Another Katrina death?

NEW ORLEANS - A former New Orleans police officer charged in the videotaped beating of a man after Hurricane Katrina apparently shot himself to death about a month before his trial, authorities said Monday.

Why did Bush choose Crawford?

I spent the last week in west Texas, doing what I am calling "roadside archaeography" which means, taking pictures of old buildings before they disappear. Really was a great time. Spent most of a week on the road, more than 2500 miles of driving and lots of pictures. Pandora the Dog behaved herself all the way. No accidents, no complaining, --- actually she slept most of the time, and missed seeing the wild turkeys and the big elk. She did, however, get an introduction to cows. She pointed. Yeah, right, cows are prey, Pandora.

I used my Delorme gps receiver, and loved it (though sometimes it WAS distracting-- like when I had it searching for restaurants). It mostly let me concentrate on the road, and on possible picture-taking opportunities. Mostly it was good for directing me to the older parts of towns (usually it took me directly to the courthouse, or the one traffic light in town.) I based in San Angelo for four days, and took long circle routes south, west, and north. Pictures will follow.

But here's what the post is really about:

What about Crawford and Bush? Why did he decide to locate there?

My route home from San Angelo took me through Waco, and Crawford is just a few miles west of Waco, and only eight miles or so off my route. So I drove to see what's been going on there in terms of changes, new houses, buildings and so forth since Bush has been there. (He bought the place in 1999, just before running for President the first time.) Crawford is nothing special. There are some signs touting the Bushes, and a souvenir shop which was closed when I went through. And on the way to Waco (which is also nothing special) I started wondering why Bush had chosen that part of Texas for his "ranch." It's halfway between Houston and Dallas, so the oil connection was the first thing I considered. But , if W wanted to stay close to the oil business, why not live IN Houston or Dallas the way his father did? Or Midland/Odessa? Another consideration might have been scenery or climate. Crawford has neither. It lacks the stark beauty of West Texas, and the climate is hot and humid. Then I remembered the Texas Transportation Corridor (TTC), which I had read about a year or so ago. The TTC is a grandiose scheme to connect a Pacific port in Mexico, most likely Lazaro Cardenas, with a huge mega highway that will run through Mexico, cross the border and continue through Texas to a "port" in Kansas City Missouri, where goods will be unloaded and go through customs. Closed containers, say, from China, unloaded at Lazaro Cardenas by Mexican labor, could be driven on Mexican trucks directly to the geographical center of the country. Imagine the savings -- AND the profits. The corridor would continue on into Canada. It sounds like a pipe dream, but there are already concrete plans and agreements with Mexico to begin the deal. The mega-highway will include, according to the Texas Department of Transportation, "separate lanes for passenger vehicles and large trucks, freight railways, high-speed commuter railways, infrastructure for utilities including water lines, oil and gas pipelines, and transmission lines for electricity, broadband and other telecommunications services." It would be a huge project, and if completed it could change the face of the country. Part of the aim, I assume, is to bypass east coast and west coast US ports -- who would this benefit? And I'm sure there are lots more "beneficiaries" that I cannot imagine now, but who are eagerly hoping to grab some piece of this pie. That would include anyone who had land near the new TTC. What about Bush, then?

Ok, so when I got home late last night, a quick Google search confirmed my suspicion. Crawford, and Bush's "ranch," are immediately adjacent to one of the two proposed routes of the TTC. It the project materializes (and why should he not expect it to, if he has any influence in the Department of Transportation and in Texas politics?) his land will be immensely valuable.

I saw that Cindy Sheehan is selling her Crawford acreage to some L.A. radio personality. She should hold on. What do you think?

/Here are links to the sites that have the full story. Just cut and paste.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=15497 The outline of the scheme -- Trans Texas Corridor. Includes links to other, coordinating sites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1zaro_C%C3%A1rdenas,_Michoac%C3%A1n Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=31.5825,-97.543611&spn=0.01,0.01&q=31.5825,-97.543611-- Bush's ranch location.
http://ttc.keeptexasmoving.com/projects/ttc35/deis_map_listing.aspx -- maps -- click on the link to Map 3 Hilllsboro Waco

Memorial Day 2007

Challenge the presidential contenders to present their N. O. plans.

We now have Clinton and Edwards on the record about their plans for New Orleans' recovery. It's time to get Obama, Richardson, Giuliani, McCain, and all the rest of the presidential field to be specific about their plans. New Orleans needs to be one of the premier campaign issues. How will each candidate work for the restoration of one of America's great cities.

Clinton wants to rebuild Charity, create a jobs program, and provide Cat 5 protection.

You can find some information on Democratic candidates' stances here. Does anyone have a list of comprehensive statements on New Orleans by presidential candidates of both parties?

