Straight from Dirty Coast

More on the import of yesterday's public housing follies (with pictures!) and on the negatively charged extremist posters over at We Could Be Famous. I, for one, am quite grateful for the Saints' win last night, as a picture from that game trumped a picture of one of the condo-for-projects posters on the front page this morning. Geaux Saints! For a hoot of a reaction to those pesky posters, check Clay's post, too (thanks, Jeffrey). Hee!

I went to the meetings yesterday largely because of a book I've discussed once before. We are in the middle of a strange case of corruption and long-time resistance to what the rest of the nation is doing coming back on us, with a largely displaced and dispersed disaster diaspora paving the way for the "everybody's been doin' it" approach to tearing down public housing. It is fueled by a nifty government agency and its labyrinthine machinations that affect us each and every year, to the point where we must rely on software or accountants to make that April 15th deadline for filing our taxes and doing so in a way that doesn't have auditors knocking down our doors:

Contractors might not have had the United States tax code lying around on their nightstands, but beginning in the 1950s, they could have told you something was afoot just by looking at the shoddy buildings they were bulldozing. It all circled around how the Internal Revenue Service handled depreciation, or tax deductions taken to account for an aging structure....prior to World War II, most buildings were granted a forty-year useful life. An owner could depreciate them on a tax return at 2.5 percent each year, allowed as a "set-aside charge in anticipation of ultimate replacement." But pushed by aggressive building industry lobbyists, in the 1950s, the IRS let owners of new commercial buildings ramp up depreciation and grab hefty tax deductions early in a project's life. If a new project was financed 90 percent by loans, for example, an investor in the 70 percent tax bracket who plunked down $100,000 could make back $77,000 - before a backhoe even touched the ground. "Buildings that are intended to be written off quickly need not be durable," the authors dryly noted. "They need only function efficiently for the short run before capital gains are taken, and the cycle of tax incentives repeated elsewhere. Tax laws and related accounting procedures have not engendered permanency in the American landscape." Yes, folks, it's creative destruction at its finest, and a boon to those who ride the wrecking ball.

Sometimes, of course, the cycle gets a little too amped up for even wreckers to keep under control. What with so many flimsy facades to crunch up, one starts blurring into another, and soon enough the Associated Press gets ahold of a juicy story like this: "A couple was at their dinner table when a bulldozer rumbled into their home and tore their ceiling down. The bulldozer operator had the wrong address, officials said."*

Huh. It would be nice if it were that easy. Let's just give the demolition contractors the address of the projects at 1300 Perdido Street and see how far they get, just for kicks. However, I'd hate to see our current city leadership profiting off the tax deductions if the bulldozers did a significant amount of damage to City Hall - even if, architecturally, it has the aesthetic of a massive cereal box on its side.

At any rate, man-made disaster is bringing on this city a fate that has been fifty-plus years in the making. The projects didn't work because they were designed and run as holding tanks for the poor. It is indeed folly to turn back time and have them continue as they were. However, there is still little or no effort being made to obligate the developers to work hand in hand with the people who live here, or who lived here over two years ago and just want to come home.

As Mominem said in a comment on Sheckrastos' two cents on the whole housing debacle:

"My solution is save families not buildings.... If people need help with housing we should help them."

Yep.

*from Jeff Byles' Rubble: Unearthing The History Of Demolition

___________________

Oh, and today's my birthday.

Shameless plug: Yesterday, this little item about David Naccari's Rouxminations album was in da paper. It's great. Plus, I sing on it. If you're looking for a good hollerday gift, high-tail it over to the Louisiana Music Factory when it comes in and get it. It'll give Dave back some much-needed vacation money that was spent on recording sessions in a homemade studio in Gretna.

Not that any of the stuff I just mentioned about myself should influence your consumer choices in any way...

Never been to a protest before. I missed the last big one in these parts. I was asked by a fellow blogger (more from said fellow blogger here about today's events)if the one for public housing this morning constituted a good turnout. All I could say was that, considering that a good deal of time and planning went into the march against crime in January, this is probably not bad.

Though there were calls to have the meeting in the City Council chambers, everybody was moved up to the eighth floor of City Hall for the HCDRC meeting, in room 8E-10, a place designated for "Homeland Security" meeting use. They couldn't fit everybody in. Somehow, eventually, everyone managed. Suggestions were made, after the conclusion of the old business items on the agenda, to move the meeting to a Civil District courtroom in another building. Hell, no, nobody was gonna go. I hauled my out-of-shape carcass up eight flights of stairs, as did many others. Everybody stayed put.

