Ashley Morris: the blog

Open letter to Steve Chapman

Peris Brodsky alerted me to this Steve Chapman 'editorial' in the Chicago Tribune today. 

The Democratic presidential candidates are fluent in the language of politics and policy, which means they can expound at length on what the government can do for you. It also means they have great difficulty saying the word "no."

When they assembled in New Orleans this week to note the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, they were in an affirmative mood. Yes, they told locals, your problems are the fault of President Bush's disgraceful inaction, and yes, we should spend whatever it takes to restore the city to what it used to be.

But there are worse policies than inaction. Before the nation undertakes the extravagant project of rebuilding New Orleans and securing it from the elements, we might ask if there isn't a better option, not only for the nation, but also for the flood victims.

The Democratic debate over the future of New Orleans somehow passed over the instructive example of Valmeyer, Ill. In 1993, the town of 900 was swamped, not for the first time, by a rain-swollen Mississippi River. It hasn't been swamped since, because it's not there anymore. Rather than remain in a vulnerable spot, the residents voted to relocate their village to a bluff 400 feet above the river. But no one wants to suggest similar discretion in Louisiana.

New Orleans, like Valmeyer, had long been a natural disaster waiting to happen. Most of the city lies below sea level, surrounded by water on three sides, and it's sinking. On top of that, it's steadily grown more exposed to hurricanes, thanks to the loss of coastal wetlands that once served as a buffer. It's a bathtub waiting to be filled.

As one scientist said after Katrina, "A city should never have been built there in the first place." Now that we have a chance to correct the mistake, why repeat it? Theoretically, it's possible to keep New Orleans dry. All you have to do is surround it with levees designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. That's what Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton urges.

As she said in New Orleans, "Other countries have figured out how to protect their low-lying cities. Japan has done it. Europe has done it." Shirking that obligation, she insisted, reflects a "fatalistic attitude" that suggests "we can't do the things that great countries should do."

You may not have thought of the Netherlands as a great country until now. But what makes sense on the Zuider Zee doesn't necessarily make sense here. One-fourth of the Netherlands is downhill from the ocean, which means that if the Dutch fail to protect it, they don't have a lot of other places to go. In the United States, by contrast, there are vast open spaces for settlement, most of them beyond the reach of hurricanes.

The cost of the levee system envisioned by Sen. Clinton is tabbed at $40 billion. Restoring other infrastructure would increase the cost. The question is whether that's the best use of our resources. For $40 billion, you could give more than $61,000 to every Louisianian displaced by Katrina, nearly a quarter of a million dollars for a family of four.

Here's the question that ought to be considered: Would those people prefer that the money be spent shoring up dikes around a natural lake? Or would they rather get the money themselves and decide whether to stay or migrate to less soggy terrain?

Many, if not most, would choose the cash. That option may be especially appealing since the new levee system can't be completed before 2015, which means that over the next eight years, anyone living in New Orleans has a good chance of being washed away again. A lot of locals have already voted with their feet, decamping to Baton Rouge, La., Houston, Atlanta and Memphis, with no intention of coming back.

Historian Douglas Brinkley, writing in The Washington Post, fears the Bush administration is trying to do to New Orleans what was done to Galveston, Texas, after a terrible 1900 hurricane. "Galveston, which had been a thriving port, was essentially abandoned for Houston, transforming that then-sleepy backwater into the financial center for the entire Gulf South," he says. "Galveston devolved into a smallish port-tourist center, one easy to evacuate when hurricanes rear their ugly heads."

Looking back, that actually sounds like a brilliant choice. If they were given the means to start over wherever they choose, a lot of people displaced by Katrina would embrace it.

Here is my reply

Mr Chapman, First of all, let me correct some of your errors in your editorial "Relocating may be better than rebuilding"

1) Valmeyer was a town of 900, New Orleans is a city of about half a million.  Relocating it would be impractical, and a tremendous expense.

2) Over half of the inhabited parts of New Orleans are above sea level.  Yes, over half is above sea level.

3) The loss of wetlands is directly related to America's appetite for oil, and the midwest farmer's appetite for dumping nitrogen into the Mississippi.  Perhaps if the country treated the Mississippi river as a resource instead of a toilet, then Louisiana's wetlands wouldn't be in such sorry shape.

4) According to Thomas Jefferson and others, New Orleans is the key city in the United States, due to its geographic location.  Don't call it a mistake to build there.

