(FinalCall.com) - Racist, apathetic and outright neglected is how many have assessed the recovery efforts of the Bush Administration in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The Institute for Southern Studies recently released a report to further expose America’s violations of human rights, disregard for UN relief standards, weak disaster laws and refusal to implement disaster policies at home that it imposes on foreign nations.

“For many people the Katrina tragedy never ended. Clearly, Katrina doesn’t make the headlines like it used to, but that doesn’t mean that all is well,” said Chris Kromm, executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies.

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As far as food goes.  This place is good for the weight loss program.
There is plenty of fruit, vegetables and eggs in the market, but beyond
that it gets iffy.  There is a local hotel that grows/sells organic
coffee, and roasts it on the premises.  High quality and delicious.  I
have a hard time finding any spices or cheese.  There is meat hanging in
the market but to be honest it scares me.  So I made a big pot of
vegetable soup and I go between that and fruit.
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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has announced that the much-maligned Federal Emergency Management Agency will once again take the lead role in disaster response.
The Associated Press’ John Moreno Gonzales says the change not only put disaster authority back into FEMA’s hands, but also gives the agency “an amenable, computer-driven doctrine to coordinate federal, state, and local resources.”
Chertoff announced the “National Response Framework” at a press conference last week. The Framework is a 90-page electronic document that can be changed by local emergency officials if they find kinks in its guidelines after responding to an incident. “It replaces the 427-page “National Response Plan” that emphasized a response to terrorist attacks and was set in stone when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast in 2005,” Gonzales says.
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency manipulated scientific research to play down the danger posed by formaldehyde in trailers issued to hurricane victims, according to an investigation by congressional Democrats.
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This Old House' a good fit with New Orleans Article Rating

Saturday, January 26th 2008, 4:00 AM
Host Kevin O'Connor (r.) & his team helped homeowner Rashida Ferdinand rebuild from Katrina.

Host Kevin O'Connor (r.) & his team helped homeowner Rashida Ferdinand rebuild from Katrina.
THIS OLD HOUSE: REBUILDING NEW ORLEANS. Saturday at 7. Ch. 13.

When and how we put New Orleans back together after Hurricane Katrina may one day rightfully be seen as a gauge of America's heart in the early 21st century. Read More...

Dearest ones hello again from Guatemala.  I just got off a 24 hour shift
and I am in meditation mode recovering.  I know most of you love ER
stories so I will start there.
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BATON ROUGE -- The Charity Hospital System has raised an alarm that Gov. Bobby Jindal's state government hiring freeze is impairing its effort to fill vacancies for more than 100 registered nurses and 200 other jobs in New Orleans to rebuild the public health care system after Hurricane Katrina.
A top Jindal administration official said she is waiting for the hospital system to provide evidence of its critical job needs before granting any exemptions to the freeze.
With patients waiting 120 days on average for primary care appointments and a patient load that has increased 24 percent in the past six months, the New Orleans Charity medical facility is pursuing an expansion plan that could come to a grinding halt if the hiring process is stymied, officials at the hospital said.
"We are in a limbo of sorts and absolutely not able to make any job offers at this time," said Cathi Fontenot, medical director of the Interim Louisiana State University Public Hospital in New Orleans.
Lombardi raises issue
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IN THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA - Service canals dug to tap oil and natural gas dart everywhere through the black mangrove shrubs, bird rushes and golden marsh. From the air, they look like a Pac-Man maze superimposed on an estuarine landscape 10 times the size of Grand Canyon National Park.
There are 10,000 miles of these oil canals. They fed America's thirst for energy, but helped bring its biggest delta to the brink of collapse. They also connect an overlooked set of dots in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath: The role that some say the oil industry played in the $135 billion disaster, the nation's costliest.
The delta, formed by the accumulation of the Mississippi River's upstream mud over thousands of years, is a shadow of what it was 100 years ago. Since the 1930s, a fifth of the 10,000-square-mile delta has turned into open water, decreasing the delta's economic and ecologic value by as much as $15 billion a year, according to Louisiana State University studies.
The rate of land loss, among the highest in the world, has exposed New Orleans and hundreds of other communities to the danger of drowning. Katrina made that painfully clear.
"I remember when I was a young boy we had a camp out in the marsh," said Don Griffin, a grocer and seafood dealer in the delta town of Leeville, which became an oil-drilling center for decades. "The same places you used to have to get around with a pirogue and a push pole now you can go with a 25-foot outboard. There's no more marsh, which is your first barrier of defense for hurricanes."
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OK Guys here it is.  “Oh my God!”  Wow unbelievable.  I am glad to report
that I survived my shift and Bob and I have had a beautiful day in the
town, swimming, relaxing and painting by the lake.
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Gracias a Dios I had a lovely 4th year medical student from Harvard,
Jennifer.  She has been here 2 months and has an idea of the routine and
the charting.  I would have been lost if I hadn't had her at my side the
whole time.
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By CAIN BURDEAU – 17 hours ago

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A United Nations official who has toured parts of Louisiana and Mississippi devastated by Hurricane Katrina says the thousands of victims of the storm resemble poor people displaced by natural disasters in other parts of the world.

"Whether you're displaced in a rich country or a poor country, what remains the same is you need to get the help, the assistance of the authorities, of the communities, to be able to restart a normal life, and the people I have met are not there yet," said Walter Kalin, the UN secretary general's representative on the human rights of internally displaced persons.

