Randoms

Just a few random notes and thoughts before I run out for the day....

--I still have a storage unit full of donated furniture in Maryland that I collected with my brother when I was there in January. Since I'm re-starting the nonprofit program, I currently do not have the web site to refer people to, business cards to disperse. Word of mouth still works, of course, and so why not the blog, too? I'm looking to help a half dozen families in St. Bernard Parish who are very close to moving back into their rebuilt homes, and who need things. I really want to get this stuff down here soon! Any help, suggestions, fundraising, etc., that anyone can give towards this would be greatly appreciated.

--From the "This is how things work down here sometimes" department: On Tuesday, I was going to a house that another nonprofit is working to rebuild to talk to some volunteers. I went to the wrong house (happens a lot in a community where street signs are more a luxury than a necessity) by mistake, and while knocking on the door, the homeowner, 55 year old David Pell, came around the side of the house asking "can I help you?" His tone was more of the who the heck are you? variety, very understandable when you consider that stuff is stolen from homes here all the time. All the time! Anyway, I told him what happened, that I had the wrong house, and we just started chatting. Well, a good 50 minutes later, I'm walking out telling him I'll call him by the end of the week as I should be able to get some volunteers over to help him. He and his wife are living in a FEMA Trailer in the front yard and have been doing most of the work to rebuild (save the electrical) pretty much on their own. They've actually made great progress, and clearly have been working hard. Some of his stories were amazing. Anyway, he has a bad back, and could use help putting in the insulation and hanging sheetrock. Considering it's March and there are hundreds of volunteers on college spring break just in St. Bernard alone, we should be able to muster him up some help. Just the gratitude he showed when shaking my hand goodbye, seeing what that kind of help would mean to him, was worth the trip.

--I'm living in a different house for March and April, in Uptown (sort of the trendy part of New Orleans, where the natives, locals and college students all hang out, not tourists). Last night I went out to Magazine Street to find a coffee shop to do some job research and found one. It was like walking into a computer lab, though. All I saw as I stepped through the door was a line of tables with people and their laptops, mostly Macs, opened up, iPod like earphones in their ears. I was lucky to get a spot, someone closed up shop just as I walked in. It stayed that way the entire two hours I was there. I like a change of scenery from my attic room and the cat in the house. Why is everyone else there? Why have coffee shops replaced libraries as places to work, read, research? This isn't new, I know (two years in San Francisco earlier this decade taught me that. You couldn't go near a coffee shop without feeling like you were at an iMac Convention!). I still wonder what the infatuation is, though.

--Rush Limbaugh does nothing good for this country. Nothing. Think about it... a man sits behind a microphone for 3, 4 hours a day, berating and belittling people, igniting controversy, inciting people to "hate" this person or rally against that person. Rush, what do you DO? What action do you take to better the world, to better this country? I always think of the quote from my historical hero, Theodore Roosevelt, who once said, "It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by blood and sweat and dust."
Something tells me that if TR were alive today, he would be disgusted at the mere sight of Rush and other radio blabbermouths like him. Get off your ass and do something besides talk!!!

Finally, I can't resist a few sports related blurbs....
--Zero sympathy for Kelvin Sampson. He is 100% responsible for his own actions, he deserved to be fired, and whatever happens to this year's Indiana team if they do in fact come up short, whatever those players are going through, it all lies on the shoulders of Sampson. That's what you get when you blatantly break rules, no matter how petty they may seem.

--Good radio voices to listen to: Doug Gottlieb of ESPN Radio, Boomer Esiason of WFAN NY, Mike & Murray (Sirius 123). Tim Brando (Sirius 122) Why? Because they tell it like is. Horrible to listen to: Mike & Mike on ESPN. Along with pretty much anyone else on ESPN Radio. Why? Because they're nothing but soft corporate shills who pander and kiss ass.
Mike Tirico's show (he took over the time slot formerly held by Dan Patrick) is horrible, by the way. Tirico has such a busy schedule, he's missing half the week. Michelle Tafoya, a regular co-host and fill-in, is unbearable, both in tone of voice and her takes, and their guest list is nothing like Patrick's used to be (Hate DP all you want, his guest list was unmatched).

No Time for Thank You's

Donald Powell, the man President Bush appointed as his Gulf Coast Recovery Czar in 2005, announced he is retiring from the position in the coming weeks. Today (March 4, 2008), The Times-Picayune, whose editorials I have found to be pretty pointed and focused when it comes to Katrina-related issues, was way off the mark.