5) New Orleans can and should be protected by levees and other flood protection.  Perhaps you forgot Czar Donald Powells promise to America: "The Federal Government is committed to building the best levee system known in the world."

6) "In the United States, by contrast, there are vast open spaces for settlement, most of them beyond the reach of hurricanes." Fine, then they will have floods, blizzards, earthquakes, tornados, or locusts.  Pick your poison.

7) When you are talking about the Dutch flood protection system, which is designed to protect homes from a 1 in 10,000 year flood, you might not have known that the United States Army Corps of Engineers admitted that they improperly designed the levees, that the levees were not built to their own specifications, and that they were responsible for the failure of the levees.  So, personally, I'm all for having the Dutch come to New Orleans.

Now, onto facts you may not have known.

1) The New Orleans port system is, by gross tonnage, the largest port in the world.  In. The. World.   There is a reason that New Orleans is located where it is -- and moving it would not only be impractical, but a business folly.

2) $40 billion is a small cost to keep the Mississippi's port alive, and to keep America's refinery coast alive.  Refineries in South Louisiana provide over 25% of America's fuel.  South Louisiana provides over 40% of America's seafood, and most of America's coffee is shipped and roasted in South Louisiana.  Also, this is a tiny cost compared to a few days fighting in Iraq.

3) By the way, New Orleanians pay taxes too.

4) Finally, the food, culture, music, and joie de vivre of New Orleans cannot be replaced anywhere.  I work in Chicago, but I choose to live in New Orleans, the greatest city in America.  And don't forget, we *are* in America.

Sincerely,

Ashley Morris, Ph.D.

Professor, Name Redacted University

ain't that america

Here's what Miss Sack o' Hammers South Carolina Teen plans to do: 

“Well my goal is to attend Appalachian State University, major in graphic design, once graduated from there go to L.A. and go into the International Academy of Design & Technology,  major in Special Effects learning to design special effects for movies and television.”

Here's what will actually happen:

“This girl will do Maxim or something, SNL, get spoofed on Family Guy, become a reality TV star, the next Paris Hilton / Nicole Richie, and maybe the spokesperson for MapQuest and make millions if her agent plays it right.”

And then, of course, she'll have that career slide where she'll do Playboy, get caught boinking the Cleveland Cavaliers, and then make her courageous comeback on Oprah.  Making $$$ with every appearance.

My question is Greg's Question

Why does Ed Blakely have his own non-profit recovery corporation?

HUFFPO!

NOLA blogger Alan Gutierrez got featured on the Huffington Post!  Woo hoo!

Alan, if you get a chance, tell Arianna I think she's hot.

Once again: THANKS HOUSTON

It just never gets old.

Not as seen on TV, revisited

I thought it was a good time to see this one again.

Look to the future 2 years later: Shelley Midura

Image from Greg Peters.

Letter from our next mayor:

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An open letter to President George W. Bush:

August 28, 2007

Dear Mr. President:

Thank you for visiting New Orleans for the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the worst federal levee-failure disaster in United States history followed by the worst federal disaster response in United States history. We’re also grateful for the $116 billion federal allocation for the Gulf Coast. That $116 billion has served you well, as your spokesmen often cite it as an indicator of your dedication to our recovery. But, it hasn’t served us as well -- it’s not enough, it’s been given grudgingly, and only after our elected officials have had to fight for it. So I feel I must correct the record about you and your administration’s dedication to our recovery and implore you to take action to make things better.

Indeed, you have allocated $116 billion for the Gulf Coast, but that number is misleading. According to the Brookings Institute's most recent Katrina Index report, at least $75 billion of it was for immediate post-storm relief. Thus only 35% of the total federal dollars allocated is for actual recovery and reconstruction. And of that recovery and reconstruction allocation, only 42% has actually been spent. In fact, while your administration touts "$116 billion" as the amount you have sent to the entire area affected by Katrina and the levee failures, the actual long term recovery dollar amount is only $14.6 billion. This amount is a mere 12% of the entire federal allocation of dollars, billions of which went to corporations such as Halliburton for immediate post-storm cleanup work, instead of to local businesses. Contrast that to the $20.9 billion on infrastructure for Iraq that the Wall Street Journal reported in May 2006 that you have spent, and it’s an astonishing 42% more than you have spent on infrastructure for the post-Katrina Gulf region. The American citizens of the Gulf region do not understand why the federal obligation to rebuilding Iraq is greater than it is for America's Gulf coast, and more specifically for New Orleans.

