Watching KVille

Three years ago, New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. A dangerous situation that many had warned about happened when the levies broke and the city that had been hit by hurricanes throughout its history suffered another. It was a terrible loss of life, and the death toll increased in the days afterward due to an ineffective government, both local and federal. Without getting into specifics and pointing the finger of blame at anyone, it was a sad situation and my heartfelt and sincere sympathies go out to anyone affected by the tragedy.

Almost to the day three years later, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are preparing to be hit by yet another hurricane, Gustav. I am not one that turns to prayer often, being an atheist, but if there is a higher being that can help mitigate another disaster, I hope that no one has to die this time around.

Sadly, three years later and New Orleans still has not been rebuilt. CNN reported recently reported that FEMA gave away supplies meant for victims of Katrina to others, because those that needed the supplies never asked for them. The blame game is still trying to decide who dropped the ball when it came to preparing a major American city for such a situation, both before and after the storm hit.

All we can hope for now is that New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are prepared this time.

Gustav may hit the Gulf Coast by Tuesday. In its path, 78 people died in Cuba and 11 in Jamaica. On Gustav’s trail is Tropical Storm Hanna, which is projected to turn south before hitting the US. Recently, Florida was hit by Fay. Even as I write this, the National Hurricane Center is tracking two more potential storms heading west from the coast of Africa.

This is turning into quite the “hurricane season.”

New Orleans, Katrina, Gustav, Hanna, hurricane, hurricane season, Cuba, Gulf Coast, Jamaica, FEMA, CNN, National Hurricane Center, Africa, tropical storm

That boy ain’t right.

The Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, and the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, will be joining our fearless President George the Younger in New Orleans today and tomorrow. The trio will be meeting over the two days to discuss how much better the world would be if K-Ville were still in the air. Ok, that is a lie. I’m sure there will be a lot of talk about immigration, free trade, and how to get Trey Parker and Matt Stone to quit making fun of Canadians so much.

The woman in charge of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, a Ms. Romig, told a reporter from Voice of America that the PM and the Mexican President will be visiting other parts of the city, in addition to wherever it is that they are staying and meeting (I assume at a very nice hotel). Strangely, the article doesn’t mention if Mr. Bush will venture out with the tour group.

Romig says both Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon and their official delegations will have the opportunity to visit parts of the city outside the sites where the summit meetings will take place. She says President Calderon, in particular, will be active, re-opening a consulate here that was closed in 2002. –VOA

But hey, that’s good news that the Mexicans are opening up the New Orleans consulate right?

More from the same article.

The Mexican consulate here had been one of the two oldest consulates Mexico had in the United States before it was closed in a cost-cutting effort in 2002. Much of the rebuilding work carried out in New Orleans following Katrina has been done by immigrants from Mexico and other parts of Latin America and there are now around 30,000 Mexicans living in and around the city.

I have to admit that I do find it odd that immigrant labor was used/is being used to rebuild New Orleans. You would think that some sort of work program could have been formed to give locals jobs in the rebuilding process, but then what do I know? And besides, where would the Federal Government come up with funds for something like that? Ill-used FEMA funds or funds from the ill-conceived Iraq war?

That would never work.

Canada, Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, Mexico, Felipe Calderon, consulate, New Orleans, Federal Government, President, Bush, VOA, free trade, immigration, FEMA, Iraq War

You would not believe how difficult it can be to write about a series that barely survived one season, but I do my best to keep things moving.

As I was doing some surfing, I ran across this rather interesting online graphic novella on the SmithMag site. The Smith website is an interesting read for those willing to look for it, and for those who want to participate in their storytelling projects.

The project that is the subject of today is A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. A comic book style panel project that tells the story of the Hurricane Katrina through the individual tales of six people who survived the storm, A.D. is an interesting read for anyone with a high-speed internet connection. I add that detail as you have to click your way through the story and if you don’t have a fast connection, it will drive you crazy to wait for the pages to load.

A very dire situation, indeed, and it is compounded and framed by the inability of the city to rebuild, or rebuild in a way that will allow those who lost their homes to return.

