“It’s not an easy thing to describe one’s first impression of New Orleans: for while it actually resembles no other city upon the face of the earth, yet it recalls vague memories of a hundred cities. It owns suggestions of towns in Italy, and in Spain, cities in England and in Germany, of seaports in the Mediterranean, and of seaports in the tropics.”- 1877 essay “At the Gate of the Tropics,” Lafcadio Hearn.
And furthermore…
“If you are everywhere, you are nowhere. If you are somewhere, you are everywhere.”
- Rumi
Quotes from a 7/20/07 New York Times article about formaldehyde-laden FEMA trailers provided to evacuees :
“We were not formaldehyde experts.”
- R. David Paulison. FEMA Adminstrator.
“Do not initiate any testing until we give the O.K. Once you get results the clock starts running on our duty to respond to them.”
- Unnamed FEMA lawyer sent this e-mail in response to concerns expressed by field staff about toxic levels of formaldehyde reported in FEMA trailers.
“What we have is indifference to the suffering of people who are already suffering because of Hurricane Katrina (note: actually the federal levee failures), and this from an agency that’s supposed to serve the public.”
- Represenative Henry A. Waxman, D- California
Thank God the French got here first.Can you imagine what New Orleans might have been had the Pilgrims gotten off at Pilottown instead of Plymouth?
It’s frightening… We might have been burning witches instead of café brûlot; or preaching to the quadroon beauties instead of dancing with them; or spending eons eating boiled beef and potatoes, instead of Écrevisse Cardinal, or pompano en papillote, or gumbo.
But the French, ah the French! They came here full blown with life and love, not refugees. God-centered and narrow; but adventurers, gamblers, fat with a culture that made living a love affair of the senses, and secure in the knowledge that while sin was the work of the devil, its nearest occasions were the particular art of the French.
– Phil Johnson
News director, editorial writer
WWL-TV, New Orleans
Dave Bartholomew on the role of New Orleans in American music:
“There is no, no, no, no place like New Orleans for music. The pioneers are here. We built the house. You can redecorate it, but we laid the foundation.”
- Dave Bartholomew. Trumpeter and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Member. Bartholomew worked as a producer, arranger, and writer for Fats Domino.
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.”
- Ernest Hemingway
I don’t know if Ernest Hemingway was one of the many great writers who visited and fell in love with New Orleans. Whether or not he did, I can’t think of a better guide to the post-levee failure world.
Open Source Organizing
Quintus Jett, a professor at the Thayer School of Engieering at Dartmouth College, is leading the Gentilly Project.
The Project is making GIS technology (Geographical Information Systems) available in a public, web-based form so that the Gentilly community can create an easily accessed database to track the condition of neighborhood properties and the progress being made to restore them.
Jett is particularly interested in what he called “open structure organzing.” (more…)
“…in truth, the problems of Louisiana are the problems of the United States.”
Excellent editorial by Lolis Eric Elie that explains the New Orleans situation as well as anyone has. Must reading if you want to understand the real story.
It’s probably not possible to spend any kind of time in a place like New Orleans without having an intense experience or two, and not necessarily all uplifting ones.
The city has a dark side. In fact, I’ve heard the word “demonic” used to describe elements of it more than once. I won’t argue with that.
I don’t know if Byron Katie has ever even been to New Orleans, but I do think what she has to say in her book “Loving What Is” - which recently helped me out of my own dark place (I won’t bore you with the details) - applies not only to New Orleans, but also to every attempt to make things better.
Worth reading…
“In other places, culture comes from down on high. In New Orleans, it bubbles up from the streets.” - Ellis Marsalis
New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians practice. Sally who sent this in says it’s from: “Lundi Gras. February 2005 @ Beans in Central City.”
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