[Recovery Pen has been a column about New Orleans life, from the vantage point of a transplanted northerner with a soft heart and an eye for detail.]

When I was a kid, my mom tried to cheer me up at the end of a fun weekend or family vacation with this old saying: all good things must come to an end. It wasn't much comfort then, and it's not much comfort now. "But why?" I'd ask her. "Why do good things have to end?"

She didn't have an answer for me, and I don't have an answer for you. My fellow bloggers have already said their goodbyes, and now it's my turn. As you've heard, our blog has been cancelled, obviously not because of our writing quality, but because our parent company wants to go in other directions. Bloggingneworleans, and its short-lived predecessor bloggingohio, were to be the vanguard of location-specific sites across the AOL network. But when Bloggingla and bloggingbrooklyn never manifested themselves, well, it didn't come as much of a surprise when we heard they were pulling the plug on us.

Personally, I can say that I received the news with a mixture of sadness and relief. Unlike my fellow bloggers, who plan to set up camp in new spots in the blogosphere, I am looking forward to the old-fashioned pursuit of writing a novel. It's something that I couldn't balance with my full-time job, healthy social life, activist pursuits, and weekly blog, but now I can fit it in. And I'm so grateful for this site which has forced me to sit my butt down and write on a semi-regular basis. Having this practice will help my novelist pursuits immensely.

And yet, and yet... As we recently passed the two-year Katrina anniversary, it saddened me to realize that the city still needs a Recovery Pen, because we're still recovering. And maybe we always will be, the way alcoholics call themselves "recovering" for years after they put down the bottle.

But some rays of light pierce through the thick haze of chaos hanging over our city. We're becoming greener, despite our best efforts to the contrary, with Brad Pitt commissioning Green Spaces down in the Lower 9th, a return to curbside recycling, a bike lane to be installed on St. Claude Avenue, and a long bike path planned for the new, improved City Park. As I write these words, I can feel fall in the air, which always means that the craziness of summer (and the murder rate) will be going down soon. The kids are back in our public schools, which have nowhere to go but up. Next month, we get to exercise our right to put new faces in the governor's mansion, in the state legislature, and on the New Orleans City Council. Thank God this is America, where we can keep electing people until one of those chuckleheads gets it right.

I'm sad that I won't have this forum to comment and read the commentary of my fellow bloggers as the city changes for the better (crossed fingers.) You won't hear our takes on the election outcomes, or on Voodoo Fest 2007. We won't be reporting from this year's Independent Book Fair (on Frenchman Street, Saturday, November 10) or from Thanksgiving opening day at the Fair Grounds Racetrack. You'll have to spend Christmas, and Mardi Gras, and Jazzfest without us. But before I get too sad, I should remind myself that I'll still be writing for www.nolafugees.com when I feel inspired, so please keep a bookmark there!

Let me close this blog by finishing my NOLA alphabet, a project I'd started without realizing I'd have a concrete deadline (today) to finish it. I've been dragging my feet on these last letters, but like all good things, even the alphabet has to end. So thanks for reading, my dear friends and New Orleans well-wishers! Keep coming, keep dreaming, keep believing in the best for our fair city!

W is for Water

Flood Day, September 11,1998. When the rain started, I was working in the English grad student office up at UNO. My fellow grad students were smart to skedaddle out of there. But I, having been raised in a place where people don't fuss about the weather, stayed put until I finished my work. Then I thought it smart to drive to Lakeview to meet friends for a birthday lunch. When I found a closed restaurant with a flooded parking lot and no friends in sight, I realized that maybe I should have gone home sooner.

I got on I-10 to get back to my uptown home, but the police had blocked it off and so I was forced to exit on St. Bernard Avenue. Never will I forget the terror of driving my low-riding Saturn coupe through deep floodwater in one of the worst parts of town. To soothe my frayed nerves, I turned onto Claiborne Avenue under the overpass, so that I could sit in standstill traffic with an ambulance stuck behind me. I don't know why the driver thought having the siren on would help him get through the traffic. No one could move. So we stayed stuck there, listening to the blaring siren echo against the concrete overpass.

