, and all those other struggling states to vote for the man that chose not to accept money design to help struggling working people in his state even though their tax dollars were paying for it regardless? I don’t think many people want that guy in a time of crisis like this.


Read the rest at Cliff's blog here

Sad Anniversary

It was a year ago today that NOLA Blogger Ashley Morris passed away, leaving a huge hole in the hearts of many.

He left behind a beautiful young wife and three small children.

I never met him personally, but Ashley touched everyone who read his blog or emailed him in a big way. He had a love for life and New Orleans and he'll never be forgotten.


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