Here’s a sample panel from the story.

Smith Magazine, New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, deluge, rebuild

Ah, thank goodness the FBI is following through on issues and problems resulting from Hurricane Katrina.

We all know FEMA sure isn’t doing much.

Still, I am not entirely sure that sending a woman away to federal prison is the best way to deal with fraud ensuing from Katrina, especially when the sentence could be up to the maximum of 20 years.

In a press release from the FBI New Orleans Desk, 46 year old Barbara Stewart of Reserve, Louisiana pled guilty to wire fraud in connection to her fraudulent applications to the Red Cross in the months after Hurricane Katrina.

According to the FBI’s case, Stewart applied for Red Cross financial aid 8 times in September and October 2005. At the time, the Red Cross offered financial assistance for the disaster relief of those affected by the hurricanes in 2005. It was a one-time payment of $1565. Instead of receiving the charity and appreciating it, Stewart must have taken advantage of the chaotic nature of disaster relief to receive 8 one-time payments, in total of $12,520 over the course of two months. Stewart supposedly kept telling the Red Cross that she simply never received the money, and I guess that little ploy worked seven more times.

Now, Stewart is facing 20 years…for a little more than $12,000. Admittedly, we do have to punish those who take advantage of others, especially charitable organizations, but 20 years, come on. Wouldn’t it fit the crime instead to mandate that Stewart pay off her debt to the Red Cross and Society in general literally? Granted, Stewart is also facing fines of up to $250,000 (that’s a quarter of a million dollars here, so I’m sure Stewart can just write a check, right?), so in essence any fine can go toward restitution. However, as I highly doubt the guilty party will be able to pay her potential fine; for a crime of this nature, couldn’t Stewart be put into a work program in which she could gain a valuable skill for later use, and then get out of the cycle of poverty, and maybe not feel the need to scam the Red Cross?

I don’t know, maybe I am idealistic in thinking that poverty tends to lead people down the path to a life of crime, or even a small foray into what can be construed as smaller crimes. The US penal system is simply not working as it is set up. The system will pay thousands and thousands of dollars to house criminals, but spend relatively little to rehabilitate them, and why is that? I truly believe that, given the choice, most people would much rather earn their living than steal it. Sure, there are always those out there that will become criminals no matter what upbringing they have had or which socioeconomic class they come from (hi, Enron and WorldCom), but the large majority of criminals are in that predicament due to poverty or other dire situations.

Hurricane Katrina created a desperate situation for many people, and those that were already experiencing the ills of poverty, were perhaps driven to extremes. Does a bad situation excuse bad behaviour? No, of course, but maybe if this nation spent more on preventing poverty and crime, we would not have so many of our poor in prisons.

Just a thought.

FBI, FEMA, New Orleans, Hurricane, Katrina, wire fraud, prison, poverty, Red Cross, penal system, Louisiana

Now, I am not one to advocate defrauding the Federal Government, even when the ineffective and ineffectual FEMA is the government entity in question, but I do think the possible sentence for defrauding FEMA is a bit, well, excessive.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation published a news release on Friday detailing the case of Trinise Causey of New Orleans. Causey is facing 20 years in a federal penitentiary for scamming FEMA for, get this, $2,358. That’s almost a year for every $100 she got for her efforts.

The FBI reports that Causey has pled guilty before a federal judge last week. She is going to jail because she commited “wire fraud”, technically. Causey filed a false claim with FEMA in September 2005, following Hurricane Katrina. She claimed to have suffered property damage. She even went as far as to produce a fake lease in order to make her claim look more credible.

Other than the severity of the punishment, the other thing that surprises me is how long Causey waited for that “rental assistance” check from FEMA. She filed her claim in September, submitted additional paperwork in November, and didn’t receive any money until MARCH 2006. Good thing she didn’t actually have any property damaged (or whatever actually went on — I tend to think that she did lose some stuff, but just couldn’t prove it, and possibly claimed to have lost more than she did) ’cause she would have been screwed if FEMA was all she could count on.

