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series of 16 newly acquired images documenting an initiation into king neptunes court (a naval equator crossing ritual). 11 portrait format and 5 landscape format. the originals should work nicely into a 4 x 4 vertical grid.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation President Richard Moe responded to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s Bring Back New Orleans Commission’s recently unveiled proposal that would give neighborhoods in the city’s low-lying areas from four months to one year to prove that they should not be bulldozed.
[The following includes excerpts from a letter Moe sent to Mayor Nagin last night in response to the commission’s recommendation. To read the entire letter click here (pdf).]
“At the very least, I would urge that building permits be allowed in the city's nineteen National Register Historic Districts, which contain 38,000 historic structures. We have concluded that every single one of these historic districts can and should be rebuilt, and that the overwhelming majority of damaged structures within their boundaries can be repaired. These are the Creole cottages, shotgun houses and historic bungalows that constitute the heart and soul of New Orleans. These are the neighborhoods most important to the identity of New Orleans, and they must be allowed to lead the city's neighborhood recovery effort.”
James Zadroga spent 16 hours a day toiling in the World Trade Center ruins for a month, breathing in debris-choked air. Timothy Keller said he coughed up bits of gravel from his lungs after the towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001. Felix Hernandez spent days at the site helping to search for victims.
All three men died in the last seven months of what their families and colleagues say are persistent respiratory illnesses directly caused by their work at ground zero.
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The New York Daily News has learned that an additional 22 men, mostly in their 30s and 40s, have died from causes their families say were accelerated by the toxic mix of chemicals that lodged in their bodies as they searched for survivors or participated in the cleanup after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
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Zadroga was far from alone, of course, at Ground Zero. Thousands of others, from across the city and across the country, had arrived at the smouldering crevice in Lower Manhattan to do the same, in what was a long, long clean-up and debris-trucking process. How many of them are ailing now? How many of them might die because of illnesses attributable to the contaminants they inhaled, or the particles absorbed into their skin, at a time when many frantic responders weren't even wearing proper protective gear or respiratory apparatus?
[....]
One survey, of 1,138 responders, from the period of July to December 2002, showed 60 per cent reported lower airway breathing problems and 74 per cent reported upper airway breathing problems.
Federal employees were told not to participate in the Mount Sinai program, that a separate monitoring agency would be established for them. But such an agency appeared and disappeared with fewer than 600 people seen, according to one of the 9/11 civilian watchdog groups.
In the 10 days immediately after 9/11, the Environmental Protection Agency put out five press releases reassuring the public that air and soil samples indicated no heightened levels of cancer-causing agents in the air or soil anywhere beyond the immediate Ground Zero area. Some EPA officials have since admitted those assurances were unfounded and may have been influenced by political pressure. Certainly the Sierra Club has alleged a cover-up of what was clearly an acute environmental disaster, even though the environment was hardly foremost in people's minds at the time, as relatives searched for loved ones and the White House planned a military response. What became quickly known as the "WTC cough" was prevalent among emergency responders. A later study undertaken by a private environmental firm — at the behest of a company contracted to perform some of the cleanup — found more alarming developments, with positive tests for significant asbestos levels. That firm suggested the sheer force of the tower explosions shattered asbestos into fibres so small they evaded the EPA's ordinary testing methods.
Ground Zero inhalation tests of ambient air showed WTC dust consisted predominantly (95 per cent) of coarse particles and pulverized cement, with glass fibres, asbestos, lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polychlorinated furans and dioxins.
"Freedom For The Stallion" (Allen Toussaint) Allen Toussaint, live, 4/9/1976
(LISTEN) "As I mentioned earlier, Allen Toussaint turns 68 this Saturday, the 14th; and I hope he has a great day and fine new year. After having lost his home when the levee broke, he needs them. I’ve picked this live performance of one of his songs for the weekend, since it ties in with the spirit of Martin Luther King Day, as well."
-from home of the groove
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more from home of the groove : "Don't Bring Me Down" (Allen Toussaint) Labelle, from Nightbirds, Epic, 1974 - and - A Toussaint Two-fer
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Every now and then I like to point you to other posts of New Olreans music I find. Hey, I can't post everything, as you may have noticed. Our hard bloggin' friend, AK, over at Soul Shower has two nice posts up now with tracks by Huey Smith and the Clowns, featuring Gerri Hall, and and by the Barons, about as obscure a New Orleans vocal group as you could want. Check 'em while they're hot. By the way, I enourage all mp3 bloggers to post more New Orleans music. The city needs the attention. The tunes need to be heard. And I need less pressure! Peace.