It occurred to me, after the old business was over and done with, that there was a true trifecta of property judgments today's meeting dealt with that the public housing demolition protesters, to their eternal credit, recognized. Schooling, medical care, and housing are indeed basic human rights. The voting on Johnson Lockett School and on the Lindy Boggs Hospital was for deferral of the decision to demolish those buildings. What remained was the last-ditch fight for Lafitte, C.J. Peete, and B.W. Cooper.

Testifying from public housing residents started off the tussle. There were calls for HUD secretary Alphonse Jackson to be investigated under charges of corruption, calls for HANO's management practices to be fully investigated, things that were not going to be voted upon by the committee, but that they doubtless needed to know about to help in voting on the demolitions. Folks from the PRC and other preservation activists said their piece as well, and then Bill Quigley did his thing, driving home the fact that there are no real signed contracts between the Providence Community Housing/Enterprise Foundation joint developers and the city. There is no written commitment to redeveloping the public housing sites, there is only the commitment to knock 'em down. And, as an activist pointed out, there are the tenant leases. Don't the folks who once lived in the public housing properties up for voting have a say?

And, as another fellow pointed out, HUD is technically in violation of the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, since one of the housing developments is a designated landmark and the others are eligible for landmark status.

After a five minute recess, the meeting reconvened, with representatives from Providence and Enterprise coming in with their maps and their plans for redevelopment that they had no contractual obligation to do. Una Anderson came in to say her piece...for what, I really couldn't tell you (Seriously. If someone who was in the front row could give me the gist of it, let me know...Oh! According to Sarah Elise Lewis: "Una is the director of NONDC, which is redeveloping C.J. Peete." Thanks! ). On the one hand, mad as hell activists were trying to do some shouting down of the things the developers were saying - it started with indignation over the low-income housing tax credits these companies were gonna get and escalated from there, with cries of "Lies!" and "Corruption!" with every declaration from the developers that they had met with residents all through the process leading up to this day. On the other hand, the folks looking for a ruling favoring demolition were speaking so softly that not many people could hear unless they were in the front row - there was no PA system set up and none was coming. None of it, from any and all sides, seemed fair.

The talk was over. The committee took its votes.

Lafitte: 3-3 vote. Demolition not approved.

C.J. Peete: 4-2 vote. Demolition approved.

B.W. Cooper: 4-2 vote. Demolition approved.

"Gee, what's next?" I was asked. "Anybody gonna sue?"

It's gonna take a small army. Or much, much more.

Ecccch. More idiotic assessment hijinks being chronicled at the Tin Can. If you haven't gone over this territory with me before, well, head over here first. Check all the links, then come on back.

The assessors had from August 20 when the appeals were submitted until November 13, after the hearings were completed to meet and apprals due to the Louisiana Tax Commission to meet with taxpayers and explain the situation or try to reach a settlement. In 85 days that would have required Mr. Williams (the most appealed assessor) and his staff to meet with about 35 people per day.

Let me make this final point. Injustice it where you find it. I found it in my mail box, after two years of trying to get my address changed and several trips to the tone deaf assessors office.

The assessors who issued incorrect assessments in the tens of thousands and refused to meet with us, the voters and tax payers, citing (among other excuses) the need to close City Hall. Assessors who, elected by us, failed to continue to meet with us after the filing date passed to mediate disputes. Assessors who refused to take any affirmative action to discover and correct their own mistakes. All of them contributed to the distrust of the local government in Orleans Parish.

I understand Erroll Williams is planning to run for the single assessor of Orleans Parish in the next election. The rumor is he has brokered a deal to hire all of the former assessors. He can count on my vote for his opponent.

And everybody's thinking the battlefield is overseas in the Middle East. Not to mention the fact that a quarter of our fellow Americans think we're still under water.

My head hurts.

What Scout has posted:

Next Monday, Dec. 10, is international Human Rights Day. It's also the day when activists in New Orleans are calling for actions opposing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to tear down more than 4,600 public housing units in four complexes across the city -- while replacing them with private, mixed-income developments that will set aside only 744 apartments for low-income people.
The decision to demolish these public complexes, which suffered only relatively minor damage [PDF] during Hurricane Katrina, comes as rents across the city have doubled since the storm -- as has the homeless population.

