Tag: NOLA

Well, fuck, I guess he got bored dancing exclusively on the graves of New Yorkers.  Time to deface New Orleans once more before he goes!

          –Yours truly, reacting to Bush’s SOTU announcement to hold this year’s North American Summit in New Orleans

Normally, I’m not the kind to start a diary of any sort out this way, especially with an lead quote from myself.  But when Meteor Blades tells you to start a diary with it you don’t ask questions.  You just do it.  So I did.

This State of the Union is perhaps the most valuable of Bush’s reign.  Why?  Well, they’ve all been so entirely worthless, that the fact that this one has had a single lone happy side effect makes it by default the best.

It got people talking about what I thought they’d forgotten: the crime against humanity committed in New Orleans in the last days of August and first days of September 2005.

I’m not claiming any moral superiority.  I had moved on in my own thoughts as well.  Sure, when it would come up, I would feel disgust and outrage.  But between the business of living and the neverending tidal wave of horrors that have come since, it hasn’t been in the forefront of my thoughts.

I was, perhaps, just ahead of the curve.  I had what happened to New Orleans brought home to me not long ago.  And I wanted to share the experience with all of you.

Cross Posted from DailyKos

hat-tip to kj & NightProwlKitty!!!

A group of bloggers over (here) at Docudharma have been actively writing about NOLA after Hurricane Katrina and we have decided to do a week-end marathon fund-raiser for the 9th Wards’ N.E.N.A. (Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association)

Kossacks/Dharmaniacs came to the rescue when Pretty Bird Woman House needed help.  

And for that you are all superstars in my book-no matter who you’re voting for!!!

Now, New Orleans Ninth Ward needs our help, and this is more of a reminder than anything else, since the needs are ongoing.  Who is NENA, you ask?

The Lower Ninth Ward Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association (NENA) was established in the aftermath of Katrina to play a lead role in rebuilding New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward.

Organized and controlled by residents of the Lower Ninth Ward, NENA addresses not only the immediate recovery needs created by the storm’s destruction, but also the institutional neglect and disinvestment that plagued the neighborhood long before Katrina. NENA works with current Lower Ninth Ward residents, displaced residents living in other parts of New Orleans, and the broader diaspora who want to return to the neighborhood.

After Katrina” is a haunting, evocative chronicle by Chris Rose, through his Times-Picayune columns, of his own life and that of a New Orleans not only struggling to recover but to survive. Not in chronological order but arranged by theme, the columns start with Sept. 1, 2005 and end with Dec. 31, 2006.

As he often speaks for a Louisiana in pain, Rose eloquently describes not only the surrealness of her post-Katrina landscape but also some intriguing, often eccentric characters he meets in his beloved city and his own descent into the private hell of depression–and that of those around him. “1 Dead In Attic” should be required reading for anyone who wants to know what life in New Orleans after what Rose often calls “the Thing” was, and still is, like from the inside.