Category Archives: Uncategorized

Nov 6 2010

Dona Nobis Pacem

Today is Blog Blast for Peace Day which was started by Mimi Lenox in 2006 and has been growing every year since. The idea is to write a blog post about peace incorporating the icon for the blast which is a globe. Mimi provides a variety of templates for the participants to choose from to create their own personalized peace globe, as I’ve done above.

I chose the quote by Indira Gandhi on my globe because it’s as meaningful today as the day she spoke it in 1968. This is not a typical post about peace. You’ll find no poets or songwriters dreams quoted here.

Today, like then, we are in the midst of fighting a war in a foreign land while people in our own country are in need. Our country is in dire economic straits because of the huge amounts of money that have been spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, people in our own country have been held hostage by big insurance companies that take our money but deny us coverage or drop us when we need it most, our education ranking is near the bottom when compared with 30 other countries in the world, families are losing their homes at an unprecedented rate and the numbers of women and children living in poverty are increasing.
Add to that social issues such as the rampant bullying of gays resulting in a plague of teen suicides and the rise of what I think of as “convenient Christians”* who are engaging in fear tactics and blatant lies to advance their political power in this country and peace seems an unattainable goal.

Where does an average American woman look for peace?

She looks to  herself, her family and her friends. She lives her life being as good a person as she can be which includes empathy for others including those unlike herself. She listens and tries to understand another’s point of view and she doesn’t condemn  those who think differently. She cultivates peace within herself. And she hopes with all her being the people in this country will wake up and realize that peace begins with each one of us.

*Convenient Christians claim to follow the teachings of Jesus when it furthers their own goals.

Originally published 11/4/10 on TravelingMermaid.

May 14 2010

Insulated

Disclaimer: This will probably be a rambling post so feel free to go on to more important things, if you wish.

I’m up in rural Mississippi visiting my family for a few days, kicking back like I haven’t done in ages and feeling quite removed from all things New Orleans. I’ve barely been on the computer (dial-up sucks!) and have watched very little TV so I’m way  behind on the oil spill situation, what happened on Treme and the tweets of my friends back home since Twitter is impossible to get on.  I feel a twinge of guilt now & then because I’m not reading or keeping up with the spill 24/7 like I was but I remind myself I’ll be back in a day or two and it won’t take long to catch up. TV viewing is limited (no cable or satellite) but I don’t really care. I’m rereading A Confederacy of Dunces and, as a result of my laughing out loud, my mom has put it on her to-read list. Everything is in slow-mo here….days are long and languid. I awaken to the braying of  John the Baptist (the donkey), the lowing of cattle and the sweet twittering of birds. I haven’t heard a siren, a bus or a horn in 3 days.

I needed this.

Aug 28 2009

Another from my archives . . .

Well this sure is an interesting way to live! LOL!

Every day we get up and dressed and head out to find things — today’s item was propane that was less that $50 a bottle. Got it! HOORAY!

Then it’s off to the National Guard distribution center to pick up our rations: MRE’s, water, ice, canned goods, toilet paper. MRE’s are surprisingly not half bad, and all of my neighbors gather round and share tips – like always squeeze your cheese spread into the entree, really makes it better – LOL! Then we stand in line at Winn Dixie, where guardsmen with automatic rifles allow only a certain number of people into the store – where there is really nothing to buy. Something to do anyway!

Meanwhile, the military presence is everywhere. Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters flying overhead, tent cities at every school and public building – surrounds by hundreds of deuce-and-a-half trucks, jeeps, humvees.

No mail yet, but I have been seeing UPS trucks for a couple of days now.

Today I am going to file for unemployment. We will not reopen the store. Very big sigh. It took us 9 months to do the initial build-out, and that was in good times when supplies were available. We have about a year and a half to the lease, which is most likely nullified at this point anyway. Our insurance ought to cover what we owe in payables, both long- and short-term, and we will probably work out of our warehouse (which sustained NO damage – a small bright ray there!) for a few months, helping any of our clients that we can to get their lives back on track.