Finally I had to abandon my car on the St. Charles neutral ground, right in front of Igor's bar, where I stayed for the rest of the day. The whole episode reinforced a New Orleans lesson that I'm still trying to un-learn: nothing is so terrifying that alcohol can't fix.

X is the Rescuer's Mark

Two years after Katrina, you can still spot Xs sprayed onto houses where the rescue teams came searching. Marked with the date of the search, the search team's code, and the number of living and dead, this letter lays bare the destruction. As much as we can try to gloss over what happened here, the Xs remind us most viscerally of the depth of this tragedy. I remember when they found a body in my neighborhood nine months after the storm. For all I know, they're still finding bodies in the Ninth Ward.

Y is for YURP

Last month, the Times-Pic did a cover story on the Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals that have flocked to New Orleans to be part of our "renaissance." Architects and educators, urban planners and doctors, these idealists are ready to sacrifice high salaries for the chance to make their mark on a city full of raw possibility. I'd like to send a big thank-you shout-out to all YURPs and URPs of all ages for investing in us. Hopefully our color and charm will keep you here while you realize that affecting change in such a stagnant place can be a bitch. But stick it out - we need you!

For anyone interested in the faces behind this movement, or anyone needing a date for this weekend, check out the new networking website aimed at this demographic: www.nolayurp.com.

Z is for Zapp's

Let me end this alphabet, and my blog, on a wonderfully spicy note. From Cajun Crawtator and Hotter n' Hot Jalapeno to Sour Cream and Creole Onion and Cajun Dill, Zapp's has a chip for all lips. They even offer a no-salt variety for the health-conscious out there. Not that I've tried that flavor, myself. For if I've learned anything from living and blogging in this city, it's that life goes down better with a little bit of spice!

If you want to catch up on the rest of the alphabet, click the letters below:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V

Well, I let you know about the sad news of our site's retirement last week I said I'd tell you more about the future and then... well I dropped off the face of the planet. Before I tell you about the future one last story... Tuesday afternoon(September 11th, ugh) the a rain the dusted the city was the final staw for the roof of the building my apartment is in and water started to pour (and I do me pour) into my bedroom. My poor extremely pregnant better half was home and managed to move the last of our future offspring's future out of the room before the ceiling started to come down around her. So now I'm in a bad situation with an apartment that needs to be emptied and a new one that needs to be found (and now you know why the podcast was late). I have some options and the help of our families is going to help a lot, but I had to cut off my blogging for the week and only just now could get to you... so on to the future... I think my future includes a break for blogging. I loved being able to post my thoughts on the state of the city in this space, but I think I need to take a step back. The tracking of some of the underbelly of the recovery can be really upsetting and I am finding the stress of the country looking at us as the ugly step-sisters of the nation extremely hard. Sometimes you just want to be a techwriter who fauns over the latest websites instead of dealing with hard realities of the recovery.

Maybe I'm just a little tired (as are many in the city). Maybe I'm just a little to angry. Maybe I just need a break.

Wow, that was a little depressing. On a high note, we must end. Thanks for reading my rants. Thanks for commenting on my podcasts. Thanks for sending in your ideas. Thanks for saying hey. Thanks for everything.

I loved covering Jazz Fest for you. I loved getting to know my city again for you. I loved getting politically angry for you. I loved posting for you.

Thank you.

[This is a continuation of the author's series on New Orleans lessons, to commemorate both her 10th anniversary of living in New Orleans , as well as the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.]

U is for Under

When considering the letter "U," this preposition popped into mind first, although after yesterday's weather, I could have easily gone with "umbrella." Yet I feel like "under" says pretty much all you need to know about New Orleans, America's underdog, the steamy underbelly of our Puritan Union. It's also one of the few places - outside of San Francisco - where you can go out wearing your underwear and people don't even blink. Although I prefer a robe.

V is for Vampire

Although tourists flock to New Orleans to tour vampire author Anne Rice's house, hoping to come across a vampire in the evening shadows, they'd find more bloodsuckers out at our construction sites. Ask anyone who's had work done on their home - including our own Kelly Leahy - and you'll get an earful about dishonest contractors who either bled them dry or sucked the life out of them with postponements and switchbacks until the homeowner finally ended up in the fetal position. Now I know there are some good, honest contractors out there - and really, the three of you should form a club.