Anyway, Causey is facing one count of wire fraud, as the money (again, that’s $2,358) was wired to her bank account. That begs the question — or many questions if you start thinking about the fact that the FBI can investigate and charge this one little woman in three years, but still cannot seem to do much about charging war profiteers for willfully defrauding the US from billions — would Causey be guilty of wire fraud if she had received a paper check from FEMA, or what would they have charged her with then?

New Orleans, FEMA, wire fraud, FBI, Federal Government, Hurricane Katrina

Ok, I know there was just a film that came out that featured a church robbery as a sign of desperation for two black men (Tracy Morgan and Ice Cube) in First Sunday, but this next story is just sad, not funny.

Noah Thomas, a Marrero, Louisiana man, has been charged with mail fraud by the FBI. It seems that Thomas felt fit to have a $35,000 check from the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund mailed to his house and then deposited in a personal checking account. He also had the initial $10,000 installment of the SBA (Small Business Administration) Loan that the Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church applied for, as the church did not have flood insurance at the time of Katrina, deposited into the same personal account.

How dumb do you have to be? And how greedy can you get? Stealing the rebuilding money for a baptist church. That must carry the punishment of your own circle of hell.

Thomas was the pastor of the Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church on the 2200 block of South Liberty Street in New Orleans. The church was devastated in the flood, and the money that Thomas is alleged to diverted from the church coffers for his own personal benefit was meant to rebuild the church.

Thomas, if convicted, faces up to twenty years in prison. He could also be fined a quarter of a million dollars…all for $45,000.

Pathetic.

The Times-Picayune reported that the Pilgrim Missionary has a sign out front that has a new pastor listed. I should hope so, however, Thomas has not been found guilty as of yet, and the bible does say something about not judging or something.

Still, the sad part is…he probably is guilty. Sigh.

New Orleans, FBI, church, pastor, Noah Thomas, Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, SBA, flood, Katrina

The FBI announced today that New Orleans no longer has to worry about the potential destruction of new condos.

Huh? Oh, let me provide a little backstory. Back in December (that’s 2007), some threatening posters started showing up around the central business district. These posters had a picture of a burning building as the background and signed “The Angry & Powerless.”

Both the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the New Orleans PD worked on the case, and as of today, NOLA is safe from the Angry & Powerless.

From the FBI Press Release March 13, 2008: As the FBI takes all threats seriously an investigation was immediately launched by the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and NOPD to determine if there was any merit to the threats. Suspects were identified and agents found that no adverse action was planned. The FBI has concluded after its long and arduous investigation that there is no threat to public safety as it relates to the above threat.

These posters started popping up after some demonstrations in New Orleans in early December. Seems that developers are looking at New Orleans as prime real estate now that the poor (read Angry & Powerless) have been effectively kicked out of town with the help of a hurricane.

So with the rest of the country having housing problems, double that problem for New Orleans. Buildings that are damaged are being slated for demolition, rather than repair. The issue is that many of these buildings are apartment buildings for low-income residents. You know, the projects. Sorry, that may be unfair to call all of these buildings “projects”, but I am using that term ironically, as who knew that poor people would ever protest against the demolition of the low-income housing units that are usually not much more than the bare minimum when it comes to living space.

Still, these buildings are home for some people. And now those same people are concerned that as low-income housing is torn down, the new units will not be so cheap. First, Mother Nature (with the fury of fossil fuel-derived elevated atmospheric heat, which equals energy, which in turn equals force and ferocity) comes along and displaces the New Orleans poor, and now the Government is backing development plans which don’t figure in the appropriate amount of low-income housing units. All this after years of corrupt city and state, along with the federal, government ignoring the impending doom coming at New Orleans from the Gulf. Engineers, scientists, and conservationists had been warning that Louisiana’s shrinking wetlands buffer meant that a Class 4 or 5 hurricane could and would decimate the city.

