b.rox

Xy and I were getting lunch at Minnie’s Catfish Corner (highly recommended) when we heard the news about the hurricane in Myanmar. Apparently the geography there is very similar to Louisiana. The reports are at least 10,000 dead with thousands more missing. This reminded us of the worst predictions immediately after Hurricane Katrina and the [...]

I notice I haven’t been writing about issues in the recovery of New Orleans nearly as much lately. That’s because my primary mission here is to write about what’s going on in my life, and my life has been more preoccupied by personal issues lately.
Nevertheless, I try to keep tabs on what’s going down in [...]

Doesn’t it seem ridiculous that our collective mood should rise and fall based on what this guy says in his speech?

Tonight, the armies of compassion continue the march to a new day in the Gulf Coast. America honors the strength and resilience of the people of this region. We reaffirm our pledge to help them [...]

This story in the paper made me feel ever-so-slightly vindicated about our decision to renovate.

A new study of home prices around the New Orleans area shows that buyers rewarded sellers who gambled and rebuilt in devastated areas like Lakeview, eastern New Orleans and Chalmette. Renovated homes in those areas recovered much of their pre-storm value [...]

How can this occur a full five months after this? (Thanks, BSJD)

Xy and I had our initial appointment with the Road Home program this morning. Yes, that’s right, initial. We’re only just now getting started. For once this tardiness cannot be blamed on governmental ineptitude or bureaucratic bungling. It’s our fault. We’ve dragged out feet and postponed this because we don’t really expect to get any [...]

We had about 16 trick-or-treaters pass by our home in Mid-City tonight, up from ten last year and zero the year before that.

I’ll be participating in a panel discussion on “Media, Communication and Community: Private and Public Interests in Rebuilding New Orleans” this Wednesday night. It’s sponsored by the Xavier University Communications Department and it’s open to the general public. More info.
Next week, I’ll be moderating a panel discussion on “New Media and Community Activism in Post-Katrina [...]

One of the most interesting things I got out of the Green Party of Louisiana convention on Saturday was a press release distributed by the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund. Strangely enough I can’t find this information on their website nor on the website for the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, so I thought [...]

While our public officials were ringing bells and laying wreaths yesterday, hundreds of people were marching in San Jose. They were commemorating Katrina just like we were doing here, but they were also calling for a Gulf Coast Civic Works Project. They want something like the WPA, putting Gulf Coast residents to work rebuilding the [...]

So where are we in the recovery of New Orleans, two years after the great disaster?
It’s been slow going, that’s for sure. I expected that. It’s killing people in less fortunate circumstances, but personally I can survive the slow pace of recovery — as long as I can see some progress being made. But sometimes [...]

Just scouring back through old files, I found this e-mail sent from a friend in Florida on the Saturday evening before Katrina. To read it now sends a chill down my spine, and takes me back to that night two years ago.

From: leviolberton
Subject: Yo Hurricane Host
Date: August 27, 2005 10:21:01 PM CDT
To: [...]

Back in September of 2005, I wondered if Katrina would become an campaign issue in 2008. Now pollster John Zogby says it just might:
73 percent say the U.S is in a serious crisis, according to our recent polling.
This suggests a need to redefine the very nature and structure of U.S. federalism. In our post-Katrina polling, [...]

Imagine picking up a newspaper and scanning through all the stories on the front page and finding no reference whatsoever to Katrina, no reference to the Federal Flood, no reference to the so-called recovery.
Somewhere on the planet there are places where the newspaper is full of other stories.
I wonder what that’s like.

I got a note from a good friend last week that really threw me for a loop. He basically called me out for being a bad friend. He said I’d been dismissive, insulting and hostile. He was very polite but very direct, which I appreciated. The details are too personal to share, but it made [...]

So… The Santa Clara Democratic Party is asking the California Democratic Party to urge the national Democratic Party to support a Gulf Coast Civic Works Project.

I just learned that tomorrow will be my co-worker Althea’s last day here at the University.

Althea has been with the University for many years. I believe she started working as an administrative assistant in English. I knew her because she was working a computer lab manager for my unit when I was hired back in [...]

One year ago today, we moved back into our home.
I’ve been thinking about that time quite a bit recently, in part because I’m trying to reconstruct a bit of narrative ROX #95, but also just because. I think last December was probably the strangest month of my life. Living without electricity, with no neighbors (or [...]

3319-21 Iberville Street [map]

This building has been proposed for demolition by FEMA. Since it’s in a historic district (Mid-City, my neighborhood) FEMA is “requesting the aid of the public in identifying alternatives to demolition.”
But how can we provide any such suggestions if we don’t know why the owner has requested demolition? The house appears to [...]

Click to enlarge.