New Orleans has more challenges and fewer resources than we've ever had in my lifetime in the City of New Orleans. Yet, other than FEMA repair reimbursements, the only direct federal assistance this city has received from you has been two community disaster loans that you are demanding be paid back even though no other city government has had to pay back a these types of loans for as long as our research can determine (at least since the 70’s). These loans are being used to balance the city budget to provide basic services to citizens who need far more than the pre-Katrina basics.

Despite this obvious contradiction, your administration blames local leadership for our continued need for federal assistance. But this argument is disingenuous, Mr. President. There are a host of tasks that only you and your administration can accomplish for our recovery. These are some concrete steps you can take to make good on your 2005 Jackson Square promise:
• Completely fix the federally managed levees
• Fully fund our expertly crafted recovery plan
• Give New Orleans all that you have promised to Baghdad - schools, hospitals, infrastructure, security, and basic services
• Forgive the community disaster loans, as authorized by the new Congress
• Appoint a recovery czar who works inside the White House that reports daily and directly to you and whose sole job is the recovery of New Orleans and the rest of the region
• Restore our coast and wetlands
• Work with Congress to reform the Stafford Act
• Cut the bureaucratic red tape
In turn Mr. President, the people of New Orleans are more than willing to do our part. We have already:
• Consolidated and reformed the state levee board system.
• Consolidated and reformed our property assessment system.
• Passed sweeping ethics reform legislation.
• Created an Ethics Review Board.
• Hired an Inspector General.
• Submitted a parish-wide recovery plan.

Much has changed in New Orleans for the better since the storm, and more progress is coming. Civic activism is at an all time high. For the first time in my lifetime, there is an actual reform movement in New Orleans driven by the people. "Best Practices" has become a City Council mantra. We have a new Ethics Board. Our incoming Inspector General, Robert Cerasoli, is considered one of the elite in the Inspector General world, as is our new Recovery Director Dr. Ed Blakely in that world and our Recovery School Superintendent Paul Vallas in the realm of public education. We are attracting the cream of the crop. Young people from around the country seeking to make a difference in their lives are moving to New Orleans to teach in public schools, provide community healthcare, build housing, work for nonprofits engaged in post-Katrina work, and, in general, do whatever they can for the recovery because they all know what I am not so sure that you know, mainly that what happens in New Orleans over the next few years says something about the very heart of America itself.

Mr. President, we are in fact doing our part locally in New Orleans despite contrary comments by your administration. Our intense civic activity and government reform initiatives are serious indicators of our local commitment to do our part for the recovery. But we are drowning in federal red tape. We are being nickel and dimed to death by your Federal Emergency Management Agency. We are resource-starved at the city level. The mission here is not accomplished. What we need is Presidential leadership, not just another speech filled with empty promises. Our recovery's success, struggle, or failure will be intimately woven into your legacy, for better or worse. What Americans think about America is deeply affected by how this country rises to national challenges, none more significant than post-Katrina New Orleans. Fully restoring New Orleans to its formerly unique and permanent place in American culture is this nation's greatest domestic challenge. Your leadership of our country through this difficult time will serve as an American character lesson for future generations.

Sincerely,

Shelley Midura
New Orleans City Councilmember
District A

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NEW ORLEANS, LA – In an open letter to President Bush, Councilmember Shelley Midura responded to the assertion by Recovery Chairman Donald Powell that the federal government is doing everything it can and that the problem is with local leadership. In her letter she challenged the “$116 billion” allocation as “misleading” and further implored President Bush to assert a larger leadership role in the recovery of New Orleans and the Gulf region on the eve of his visit to New Orleans for the 2nd Katrina anniversary.

“Mr. President, we are in fact doing our part locally in New Orleans despite contrary comments by your administration,” said Councilmember Midura. “Our intense civic activity and government reform initiatives are serious indicators of our local commitment to do our part for the recovery. But we are drowning in federal red tape. We are being nickel and dimed to death by your Federal Emergency Management Agency. We are resource starved at the city level. The mission here is not accomplished. What we need is Presidential leadership, not just another speech filled with empty promises.”