-from home of the groove
A conservative Republican congressman has proposed the federal government create a non-profit, federally-owned corporation, dubbed the Louisiana Recovery Corporation that would be authorized to buy out homeowners in the affected areas and to negotiate with lenders to pay off the balance of those mortgages.from LP Blog The official blog of the Libertarian Party
If passed, this House bill, proposed by Rep. Richard H. Baker, would make the federal government the largest landowner in New Orleans for at least a few years. This government corporation would be modeled after the Resolution Trust Corporation that was created by Congress in 1989 to bail out the savings and loans industry in wake of the S & L scandal. Baker's plan has even drawn support from liberal Democrat, Rep. William J. Jefferson who stated explicitly that he believes the bill's passage is important.
Some members of Congress are concerned with the potential cost to taxpayers from Baker's plan. The proposed non-profit corporation would offer to buy out houses from homeowners, at no less than 60 percent of their equity before Hurricane Katrina, while lenders would be offered up to 60 percent of what they are owed, according to the New York Times. The properties would then be sold to developers. The government corporation could end up spending up to $80 billion, according to current estimates. Baker admitted he could not promise that the corporation would break even financially. He added, "We'll pay back as much as possible."
A group of representatives were unsuccessful in mandating that the corporation break even financially by incurring revenues from developers. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R - Texas), stated, "We need to ensure that taxpayers are not asked again two or three years from now to pay for the same disaster."
The passage of the bill is still uncertain. The Senate is expected to begin debate on the bill once Congress reconvenes. The White House has show some signs of support for the bill, with the president's Gulf Coast recovery czar, Donald E. Powell, stating, he "was more comfortable" with the proposal.
President Bush sounded out of touch as usual this week when he called the still-ravaged city "a heck of a place to bring your family." Rather than conjuring up memories of Michael Brown, the erstwhile head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Mr. Bush could better spend his time increasing the pressure on Congress to act on some version of Representative Richard Baker's federal buyout legislation. Lawmakers in Washington should take up the bill.nyt editorial
note: bloglines
happy friday the thirteenth. i once had a great birthday on a "good friday" the thirteenth.
Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, Steven Holl, Herzog & de Meuron, Santiago Calatrava, Rafael Moneo, Glenn Murcutt, Richard Rogers and Norman Foster are among the distinguished international architects who have been commissioned to build new wineries and the results are a fascinating blend of form and function.
The problem, asserts Marchand, is that the city is not using consistent methods to assess home damage, and that some of the homes they’ve tagged for removal may, in fact, be salvageable. “I live in the heaviest hit area,” she says, adding that, while she currently sleeps at a temporary residence in Baton Rouge, she has already gutted her Ninth Ward home after she and her neighbors were allowed back in on December 1. When inspectors arrived to assess her neighborhood and place red stickers on houses deemed irreparable, she says, “They didn’t even enter the homes. We have incorrect assessments being done. We can’t arbitrarily assume that a house should be demolished.” Certainly there are homes in the Ninth Ward that are safety risks, she conceded. But even in cases where homes have drifted off their foundations, “we need to give people a chance to see if they can be lifted and put back on their pilings-I have seen this happen.”lots of interesting pictures here also
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“I don’t think that it’s one of the neighborhoods most at risk. Seven or eight flood wall and levee breaks caused the problem there.” He notes that, if executed, the levee bill President Bush signed in late December would mitigate the environmental problems in the Ninth Ward.
In the meantime, with no cohesive redevelopment strategy yet in practice, various groups on the ground are acting on their own. Grassroots housing advocacy organization ACORN, for example, is running a program to gut homes in low-income neighborhoods, including the Ninth Ward. ACORN’s New Orleans head organizer Steve Bradbury says that they hope to have gutted 1,000 to 2,000 homes by the end of March.
But the biggest problem in New Orleans right now, Bradbury told The Slatin Report, is that “the local and federal government should be taking greater responsibility for people receiving the clearest and most factual information possible-and they’re not.”
Marchand agrees: “The city needs to first find out who’s coming back before tearing anything down.”
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit charging that the city's Office of Emergency Management helped cause the collapse of Seven World Trade Center on 9-11 by storing diesel fuel for its emergency generators in the 47-story building.