The activists are asking concerned citizens across the country to join the actions in New Orleans or to take action at home. According to a statement from Kali Akuno, director of the Stop the Demolition Coalition:

What is at stake with the demolition of public housing in New Orleans is more than just the loss of housing units: it destroys any possibility for affordable housing in New Orleans for the foreseeable future. Without access to affordable housing, thousands of working class New Orleanians will be denied their human right to return.

Although this situation is unique and urgent in the city of New Orleans, it does not occur in isolation. The plans for redevelopment here are part of a national assault on public housing, in which tens of thousands of homes have been demolished in the past decade.

Check the link to Scout's post for more.

My birthday is Tuesday. At this point, nothing would make me happier than to reverse this decision. I ask the city's leaders to make this aging mama happy and give these folks a home rather than a vacant lot. If you're gonna knock solid stuff down, have some solid plans in place to get that stuff rebuilt. All those who just wanna come home will thank you.

My three-and-a-half-decades old bones will be happy to their core.

Public housing has certainly been on the brain and in the local news lately. Public art is what I've been turning over in my mind ever since I saw Oyster's blurb about The Pink Project.

My first thoughts centered right from my art school fool gut. It's just bad Christo being played out in the Ninth Ward:


What's so wrong with bringing in public artists such as Rachel Whiteread to make an eloquent statement about how messed up things have become in New Orleans? How black is white, right is wrong, inside is now outside for all to see?:


Or, perhaps internationally known artist and filmmaker Alfredo Jaar could have come up with something that really puts things into perspective.:



The representation of geography and the intricacies of global relations influence Jaar's every thought and action. In more recent projects, this obsession has led to critical investigations of cartography. A logo for America was an explicit demonstration of the significance of the images and language of geography - its representation and articulation. It also appropriated an amendable technology that utilized Jaar's interest in texts, words, film processes, and graphic design. Part of a six - year program sponsored by the Public Art Fund, Inc. in New York, Jaar was one of thirty artists invited to produce a 45 - second computer animation / intervention on the Spectacolor lightboard in the heart of Times Square.

For a month, his designed animation was featured every six minutes surrounded by private advertising and promotional campaigns for the city. In the insistent pulsations of commercial culture, periodically and unexpectedly there was an art arrhythmia. Always eager to return to the streets where his work first began, Jaar used this prominent site to deliver a clear message about identity and language. Using a selective taxonomy of communicative systems - maps, flags, and words - he reminded viewers of the propaganda that perpetuates power.

Any number of local artists working together could have come up with something like The Pink Project...or even something better. What makes this different is the celebrity status of its creator and the charitable cause behind it. It is, on its surface, a merging of one of those things we art fools always debated about whenever we saw projects such as Jaar's that called attention to human rights and injustice in this world: are we profiting from others' misery in presenting their misery in an art gallery as a photographic exhibition or a traditional art show? Don't we have a responsibility to give something back to these places in which the poverty is so crushing, the issues are so vital to maintaining the lifeblood of the community, and the abuses are reaching deceptive dimensions of forces of nature?

Well, yeah, we do. I applaud Brad Pitt for recognizing that. For wanting to make whatever gesture he can, and for lending a hand in whatever way he can. He is clearly not an average American - he has chosen to highlight his residency here because he likes it here, and he is in a position to use his celebrity and his wealth to do something.

BUT...Brad Pitt cannot singlehandedly rebuild New Orleans. It's just not possible for him to do so. This installation in the Lower Nine should not be giving people that impression. This is where the celebrity gets in the way of the symbolism inherent in the installation (check the nifty graphics under The Pink Project link on the Make It Right site), and in the cold, hard facts of recovery and rebirth in these parts. Reading the fine print on the Make It Right website shows that this lofty enterprise of getting people back in homes in New Orleans is still highly dependent on the kindness of strangers:

Financing Sources
MIR anticipates that various funding sources will be available to finance each candidate’s new home. Based on each household’s financial history and capacity, candidates will have access to the following funding sources:
Disaster Recovery Funds – federal Road Home funds, insurance proceeds, FEMA payments, etc
Other Subsidies, Grants or Forgivable loans– government or non-profit sponsored programs
Mortgage – conventional financing at favorable terms with a local financial institution
Cash Contribution –any personal resources that the resident intends to contribute to their home
MIR Loan Program – need-based financing to ensure that MIR homes are affordable

