December 2007 archive

There comes a time where the echoes of history begin to take on a most alarming toll, like the sounding of a gong announcing the approach of an ominous new enemy just like a previously-defeated old foe.

This is that time. Put on your tinfoil hat for a trip down memory lane, and follow me…

Crossposted from ePluribus Media 2.0, because one can never have enough foil and recycling is good for you. Also available in orange.

PG-13 version crossposted a la grande orange and at the Blue House.

The day after Christmas, I’m heading back to the Gulf Coast for a week

with the volunteers. If The Muse doesn’t run out on me, this will be the first in a series of short and easy reads on what it all means. Or doesn’t.

This trip came about because we had some money left over from the last one.

After three trips with no skills other than strong backs, it was becoming pretty clear that unless we could kick it up a notch, there wouldn’t be much use in returning.  

How selfish of me to be trying to drag the reader from some lovely spiked eggnog to the nitty gritty of the struggles of others.

My only rationalization is that Christmas is approaching.  The whole damned story was about Mary and Joseph not being able to get a room when she was about to have her baby.  I believe at the time they were traveling back to Joseph’s hometown for some registration or other.  (What’s that cool French phrase that means, “the more things change …”? Cestdelamemchanceorsomethinglikethat.)

So with that admittedly self-serving rationalization, I continue with a story that has grown more and more interesting to me, the public housing issue in New Orleans.

From the indefatigable oyster at Your Right Hand Thief, a pertinent question of what the nature of this public housing will be:

Quoting the Times-Picayune:

Unbowed by days of caustic protests, the New Orleans City Council on Thursday unanimously approved the demolition of four sprawling public housing developments, launching a new era in the troubled history of a social safety net launched in the World War II era.

…

The unanimous decision, which put to rest some predictions of a racially split vote, handed a major victory to President Bush’s housing aides, who have pushed for mixed-income developments as a way to restore an original goal of public housing: to provide transitional housing to help people elevate themselves from poverty.

(emphasis mine)

Oyster goes on to question this new meme being introduced by our politicians and our media, “transitional housing,” and questions if that was the original reason for why our country helped folks with their homes.

You can read the entire post and there are some comments which do some research (including a link from Yours Truly).

So let me see here.

Folks were evicted from their public housing after the federal flood, even though their homes were not all damaged.  They were sent to far flung places in and out of the Gulf Coast region.  They received some assistance from the feds and from the state, but some of that assistance is running out, some folks are being evicted from their FEMA trailers, there’s a big question about housing — heck, there’s also illegal demolitions going on of middle-class housing that have resulted in law suits, serious ones.

So there’s a big mix here, it would seem to me.  Whether it’s public housing or illegal demolitions of private housing, a lot of tearing down and building up (and the attendant big money contracts for same) is going on.  And it will affect the entire city, the rich and the poor, imo.

We’ve heard many promises from politicians, trumpeted in the traditional media both locally and nationally, that those poor folks, those wretched poverty stricken folks will be treated with great compassion and housed well all due to the bounty of our federal government and its great agencies HUD and FEMA!  They are regular Santa Clauses!  Yay!

But of course this housing is only transitional.  And what does transitional mean, I wonder?  ‘Course just having a home is not exactly a ticket to high class status here in the good old U S of A.  I dunno, jobs might help, daycare centers, hospitals, schools, libraries, all the kinds of community services so many of us take for granted, that might also help with this so-called “transition.”

How long is a transition, I wonder?  Well in this instance I guess a transition depends on the money — oh not the money someone on public assistance makes, oh no!  It depends on the money the government is willing to spend for this noble goal of helping to transition folks out of that nasty awful poverty they’ve got themselves in.

So it could be that next year some of these noble heroes from HUD or FEMA or maybe even some local developer with a lot of power and a lot of greed, could decide that a miracle has taken place!  Each and every one of those folks, even the ones in the diaspora who have not yet come home, well can you believe it!  They have all successfully transitioned from poverty and we no longer even NEED public housing!  Hosanna in the highest!