New Orleans, FBI, NOPD, Angry & Powerless, Anti-Demolition, Protests, low-income housing, hurricanes

I happened upon this little tidbit in the Times-Picayune, and I thought it was nice enough to pass on to anyone watching “K-Ville” or at it is better known, New Orleans. Since I don’t have a television cop show to cover, I can still cover news from the real K-Ville, right? Not that anyone in New Orleans really calls it that, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, it seems that members of the bands Linkin Park, Coheed, and Cambria stopped over for a spell in NOLA in order to help out with the construction of a Habitat for Humanity house. This little housebuilding project is under the auspices of Linkin Park’s Music for Relief, which funds the building of houses lost to natural disasters, among other relief work for those afflicted by the hand of Mother Nature.

Photo courtesy the Times-Picayune.
Thank you kindly.

Actually, the Music for Relief organization has been able to fund the construction of TWO houses, which is super. And the organization uses the band’s fame and fans to bring in the donations, by making it a contest with the winner being able to lend a helping hand along with the band. I assume that the draw in the contest is Linkin Park, but that is only because I don’t know who Coheed or Cambria are.

Thank goodness the rockers of America are there in addition to a certain mega-celebrity to help out New Orleans, as we know that our Federal Government sure isn’t. FEMA trailer, anyone?

New Orleans, K-Ville, Times-Picayune, Linkin Park, Coheed, Cambria, Habitat for Humanity, Music for Relief, FEMA

It’s the Monday before the big day in New Orleans. I’m sure residents are ready to get rid of all those drunken students that flunked out of college last semester and have nothing better to do than to keep drinking. Ah, to be nineteen again. Wait, doesn’t Louisiana have a lower than 21 age limit on alcohol, or is that no longer? I think I remember hearing how Louisiana was more like a cautionary tale when it came to alcohol and teenagers. Feel free to jump in here, anyone.

Though by this time of the evening, the parades are probably done, and the drunkenness is in full force. Anyway, you only have one more night after tonight, Catholics or anyone who needs an excuse to binge drink for the next 30 or so hours…

This is something that I found on the Times-Picayune website. Sorry it’s a little big. He, “little big”, cute.

I guess just because K-Ville isn’t shooting, it doesn’t mean that nothing is being filmed there. Although this “project” seems a little dubious. Is it simply a cover operation for Girls Gone Wild?

Here’s a picture of the “notice.” The “recognizably” means that there will be close-ups. Is that even a word?

Looks very unofficial, and I know, as I worked on a show in Chicago. It wasn’t fully “licensed” either, so I remember simply printing up signs like this. Kinda like poaching.

I mean who else needs footage of drunken revelers on Bourbon Street. Maybe a anti-drinking campaign? Maybe a “be good to your liver” campaign? Probably just in need of exterior shots and maybe establishing shots. The story doesn’t mention how long the group was filming for…

Anyway, Happy Mardi Gras!

New Orleans, Lundi Gras, Mardi Gras, drinking, K-Ville, filming, Bourbon Street, Louisiana

I have noticed New Orleans has been in the headlines. I guess Watching K-Ville is now Watching “K-Ville.”

Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards, a great candidate in my estimation, has bowed out of the running, after finding himself in a Ralph Nader-like spot between two stronger(?) candidates. When Edwards announced he was running for the rather thankless job of picking up George Dubya’s mess, he did it in the Ninth Ward.

And then Edwards chose the same spot to announce he was no longer pursuing the presidential problem. To again draw attention to the slow work in New Orleans, and/or to bring everything back full-circle. Was Edwards being cheeky or poetic? Bold, either way, as Edwards has been criticized for working at a hedge fund after 2004’s failed VP bid that included investments in companies that foreclosed on Katrina victims. Either way, he and his family spent the rest of the New Orleans afternoon building houses.

Although the Times-Picayune did offer the following correction to the Edwards campaign rhetoric.

Although Edwards was fond of saying that his campaign started in the Lower 9th Ward, a poor, mostly black area that became a national symbol of the post-hurricane flooding, he neither started it nor ended it there. Edwards launched his campaign from eastern New Orleans and closed it in the Bywater neighborhood, both of which are in the 9th Ward but not the Lower 9th Ward. — Times Picayune

Another blow to the “working class” came at the pounding of a gavel in New Orleans. The Army Corps of Engineers, so fond of building crappy canals, cannot be held responsible for any damages that resulted to property as a result of the levees breaking during Katrina. The Times-Picayune reported this today.