Kalin spoke Wednesday, a day when he also saw hard-hit areas of the two states. He met Tuesday with evacuees in Houston.

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By CAIN BURDEAU
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The closing of Charity Hospital, an Art Deco 20-story monolith in downtown New Orleans where the poor and mentally ill went for medical care, was carried out in an illegal sleight of hand after Hurricane Katrina hit and left scores of people unable to get treatment, a lawsuit contends.

The civil lawsuit — backed by civil rights groups, a handful of politicians, police and medical experts — was filed Thursday in state court by seven plaintiffs who say they've had difficulty getting timely and inexpensive treatment since the hospital was shut down.
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It may not get nearly the attention it deserves, but New Orleans is still grappling with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. However, there are some signs that 2008 could be the year that real progress will be made.

A redevelopment project was green-lit this month for construction along a stretch of New Orleans’ riverfront on the bank of the Mississippi River. Will this effort kick-start a much-needed economic turnaround in The Big Easy?

According to recent Architectural Record article, the main goal of the redesign is to “reduce barriers that discourage people from enjoying the river and replace decaying sections with parks and public venues that will trigger private investment.”
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Since January first we have hosted over 200 volunteers at our headquarters in the Lower Ninth ward. With their help we have been able to drywall two houses and gut four homes as well as an 8-unit apartment building which will provide interim housing for residents returning home.

In the coming two weeks we will have roofed three more homes, installed drywall in a tri-plex housing unit, and will be completely rebuilding the home of Walter Goodwin and his family. The Goodwin's home was struck by the infamous barge, as it crashed through the ill-maintained levee, a cause for catastrophic flooding throughout the Lower Ninth ward. Read More...

Bob and I took the red eye out of LA last night and arrived in Guatemala
City as the sun was rising.   Luckily we could afford to hire Aclash (his
name in Tz’utuhil) to pick us up and take us to our destination of the
Hospitalito Atitlan.  As we were pulling out from the airport he said that
there were lots of police around because the day before they had changed
to a new government.  The new president is a socialist and the right wing
regime is out for now.
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NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The sign on the gate in front of the pretty blue house announced the good news to a neighborhood that has had little since Hurricane Katrina: "There's a doctor in the house.

Make your appointment NOW!''

Earl Davis paused to take in the words, then headed up the ramp and through the door - destined for his first visit to a doctor since returning to the city five months earlier. The family practitioner who treated him as a boy, and then saw his own kids, left after the storm and is not coming back. Hundreds of other doctors have gone the same route.

Medical centers devastated by floodwaters remain closed, with the number of beds available to the sick cut in half.
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NEW ORLEANS, La. — Eric Conklin remembers the moment gutting a home after Hurricane Katrina became poignant. Two years ago, he and other Mount Saint Mary's students dug the mud-covered belongings of families from a residence. Then, the family returned, seeing nature's destruction for the first time.

"One woman broke down in tears and, all of the sudden, what we were doing had meaning. It wasn't just a house: we were affecting people's lives," he says. Read More...

New Orleans native Nader Abdallah, an Ohio State defensive tackle, still feels the harrowing effects of Hurricane Katrina.
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Last month's scenes from New Orleans caught on video and posted on the Internet were racially horrifying: Police using electric tasers and tear gas to suppress protesters who were trying to enter a City Council meeting to block a federal plan to demolish thousands of homes in low-income housing projects. There was a SWAT team standing between the protesters and the City Council members who pretended not to notice as people were tasered, gassed, handcuffed and arrested. Read More...

IU junior Michael Zaremski and IU senior Topher Lenz swing sledgehammers in order to break up the front steps of a house Dec. 16 in Biloxi, Miss. The city of Biloxi was going to demolish the house, which suffered damage from Hurricane Katrina, Y’ALL executive board member and trip planner Mike Deranek said. However, the house’s owner was financially unable to tear the house down and the city threatened to add the cost of demolition to the owner’s taxes, Deranek said. Without the help of Y’ALL, the city would have repossessed the property, he said.
Jay Seawell • IDS
IU junior Michael Zaremski and IU senior Topher Lenz swing sledgehammers in order to break up the front steps of a house Dec. 16 in Biloxi, Miss. The city of Biloxi was going to demolish the house, which suffered damage from Hurricane Katrina, Y’ALL executive board member and trip planner Mike Deranek said. However, the house’s owner was financially unable to tear the house down and the city threatened to add the cost of demolition to the owner’s taxes, Deranek said. Without the help of Y’ALL, the city would have repossessed the property, he said. Read More...

By Tony Barnhart | Monday, January 7, 2008, 09:34 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

New Orleans-Because I had, like you, seen the horrifying images on television day after day I thought I a pretty firm mental grasp on the devastation that Hurricane Katrina inflicted on this city in late August and early September of 2005.

I wasn’t even close.
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THE TOURISM slogan sounds almost romantic: "Fall in love with New Orleans ... all over again."

In September, NBC's "The Today Show" labeled the city as the second Most Beautiful Place in America. Visitor spending has surged to $5 billion annually, behind the strength of the Jazz & Heritage Festival and Mardi Gras, as well as numerous other events and conventions.

Harrah's Hotel and two Ritz-Carlton properties have reopened after major renovations; the Hyatt Hotel will follow suit in 2009. More than 850 restaurants — including 18 major new ones — are open for business in the metropolitan area.
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