MIR Loan Program
MIR Loan Program will provide financing through a combination of the following products:
MIR Amortizing Loan – These loans are offered to MIR applicants that do not qualify for a sufficient mortgage from private banks with loan amounts adjusted to limit monthly payments based on household affordability.
MIR Deferred Payment Loan – These loans have no monthly payments, and are used in place of other loans when borrowers required house payments have reached their affordable limit. Loan is repayable at the sale or transfer of the MIR home.
MIR Forgivable Loan – A loan designed to restore home equity value lost after the hurricanes that has not been recovered through disaster recovery support such as Road Home Funds or Insurance payments.

MIR Loan Package
Participating households will receive an MIR Loan Package calculated using various financial assessment tools
according to the following basic formula:
Sales Price of MIR Home
Minus Disaster recovery funds
Minus Subsidies, grants, or forgivable loans from outside sources
Minus Homeowner cash contribution
Minus Mortgage from a private bank
= MIR Loan Package (Combining amortized, deferred and forgivable loans based on affordability)

Let's read that beginning sentence again, shall we?

MIR anticipates that various funding sources will be available to finance each candidate’s new home.

Excuse me while I laugh and cry at the same time at that statement. Life has not imitated art in this respect. People here are fighting like hell for what is increasingly becoming a pipe dream for many who want to return, or for those who want more than a formaldehyde-leeching FEMA trailer or a tent roof as a residence - the anticipation of those "various funding sources" that will mosey on over and give displaced residents a leg up. Even our newly minted Inspector General is struggling to figure out where the bottleneck is in the flow of city funds. And those pink houses are relying on that kind of dough to be made permanent?

Yeah, it might look all cheery in the Ninth Ward now, but it is ultimately up to us to make sure it is a more permanent situation. We still have to fight our own battles and work hard for our money. We have been, and continue to be, royally screwed in so many ways. Pepto Bismol pink art installations ain't gonna cure what ails us. Our elected leaders doing what we put them in office to do, and our constant reminders to them of what those doings should be are a much better start. We can't sit back on our rear ends and rely on the celebrities to do it all. Pretty faces - and pastel symbolism - can only go so far.

Five years...

... Nine months in the making. We were in Flushing, New York. You were a few minutes old and you were already taking it all in, turning your head and looking around.

We've been through a lot, you and me. I've been frustrated, and you have, too. There are things you haven't wanted me to do, like sing, or laugh at the funny yet profound things you say on occasion. There are things I haven't wanted you to do, like repeating lines incessantly from the movies you've watched maybe once or twice, or running around and insulting everybody with those same lines. These are things that will have to be negotiated upon on a regular basis. It's a given that, on occasion, parents will be embarrassing their kids and vice versa.

What I love about you: your mischievous smile. Your kid sense of humor. The ability you have to ask pertinent questions, to grasp an idea out of the blue and turn it over and over again until you have understood it. How secure you are in who you are. How much of a fun guy you can be.

You love books. That imagination of yours works overtime. Your storytelling abilities are incredible. If I could count how many tales you have woven around Skipper the penguin...well, I'm sure I'd have obtained a serious children's book contract by now. All that money would go right into your bank account.

You are a singer and a lover of music. Can't get enough of the soul music, especially, but your mind is wide open on the many types of music out there. I want to get that Crossroads program we saw the other night on PBS, just so I can hear you say, on seeing Johnny Winter doing his thing, "Look at his tattoos, Mom! He's a rock star!" I would be able to see you checking out Sonny Landreth, Robert Cray, and B.B. King and saying, "I wanna play guitar like those guys!!!!!!"

It's all within your realm, kiddo. Don't ever think it isn't.

I've survived a lot raising you, and you've survived as well. We survived your broken leg at eleven months. Your sniffles, sneezes, and fevers. Your shots at the doctor's office. Dental checkups. Goose eggs on the forehead. You're still intact, and so am I, but I'll never stop worrying. That's built into my job as your mom. Live with it.

We moved down here, and though New York has still imprinted itself upon your early years (trying to chat up a little girl in Whole Foods a while back, you said "Hi! I live in New Orleans! I'm from New York!", only to have her say, "No, you're not!!!" Can't win 'em all...), you are getting into the swing of things here in New Orleans, despite your constant admonishments for us to "move to a brand new house". We've repainted the old one, kid. Relax.