Update: Better link to Wayward Episcopalian

AAUP Report: Post-Katrina some universities did not respect faculty rights

The AAUP, the major national watchdog over universities and their faculties, has concluded that there were serious inadequacies, omissions, and perhaps even purposeful injustices in the practices of several Louisiana universities concerning the firing or laying off of tenured faculty in the aftermath of Katrina. The report found that several institutions did not follow their established policies, prepared poorly for disaster, provided poor rationales for "draconian" actions, avoided necessary faculty consultation, terminated more faculty than necessary, provided inadequate notice to faculty, violated due process, neglected adequate measures to insure alternative placement of faculty, ignored faculty tenure rights, and perhaps used the emergency to get rid of faculty who "were disliked by those in authority for having previously opposed or criticized their actions . . ." The report deals with the LSU Health Services Center, UNO, SUNO, Loyola and Tulane. (An attached report deals with Katrina-related matters at Our Lady of Holy Cross College.)

The full report can be found at:
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/protectrights/academicfreedom/investrep/2007/katrina.htm

From the Advocate:

The American Association of University Professors took aim at the post-Hurricane Katrina decisions that resulted in many faculty losing their jobs.

Even the unprecedented hurricane, the report released Tuesday says, did not justify actions that harmed the future of higher education in southeastern Louisiana.

Administrators ignored proper procedures with a “nearly universal departure from (or in some cases complete abandonment of) personnel and other policies” in the aftermath of Katrina, which struck in August 2005.

Particularly targeted in the report are the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, the University of New Orleans, Southern University in New Orleans, Tulane University and Loyola University, where an AAUP special committee conducted investigations.

“Widespread failure to adhere to stated policy almost universally created serious, sometimes inexplicable, lapses in protecting academic freedom and due process,” the report states.

The report states the number of faculty terminations “exceeded the inescapable or minimal needs of the institution, sometimes substantially.”

SLU President forces out nationally recognized wetlands ecologist

Update: The pdf of the Ponchatoula Times article on the demotion of Paul Keddy is at the following link http://www.savefile.com/files/722651
Click on the large orange "Download" button.


This story in today's Morning Advocate seems inexplicable, almost surreal. SLU President Randy Moffett is forcing Professor Paul Keddy, who, according to an SLU press release, only a few days ago received a prestigious national award for his work in wetlands ecology.

Despite national honor, ecologist being reassigned

By MIKE DUNNE
Advocate staff writer
Published: May 13, 2007 - Page: 1b

HAMMOND — Southeastern Louisiana University wetlands ecologist Paul Keddy received one of the top prizes in wetlands sciences this past week, but says he is being forced to leave the university.

Keddy said recently that he lost his endowed professorship as of this September and the university has offered to give him a six-course teaching load for an academic year. But, “they know I can’t handle that,” he said, because of a neurological disability that he had when he was recruited to campus seven years ago.

On Wednesday, Keddy was one of six people recognized with a National Wetlands Awards by the Environmental Law Institute. The institute is joined in making the awards by several federal agencies including the National Marine Fisheries Services, National Forest Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

I have asked contacts in the university community to see if they can dig up more detail. On the face of it, from this article, this seems a spectacularly ill-advised move on SLU's part. Keddy's accomplishments, as described in his vita, are truly impressive and his dismissal will reverberate nationally throughout the academic community to SLU's detriment, and to the detriment of every Louisiana university. Losing his expertise will greatly damage efforts at hurricane protection in Louisiana as well.

Here is another blog post from Professor Zero on the subject.

I have a pdf on the incident from the Ponchatoula Times (local newspaper near SLU), if I can figure out how to post it. It gives more details than the Advocate article. The reporter is clearly astonished at the move by SLU president Randy Moffett.

And take a look at Keddy's campus website for a sense of what he has accomplished.

Cheney implicated in hookergate?

Professor Zero and I are apparently on the same wavelength today. I find that he has a nice post on the possibility, surfaced by Wayne Madsen, that Dick Cheney may have been one of the D.C. Madam's clients. I wanted to blog on this, but he was there first.
Professor Zero Scroll down. No permalink.
Link: The Madsen article. See post for May 13-14, 2007. (Correction, that should be May 10, 2007. Scroll down to May 8, too.)

Madsen says he has three different sources for this, but he has been wrong before.
I had confirmation, though, from a friend in Washington that the story is being talked about everywhere in D.C., and they're just waiting to see which major news organization will break it first. Since ABC now has all the records, it would seem logical that they would file it, but we know how reluctant the major networks are to offend the powers and principalities.

I wonder how the holy rollers in the Republican party will spin this. I predict the following: "Don't you know the man has a heart condition?"- "Have some sympathy for his wife and daughters." "He's just getting massages." "After all, he's a red-blooded patriotic American, not a pansy like you liberals." "It's Clinton's fault, he did it first!!!"

