Recruits are still needed for next week's blogathon on Katrina, Rita, New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, and other areas devastated by these storms--which impacted an area nearly as large as the state of Minnesota.

We must never forget, nor must we allow others to forget, what happened in 2005--and how New Orleans has been neglected and her people given the shaft since then.

Three years after Hurricane Katrina plowed into New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast, thousands of people are still picking up the pieces. Despite some hopeful claims by a certain president, the situation on the ground is still a virtual housing crisis.

A new study released today by my organization, PolicyLink, shows that there are still far too few rental homes to come back to and homeowners are finding it nearly impossible to get enough money to actually rebuild.

And guess who's bearing the brunt of the problems? Low-income workers and residents of historically African American neighborhoods. Check out below the fold for some pretty sobering details from "A Long Road Home: The state of Housing Recovery in Louisiana 2008."

UPDATED with new title thanks to some smart folks in the comments...

New Orleans is all better!

August 29th was also the day that Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, while John McCain and George W. Bush was laughing it up on the airport tarmac with a huge birthday cake in front of them.

Hello all, I'm a citizen of New Orleans and blog almost purely about local politics and recovery issues at We Could Be Famous. I wrote this earlier today on my blog after the release of the 10 year facilities master plan that will guide the future of New Orleans public schools. Because my blog tends to be written for a local audience, I've added an extra piece at the end for Kos readers.

Essentially, the schools master plan punishes the communities most in need of social services and municipal investment by rewarding school facilities primarily to communities that already have rebuilt their assets. Please read on.

Last night I made a valiant effort to watch the forum when John McCain was on the stage, I was doing well until he mentioned going to visit churches after Hurricane Katrina. That specific bit of pandering was particularly offensive to me because I had just done a diary on McCain's Katrina record, and it's not good.

As a child, Barack Obama probably had as much say in where his mother and grandparents chose to raise him as you did.  

What's your problem with Hawaii?  Exotic?  Let me tell you about exotic.

The other day I got an e-mail from Netroots Nation with their ideas for the Democratic platform and calling for suggestions. Below the fold is what I sent them last Friday.

Also, I'm recruiting diarists for the Katrina Blogathon which is scheduled for the 3-year anniversary of Katrina and the federal flood. Unlike previous Blogathons, this will last three days--Wed., Aug. 27-Fri., Aug. 29, 2008.

There's been a lot of reflection on the fact that Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic Party's candidate for President will fall on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech.  But there's another, more recent milestone associated with the late August time frame.  The day after August 28, 2008 will be the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, and the third anniversary of the catastrophic levee failure that caused a man-made disaster in one of America's great cities.

over..

Must be an election year.  In June the Orleans and Jefferson Parish Registrars of Voters announced a purge of 100,000 "inactive" voters from the rolls.  This on top of another purge last year that dropped 20,000 from New Orleans rolls.

While some voters purged may indeed have resettled after the storm, purges have been used frequently in Louisiana just before elections for partisan purposes.

Which is why the "mix-up" by the Jefferson Parish GOP Executive Committee, putting (Republican) Parish registrar Dennis DiMarco's name and office address as the sender of a flyer by the state GOP, urging Democrats and Independents to switch parties, smells just a little like fuckery.

Hurricane Katrina will see its third anniversary on August 29th, a cataclysm whose meaning has yet to inform the national politics of present-day America. But a new report released last month and a documentary film going national this month just might help transform that.  

The report and the film are highlighting issues of environmental justice, economic opportunity, and racial equality and they are bumping right into a counter-effort the denialist machine has launched -- a fear-mongering campaign aimed at scaring the poor and minorities about higher energy prices.

It's the naked truth about Katrina and climate and race in America versus a cynical and nauseating brand of ugly politics orchestrated by the fossil lobby whose message was something like this: "Climate action is nothing less than a war on the poor."

Alright, I know I lapsed for a couple of weeks, and I'm pretty much posting this at the ass-end of a Monday, but I really couldn't decide on which songs to post!

I thought it would be a good idea this month to concentrate on topics centering on dignity, especially considering our approach of the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Below the fold, paean of the week:

Four birds. In a 100 mile oil slick, stretching from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico,
at this time, four birds were captured for cleaning: a cattle egret, two ducks, a juvenile laughing gull, and one turtle. Oh, a snake was caught covered with oil, but it was tossed out by cleanup workers.

I attended a cleaning of three of the birds in Venice, Louisiana, about two hours outside of New Orleans towards the Gulf of Mexico. They use Dawn detergent, because it cuts grease. The Exxon- Valdez spill taught us that Dawn is effective.

"War" on Terror

Today at TPMCafe Senator John Kerry discussed ways our response to extremism and terrorism should be changed.  As so many well informed people have been saying all along about the "War on Terror," everything about the way our government approaches the subject needs to be rethought from the bottom up.  The basic strategy of Communist guerrilla recruiters, which was highly successful in so many places, was always to swell the ranks by winning over the hearts and minds of the local population.  Terrorist organizations have adopted roughly the same strategy.  The militaristic approach our nation has employed during the Bush years plays right into the hands of the recruiters.

More after the flip.

The Bush Iraq and Afghanistan wars will cost the U.S. $2.4 trillion, but some fiscal conservatives and anti-tax crusaders are still fixated on derailing the billions of dollars requisite to restore a city lost to Bush’s incompetence and hubris – the city of New Orleans.

An old, annoying, yet benign, viral e-mail is being treated to a sinister makeover and finding its way into e-mail boxes across America. The e-mail, in its original form, was disseminated ostensibly to ask the reader to posit the vastness of a $1 billion. While ruminating on this idea, the letter goes on to show how politicians cavalierly bandy about such a hefty sum in conversation whilst doing the nation’s business.

There is wonderful news in the paper this morning.  The New Orleans Lakefront Airport, one of the true architectural gems of the 1930s, is going to be restored to its original appearance.  Architect Alton Ochsner Davis will oversee the project.

Completed in 1934 and originally named Shushan Airport Terminal Complex, the airport is one of a very few Art Deco/WPA-era terminals left in existence.  Most of the air terminals of the era were demolished to make larger facilities to accommodate jet traffic.  Shushan was spared this fate when Moisant Field (now Louis Armstrong International) opened in Kenner in 1946.

Back in 1988 when the Exxon Valdez ran aground, I can recall at least a few weeks of steady coverage by both the three major networks and cable news (just CNN at the time) of the disaster, its environmental impact, and efforts to clean it up.

But the fuel oil spill that happened in Louisiana earlier this week proves to be a much larger disaster with farther-reaching consequences--yet for some news briefs I've seen on NBC Nightly News and a couple of cable channels, there hasn't been the major coverage it should be getting. Why aren't the MSM taking it seriously?

And scorpiorising says,

it is somewhat shocking to me, given the size of the spill and its potential impact on fragile wetlands, that there isn't more help coming to help wildlife, and to help with cleanup.

The fuel spill in the Mississippi River now stretches 100 miles, almost to the Gulf of Mexico, and a sickly oil smell hangs over the city. According to a WWL TV news report, an SPCA group from Houston has set up a wildlife recovery effort. I don't want to pass judgement yet, but it is somewhat shocking to me, given the size of the spill and its potential impact on fragile wetlands, that there isn't more help coming to help wildlife, and to help with cleanup.