You are quite the traveler. Quite the talker. Quite the growing guy.

Happy birthday, little man.

I blog about the Duncan Plaza homeless and public housing, and then this bit of insanity comes down the pike. E connects even more "totally unrelated" dots concerning that bare necessity of a roof over people's heads in these parts and comes up with the simple truth that we are not being very kind to our neighbors, period. We've gotta do something about it - check We Could Be Famous for more.

Check G-Bitch for a reiteration - once again - on the Nine Myths and Realities of Public Housing.

Update, 6:43 PM: check Humid Haney for an online screening of This Is My Home.

And listen to 91.5 WTUL from 8-8:30AM Friday morning for an interview with Dedra Johnson, author of Sandrine's Letter to Tomorrow. Have you read the book yet? You're missing out on an incredible read if you haven't. Shame, shame, shame...head for a local bookstore right now and do so!

More news later. Must run the little guy off to school...

Have you seen this man?:

I did. Last night, in fact, along with a bunch of other blogger folk. Why meet with the bloggers?, you might well ask. Well, for starters:

"I'm a reader. I'm a typer," Cerasoli said, and he has been reading the New Orleans blogs. He expressed his desire to meet with members of the blogpocheh to the right person, and there we were.

The city's Inspector General has been fighting an uphill battle with the city government almost since before he was offered the newly created position. Though he has now been granted the funding to hire more people and obtain offices, he recognizes that he is facing a mountain of problems that predated the events of 8-29. The New Orleans IG does not have the power to introduce legislation, as Cerasoli was once able to do regularly as a Massachusetts IG. There is the possibility that, if and when the IG's office finds concrete evidence of less-than-stellar practices (there are some blatantly bad practices that need to be studied further, such as determining where the heck is the money that should be going to recovery and city services - money that is clearly not getting there), Cerasoli and his hires will be able to present cold hard facts that could influence members of the City Council through plain ol' folks like us bloggers spreading the information he gathers. Councilmembers can then introduce amendments for the public to vote on that could change the city charter.

"Information is power," Cerasoli said. The more he gets, the better he can do his job. He has had to educate himself plenty fast, as this is a place that has endured many, many forms of corruption amongst the people who are charged with running this city. This is probably the largest city in the United States without a city auditor. There aren't many checks and balances in Crescent City local government, unless one counts that money that we aren't seeing at work for us, yet is keeping us off-balance. We've been off-balance for so long in these parts that no one person is gonna be an ultimate savior, or a dragonslayer.

BUT...one person's attention to the nuts and bolts of each miniscule part of the way things need to work might just help change the way in which we look at our local government. We live here, dammit. We need to take more than just a passing interest in what happens. It's why I finally decided to get a sitter for my son and head for the coffee shop last night. Many others have been talking about this man for some time now. I'm glad I went and saw for myself , even though I had to leave earlier than I wanted to. I wish more people would see for themselves as well.

Maybe then, something would truly give in the culture of corruption 'round here and we could truly have it "mo' better den wot it wuz."

More on the meeting can be seen at E's neck of the blogosphere. Glad to've met'cha, E!

Mominem is indeed correct. It ain't over 'til it's over in these parts. And we've got the front page headline of our local paper to prove it:

If most homeowners came away smiling after successfully seeking lower assessments from the firm hired by the city to manage 6,000 appeals, the city's seven assessors were less thrilled with the outcome.

In about one-third of the cases in which they were overturned, the assessors are appealing the appeals. In defense of their original valuations, the assessors have asked the state Tax Commission to review about 1,350 properties that received reductions from the City Council, which acted on the advice of the law firm Frilot LLC.

Mom's in the 3rd District: I can't tell if Erroll Williams is appealing every single appeal granted, the website listing the determinations is not longer up. My impression from reading the site was that the majority of appeals were denied. It might be very interesting to see which properties have been appealed, and which haven't been.

Well, here's an answer from the T-P article:

Most assessors said they are appealing only what they view as the most egregious and inconsistent breaks.

"If (the Board of Review) was within 20 percent of where I was, I left it alone," said 3rd District Assessor Erroll Williams, who filed about 725 appeals. "We're only challenging the ones we think are way out of whack."

Property owners have just started to receive notices in the mail warning them of the appeals, and some are vexed by having to go through the process again.