On the subject of vampires, I could go into detail about some of the gentlemen who have taught me valuable lessons during my time in New Orleans, but this isn't that kind of blog. Besides, you boys know who you are.

• Welcome
• Good byes and the reasons for the delay
• the interview with my dad
• The future of New Orleans
• The Levees
• Lakeview, Gentilly and the Ninth Ward
• Katrina and Rita's effect on the Ninth Ward
• Politics
• Sports
• A bright future with new engineering projects and lots of jobs
• Thanks

Thanks for listening to the last 35 episodes of this podcast. Its been great telling you my thoughts every week and talking about the city.

Update: there was an error in the filename of the podcast, fixed now.

SUBSCRIBE to the Blogging New Orleans podcast in iTunes
LISTEN to the podcast now
ADD the Blogging New Orleans podcast feed to your RSS aggregator

[Terra Nola documents the long-distance love affair between a New Yorker and New Orleans.]

Well, if I hadn't read it with my own eyes I would not have believed it (not that we should believe everything we read). Looks like there is to be a second Camellia Grill, this one in Destin, Florida, beloved by teenagers on spring break everywhere.

As I said to Kelly Leahy, co-blogger here at bloggingneworleans, there can be only one. Even if the reopened version in Nola is doing well enough, the new owner is messing with some pretty serious karma to try and duplicate his success outside of the Crescent City. It was a miracle the Camellia Grill reopened at all given the devastation and destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Why tempt fate?

But, that said, if you're going to tempt fate, you might as well do it in the pan handle. If a greasy spoon operation is going to make it anywhere, it can make it in Destin. Not that Destin is lacking in diners--to the contrary, they're everywhere.

In fact, one of my favorites (besides the Camellia Grill, of course) is the Donut Hole. There are two locations of this fine dining establishment, and I can pretty much guarantee you both will be getting a run for their money once the new CG opens.

As much as I eschew the idea of taking something native to Nola out of it and trying to achieve success with it elsewhere, I can't help but hope the venture is a successful one. If the new outpost is a hit then surely there will be enough money to sustain New Orlean's (dare I say it?) favorite diner.

Either that or the new establishment will be a total money pit that will be the financial ruin of the owner which will lead the original Camellia Grill to ruin.

The thing is, either way, you simply can't recreate the Grill. Everybody knows it's not the food that people really go for. You can get eggs and a side of bacon anywhere--especially in Destin, Florida. It's the people at the Camellia Grill that make it the special place that it is. And I can assure you they won't be popping up in Florida any time soon to make you an omelet.

I don't know off the top of my head how many of the original staff returned to the, uhm, original Camellia Grill. From what I heard some had returned, others declined, and some, of course, we just never heard from again. Who knows what happened to them. Perhaps, just perhaps, fate will bring them to Destin.

My concern is that the owner will turn his attention away from the original CG and spend too much time (and money) worrying about the new outpost. It's a thin line everyone in Nola walks these days given the shaky economy, the lack of people to do the work, oh, and why not--the crime. To step over that line--oh, I shudder to even think about it.

What's even more concerning is that the opening of the new CG is really just a metaphor for what's happening all over New Orleans: everyone is turning their attention elsewhere and setting up show somewhere, anywhere else.

After two years all I can offer you is my exasperation. And, sadly, in a way, my compliance in this matter. When and if I'm ever in Florida again, I know I'll visit the new Camellia Grill. And I'll complain that it's not the original and it's not the same--and it won't ever be the same. And maybe that's the point.

I'll eat the food and hark back to days long, long past when I was basically just a kid eating with some friends after a wild night (or two). I'll remember a time when I actually had the time to just hang out, to relax, to have a good time, without having to think about the future of New Orleans and then feeling bad about the whole thing to the point where I didn't even want to eat my meal anymore. It just felt wrong.

And it will feel so very, very wrong at the CG in frickin' Destin, Florida. But, on a positive note, if I can get myself to the CG in Destin, then I can get myself to the real deal in New Orleans. Hopefully others will feel the same way.

Thanks to Ashley Morris for the head's up.