Transitional my ass.

Here’s what I would like to know.  Who is getting the demolition contracts?  How much will they be paid?  Will the citizens of New Orleans get the information they are entitled to get from the City Council on exactly who is doing what in this large project?  And I am not just talking about public housing here, but city planning generally.  Will the citizens whose lives are going to be affected by these decisions be given the information they need to judge how well this job is being done, so that they can feel comfortable with the results?

That’s what I’m interested in when it comes to New Orleans.  I’ll stick the “transitional” meme in my meme box with all the others, like “what part of illegal don’t you understand?” or “you are only allowed to have a television if you earn over $50,000 a year,” and “impeachment is impossible, we don’t have the votes.”

I believe the story of Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus is about far more than housing.  But it cannot be denied that they were in very “transitional” housing indeed on that night a birth took place in a manger.  With wise men and extremely groovy gifts.  A night of contrasts, I guess.

Lagniappe:

I thought I would add two others to my Canadian music you might not have heard of who I happen to like.

The first is a band called Blue Rodeo, they have a bit of a country edge and get occasionally play in the US on CMT. They aren’t quite as big as the Tragically Hip but they aren’t starving artists, they make a good living selling a lot of CDs mainly in Canada.

The next is a wonderful jazz/pop singer named Molly Johnson. For some reason I thought NKP might like her based on what I have heard from her lovely audioblog offerings.

You will realize that the third one is actually a commercial promoting tourism in Ontario, the province I am from. It is kinda sweet and it made me homesick.

Yesterday, I did something different …

… I decided that I would Take the Long Way Home

… as that Tom Waite^{NB} lyric says at the beginning:

Well I stumbled in the darkness

I’m lost and alone

Though I said I’d go before us

And show the way back home

There a light up ahead

I can’t hold onto her arm

Forgive me pretty baby but I always take the long way home

{NB. No, that is not Tom Waite singing the song. Good eye!}

Now, I wasn’t literally lost. What I did was decide that, with four days off coming up, I could take the long way home, which ought to be very pretty this time of year. Instead of going down the county highway to turn left onto the township highway to turn right onto the main county highway that goes straight to my (current) home town …

… I decided to turn right to go past the Quarry, then cross the state route to go along the Lake road then the bike trail that runs to my home town.

And I was glad I did, because it was a terrible route, and I set me thinking about bikeways versus freedom to ride.

The Tragically Hip are a bit of an institution in Canuckistan. They are also an interesting example of a band who while they tour in the US  and Europe seemed to have made a conscious decision to remain firmly based in their Canadian roots. The prevailing wisdom for many Canadian artists used to be that in order to make it big on had to bust in on the gigantic American market. The hip are an example of a band that has sold well enough in Canada that making it big in the US has never been a requirement. They have even performed for Queen Elizabeth II, and while Canadians are no longer royalists, they have great affection for it and the fact that they did perform for her is a mark of essential Canadianess. Many of their song lyric reference specific Canadian events, history, and geography. In Canada they play in huge arena in the US they tend to play small clubs. Most Canadians of a certain age ( mine) know most of the lyrics to their songs.

Wheat Kings is about a man named David Milgaard who was wrongly convicted of rape and murder. The whole affair shone a very unpleasant light on the Canadian justice system. It was a light that sorely needed shining and many people bring it up when discussing whether the death penalty has a place in Canada.

I have no idea who the guys are in this video montage but I spent many a summer camping in Algonquin Park and the song Three Pistols references

a brilliant Canadian painter named Tom Thompson. He was a part of the Group of Seven influential painters in the 1900’s to the 1920’s who are now considered icons.

Another favorite is Fifty Mission Cap, a song about Bill Barilko who played for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

He scored the winning goal who scored the winning goal in the 1951 Stanley Cup and then disappeared on a fishing trip that year. His body was found the next year the Leafs won the cup in 1962.

Although this video is several years old it gives you an idea of how big they are in Canada, and Gordon Downie, the lead singer is a bit of an eccentric.