Update: Mea culpa! Apparently Professor Zero is a woman, not a "he." My male chauvinism is showing.

Update and correction: This story is all over the internet. A google search for "Cheney DC Madam" brings up 639,000 entries, though I was not able to find any that were not borrowing from Madsen. -- I misspelled Madsen's name throughout -- it's not Madsden. I have corrected it above.

Wow! Update: This DC Madam scandal is evidently spreading pretty far, involving the Cunningham case, a Maryland prosecutor, and perhaps this woman.

More catching up.

I had heard rumors about this story shortly after Katrina, but I don't think anyone around here had any idea how much aid was turned away by Bush and the Feds.

Blanco and Landrieu issued statements -- which will go unheard by FEMA, and ignored by those who continue to blame Blanco for everything that went wrong after Katrina.

Apparently the Homeland Security Committee of the Senate is going to investigate, but the chair is Joe Liebermann, so I don't expect it to accomplish much.

UPDATE: Landrieu goes after Rice on this issue. Good on her! P.S. The article also says that Landrieu's subcommittee is going to call ICF to account on May 24. Their top executives have just gotten massive bonuses for doing a terrible job getting money to people whose houses have been destroyed.

One story among many.

FEMA has created roadblock after roadblock to recovery. Even in Mississippi. Here's just one story about how FEMA audits are now second guessing local authorities who tried to clean up after Katrina without proper FEMA paperwork.

NEW ORLEANS -- Local officials said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has needlessly dragged out the process and has not clearly defined what prices it considers reasonable.

FEMA said it audits all Katrina projects to root out waste and fraud. Millions of dollars are at stake for cash-strapped communities still struggling to rebuild.

Some communities said that if FEMA doesn't reimburse their expenses, they may have to borrow money or raises taxes to cover debris-removal contracts.

Mike Womack, director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said two dozen Mississippi counties and cities could be affected.

Womack said they could lose a combined $18.4 million because FEMA questions whether they paid too much for the work.

Blanco speaks bluntly. And good on her!

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) went off. Not in a girls fighting, "Hold my earrings!" kind of way. But in a blunt manner befitting a chief executive who endured the worst natural and engineering disaster in U.S. history, who continues to battle Washington for federal assistance, and who is not running for reelection.

We met in Blanco's imposing office on the fourth floor of the state Capitol in Baton Rouge on Wednesday. After watching her testify pleasantly before state legislative committees on behalf of her insurance reform package and for an expansion of Louisiana's Child Health Plus program, I was floored by her "bring it on" forthrightness as she talked about her dealings with Washington after Hurricane Katrina.
. . . . . . . .
Blanco had a message for the hundreds of members of Congress who have come through Louisiana since Katrina. "They have seen with their own eyes," she said. "They need to look in their own hearts to decide what they would want to happen in their own states if something of this magnitude did as much damage. Where would their people be?"

Must read.

This article details two N.O. stories.


First, surprisingly, it is not possible to film the FEMA trailer camps. There are "national security" concerns, and you could get arrested.


Second, and astoundingly, the White House and other federal agencies knew that the levees were failing by midnight Monday August 29, 2005. They just forgot to tell the state. How many died because of that?

There's just not enough outrage to go around lately.

Catching up.

I've been away from blogging for an eventful few weeks. So I missed several stories -- and I'm going to post them now, simply for the record. Most of these stories are somewhat stale, but they illustrate how the same sorry screwup agencies continue to keep New Orleans from recovery.

First there was the story about the defective pumps -- which were not able to prevent New Orleans from flooding last week. The pumps that W's brother Jeb sold us. It turns out that the specs for the big were taken from the company's catalog. Nice work. That's creative. Just let the company you want to help out write the specs for your bid request.

NEW ORLEANS – The Army Corps of Engineers, criticized for how it handled the bidding for post-Hurricane drainage pumps that proved to be defective, is defending its use of the winning bidder's own language – down to the typos – in laying out the specifications.
. . . . .
Portions of the specifications were taken verbatim from the catalog of MWI, a Deerfield Beach, Fla., company whose top officials have been major contributors to the Republican Party. MWI employed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Bush's brother, to market its pumps during the 1980s.

The pumps proved to be defective, putting New Orleans at risk of a second flooding after Hurricane Katrina. Last year's mild hurricane season, however, spared the city from having to rely on the pumps.