The Port Authority and developer Larry Silverstein are still on the hook in the suit, which was filed by insurers for Con Edison, which had a substation under WTC7 that was severely damaged.
The city Law Department hailed the ruling, which it says is the last property damage claim against the city related to 9-11. A statement from the department says the move by District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein "allows New York City to better plan for events like September 11th without being subject to liability based on hindsight."
WTC7 was the last building to fall on 9-11. No one was killed there. Compared to the twin towers it was a relative nobody among New York skyscrapers, but it has enjoyed posthumous notoriety because of the mystery of why exactly it fell. Thanks to the neat and sudden collapse of the building, WTC7 is central to alternative theories about what happened on 9-11—and particularly to the notion that the buildings in lower Manhattan were brought down by planned demolitions.
Mainstream inquiries also find puzzlement on WTC 7. The national investigation of Ground Zero building collapses has yet to issue its final report on building seven. An earlier study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency punted on trying to explain the collapse definitively. Not struck by planes, WTC7 appears to have collapsed solely because of fire—apparently a first for a steel-framed skyscraper. The diesel fuel was the most likely culprit, even though FEMA said this "best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence." The city's OEM command center used a 6,000-gallon diesel tank; this was one of several in the building. Hellestein's ruling doesn't delve into whether the diesel fuel caused the collapse, or if it was a particularly bright idea to have it there, but finds that the city is immune under a state law, the New York Defense Emergency Act:
more bush double speak on new orleans :
"It's a heck of a place to bring your family."
[....]
A buyout program proposed by Baker, R-Baton Rouge, is widely seen as a critical part of the city's rebuilding plan. The measure failed to pass Congress last month, but it enjoys near uniform support among Louisiana politicians here and in Washington.
But after Thursday's meeting, Nagin, who attended the powwow and sat on the president's left, said Bush remains skeptical about the bill in its current form. Nagin said the president's doubts center on the legislation's ultimate price tag, and on the unprecedented federal involvement in a local matter Baker's plan may represent.
Baker, who also was one of the meeting's dozen participants, said his plan did not arise as a topic of conversation. What's more, Baker said, Bush has never voiced those concerns to him in one-on-one meetings.
"Whenever I see him, he says, 'How's the grand plan going?' " Baker said.
[....]
But on what most city leaders consider the paramount issue for rebuilding -- the construction of a levee system that could withstand a hit from a Category 5 storm -- Bush remained coy. In fact, neither he nor Powell, who flew down on Air Force One with Bush and attended the meeting, have ever voiced support for Category 5 storm protection, which carries an uncertain price tag and could take years to complete. Asked directly about it on several occasions, both men carefully sidestepped the matter, and Bush did so again Thursday.
"The mayor has made it clear to me we need a strong federal policy on levees in order to encourage investors and investment," Bush said. He then promised a web of storm protection, "stronger and better than the previous system," but did not mention Category 5.
Nagin, it turned out, was not alone in reminding Bush about where the levee system stands in the local consciousness. As the president's motorcade made its way down Prytania Street, a resident held a cardboard sign aloft that said, "We Want Levey."
As he has from the outset, Bush insisted the recovery plan must be designed locally. Although he said the federal government "has a major role to play," Bush reiterated his stance that role would be supportive to the city's lead.
"We all share the same goal, and that is to have this city rise again and be a shining star of the South," he said.
180+ 9/11 'smoking guns' found in mainstream media
from the new orleans times picayune (PDF) map indicating :
<>areas where rebuilding allowed now
<> building moratorium until neighborhoods prove viability
<> approximate areas expected to become parks and greenspace
<> areas to be redeveloped, some with new housing for relocated homeowners ....................................................................................................................................................
Red Danger List : addresses of homes targeted for demolition
New Orleans on Thursday released to the Times Picayune the following list of 1,975 properties deemed 'in imminent danger of collapse,' and recommended for demolition by city inspectors. No timeline has been set for removal. More than 5,000 structures have received the red tags that indicate they are targets for demolition.
In previous interviews with the Times-Picayune and other media, HANO spokespeople expressed concerns about "looting," "troublemakers" and "squatters." Although it's true that there appears to have been massive theft from homes in these projects, in a recent visit to at least 20 homes that been broken into, most had their locks intact -- the apartments had been broken into by someone with keys and access. In several interviews, residents placed the robberies as having occurred within the last few weeks -- long after Mayor Nagin began urging people to return to the city, and weeks after the National Guard had finished breaking into homes to check for bodies.