The Bush administration has frequently argued that their $116 billion allocation is evidence of their commitment to the recovery of the Gulf region. But further analysis in Councilmember Midura’s letter indicates that the actual number of dollars spent on long term recovery for the entire Gulf region is closer to $14.7 billion, less than 13% of the entire federal allocation. In contrast the Bush administration has allocated hundreds of billions of dollars for Iraq, of which $20.6 billion has been spent on recovery and infrastructure – over 42% more than has been spent on recovery for the Gulf region of the United States for our nation’s greatest natural disaster.

“Our recovery's success, struggle, or failure will be intimately woven into your legacy, for better or worse,” said Midura. “What Americans think about America is deeply affected by how this country rises to national challenges, none more significant than post-Katrina New Orleans. Fully restoring New Orleans to its formerly unique and permanent place in American culture is this nation's greatest domestic challenge. Your leadership of our country through this difficult time will serve as an American character lesson for future generations.”

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KATRINA: TWO YEARS LATER
FACT SHEET

1. REBUILDING
• 22% or $7 billion of FEMA’s 2005 disaster relief budget was spent on administrative costs, not rebuilding(Institute for Southern Studies)
• The figure used consistently by the Bush administration when discussing the amount of federal dollars allocated to Gulf Coast recovery is $116 billion. Of that amount, only 30% or $35 billion goes to long-term recovery projects (Jeffrey Buchanan, RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights)
• Of that $35 billion, less than 42% has been spent to date(RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights)
• The City of New Orleans has received approximately $187 million from FEMA and $150 million in Community Disaster Loans (City of New Orleans)

2. LEVEE REPAIR
• Currently, the United States Army Corps of Engineers has spent only 20 percent of the $8.4 billion allocated for New Orleans levee repair (Institute for Southern Studies)

3. COASTAL RESTORATION
• Since 1932, nearly 600 square miles of protective wetlands surrounding New Orleans have been lost (Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation)
• 30 square miles of these wetlands were lost since the US Army Corps of Engineers built the MRGO (Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation)
• 80 square miles of these wetlands were lost during Hurricane Katrina (Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation)
• The cumulative impact of these lost wetlands is a New Orleans with no natural protection against storm surges from tropical storms and hurricanes (Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation)

4. ECONOMY AND JOBS
• Two contracts of the 140 FEMA awarded for travel trailers, pre-fabricated homes, and other items, went to Louisiana and accounted for less than half of 1 percent of the $1.6 billion total (Times Picayune, Bill Walsh, “Fema Isn’t Hiring Louisiana Companies, Workers; Out-of State Firms Get Most of Business”, Washington bureau)
• According to Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., 75 Louisiana electricians working at the Naval Air Station in Belle Chasse are out of a job as Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, now holds the contract (Bill Walsh)
• Four contracts, let by the US Army Corps of Engineers, for removing debris created by Katrina, worth a total of $2 billion with an option for $500 million more, went to Florida, Minnesota, and California (Bill Walsh)
• US Army Corps of Engineers contracts specified that the award process should give preference to local companies hit hardest by the storms (Bill Walsh)
• Although $4.5 billion in Gulf Opportunity Zone projects have been approved in Louisiana, only 1 is located in New Orleans. Strangely, a 10-unit luxury condo development in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (approximately 4 hours from the coast) is the recipient of GO Zone tax breaks (Institute for Southern Studies)
• The Small Business Administration finished processing loan applications for Katrina-impacted businesses in May of 2007, 21 months after the storm (Institute for Southern Studies)
• Federal agencies claimed that 259 contracts went to Louisiana small businesses but were later discovered to have gone to big companies or ineligible recipients (Institute for Southern Studies)

5. SPENDING IN IRAQ
• The federal government has currently spent over $455 billion on the war in Iraq (MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olberman, August 3, 2007 and www.nationalpriorities.org ) vs. $116 billion for the Gulf region’s recovery.
• The Bush Administration has spent $20.9 billion to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure (Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2006) as compared with the $8.4 billion allocated for New Orleans levee repair (Institute for Southern Studies)
• Congress has authorized $44 billion in funds for rehabilitation and reconstruction projects in Iraq, yet Bush has threatened to veto due to cost the $21 billion water resources bill being considered by Congress of which only $1.9 billion would be devoted to restoring Louisiana’s coastal wetlands (Institute for Southern Studies and www.voanew.com )
• USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has created a $4 million program to save Iraq’s Mesopatamian Marshlands (The Iraq Foundation)

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Any doubt she should be our next mayor?