Photo of omelet (not from Camellia Grill) by nickgraywfu.

Recently spotted on the West Bank, this fixer-upper mere blocks from the Mississippi River. Priced to sell; act fast before the termites get in.

Well, it's probably too late for that. Nice holes in the wall, eh?

Last Saturday, the Common Ground Health Clinic in Algiers Point celebrated its second year of providing free health services to thousands of New Orleanians since its formation in the week after Katrina struck. Clinic supporters organized a block party at the corner of Teche and Socrates where the Clinic is located, serving up a barbecue and music and offering tours of the recently refurbished clinic (see photo below).

In a city with an international reputation for low-quality health care post-Katrina, the two Common Ground-sponsorerd free clinics -- the first in Algiers, the second on St. Claude St. in the Lower 9th Ward -- are much-needed community institutions that have served thousands of people since opening. Ancillary programs like the Latino Health Outreach Program, a spinoff project that serves the needs of non-English speaking residents and workers, also spread the tattered net of social services in New Orleans a little wider.

A staff member at the Algiers Clinic informed me that the Algiers Clinic sees between 20 and 50 people per day of operation; due to limited resources and red tape, the clinic is open on a limited schedule four days out of the week (Monday through Wednesday at various hours, and Saturday 12 - 3 pm). Despite ongoing shortages of medical services in the area, and despite the tremendous need for basic health care in the city, the Common Ground Clinics have had to fight for everything they have.

Judging by the state of medical services here two years after the traumatic events of 2005, it looks like their struggle to provide free, basic health care to neglected or impoverished populations will remain an uphill battle. But the anniversary party demonstrated that the community still needs and supports the services they offer.

At last week's "International Tribunal on Katrina and Rita," one of the more striking parts of the event was the presentation of the second witness on the subject of Women's Rights. Ms. Stephanie Mingo, a resident of New Orleans for 40 years, lived in St. Bernard Housing project prior to Katrina. After the storm, she evacuated with four children and one grandchild in tow. Her mother died on the Gentilly bridge, unable to survive the physical and mental anguish of the storm's aftermath. Ms. Mingo's testimony was powerful and informative.

Ms. Mingo and her family evacuated, returned, and are now staying in the Iberville project. She doesn't like it there and wants to move back into her St. Bernard home. She has worked for the Orleans School Board for ten years -- "not that long" Ms. Mingo says -- and is determined to stay in her home town.

Her stubbornness in staying in a project known as much for trouble as for housing might seem odd to those of us who have never stayed in government housing, but it's the home that she wants to come back to. She loves her job as a food services technician at a local school, and isn't afraid of hard work. As Ms. Mingo said from the witness seat while testifying to the court, "When I tie these shoes, I'm not too proud to do anything." Her home and community were humble, but she managed to raise and put through college three of her kids, and the fourth is college-bound.

Public housing may be the upscale-white developer's nightmare, but a lot of hard-working, disciplined people lived there before Katrina, and want to return to their homes and communities which they are trying against all odds to preserve.

The second editorial in the Times-Pic today ("Share the excitement") gently took the Mayor and City Council to task for the secrecy surrounding the recently-approved plan for the first stages of redevelopment of 17 targeted zones throughout the city. The editors should have gone much further in their criticism. The secrecy of the elected leaders could be characterized as disingenuous at best, at worst, it is rife with the opportunity for corruption, influence-pedaling, and back-door politics. The kind of things that people living here are pretty sick of already.

If the plans to redevelop New Orleans are agreed upon by elected officials, then the democratic population who voted for these officials are entitled to see these plans, comment upon them, and above all, take hope from these plans.

Citizens like you and me won't be able to do this, though, until next month. This month is reserved for the New Orleans power structure to assure itself a profitable central role in the rebuilding effort. There are properties to be acquired, and little old ladies and blind old men to be unscrupulously evicted or bought out of their homes for a pittance by scheming developers.