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers is immune under federal law from responsibility for damages resulting from the failure of drainage canal walls in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

The action apparently shields the agency from a portion of nearly 500,000 claims filed by New Orleans area homeowners, businesses and city agencies, many of whom navigated traffic jams around the corps’ Uptown headquarters or waited in long lines to beat a deadline for filing the claims, totaling more than $3 quadrillion.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval ruled that the Flood Control Act of 1928 provides immunity to the corps and other federal agencies involved in building flood projects. He relied on 1986 and 2001 Supreme Court rulings that found the law “provides immunity where, as here, a flood control project fails to control floodwaters because of the failure of the flood control project itself.” –Times-Picayune

K-Ville, New Orleans, John Edwards, Ralph Nader, George Bush, Ninth Ward, Katrina, Times-Picayune, Army Corps of Engineers, Flood Control

Yes, I just made that word up. I just like putting the -ista suffix on anything that people take too seriously. And I can call “foodies” out, as I am a bit of one myself. But onto the real point of this post…

I guess that just the mention and brief appearance of gumbo has spawned Monday Night Gumbo parties in N’awlins. Sorry, do they say N’Awlins anymore? Is it NOLA? I know it is not K-Ville. One of the major complaints about the show from New Orleans locals is that no one calls it K-Ville. If I live there, I would call it the town that FEMA forgot.

On a side note: In Oregon, we had some pretty bad flooding about a week and a half, two weeks ago (December 3, 2007), and FEMA finally showed up yesterday (December 19). Yeah, the US government — we pay taxes, and it all goes to Halliburton, KBR, DynCorp, Blackwater, Titan, CACI, Parsons…don’t believe me — look it up.

Anyhoo, the Times-Picayune has mentioned the K-Ville Cookbook before, and I said I would follow up on that topic. The “unofficial” K-Ville Cookbook was a gift to cast and crew when the filming on K-Ville wrapped in November.

Script supervisor Jillian Amburgey had already been collecting recipes from local crew members. She’d assembled them into a neat booklet with script excerpts that tied the recipes into specific food references in episodes. She’d also done biographical profiles of some of the contributors, including their storm stories. A couple of the recipes were scanned copies apparently rendered in a grandmother’s handwriting.

There’d been some talk of publishing the cookbook as a charity fundraiser, but when sudden news of the shutdown came, Anderson and co-star Cole Hauser paid to have copies of the booklet quickly printed up for distribution to everybody in the “K-Ville” production family.

It’s not an official “wrap” gift because “K-Ville” hasn’t officially wrapped. (-NOLA.com)

Aw, Anthony and Cole must be the nicest guys to work with. I think that this book would sell, and it may help out those on the production side that are out of work. Just an idea…Although, I did read on another blog (thehullabaloo.com) that the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 478

requires its members to continue working through the strike. The 550 members of the union include set painters, wardrobe workers, grips and other crew positions.

So maybe those guys are working on something. It says “stage” crew, so maybe those burlesque shows could use some gaffers.

K-Ville, gumbo, parties, New Orleans, FEMA, Oregon, flood, Halliburton, KBR, DynCorp, Blackwater, Titan, CACI, Parsons, Times-Picayune, K-Ville Cookbook, charity, fundraiser, Anthony Anderson, Cole Hauser, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees

Just in case any FOX execs happen across this little blog…

1. The Location of New Orleans.

I am sick to death of watching New York shows or Los Angeles shows. New Orleans gives viewers a somewhat unique locale for a drama. Sure, I know that more and more shows are branching out into other US cities, but so many of them are obviously not filmed in those cities. K-Ville is filmed in New Orleans, and that is a wonderful change of pace for those of us that took that first hit of TV as kids and never bothered to get help for our affliction.

