Category: Katrina
The Recovery Discriminated
“The storm didn’t discriminate, and neither will the recovery effort.” As soon as George W. Bush said those words, we knew it was a lie. No, not a lie. Call it wishful thinking. Call it evidence of white privilege. Even the president’s speechwriters seemed to realize this, and a few days later, when he gave […]
Read More → The Recovery DiscriminatedTen Things You Need to Know About Rising Tide X
The X stands for ten. Yes, it’s been ten years. Rising Tide X takes place on the 29th of August, 2015, the ten-year anniversary of Katrina’s landfall. Rising Tide started on the first anniversary and the conference has convened every year since. Many Katrina anniversary events are commemorative or memorial in nature. They look back. Rising […]
Read More → Ten Things You Need to Know About Rising Tide XRe-Upping Katrina
Moving video around the web has gotten a lot easier over the past decade. Studious types may remember that YouTube launched the same year Katrina hit: 2005. In remembrance of the ten year anniversary of these twin catastrophes, I’ve re-upped the three episodes of the ROX “Katrina trilogy” in full quality. There’s really no reason to […]
Read More → Re-Upping KatrinaPlease Forward
I know I shouldn’t be excited about something so grim but nevertheless I am happy to announce that Please Forward will soon be available in bookstores (officially on August 15) and is now available for pre-order at all the usual places, including my favorite bookstore. This anthology collects online writings that erupted in the aftermath of […]
Read More → Please ForwardSix Month Warning
People of New Orleans! In six months we’ll mark the ten year anniversary of the flooding of our city. Already the media machinery is gearing up for all kinds of coverage, and ordinary citizens elsewhere in the country and around the world will be provoked to remember us for a brief moment. They may wonder […]
Read More → Six Month WarningRising Tide 9
It’s time once again for Rising Tide. This will be the ninth iteration of this “conference on the future of New Orleans” which was launched by a bunch of local bloggers and concerned citizens on the first anniversary of Katrina. I think what I like most about this event is its grassroots nature. Even though […]
Read More → Rising Tide 9Further Divergence
I’m still thinking about Isaac. My writing hasn’t been able to keep pace. They say every storm is unique, and certainly Isaac was very different from Katrina. Yet comparisons are inevitable, despite being problematic. One headline put it this way: Drenched New Orleans passes big post-Katrina test The US Army Corp of Engineers has done […]
Read More → Further DivergenceNew Beginnings Require Old Endings
I have a desire to make a new beginning. (Pardon the vagueness. I’ll expand on that later.) Paradoxically that has me thinking about endings as well. New beginnings require old endings. Plant a sunflower seed and, with some water and sunlight, you start a new life. But there is no new life without death. Life […]
Read More → New Beginnings Require Old EndingsUnprepared
I’ve often thought there was some deep connection between what happened in NYC (and elsewhere) on Sept. 11th, 2001, and what happened in NOLA on August 29th, 2005. I’m sure the following idea is not original. But I still think it’s important. After 9/11, Americans made a collective promise to ourselves: to take the safety […]
Read More → UnpreparedSix Years Post-Katrina
Six years ago today I woke up in a hotel room in northern Mississippi with Xy and three cats. We turned on the television and saw Katrina ripping the roof off the Superdome. We decided to keep on trucking, and we headed up to Indiana to bunk with my in-laws for a few days. When […]
Read More → Six Years Post-KatrinaFriday Night in Smalltown City
So Friday morning as I was walking to the barbershop, I was thinking about Hurricane Irene. It may sound callous, but my thoughts were something like this: If Irene strikes an urban area, it won’t take long before some jackfool starts sounding off about how his community “handled it” better than New Orleans. But the […]
Read More → Friday Night in Smalltown CityRising Tide
Don’t forget, Rising Tide 6 is tomorrow. If you can’t make it to New Orleans you can watch the live webcast. Here’s a mix to mark the occasion. Also it looks like I might be on Canadian TV tonight.
Read More → Rising TideLoose Endz
Recently, after a couple beers, Xy let it slip that she’s not really into the funky weird ponytail I’d been growing out for the last year or so. I can’t say I blame her. It started as the ultimate anti-mullet, long on top, shaved everywhere else. But when it finally got long enough, it started […]
Read More → Loose EndzProfiles in Bloggage, Part 5
Sunday night, I made my presentation, “The Role of Blogs in the Rebuilding of New Orleans,” to a special interest group of the AERA. Even though the presentation is over, I’m still playing catch-up here on the blog. And so I come to my fifth and final installment of stories that have emerged in, around, […]
Read More → Profiles in Bloggage, Part 5Profiles in Bloggage, Part 2
In April, I’ll be making a presentation to a special interest group of the AERA titled “The Role of Blogs in the Rebuilding of New Orleans.” My plan is to tell five separate stories that have emerged in, around, through or about the local blogosphere since the flooding of the city in 2005. I thought […]
Read More → Profiles in Bloggage, Part 2Profiles in Bloggage, Part 1
In April, I’ll be making a presentation to a special interest group of the AERA titled “The Role of Blogs in the Rebuilding of New Orleans.” My plan is to tell five separate stories that have emerged in, around, through or about the local blogosphere since the flooding of the city in 2005. I thought […]
Read More → Profiles in Bloggage, Part 1Minutes
I took these minutes on my 39th birthday, which was the day the University re-opened after the flooding of the city. What a strange day. We’d seen our city on the brink of annihilation, and the future was very uncertain. We came into our conference room, sat around the table, looked at each other and […]
Read More → MinutesDeaf Government Area
This photo recently became my most “favorited” on Flickr. With 26 favorites it has surpassed Big Cloud, which is gratifying because I think this is a much more interesting shot. I took this one on October 13, 2006 in Gentilly, on Mirabeau Avenue near the London Avenue Canal breach. In the background you can see […]
Read More → Deaf Government AreaWe’re Number 15
My friend Anne, with whom I’ve been in a book club for nearly ten years now, alerted me to the fact that Central Connecticut State University has released their annual rankings of America’s Most Literate Cities. What especially intrigued Anne, and me, is that New Orleans is ranked #15 (out of 75). We were #17 […]
Read More → We’re Number 15A Few Photos of Habans Post-K
Yesterday the verdicts came down in the Henry Glover case. According to the morning paper: Federal prosecutors won the first convictions in their sprawling probe of police misconduct in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as a jury Thursday found three New Orleans police officers guilty in a high-stakes case accusing them of killing Henry Glover, […]
Read More → A Few Photos of Habans Post-K