Speaking of clients, we have already heard from a lot of our very good ones – but do you recall the man whose house burnded to the ground right after he had just completed redoing it? He had just gotten to the SAME point in his new construction — in Eden Isles — a neighborhood that Katrina completely levelled What rotten luck

Later I am taking an hour-trip to get somewhere that used to take me about 20 minutes. There is still flooding on the interstate, so I have to take an alternate route to bring the boys to meet MIL who will take them for a few days. And the checkpoints! PHEW! There are ID checkpoints surrounding our area, clogging traffic – that we must pass to get in.

I have to constantly keep the tv or radio tuned to information stations. That is kind of interesting too! All sorts of advisories – about how to not hurt yourself on your roof, or with your generator – blah blah blah. Numbers to call for food assistance, unemployment, finding lost loved ones or lost employees – job offers.

Aug 26 2009

As the date approaches – it’s the best I can do

08/29/2005

An Archive

11-Hour Drive Later

And we are not that much further away — about 90 miles WNW of New Orleans at my sister’s house in Baton Rouge – definitely safer than in New Orleans, but people are evacuating out of HERE too – and everythng is boarded up, businesses and stores closed . . . we still expect hurricane force winds and rain — but at least we are above sea level We decided to evacuate this morning, when my brother (also a police officer) reported that his Chief had just placed an order for 3000 body bags . . . The recommendations we heard on the radio on the way up were nightmarish. Officials advising that those who decided to stay, make sure to put the necessary tools in their attics so that when the water rises into them, they can hack out of their roofs Bryan is in a hotel in the French Quarter – there aren’t any police stations that they expect can withstand the winds – and all of them would be under water. The last time I talked to him he had been called out because there was a tornado close.The drive up was unbelievable. Bumper to bumper traffic for all 90 miles ~ the dogs farted all the way up (GROSS!) and Owen threw up from motion sickness (how did he get THAT since we hardly MOVED?) twice – one of the dogs peed in the back of the Jeep . . . We did not find an open service station or store until 7:30 – and we had barely eaten more than snacks all day long.They expect to lose power here sometime later tonight – and in New Orleans, they do not expect to get it back for several weeks. I do have Heather’s phone number — so I’ll call her with some updates, but I think we are safer here, anyway.I hate to think about the house — I’ll be really happy to see it again . . . God willing.Thank you all so much for thinking of us! The next few days, weeks – maybe months will be interesting . . . Love ya!
Aug 2 2009

Some random, unorganized, rambling about me

Hi! I’m Gina and I am addicted to coffee and books. Single mom of two boys, living in Algiers, former-accountant-now-second-grade-teacher, go ahead – ask me what I think of charter schools, formerly married to a first responder, divorce now in my back pocket due more to stormy relationship than related to the storm, age: 41, born in Virginia – Navy-brat, moved to the Wank with the fam in 1978 from Connecticut, loves local beer, local music & local crawfish, math degree @ Loyola, MBA @ UNO, favorite color = blue, gimme a mango and/or coconut snoball . . . or almond, don’t want to ever, ever, ever have to evacuate again.
NOLA Passions: education, neighborhood restoration, historic preservation, eating, drinking and shaking it!

Jul 26 2009

Local Writer Billy Sothern Finally Started a Blog

Billy Sothern is a criminal defense attorney and writer in New Orleans. He is the author of Down in New Orleans: Reflections from a Drowned City as well as occasional pieces in The Nation.

He just joined the New Orleans blogger community with his new project, Imperfectly Vertical. The blog includes reflections on the humus that inspire his perspective on life in New Orleans both general and personal. His political views tend to roar out of even the most seed-like of subject matter, as if the potential for his whole ideology lay within each kernel.

Rachel Maddow twittered the blog, writing:

My pal Billy Sothern’s newish blog makes me wish I blogged. And that I could write. And that I lived in NOLA.