There are dummy corporations to set up, in order to apply or bid for contracts (presuming, that is, that there are any contracts left to be claimed on the first $117 million in development funds; it's even money that big time disaster profiteers Halliburton and Bechtel had a seat at the table when these plans were shown to "other stakeholders" by Tsar Blakely. After all, there's federal money being poured around, and while many still suffer, there's no reason that good, highly-connected corporations like Kellogg, Brown, & Root or Fluor can't earn a buck or two million while shutting out local contractors until the cream has been skimmed from federal largesse.).

Admittedly, the bulk of planning was likely done long ago, and the REAL players didn't have to wait for the council's approval. They already have their schemes in order, you can believe that. Incidentally, this may be the reason why Nagin's office has been so insular lately; he and his cronies have probably been busy making calls and setting up deals with friends, family, and high-powered interests. There's a lot of loot on the way.

Which reminds me of the spray painted warnings after Katrina: You loot, we shoot. Only now, the shooting should be metaphoric.

But don't be surprised to find an awful lot of looting when the development money comes to town.

So you may not have heard, but our beloved bloggingneworleans.com website has been selected for cancellation ("retired" is the preferred term) in less than two weeks. I know I'm not alone in saying that I will miss writing for the site, and will miss the chance to engage so directly with readers.

But the end has not yet arrived, it remains only nigh. Therefore, I avail myself of the opportunity to try generating a little more discussion on certain topics of interest. Here, I want to talk about ending the prohibition of marijuana, a step I believe can assist in the recovery and healing of New Orleans.

There are many reasons why not to take such a step, and I want readers who disagree to chime in. But arguments favoring such action seem stronger than those I've heard opposed. Such action can help rein in crime, reduce courthouse workloads, alleviate burdens on families with loved ones incarcerated for non-violent possession or distribution offenses, keep young people out of the criminal justice system, and create a profitable local industry, not to mention the relief that the medicinal use of Cannabis offers to patients suffering from a long list of ailments, none of them strangers to New Orleans.

I propose rethinking drug policy out of the legal morass it is in and into the realm of the social and the medical. I would propose decriminalization of recreational and medical use of marijuana in the French Quarter, depenalize growing it as a taxable crop for local use in New Orleans, allow the establishment of coffee shops and medical dispensaries, make simple possession of unlicensed weed outside the French Quarter a ticketable offense (if that)and declare an amnesty for those incarcerated under non-violent simple possession or distribution charges.

It would be major big business, bigger maybe than novelty t-shirts. Did I say "would be?" I meant, of course, that it is big business. According to sources, marijuana is the sixth-largest cash crop grown in Louisiana, despite years of withering prohibition enforcement. As an illegal revenue stream, it's just about unbeatable. As a legal one, I askk you, what do you think might happen?

Marijuana is a powerful drug, there's no argument there. Local hospitals would have to be ready to deal with an upswing in emergency admissions for mixing drugs by foolish tourists (weed and booze are often a very bad combination). Driving under the influence of weed, selling it to minors, these should remain outlawed acts. But arresting a group of fellas sitting on a front porch smoking a blount is a waste of time; their time, the cop's time, and the court's time. If those fellas get up off that porch and commit a robbery, arrest them for the robbery; chances are, though, that they're gonna sit right there for a while.

Some say marijuana is more healthy for you than tobacco. I don't know if that's true or not; it's just as apparent that smoking neither is probably the healthiest strategy. It may not be the healthiest habit, but much more clearly harmful substances are freely available in every corner store and gas station in town.

Some say that marijuana helps maintain mental health. Others have long claimed it causes "reefer madness," luring perfectly good white men and women into dens of sin (you must see the propaganda to believe it) or insanity.

At the end of the day, would decriminalization create more madness than it would resolve? Would it alleviate more people's stress, or simply add to their anxieties? Would it calm people down, or agitate them? Would it be good for business, this new iteration of Storyville, or would it wind up draining the city's resources?

Readers, let me hear from you. You too, Mr. Courreges, if you're around. Our time on this site is growing short.