The Times-Pic saluted Mr. Powell and gave him its "sincere thanks" for being a champion for the people of Louisiana (link to the editorial below). I'm back in Louisiana after sevens weeks of travel and am talking to residents and looking at unfinished houses again. This has been my primary home for over a year now, so I think I speak with enough exposure and experience when I say that for any sort of 'thank you' to be levied to someone who holds any responsibility for 'overall' recovery and direction is northing short of an outright joke!

Reading and hearing about any kudos from and to local, state or federal officials is as pathetic now as it was in the days and weeks after Katrina hit -- and if you watched the national news back then you saw plenty of them going around. This place is nowhere near "recovered" enough for someone touted as the "Recovery Czar" to be receiving more than "Nice knowing you, now who is next in line to try and get something tangible done?"

This is not to say that Powell is a bad person, or that he was a complete flop. By some definitions of what he was tasked to do, he had success, particularly in winning more money for the state of Louisiana. But what has been done with it? Where are the plans, the leadership, the direction or the inspiration from people at Powell's level? Thanking Powell for a job well done is like congratulating the owner of a professional sports team for buying them nice uniforms. Sure, it looks good, but what have they won?

I have tried more than I can express to stay out of opinion and bickering centered on government failings. Constant bashing and negativity does no good. But, hearing about this (and today's editorial wasn't the first I heard of props given to Powell) infuriates me. When you see what I see here everyday, when you hear what I hear, it's downright absurd. Just yesterday I stood with a woman in the middle of her gutted house as she lamented the fact that she can't find a decent, affordable electrician to do her electrical wiring so that the basics like insulation and sheetrocking can start. She finally just got her Road Home money in December, but has no idea how and when all the work she needs done can get started. Meanwhile, she's in a FEMA trailer for over two years now.

Today, I was in the house of another woman, 74 year old Beatrice Duplessis, who has been staying in Pennsylvania because she has family and friends there, but is dying to get back to her home here in St. Bernard Parish. She can't, however, because there is still weeks, if not months worth of work to be done on her house. A wall has to be moved, the ceiling made more structurally sound, things that volunteers like myself or others that I find to help people at these types of homes really can't or shouldn't do. These folks need professional help and they just need it to be done.

How about this for a concept? Instead of sending a woman $80,000 two years after the fact and telling her to figure out a way to get her home rebuilt (in a market where skilled labor like electricians and plumbers are all swamped with work, over priced or outright crooks), why didn't the government (at any level) set up a plan where the billions of dollars that was appropriated went to a Recovery Fund? The money from that fund could then be used to pay hundreds of skilled laborers and home builders and carpenters to come to the Gulf Coast for 6, 8, 12 months and help rebuild neighborhoods. Zones could have been created where some of the best Construction Project Managers in the country could have overseen the rebuilding of homes block by block, street by street. Where was Powell when it came to this sort of creative leadership and program? Cutting checks to people who have suffered great loss, depression, sickness, stress and obstacles beyond description in one blog, and asking them to find a way to get all the work done has to be one of the most ridiculous plans/projects I've ever seen. The more time I spend here, the more I am convinced of that. Have there been some great successes, some people who have figured out a way and rebuilt their homes and their lives? Of course. Quite a few. But overall, big picture, is the recovery moving along fast enough? Successful enough? Not even close.

The only thank you's that should be going around are to volunteers and people who have taken their own initiative to find solutions here, who have gone above and beyond, regular people who weren't in titles or official roles that might indicate they were to help with the recovery. And this isn't about me, forget me or anything I've done. This is about what I've seen every single day I've been here since February of 2007, amazing work done by hundreds of volunteers who are the only reason this place has a chance. I went by the St. Bernard Community Center earlier, where a volunteer (who earns a stipend) named Jason came on board last Fall. The Community Center was flailing when he first arrived, serving merely as a place for some residents to "hang out". Today, I walked in there and saw Road Home officials sitting at desks talking to residents on the left, accounting students from Michigan St. University sitting at desks on the other side of the room helping residents with Tax Questions, a food distribution taking place in the back and a medical clinic trailer sitting out front. That's all happening because a young kid fresh out of college who came her to help out is helping to make that happen.

Thanking the Federal Recovery Czar? Or anyone else in some sort of government role? Please, spare me. The only place for that in any newspaper is in the comics section!

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1204611682284920.xml&coll=1)