Jul 19 2009

Recycling an Old Habit

One casualty of Katrina was curbside recycling.  In Jefferson Parish, until last month, the Parish, about once a month, would arrange for a location where folks could drive to drop off recyclables.  I think even less was offered in Orleans Parish.

I hate to admit that for the past four years (oh, the guilt), I have not been recycling.  And even though I started a worm bin to not add vegetable clippings to landfills, I have been adding all manner of other, far worse, items.

So when I read that Jefferson Parish was no longer doing any free recycling, I can’t explain why, but I acted.  Finally.  I went to Phoenix Recycling’s website and signed up for paid curbside recycling.  And for a mere $15 a month, I am recycling more than the Parish ever took for free.  They take newspapers, the bags the newspapers come in, cardboard, plastic.  Really, they take all but plastic hangers, plastic grocery bags, and glass. The pick up every other week.

And in the FIRST week of recycling, we reduced what went to a landfill by TWO large kitchen garbage bags.  That’s 104 bags of trash from my home alone.  My small family of three.

So, are you like I was–still not recycling becuase it’s no longer free?  Do your conscience a favor, go to Phoenix Recycling, pay the $15 and recycle to your heart’s content.

Jul 15 2009

Process of Elimination

I am a woman.

I am an attorney and a board member on a local charity.

I am a New Orleanian.

I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a niece, an aunt.

I am a knitter, a reader, a gardener.

I am a drinker. I am not an alcoholic.

I am not a mommy blogger.

I am not an activist or a feminist or any other -ist of which I know.

I am not in a profession, nor even a field, dominated by women.

I am not a political junkie and tend to fall in between the tenets of the Democrats and Republicans but consider myself liberal.

I am not upset when men do not hold doors open for me but find it charming when they do. I say thank you to the men that do every time.

You select which boxes you wish to define me by. I am some of these things to some people and none of these things to others.

It’s just who I am. I’m Nola.

Jul 14 2009

Lawsuit: City’s Promises to VA in Violation of City Charter

City Charter violations include failure to hold hearings

The City, under the direction of Mayor C. Ray Nagin, repeatedly violated the New Orleans City Charter in promising to seize private property and close public streets for a proposed Department of Veteran Affairs hospital, according to a lawsuit filed earlier today in Civil District Court.

The petition states that the City Charter provisions and state law requiring public hearings before the City Planning Commission and City Council were euserped by the Mayor when he signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the VA hospital in 2007. The MOU stipulates that the city will turn a 34-acre section of the Lower Mid City neighborhood, including its streets, into a “construction ready” site for the VA hospital. He  promised to demolish businesses and houses and remove city infrastructure, while making the site shovel ready. Furthermore, the mayor agreed that the city would pay up to $5 million in penalties to VA if the promises were not fulfilled by November 2009.

Because the Mayor failed to follow procedures spelled out in the City Charter, the lawsuit asks the court to void the MOU and to immediately hault the unauthorized promises spelled out in the agreement.

To view the press release issued on behalf of Smart Growth for Louisiana and Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, visit Save Charity Hospital’s website. The lawsuit is also available online here.

(Cross-posted at Preservation Resource Center’s blog.)

Jul 12 2009

Hello New Orleans!

Let us introduce ourselves.

NOLAFemmes is a group blog comprised of women who live, love and work in New Orleans. Some of us are natives by birth and some are natives by choice but our overwhelming commonality is that we love this city and we love to write about it.

The blog members are listed on the sidebar and most have their own personal blogs and are well known in the Nola blogging community. Others are well known in the Facebook community for their dedication for chronicling issues that affect us all as New Orleanians. We’ll be blogging local entertainment and community affairs to politics and everything in between.

As you can see, we still have work to do on the site, such as a blogroll, the “About” statement and making it more personalized. We’ll get there.

We’re looking forward to our new group venture and hope everyone out there reading will find us worthy of a bookmark!