But there wasn't much outrage about this nationally, since this kind of inside dealing, to-hell-with-people corruption is everyday news with this administration. And if you google "New Orleans pumps" you'll find hardly a peep out of our local congressional delegation about it all. The governor and Mary Landrieu "expressed outrage" that the pumps weren't working, but that's about the size of it. More details about MWI's sorry record is to be found at Politically OUtspoken

Not to be outdone by the Corps in reassuring the public is FEMA which announced an easy plan to get rid of dangerous formaldehyde fumes which build up in the trailers they have supplied:

NEW ORLEANS -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency said the risk from formaldehyde fumes in new government-issued travel trailers, which has cropped up as an issue since Hurricane Katrina, can be reduced by opening vents and windows.

While acknowledging the existence of formaldehyde concentrations in its trailers, FEMA dismissed findings by environmentalists that the trailers pose serious health risks.

Remember when the EPA secretary told New York police and firemen that it was safe to work around Ground Zero after 9/11? Such caring people.

More later.

NY Times goes after Bush inaction on N.O. recovery

President Bush has reneged on his promises to Katrina’s victims. Shamefully, the president has chosen the interests of bureaucracy over those of American towns on the brink of failure.

Over a year and a half later, there are 64,000 people still sleeping in trailers in Louisiana and far too many communities without schools, hospitals and other basics. These are unacceptable failures. At least part of the problem is a law that requires states to contribute 10 percent of the cost of most federally financed reconstruction projects. Mr. Bush waived that requirement after the Sept. 11 attacks (as his father did after Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki) but he refuses to do so for the Gulf Coast.

The Times has been very supportive of New Orleans recovery from the very beginning. But look at the comment on the WWL Blog about the editorial. What the hell does "defamate" mean? Sounds like "misunderestimate." That guy is taking vocabulary lessons from Bush.

Camellia Grill!!!

Now that's what I call Recovery!
Woohoo! Can hardly wait for a chocolate freeze and pecan waffles for breakfast.

The Corps is at it again.

The Corps giveth and the Corps takes away.

Some 1,800 feet of concrete-capped floodwall along the west side of the 17th Street Canal is anchored by steel sheet pilings driven into the levee only 4.5 feet below sea level, making them 13 feet shorter than pilings that failed south of Hammond Highway during Hurricane Katrina and contributed to massive flooding in the city.

Just across the canal on the New Orleans side, where the Army Corps of Engineers soon plans to raise and widen the levee in the Veterans Memorial Boulevard area to help better defend against another failure, sheet pilings range from five to 14 feet deep, according to figures provided by the corps.

But corps engineers say the shallow sheeting poses no threat because water in the canal won't be allowed this storm season to rise against the floodwalls as it did with catastrophic results during Katrina, but will instead be restricted to a so-called "safe" elevation, which is tentatively set at six feet.

Yeah, not that the untested and defective pumps are in place, we can scant a bit on the expenses and shortchange N.O. on the sheet pilings.

Good commentary from San Antonio

If only the national media would address this "narrative" as forthrightly.

hat's not surprising. Some people have a narrative in their heads where Katrina is concerned: It's about lazy black folk waiting on the government to save them; incompetent Democratic politicians; poor President Bush, unfairly maligned. Anything you say about the storm gets fed through the meat grinder of that narrative, contradictory fact gets pulverized like gristle, and you are left with a “truth” that validates only what they believed all along.

We all have our narratives. And if we're not careful, we end up trapped by them.

Blakely. Hmmm?

NY Times:

I can't decide if this guy is good for New Orleans or not.

“We have an economy entirely made up of T-shirts,” he said in a speech at the University of Sydney this week. “That is our major import and export.”

He sees the moribund economic infrastructure as the result, in part, of the city’s provincialism.

“It’s quite interesting how insular people are here,” Dr. Blakely said. “They don’t know people on Wall Street, they don’t know the big development firms, they’ve not been associated with the kind of urban planning expertise that I take for granted.”
. . . . .
“I think, if we create the right signals, they’re going to come here, and they’re going to say, ‘Who are these buffoons?’ I’m meeting some who are moving here, and they don’t have time for this stuff.”

Is he just a blowhard, or does he really know something about urban recovery?

Hat tip to Forgotston's email.

Update: Jeff Crouere weighs in. And he's not happy.

N.Y. Times on HUD mandated changes to Road Home

First the national politicians don't want to give money for recovery because of Louisiana's "reputation for corruption." So we create a program with multiple safeguards against fraud. Now HUD wants us to make things easier for recipients by giving lump-sum payments. So the prospect of corruption and fraud emerges again. We just can't win.

Louisiana homeowners may get faster access to rebuilding grants after a federal decision late last month that is forcing the state to change its slow-moving $7.5-billion “Road Home” program to repair houses damaged or destroyed by hurricanes in 2005.

But the changes, which should be detailed next week, have raised concerns that some homeowners will not use their grants of up to $150,000 for repairs or could lose them to fraud or debt, potentially leading to increased blight in hard-hit areas.