Squandered Heritage

These Anniversary days seem to not get easier.

Reading the piece in the NYT about Memorial Hospital about the difficult, tragic, heartbreaking decisions made there only served to remind me of how fragile we humans are.

Here I am sometime in 2006, trying to figure out how to put all the pieces back together. […]

Today’s press conference at the site of the Lafitte Public Housing project was filled with many elected officials and MC’d by Wayne Woods from HANO.

No mention was made of Dwayne Muhammad the Director of the Voucher program at HANO who is now “on leave” for allegedly using the voucher program to pay his own […]

I guess she wants to go off the reservation. link

It seems odd that the Krewe of Truth is promoting this obvious attempt to discredit the public option making it sound like it is just a couple of happy go lucky guys looking for the truth.

Maybe they wouldn’t be so happy go lucky if they […]

Here is a link to an NPR interview I did.

Link

And in other news. For some reason I can not get to the comment moderation page. If you left a comment and don’t see it please send it to me at

Karen.gadbois at gmail.com

I will post it manually and try and figure out what the problem […]

Just got back from taking my child to college.

The last time we had a car trip so filled with anxiety and uncertainty it was evacuating in 2005. She was a freshman in high school and when we returned in December she returned to her flooded school to start where she left off.

An unwise decision […]

I received a disturbing e mail this morning that the Babin / African Museum was demolished using a chainsaw.

The house as it stood is near the very bottom of the page link

The Africa Plantation House, located in Modeste, Louisiana is another building of African American significance in the Donaldsonville area. It was originally known as […]

There was a great turnout today from all over New Orleans who all spoke in opposition to the Archdiocese plan to demolish Annunciation Church.

The application was denied.

This weeks NCDC agenda contains an application to demolish The Annunciation Church

My guess is they want to demolish the Church along with the rectory and meeting hall to build senior housing. Which in and of itself may be a needed service, but with the abundance of vacant lots in the City it would seem a […]

Come on come all…

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For the last few months I have been working on a project to create an online data driven investigative news source. I have been incubating this under the umbrella of The New Orleans Institute and we have been making some steady progress to that end.

Last week we were chosen by the Zeitoun Foundation to […]

One of the most traumatic events of my life was being diagnosed with breast cancer in May of 2005. Being uninsured and throwing Katrina into the mix was pretty stressful and I am grateful that I lived to tell the tale.

This piece says it best

Please call

Senator Landrieu’s D.C. office line: (202)224-5824

New Orleans office: (504) […]

Part 1

..Or how many days do you have to clean up the mess you left behind after the City demolished the houses you have neglected for years?

I think when I die the addresses of these 2 houses will be the last words uttered, like Rosebud, but instead it will be Belfast..

Here is the before

and here […]

Here is his church as advertised on his website

Well maybe not actually as advertised. They don’t mention that it is a sandlot.

But that does not deter Rev. Toris Young, who has been convicted of identity theft and fraud perhaps the fraud was actually raising funds to build a church that does not exist.

Also of interest […]

Here is a photo of this house as it stood 2 years ago.

Somehow the owners managed to avoid fines for not maintaining it, or cleaning it out and the end result is this

Makes you wonder….

The mystery of how this family has been able to continue to perpetrate blight was made a little clearer with […]

This house has been the subject of interest from the neighborhood for almost 4 years. The owners are also responsible for the mess on the first block of Apple St.. They are, repeat offenders.

2 days ago the house collapsed. The owners had tried to obtain a FEMA funded demolition, sometimes called Free Demo, free because […]

I remember the first time I met Herman Beasley. It was at a community event at Xavier. There were very few people, in fact the meeting was held in a second floor boardroom. At the time the distrust was acute, people were still shell shocked and struggling to come home. We were being thrust into […]

It is interesting that Congressman Cao led a tour of Charity today to illustrate the damage done to Charity by the storm.

I was watching the NCDC meeting interested to see what would happen to these 2 properties which were on the agenda.

and this gem

Sale Date 22-JUN-07
Sale Price $40,000

Both of these properties are in terrible shape, but […]

One of my favorite neighbors and community activist Herman Beasley had a stroke this weekend. He is in the ICU and responding well.

Take care Mr. Beasley..we miss you.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the Peabody Awards. I was unable to bring my personal photographer Bernardo so there are only a few photos of the actual event.

But first of all I am wondering how this major media event let the facts slip by and published my name as Monica.

In order to catch […]

This is the song that doesn’t end,
yes it goes on and on my friend.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
and they’ll continue singing it forever just because…

Just like the song the story of this sidewalk […]

Over the last 2 years I have run into the work of Arthur Raymond Smith.

The first time I saw it I recognized the painting on the house as belonging to a pattern of expression one finds in “naive” artists.

I was reminded of the work of Don Eduardo, an artist who lives in San […]

The last few years have been especially difficult for our elderly population. My mother in law took a fall right near City Hall while trying to make sense of some City Hall snafu.

Her fall resulted in a smashed to smithereens elbow which led to surgery and ongoing rehabilitation. Bouncing back at 83 is no small […]