Robyn Halvorsen, a real estate agent who lives in the Bywater and owns several properties there, was annoyed when Williams jacked up some of her assessments by as much as 800 percent. She felt better after winning reductions from Frilot.

Williams has appealed two of the reductions, and Halvorsen can't understand why.

"I know I'm getting screwed," she said. "I know the values better than the assessors. Erroll Williams talks about comparable sales ... if he's using $130 a square foot in Bywater, that's renovated singles with parking and kitchens."

Halvorsen said her properties are different. One is a double that needs a thorough renovation, and the other is in such bad shape it should be torn down.

"It's pretty obvious these are not renovated properties, but he's giving me renovated prices," she said.

For more on this, read Mominem's links. After all this insanity, I wouldn't want to have "cozy relations" with any of the assessors or the consulting firm, except to drag them by their ears out of their offices and out to the properties. Use your eyes, y'all. Isn't that what they are for?

Update, 8:33 PM : Mominem has more, and Oyster weighs in as well.

I just can't decide.

Normally, my tribe is not overly ostentatious when it comes to holiday decorations. One look around most neighborhoods that are ushering in the night when Christ was born, however, and it makes me wonder if I ought to be keeping up in my own way.

Finding some stunning examples of the latest trends in inflatable lawn ornaments has only made my decision tougher:

Okay, so one of them is no longer available. Big whoop (though I did appreciate the full-on immense cheesiness of the whole thing).

Whaddya think - normal, basic electric menorah in the window this year, along with lighting our own candles daily for eight nights...or massive, eight-foot tall inflatable menorah on our front porch for all to see, something that says, "We might be a shonda fur di goyim, but we don't care!!!!!!"

I suggested this to my parents, who now live in a land where people will hire a service to put up their holiday lights, and they told me that 1) they are still too new in their neighborhood and 2) being back in the Bible Belt might well mean inviting something else on their lawn if they laid out a menorah in lights in the grass. I kinda scoffed - my parents aren't exactly Leo Frank.

Then again, I checked the hospital not far from their home. Seems the large cross atop the tallest building is a permanent fixture:

Across the street from the Oklahoma City National Memorial is a pretty large statue of Jesus weeping that is apparently a popular attraction:


And, while we were in O.C. for Thanksgiving, my parents were constantly waiting for the second coming of Jesus....their gardener. That last one kind of blows my mind. My dad, the uber-gardener, and my mom the mowing machine getting the services of a gardener. There was no sign of the riding lawn mower that my dad had managed to flip over onto himself once before (I can't disclose any other details about the mishap, since my dad's parents still know nothing about it, but suffice it to say that this wasn't exactly unexpected...), and I even had a time finding some rakes to get the leaves in the backyard into a pile for the little guy to jump into. At least they aren't hiring the holiday lighting installers like most of their neighbors are.

Bottom line is...the bottom line. I'm still not willing to shell out over $100 for something that will simply suck more electricity from my home and give more money to Entergy. 'Tis that frickin' season, too, people. I'd rather shell out some dough towards cheesy tchotchkes for family and friends this time of year. So be it.

Happy hollerdays, no matter who or what you are, or what your tastes are.

Most of the time, I think we've left the nineteenth century in the past where it belongs. However, stuff like this comes down the pike and all I can think is that the past is highly and horrifically present. The military will not treat mental illness as anything other than criminal because their job entails a great degree of carrying out what would normally be criminal acts and atrocities in the name of defending our way of life from those who would want to destroy it. There are times when this is absolutely called for. At all times, however, those who have that mandate of defense on their shoulders must never forget why they are doing the things they are doing, because that is when reason is forgotten and power becomes the reason. That is when the thoughtful, reasoned approach to mental illness among those who are charged with our defense falls by the wayside...a casualty of waging war for war's sake.

I saw the second part of Scout's post on the Times-Picayune article I saw as a front page item this morning, and all I could think of was Queens. I lived there for four years. I liked it a lot, and in many ways, it was tough to leave. Hard to leave our synagogue and the second home we'd found there. Difficult to leave behind an area that we got to know quite well and had a great time exploring. The great internationally flavored borough of NYC is no longer Manhattan, I can tell you that. Most of the immigrants who reside in the borough of Queens came to this country through the John F. Kennedy International Airport - and some of them ended up in limbo at places such as the Wackenhut Detention Center, sometimes for years. Conditions at such places were and are hardly good enough to inspire the folks held there indefinitely while their status gets picked over in many different ways that seem designed to treat people as abstract pawns. It's bad enough that a large number of folks from south of the border are here being worked like dogs and treated worse. Our law enforcement entities and immigration officials are ensuring that they will be cruelly used in a different manner and, most likely, thrown away once their duty as witnesses is done.:

Because they were illegal immigrants as well as material witnesses to the April 29 crime, the men were immediately taken into custody and have remained in jail for the past seven months: first in St. Tammany, then in federal custody, then back to the north shore. For the first six months, they didn't have an attorney.