I mean, sure, a show like Grey’s Anatomy takes place in Seattle (right?), but you can tell that they did not film there. There is one or two exterior shots of that hospital, and we are to believe that poof, they are in Seattle. But it seems to me the only place they ever go outside of that hospital is to that bar across the street (At least not in the three episodes I have bothered to watch — that show is like a high school soap opera, but then even high school soaps seem more mature). ER did/does the same thing. There is no authenticity in the location, and today’s television viewer is more savvy than that. We want a sense of realism in our cop shows. K-Ville gives us that, in spades.

And one more point, K-Ville provides jobs and maybe a sense of pride for New Orleans, and hey, what US city can use the help more than NOLA?

2. The Dynamic of the Two Leads.

Not to get into a whole discourse on race relations in Television History, but it is refreshing to see an African-American Actor not only carrying the show, but carrying the cop team. In Miami Vice, the show centered heavily on Crockett and Tubbs was there to make it seem progressive. Add Edward James Almos and we have a cross-section of the American population — what, no Asian-Americans or Native-Americans, come on, it was the 1980’s.

Anthony Anderson is entirely watchable. His Marlin Boulet is a complex hero. He doesn’t have those cop superpowers that make him always right and know exactly which lead to follow, and he drinks on the job, and he tricks people into letting him steal evidence, and he bullies people into telling him what he wants. The flaws are as good as his strengths.

Cole Hauser’s Cobb is an equally strong and flawed character. He’s an escaped convict, for pete’s sake. What made him want to be a cop; couldn’t he have done just starting “doing good” by teaching kids or fighting fires? And what makes him such a good cop? Is it that he spent so many years on the wrong side of the law, and he can think like a criminal? Either way, I am digging it, and I want to see his character grow.

3. FOX, It is Not Like You Have Anything Better.

House is on its last season, face it. Bones just cannot be bringing in the viewers. Prison Break is so over, and the choice to put them back in prison, is well, pardon the pun, criminal (and lazy). What else ya got, Fox?

Give K-Ville a chance to grow. Maybe find a better night. Maybe start programming it after that insidious American Idol. Isn’t that how you turned House into a hit?

K-Ville, Fox, New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Seatle, Grey’s Anatomy, ER, Miami Vice, Edward James Almos, Anthony Anderson, Cole Hauser, House, Bones, Prison Break, American Idol

The New York Times (from the Associated Press) today reported that there was quite a scene yesterday at New Orleans City Hall. A civil rights lawyer was arrested for disturbing the peace amid protests over the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) plans to tear down mostly vacant “projects.”

Here’s where things get sticky. New Orleans is indeed facing a housing crisis (despite Brad Pitt and his little pink ecologically-friendly houses), and yes, maybe the HUD plans are not the best idea. HUD is going to replace the 4000 units with “mixed-income” housing. The problem is that low-income residents are worried that they will be priced out of the “mixed-income” units. Another example of the US Govt hating poor people?

HUD counters that the units planned for demolition are mostly vacant and/or damaged from Katrina.

The demolitions of the housing projects, decaying and riddled with crime for years, are part of a plan HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson pushed for after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

Most of the units slated for demolition are vacant; many suffered heavy damage in the hurricane. But several hundred people continue to live in at least one of the four major housing projects targeted.

The redevelopment plan has grown more emotional since it was unveiled in mid-2006 as tens of thousands of former residents and other poor residents found themselves unable to find housing in New Orleans because of a housing shortage and inflated rents.

Critics of the plan say the redevelopment plan will drive poor people from neighborhoods where they have lived for generations, but HUD denies that and says the plan will create an equal amount of affordable housing as existed before Katrina hit.

There are strong points on both sides of this debate, since if HUD wants to tear down “old barracks-style buildings” otherwise known as “projects,” that should be a good thing. Ugly, eye-sore projects are coming down all over the country, and rightfully so. Just because you are poor should not mean that you must be forced to live in concrete towers. But still, some form of low-income housing should be available. And many of the NOLA diaspora are complaining that the lack of low-income units is what is keeping them from returning home.

