A few weeks ago a black New Orleans police officer was involved in an incident at the Treme child care center in New Orleans during which she threatened parents and drew her weapon. She was later fired but the incident led Jerome Smith, who runs the Treme center, to address [...]
A month has passed since I went to the Catalyst Conference hosted by the Burton Group in San Jose, California. At the time, this mailing list was in the midst of it’s software rewrite, so I was unable to tell you about the wonderful article written in Network [...]
Only by adding insult to injury did the NOAH story break. Perhaps if NOAH had not decided that it needed to post large full color signs on arbitrary houses claiming to have gutted them, no one would have noticed.
But, someone did. Karen Gadbois, keeper of Squandered Heritage set out [...]
Yesterday, Congressman Charlie Melancon released this statement of his support for the 8/29 Investigation.
I am and always have been a strong supporter of an 8/29 Investigation into the levee failures that caused massive devastation in New Orleans, St. Bernard, and surrounding communities. In Congress, I have worked with Sen. Mary [...]
Coming soon. By coming soon, I mean check back Monday. Seriously.
I’m just back from Burton Group Catalyst 2008 and I’m getting a lot of traffic from the Network World article How social networking saved New Orleans: Powered by community, New Orleans residents exposed city hall [...]
From Stu Bykofsky: Flooded Midwest getting fixed faster than the ‘city that forgot to care’:
Will America’s breadbasket be fixed faster than America’s party town, brought to its knees by water-overwhelmed levees in August 2005?
Rob Couhig, 59, thinks it will, partly because of Midwestern self-reliance. He thinks they’re not about [...]
There has been a number of really interesting developments related to New Orleans schools over the last several months. The Recovery School District, which oversees many of the public schools in Orleans Parish, has been making some serious bureaucratic headway under Superintendent Paul Vallas.
Yet, so many questions remain unanswered.
There have been hints coming out of the Corps for quite a while that the permanent pump stations at the lakefront would be delayed even further than their current 2012 completion date. I think I might have found something conclusive that shows that. I could be off, but you never [...]
How to Polish this One?
Today I received another comment about the school-buses that were left to flood, that could have been used to evacuate people from New Orleans during Katrina. I was reminded of the years of corruption in New Orleans and Louisiana [...]
CPL Kierys by MATEUS_27:24&25.
As noted last week, I’m setting out to make sense of the Recovery School District and the School Facilities Master Plan for Orleans Parish. I’m getting caught up today by reading Eli Ackerman’s research into some of the School Facilities [...]
As I set out to come up to speed on the facilities master plan, I find myself unable to wrap my head around the issues. The place to start is, why are we demolishing 50% of the schools in New Orleans? Are we planning on a city that is 50% [...]
Ed McGinnis & Rob Schaefer (and a Map at UNOP 1) by Maitri Venkat-Ramani.
Funny thing happened on the way to the NetSquared Mashup Challenge in San Jose, CA.
Many of you have gotten in touch with me to talk about your own [...]
Home Is Where the Heart Is by Bart Everson.
I’ve set out to introduce the concept of coworking as a means of organizing the grassroots information projects that drive this recovery. The initial focus was to capitalize on the donation of [...]
The organizers of the NetSquared Mashup Challenge are printing up the program. To describe City of New Orleans: A Mashup for Citizen Monitoring of the Recovery I was given a set of seven questions to answer in 200 characters or less. My co-presenter [...]
Rebuilding Trust in New Orleans
He talks about rebuilding trust with New Orleanians. He also says that New Orleans is the Corps’ top domestic priority. Then why wasn’t his Tuesday visit to New Orleans trumpeted all over the local media? In fact, the only mention I could find came in [...]
Announcing the Google/YouTube debate.
The strange events of the last few weeks are starting to make a little more sense.
The Mysterious StrangerNew Orleans is back on the map, as a part of the presidential campaign, and the strangest part, because of the Republican candidate. As Stephanie Gracie notes in her article [...]
Extra! Extra! a photograph of a flood damaged Times-Picayune by an anonymous Flickr user.