1. We pay taxes too. It might be hard to believe but bartenders and barristers alike pay taxes from what they earn in this city directly to the federal government. Those taxes in turn pay for farm subsidies in Iowa and bridges in Alaska.
2. New Orleans exports more than hungover tourists and Girls Gone Wild footage. You wouldn't know it from a brief stay here but there are citizens of this metropolitan region who don't frequent The Quarter every night and actually make it to work on time Monday morning. Our citizens pump crude oil out of the marshes and into your cars. Our citizens also operate one of the largest ports in the country. If you combine our port with the nearby port of LaPlace, was have the largest port system in the world ton for ton. How else could we possibly import all of those tacky beads?
3. If the global economy doesn't appeal to you, perhaps this will: New Orleans is beautiful. There is no other place like it. There is a reason why people return here year after year. In a nation that is becoming homogenized by strip malls and quiet suburban housing, New Orleans is a gem worth protecting.
   

1. Bringing 300,000 people back into the city. I don't know about you, but I'm quite sure that Nagin didn't factor into my moving back into my home. In fact, I don't remember him filling my gas tank and I certainly don't remember him picking up the household trash that festered outside of my house for weeks on end.
2. Nagin pats himself on the back for cleaning up the city and lifting people's spirits. Do you remember how long those cars sat under the I-10 overpass? Months and months and months. In fact, I seem to think that it was over a year before the cars were cleared. It took Nagin that long to find the right towing company for the right price when it was rumored that one company offered to PAY US to take possession of the flooded vehicles.
3. Lastly, Nagin claims that he has succeeded in providing utilities to most of the city. I'm not sure what he had to do beyond give a single command to the Sewerage and Water Board and a nod to Entergy. Speaking of utilities, I'm not sure I'd want to take any sort of credit for what Entergy is doing right now given the sky-rocketing utility prices.

Brad Pitt may have broken ground on his visionary green development in Holy Cross, but residents and others looking to restore homes that survived the flooding of 2005 might do well to look at how previous examples of building production values fared after catastrophe. It seems apparent that some modes of construction in New Orleans should be abandoned, and new designs created, to provide for the future housing needs of New Orleanians.

There are environmentally friendly ways to redevelop, like what Mr. Pitt and his Global Green group has in mind. Using energy-efficient materials and design strategies, and aiming for "net zero energy and carbon neutral building," the Holy Cross development promises solar energy emergency power, rainwater recycling, and community conveniences. The plan includes middle-income affordable housing, and through energy-saving design, it estimates residents will save up to $2,400 per year in electricity. It calls for five single-family houses, with preference given to displaced Lower 9th/Holy Cross residents. The 18-unit apartment project is also said to be targeted at displaced Lower 9th Ward residents, offering very reasonable rents ($550 for a one-bedroom unit, $650 for two bedrooms).

A brief survey of rents on Craigslist indicates that, no matter how poorly the housing market is faring, the rental market is booming. One bedroom apartments go from $500 (rare) to $1000 or more per month. Vacancies seem high, judging by the number of "For Rent" signs that keep popping up in my neighborhood. Maybe by the time the Global Green project is completed the housing market will have overcome its slump; even if it doesn't, though, I'd bet Mr. Pitt and his cohort won't have too much difficulty filling the conscientiously-built units with returned New Orleanians.

By contrast, other parts of Holy Cross are going to need a lot more than a little sprucing up to make them as desirable as new houses. The house in the photo survived the flooding, but hasn't quite gotten along as well as others. It had plastic siding, which I'm sure added to the value of the home and protected it from the elements ... until fire struck, and burned the place all but to the ground. The plastic siding melted into absurd shapes and flowed like toxic liquid onto the concrete and fencing around it. As it burned, it released who-knows-what into the air, and the place still reeks of charred furniture.

Nearby many brick-on-slab buildings still stand, deserted by their owners and, in many cases, unable to be raised to FEMA-determined safe elevations. An article in this week's Times-Picayune decried the encroaching loss of historically significant housing in New Orleans, and brick-on-slab construction was singled out as one of the losers in the new architectural game.

Slab houses are sturdy and solid, as far as that goes. Personally, I think these homes should be preserved, so long as the owners realize that the next "Big one" will flood their home again, and that they will have to rebuild again in such a case. But there should be no question but that slab-homes in New Orleans belong to a different time, and shouldn't be kept in the housing-design portfolio for Post-Katrina rebuilding.

