The death of New Orleans continues.

I'm Sorry, Ms. Jackson - A Primer on Environmental Injustice

I'm probably not the best person to write this diary. My experiences with environmental justice as a discipline have been cursory at best. However, since I have been on the ground and seen this with my own eyes, I feel a certain sense of duty to share it with you all. The place is Oakville, Louisiana. Some facts about Oakville: It is a small, African-American community in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, where Katrina made landfall. It was founded by newly freed slaves after the Civil War. It is mostly lower class trailer homes. Everyone knows each other's name. There are over 100 children in the community. And not ten feet away from the community is the Industrial Pipe landfill, violating almost every law on the books, owned and operated by Kenny Stewart.

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Only "Best Residents" to be Allowed in NOLA Public Housing

Bush's Housing Secretary talks tough on who will be permitted to return to public housing in New Orleans: WASHINGTON -- U.S. Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson shed little light Monday on the future of public housing in hurricane-battered New Orleans, but said that "only the best residents" of the former St. Thomas housing complex should be allowed into the new mixed-income development that replaced it. ... "Some of the people shouldn't return," Jackson said. "The (public housing) developments were gang-ridden by some of the most notorious gangs in this country. People hid and took care of those persons because they took care of them. Only the best residents should return. Those who paid rent on time, those who held a job and those who worked." Surely we can agree that criminal gang members shouldn't be out on the streets of any city; this is a law enforcement matter, not one for public housing. But the definition of "desirables" in Jackson's is disturbing: Those who paid rent on time, those who held a job and those who worked. By those lights, tens of thousands of Michigan workers went in one day from some of the state's "best residents" to "undesirables," not based on their own behavior, but on the ruthless realities spawned by globalization. Our value as citizens and residents under this categorization is based solely on the economics of big business, as corporations do their periodic employee bloodletting to bolster the bottom line.

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Eight Months After Katrina

Don't come back to New Orleans unless you intend to join the fight for Justice! On Monday, April 17, 2006, two bodies were found buried beneath what used to be a home in the Lower 9th Ward. Their discovery raised to 17 the number of Hurricane Katrina fatalities that have been discovered in New Orleans in the past month and a half. Katrina is now directly blamed for the deaths of 1,282 Louisiana residents. Eight months after Katrina, the state reports 987 people are still missing. Chief Steve Glynn, who oversees the New Orleans Fire Department search effort that found the latest two bodies, told CNN: "You want to put it to rest at some point. You want to feel like it's over and it's just not, yet." Eight months after Katrina, there are still nearly 300,000 people who have not returned to New Orleans. While we can hope that our community is nearing the end of finding bodies, the struggle for justice for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people continues.

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  thanks to Magpie

Will the levees hold this hurricane season?

It's a race New Orleans can't afford to lose — repair its hurricane protection system before the next storm season starts. The job is 73 percent finished, with 36 days to go, and the man in charge says it will be done June 1.

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Things Aren't Going Swimmingly In New Orleans

I'll never forget that mass of humanity in the Superdome. I'll never forget their screams, as they wailed through the television to me begging for water, for help, for mercy. I can't forget the limp baby, laying listless in its mother's arms as she walked barefoot on the burning hot pavement, seeking shelter from the sun. The bodies--"bodies" is such an impersonal word, isn't it? The mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, and grandparents strewn in the street, or floating face down, or being nibbled on by dogs. You can't just forget that horror. I look at New Orleans and I see August 29th all over again. But for others, the New Orleans they see is the one they saw during the wall-to-wall coverage of Mardi Gras: the colorful floats, the dry streets, the street pulsating with life. Off camera, the city still dies.

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