Our latest scandal is unfolding daily. Intrepid television reporter Lee Zurik did a piece on newspaper in levees Floodwalls stuffed with newspaper?
“It’s like putting a Band-Aid on the hole of [...]
Mr. Okra by Rhys.
3/4 Ton Truck for the Beacon of Hope $8,000 $5,999 (75%) Make a tax deductable donation to the Beacon of Hope using PayPal or through their donations page.Beacon of Hope is a nonprofit organization in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans. The [...]
Senator John McCain by Wigwam Jones.
McCain Wants to talk footprint again. From a blog entry of Andante Higgins McCain to Tour Katrina-Damaged New Orleans Neighborhood.
He also told reporters he was not sure if he would rebuild the lower [...]
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at last year’s Netroots Nation (nee YearlyKos) by Chuck Olsen.
I need your help assembling a panel for a major political conference this summer. The conference is Netroots Nation ‘08 on July 17th-20th in Austin, TX. I need [...]
Pressed for time, so enjoy an lolcat photo as the story caption.
Too long ago, Keith Twitchell got in touch with me to ask me to get out the word for yet another Internet poll that would determine yet another [...]
First there was the comments and stars. Then there was the voting. Now we’re at round 3. The project that I’ve proposed for the NetSquared Mashup Challenge has been made a finalist.
The Accidental TouristNow I have to go to San Jose, California and give a presentation [...]
Jon Steward interviews Lee Seigel author of Against the Machine.
A few days ago in the bloggers listserv, local blogger Mominem shared an email message he received. It was a press release from a man from Memphis, Tennessee who runs a website where he humilates and torments the homeless. [...]
Nakita Shavers, Ken Foster, Jake Hill by Bart Everson.
Dinneral Shavers’ accused murder David Bonds was acquitted last week. Times-Picayune reporter Gwen Filosa wrote an opinion piece about the murder and about the trial entitled Case bewilders [...]
According to this:
">Corps holds hurricane preparation exercise today
The Corps will be running pumps at all three lakefront floodgates this morning.
As you know, they have not run the hydraulic pumps (smaller units) for an extended period since they were installed. The direct-drive pumps (the much bigger ones installed last summer) [...]
Two weeks or so ago, on March 28, 2008, I sent an email message to Stacy Head. This was about the time that Eli Ackerman posted his article A Poor Choice of Words and a Shameful Worldview on Think New Orleans about the FEMA trailer campaign.
Stacy or Staff
Anyone put [...]
Ashley Morris and Alan Gutierrez by Alan Gutierrez
(Ashley Morris: This Is the Last Post)
The written work of Ashley Morris has led me though the emotional stages of the recovery, from the muddled hope, to the outrage, to the concentrate of conviction [...]
Monday Morning at Baronne and Jackson by Derek Bridges.
Late last week, an article appeared in the Times Picayune that detailed a new potential plan to rid the city of New Orleans of FEMA trailers by June 1st. Now, on the surface, we’d all love [...]
For those of you who thought Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder didn’t come in children’s sizes, there’s the House for a Child Essay Contest. I’ve received an email promoting the contest.
Entitled “House for a Child” Essay Contest, EPCO construction has agreed to give away $100,000 to the student (age 8-18 yrs.) [...]
I thought you’d like to know that the head of the Corps at the time Katrina struck, Carl Strock, will be accepting an award from the American Society of Civil Engineers next month at their Black Tie gala in Washington:
Henry L. Michel Award for Industry Advancement of Research
The award [...]
Through the Broadmoor Project, Think New Orleans has obtained three licenses for ArcGIS that I’ll be installing on the computers at the Trinity Christian Community.
Business Funding 823-248-4474 by Alan Gutierrez.
I’ve applied for a grant to fund the continued development of maps at Think New Orleans. I need your help.
The grant is through a nonprofit that focuses on the Internet. The nonprofit [...]
5 of 5: Storyville superimposed on the Iberville Housing Project by Ben Ledbetter, Architect.
In the above photograph, the area that was “zoned” for prostitution in Storyville is super-imposed on the Iberville housing development.
I plan to post prospectuses for a [...]
The city demolition list for 70119. View larger map for greater map detail.