They're stuck in a perilous limbo, in the fissure between state and federal government -- trapped between prosecutors, who need them to testify at the trial of four suspects, and immigration officials, who would deport them if they were released.

Local and national attorneys, government officials and immigration rights advocates say they have never heard of a case quite like it.

The witnesses -- Jose Roberto Romero Echegoyen, Luis Fernando Martinez Avila, Santos Medardo Valle Meza, Marco Tulla Varela Maradiaga, Juan Carlos Reyes Gonzalez and Pedro Antonio Lopez -- whose only crime is being in the country illegally, could remain in jail until the murder trial is held, even if that takes years.

"They witnessed a murder, and their testimony is necessary for the prosecution's case," said Rick Wood, the St. Tammany district attorney's spokesman. "If we release them, they will be deported."

"It is unfortunate that they must remain in jail, however, it is necessary."

Yep, when this is all ended somehow, somebody's gonna be partying like it's 1899. I don't think it will be the illegals, though.

___________________

Well, it's looking like Dan is headed to Pasadena for New Year's, since his alma mater has made it to the Rose Bowl. I'm glad Jeffrey won't be screaming now, unless it's for Les Miles' head on a platter FedEx'd to Michigan...or the reversal of Sean Payton's reverse in this last Saints game (ugh). Which reminds me...Dan clued me in about Joe Paterno's salary becoming a matter of public record. There are definitely two types of coaches in this world: the ones willing to stay at one place and build a program long-term, and the ones willing to shop around once they have demonstrated some skills and exploit every twist and turn of the seller's market. Then again, the cost of living in State College, PA, ain't that high...and you can't fire students for having a bad season...and everybody's gotta do what they've gotta do. It can only contribute to my self-knowledge in the end, 'cause I know there's many, many reasons out there as to why I am not a coach.

And, folks, give this "broken clock", the real BSJD, a big cyber hug. Get that CC licensing on your sites, man. Really. Procrastinatrix has spoken.

Okay, lemme get this straight:

I took a quiz recently that identified me as being the Peanuts character Schroeder. Other bloggers have taken the same test and also been identified as Schroeder. There is already a blogger named Schroeder! Stop the madness already! Maybe Sheckrastos and I oughta be calling ourselves Agador Spartacus and be done with it...

Then, I post a little something yesterday that misidentifies a random commenter on a Times-Picayune article as a citizen journalist blogger known to all us NOLAns who do the posting thing ourselves on our own damn sites, thanks very much. Bayou St John David writes ever so well about that sinking feeling that someone may have just poached your thoughts as well as your identity:

I didn't have time to write anything more, but I've noticed him (or her) in those forums before. I think there might be another similar name on those forums as well. I recently saw the other BSJ (or somebody else with a similar moniker -bayoudavid?) make a comment that bothered me because it sounded almost, but not quite, like something I'd write. Can't remember what it was exactly, but I do remember that 80-90% of it was something I'd have written, but i really didn't like the other 10-20%.

I advised David to head for the Creative Commons website pronto and get one of their nifty little widgets that says my work is all mine, mine, mine and you can't ever but ever use it unless I say so, dammit so that at the very least all his hard work on his sites will be his (shhhyeah, like it isn't already...)and he will have the right to attest this in court. Comments on other blogs are a whole 'nother planet, I realize that, but at least you can be, uhh, master of your domain...heh.

The CC thing is something I've been wanting to do for a while, anyhow, especially since I saw what Holly went through a while back. Picasso once said something about great artists stealing, but stealing somebody's posts and republishing them as your own is criminal...and very, very tacky. Get your own damn blogs, people!

Then again, I don't know who anybody is anymore, period. All of this is starting to make me paranoid. Somebody tell me, please..is this really my blogsite? Does anybody really know if the trees fell in that forest, if they made a sound? Do I need to put my face back on?