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More than four months after Katrina, public housing tenants are still facing displacement and victimization. Grass-roots groups such as NOHEAT (New Orleans Housing Emergency Action Team) and advocates such as the Loyola Law Clinic and grass-roots Legal Network are calling for justice for public housing tenants, but for many residents, the city seems to be sending them a louder message -- "stay out."
new orleans flood maps
I don't know you, but Mr. Canizaro, I hate you," Harvey Bender of the Lower Ninth Ward said as he pointed his finger. "You've been in the background scheming to take our land."
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"I'm ready to rebuild. I'm not going to let you take everything. I'm ready to fight to get my property together," one man shouted from the back of the room.
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"Please let us build our own homes," said Charles Young, a homeowner in Lakeview, a largely white middle-class neighborhood. "Let us come back on our own time. Let us spend our insurance money, which we paid for on our own."
digital camo
canadian digital camo
sculldana
In an exclusive Bayoubuzz online interview, U.S. Congressman Richard Baker describes his real estate-mortgage and New Orleans reconstruction plan that he has been proposing since October and which requires the vote of Congress. Many people believe it is the most comprehensive vehicle to deal with the myriad problems facing New Orleans and Louisiana and has been overwhelmingly supported by many editorials. With President Bush visiting New Orleans on Thursday and with the Mayor Nagin’s Bring Back New Orleans Commission plan for the city being released today, ironically, the interview comes at a time when President Bush’s support and the public backing of the plan is critical. Here is the BayouBuzz.com online interview with U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge.
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President Bush is coming to New Orleans for the ninth time since Hurricane Katrina swamped South Louisiana, but Thursday's visit will be the first since he succeeded in getting $2.9 billion for levee repairs.
He will find a community profoundly grateful for the promise of stronger levees. He will find a community in the throes of recovery. He also will find many people still worried about the future.
They worry that the White House isn't committed to protecting the region from the fiercest hurricanes. They worry about whether their neighborhoods will be safe in the long run. They worry about whether they -- and their neighbors -- can afford to rebuild.
His career began in the early sixties with long forgotten bands the Rainmakers, Rockin' Vicars and Opal Butterfly. After being a roadie for guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, Lemmy joined psychedelic rock band Hawkwind in 1971, playing bass and occasionally singing. You can hear him on their 1972 'Silver Machine'.
In 1975 Lemmy was sacked from the band when he got caught in possession of drugs at the Canadian border while on tour. But a year later he had formed Motorhead, named after the last song he ever wrote for Hawkwind (and also British slang at the time for a speed freak), although Lemmy had wanted to call the band Bastard at first!
(New Orleans Has Big Rebuilding Dreams) What the resulting master plan will look like is far from clear. The mayor can accept or reject any of the recommendations, a process that could take weeks. Of course, the plan's final shape will be determined to a large degree by Congress and President Bush, because they hold the purse strings.
The commission devising a blueprint to reconstruct the city will propose on Wednesday a complete reorganization of the troubled school system, the elimination of a 76-mile shipping channel that was a prime cause of flooding after Hurricane Katrina and the creation of a new jazz district downtown.
The commission report, several members said, will also advocate building a 53-mile light-rail system crisscrossing the city, connecting neighborhoods with the airport, downtown and other commercial centers. That system would be in addition to a separate heavy-rail system that would link New Orleans with Baton Rouge and the rest of the Gulf Coast.
The light-rail system, estimated to cost $3 billion, is intended to help spark redevelopment in areas of the city that were flooded.
Toward that end, the plan calls on the city to enlist developers to build at least four communities of 1,000 or more houses at stops along the proposed light-rail lines.
So, you want to build yourself a modern house? No problem, help yourself. Planning officers will fall over themselves to be supportive. On one condition - that no one can actually see the house you build.
For all too many planners, particularly in the fussier London boroughs - where those with the money to build something modern tend to live - new architecture is seen as a sort of contagion that needs to be kept firmly under control. But when the neighbours cannot complain, there is not much they can do, which is why the craftiest modern architects are becoming masters of the invisible house.
The trick is to find a site, almost invariably a backland site behind a house or shop, perhaps a yard or a redundant light industrial building or warehouse, with no outside walls, just a discreet entrance off the street. Buy it, knock down whatever is on the site, and the planners will leave you pretty well alone to build what you want.