Above are the demolitions in my neighborhood and in all of zip code 70119. Would you like to see the demolitions in your neighborhood? Read on, there’s a map for every zip code in [...]
Rebuild by B E M.
Recently, Matt McBride showed his spreadsheet acumen by creating a spreadsheet of the city’s targeted demolition list. He cross-referenced the demolition list against the city’s permit database, to find which of these structures already had demolitions permits. He did so by punching [...]
Arthur Ashe School slated for demolition. Photo by Sarah Elise Lewis.
Some citizens have been monitoring the Recovery School District here in New Orleans and are raising serious and immediate concerns.
In a three part series, I examined the record of RSD [...]
17th Street Canal Pipes by John McQuaid.
The Corps announced its fiscal year 2009 budget request a couple of weeks back. In the main document linked off its press release, all of the Southeast Louisiana work was lumped into a single $5.7 [...]
I’m glad it’s not just me. Edmund W. Lewis of the Louisiana Weekly writes an editorial saying he’s sick and tired of hearing Nagin say that he’s sick and tired. From Let it go, Mr. Mayor.
Quite frankly, when it comes to dealing with the media, the mayor is his [...]
Get ready for another Coworking session on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at the Bayou Coffee House starting at 11:00 am. I’ll be available to help you with information oriented things, but generally, bring some work to get done, and get it done.
You can learn more about Weekend Coworking by reading [...]
Lower 9th Ward Graffiti by John McQuaid.
In the gallactic view, hurricane protection depends on three layers; robust wetlands, levees adequate to the threat, and strong, elevated homes to protect against things that the first two layers miss.
Against this, we have the reality that the political [...]
Our Mayor C. Ray Nagin has now threated to “coldcock” his critics.
Watch this interview Nagin blasts local media.
Using self-serving logic, Nagin argues that the evil of the Internet threatens him and his family and publishing information about his 2007 travel schedule puts him and his family in danger.
Does he [...]
The head of the Corps of Engineers, Lt. General Robert Van Antwerp, has started a blog:
https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/Blog/default.aspx
His first entry went up on Feb. 13th.
It’s not often citizens get an opportunity to comment directly to those in power, so go take a look, and leave a comment if you wish.
[...]
New Orleans Redevelopment Authority Hearing in City Council Chambers by Karen Gadbois.
Recently, a woman called me an activist. I bristled. I explained that I did not like that word. I assured her that I was quite sedative.
Oddly, she did not call [...]
Bobble-head Alan talks about the Recovery School District facilities Master Plan. Leave your feedback at Recovery School District Questions.
We’ve been receiving email notifications from the School Facilities Master Plan. As our intrepid fellow citizen reporter, Matt McBride told us So much for the RSD master plan.
As [...]
The Recovery School District is an important subject. One that does not get the coverage that you’d expect to find on the web.
Which is why I get a lot of incoming traffic from Google that is searching on the keywords “Recovery School District”. There is not much at Think New [...]
Christopher Johnston listening intently at BarCampNOLA by Chris Schultz.
Yesterday was the second day of BarCampNOLA. We met at the offices of Voodoo Ventures to hack at some community projects for the City of New Orleans. We split into two teams. Evelyn Rodriquez put forward [...]
http://chat.thinknola.com/wiki/show/Bayou+Boogaloo
[...]
Catered by Linda Green (504 891 4478) the crab meat and shrimp dressing was the main event at BarCampNOLA. Photo by Brian Oberkirch.
I spent today at BarCampNOLA held at the offices of Voodoo Ventures at 757 St Charles Ave in the Central Business [...]
Before and after photographs of a historic home on live oak lined Bienville Avenue in Mid-City, New Orleans, Louisiana by Karen Gadbois.
It is hard to describe the situation to people [...]
Chris Schultz of the New Orleans based Voodoo Ventures. Has invited everyone to participate in BarCampNOLA. This is an unconference, like the Think New Orleans uncunconfernces, with a technical bent. Chris writes:
Connect with local bloggers, entrepreneurs, and techies at BarCamp NOLA, February 16 and 17th [...]