A friend recently pressed home to me the fact that most people make economic decisions based on emotion more than on logic or reason, and sometimes it seems that's the only thing that successfully explains how so many residents could work so hard every day to rebuild their homes. It might be easy for others to dismiss the faith that New Orleanians have in our future, especially in light of global concerns and climatic extremes.

But faith has gotten a lot of us a very long way over the past two years. How well we couple that faith with sound decisions on how to rebuilt will very likely determine how well the city survives the next catastrophe.

Last weekend I drove across town to the Latter Library on St. Charles for it's twice-weekly booksale. As an on-going fundraiser, that branch hosts a sale on Wednesday and Saturday, 10 am to 2 pm. I got a bag full of great books for $7, and afterwards I went back to use one of the library computers.

My computer has been down, so I've been relying on public-access computers -- a somewhat frustrating experience, to say the least. Most public access computers are of limited use, as their advanced functions (like allowing photos to upload, or programs to download) are limited to adminstrative access, not "guest" access.

I'm not complaining about public access computers, mind you. Hundreds of people use public computers here every day, myself included. It's just that my personal use of the machine demands more than basic access (so I haven't been posting too many photos lately...).

So, in the upstairs computer cluster of the Latter Library, the computers are located beneath a part of the ceiling where the plaster is flaking off. The dust coats the processors and terminals, and looks to be fresh. I worked for a while without having any more of the ceiling chip off, and I was going to say something to the staff there, but I figured they already know what the problems are. All the same, they could vaccuum their computers once in a while.

At the main branch of the NOPL, staff there seem pinched all the time. Workers in the archives are understaffed, and even when they have enough people, there are plenty of impediments to researchers and the librarians who support them. Some items are misplaced, some confusingly labeled, and the limits on staff keep them from being able to sort out these difficulties.

I'm a big supporter of the public library system, so I encourage readers who haven't checked out the libraries lately to do so. Use the free wireless available in every NOPL branch (except Alvar Street and the Algiers location, for some reason). And drop by the Latter Branch this weekend and check out the books for sale. The books are mighty inexpensive, and you'll be supporting the library in a continued time of need.

Houses in the Lower 9th Ward aren't considered the priciest or most luxurious homes in the area, but they still have a lot of character. Older houses built by skilled craftsmen of an earlier time benefited from numerous decorative touches that made a house unique. The cornice work, the under-eave brackets, everything was done to make the house stand out.

In the hidden corners of the Holy Cross neighborhood, it's still easy to find these distinctive touches, but after Katrina architectural thieves struck the city in force, ripping out valuable features and rare wood details that gave many homes their charm. Most of these houses survived at least two floods -- Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and, of course, Katrina forty years later -- but it was greed that caused the owners of these homes such headaches.

Here in the photo is the front eave over a house near Jackson Barracks. You can see the discolored spot where the finely detailed brackets used to be, and the hole where there used to be a metal vent cover. The owner of this home replaced the missing parts with cut plywood, but it might be a while before he or she finds a craftsman up to the task of replicating the stolen goods.

You read Shelley Midura's open letter to the President this morning and felt the power of a councilmember ripping the 'leader' of the free world a new one. Now you need to read the Times Picayune's Editorial that basically does the same thing. the paper does an accurate job of comparing the aid giving to Louisiana and the aid given to Mississippi. It doesn't say 'hey they got to much' but 'hey why didn't we get treated equally'. The number one quote in the Editorial is:

The people of Louisiana are no less deserving of disaster aid because their representatives are newer to Congress or because some of the people we trusted to lead us turned out to be scoundrels.

Yes, the TP is saying what we have been thinking since the first jeer about Jefferson came out of the mouth of a congressman from anywhere else who wanted to make us pay for his mistakes. We do deserve to be treated like the good citizens we are and not punished for our politicians choices. If you give money with checks and balances and realize that one guy isn't going to get it all (hopefully) then you help the recovery. If you hold back and make a blanket accusation of an entire region of the country you only alienate us and show exactly the type of person you are. Of course empty promises by members of the executive branch don't help either.

via E&P

image of You Go Girl by skeletonkrewe found on Flickr

What's going on here? Why am I posting so much? Today, in honor of Katrina I am attempting another 24 hour 24 post blogathon.