Deadwood

So according to Houston resident Douglas Brinkley, the Bush administration wants New Orleans to “die on the vine”.

I believe that.

I’ve been saying that their whole plan since the beginning was to starve out those too poor to wait out the rebuilding/insurance money.

I think the W administration calls it the Biafra strategy.

So what is going to happen? Nothing.

Nothing will be completed, flood protection-wise, until after the next hurricane.

Bank on it.

That will run the rest of us who have fought so valiantly for our city out of here. The cry of Sinn Fein will be silenced.  Those of us with children will not be able to make it work here any more, and those children will now cry when they attend parades.  “Daddy, why aren’t they throwing any beads to us?” 

What do I tell them?  What should I tell them?  What do you tell children raised in the greatest culture on earth that have been evicted into Amerika?

"They aren’t from New Orleans, so they don’t have any clue what to do during a parade?"  Will that cut it for kids used to having sore necks from the weight of the throws?  From having sore faces from smiling so much?  Will that do?

The collusion of the insurance companies, the developers, and the federal government has been obvious since the beginning.  The utilities are ready to write us off, as are most of the country.

At this point, I’m just staying as long as I can.  I haven’t received my homeowners insurance bill for next year, but I’m sure it will be outrageous.  As is my electrical bill, my gas bill, and so on.  But I stay. 

Every day in New Orleans is a good day. The best food, the best people, the best bars, the best football team, the best arena, the best music.

You either take all of it or nothing.  No "part timers" wanted here.  No "brother-in-law" fans.  You love New Orleans, then you love jazz, you love po-boys, you love the Saints.  It is all one: take it all or leave it all.  It is New Orleans, and if you buy into it, you buy into all of it, and then you are New Orleans as well.

So what happens when the next catastrophe occurs?  What about all the land below sea level that is usually habitable when the ever-incompetent Corps is in a non-fiesty mood.

When the great swaths of non-overdeveloped property are abandoned in New Orleans, places that served as homes for many of our most valuable citizens, what will happen?  Will they have a fence erected around them?  Will they just be laid fallow?

What about the outlaws that refuse to go?  What about those that will stay in New Orleans come hell and high water and government abandonment? 

Will NOLA become the new Deadwood?  Will we have our own faux government?  We got the mud, we got the corruption.

Maybe we'll finally create Hamsterdam.  We'll be a tourist attraction again.  Maybe guys like Larry Craig can finally find a safe place to cruise.

In any case, I have the vocabulary, so I’d like to lay claim on Swearingen’s character.  I nominate Karen Gadbois for Calamity Jane.  The rest of you fight it out amongst yourselves.

Beagles

In case you're ready to forgive Michael Vick, this comes from Profootballtalk.com

We'd always been confused about the total number of dogs removed from Mike Vick's property in April.  Some reports had the number at 66 dogs; others said there were 54.

Based on a nugget buried in the latest ESPN.com item regarding the Vick saga is an indication that the correct number is 66 total dogs, and only 54 pit bulls.

Writes Elizabeth Merrill:  "Approximately 12 other dogs were seized from the Vick residence.  Some are believed to be beagles, and animal activists hope they are adoptable.  It's unclear why Vick had them."

Here's why Vick had them, Liz -- they were practice dogs.  Canines of weaker breeds intended for use in testing sessions.  You know, the same testing sessions that 6-8 pit bulls failed that same month, prompting Vick and his cohorts to conclude that, if the pit bulls weren't able to fight, there was no point continuing to spending money feeding and caring for them. 

Thus, maybe some of those beagles were the dogs that exposed some of the 6-8 pit bulls as pussycats.

That's right.  Mr. Vick was using the beagles as...well...food.  I hope there's a special prison for you, Mr. Vick.  One with a rape stand.

War.

From the NY Times' Nina Berman, via BigEZBear: a young Illinois couple on their wedding day.

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Update: From the photographers website: Former Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel was seriously wounded by a suicide car bomber while serving in Iraq in 2004. He spent 19 months recovering at Brooke Army medical center in Texas. He was spported during this time by his family and his fiancee Renee Kline. Ty and Renee married in October 2006. Anyone seeking to help should send donations to www.fisherhouse.org, an organization which aids military families and which helped Ty and his family during his rehabilitation.