This is just another tussle between HUD and New Orleans. The HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has been accused of making sure that his friends are winning the bids to rebuild New Orleans.

Others criticize Bush and HUD for decreasing the vouchers in the Section 8 Program. From an editorial from the NY Times in March of this year…

Many of these families would have long since found permanent homes and settled into new lives had the Bush administration brought HUD — which was created to deal with these kinds of situations — into the picture at the very start. But Hurricane Katrina arrived just as the administration had made up its mind to cripple HUD and the successful Section 8 program, partly as a way of offsetting tax cuts for the wealthy.

The administration instead rigged up a confusing and inflexible housing program and put the Federal Emergency Management Agency in charge. FEMA frustrated landlords and Katrina’s victims alike. Last year, one federal judge likened the convoluted application process — which too often led vulnerable families to lose aid without knowing why or having reasonable recourse to appeal — to something out of a horror story by Kafka.

As K-Ville so presciently covered the Blackwater Security issue in the season premiere, maybe this topic will come up soon. Boulet can force his gumbo down Alphonso Jackson’s throat until he gives in, and hands out more Section 8 vouchers.

New York Times, New Orleans, protest, arrest, civil rights, Housing and Urban Development, HUD, FEMA, housing, crisis, low income, mixed income, Katrina, Alphonso Jackson, K-Ville, Section 8, Blackwater

So Brad Pitt wanted to be an architect. Hmm, I remember reading that he had been a marketing major at the University of Missouri.

Maybe he wanted to be an architect like George Costanza wanted to be an architect.

No, seriously, Pitt is doing some good in NOLA. He is working to build flood-proof and ecologically-friendly homes, and that is nothing for me to make fun of. Although when I read that he had placed big, pink Monopoly-esque houses around New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward for publicity, I did think to myself that Pitt had missed his calling in marketing. But then, isn’t being a huge celebrity marketing? So, Brad found his way afterall.

Here’s a blurb from the Guardian. And a picture, because Brad Pitt is all that. Even unshaved. And squinting.

Brad Pitt launched his own regeneration project for Katrina-ravaged New Orleans yesterday, unveiling designs for a range of eco-friendly and flood-proof homes.

Pitt, who had ambitions to be an architect if he had not taken up acting, commissioned 13 architectural firms to produce houses that would incorporate solar power and other environmentally-sound designs.

He has put up $5m (£2.5m) of his own money and launched a website (www.makeitrightnola.org) asking corporations, church groups and others for $150,000 donations for his adopt-a-house project, as well as smaller public donations - from $5 - to sponsor eco-friendly items such as low-cost light bulbs, low-flush toilets and solar panels.

To publicise his cause, Pitt had 150 huge pink Monopoly-shaped houses scattered about the Lower Ninth. Showing reporters round, he said the aim was to replace them with houses. The pink blocks, which he described as a work of art, are to be taken on a five-week tour, decorated with 1,000 light bulbs that he stressed would be solar-powered.

He said yesterday the priorities for the architects were safety, sustainability, affordability and aesthetics. They were asked to design homes that were at least 5ft off the ground, with a porch and three bedrooms, at a cost of about $150,000.

That’ll do, Brad Pitt, that’ll do.

Brad Pitt, NOLA, New Orleans, Ninth Ward, architects, Missouri, eco-friendly, solar power, flood-proof, Katrina

I had a meeting run late, so I missed the first half of K-Ville last night, but I had my BF takes notes, and isn’t that sweet? I walked into Boulet trying to get the C4 plastic explosives out of the evidence room without the lame white guy from Minnesota knowing what he was doing. I’m glad that K-Ville wants to inject a little humour into the show every now and then, but does it have to be so cliched ALL the time? And I am getting a little sick of the gumbo-as-a-prop issue. Just because it’s New Orleans doesn’t mean that gumbo is the only food stuff consumed? Where’s the alligator?

All in all, I have to give it up to the writing department (and I never anticipated doing this), but it was a fairly solid script in that I came in half-way and I didn’t have a hard time figuring out what was going on. Cole Hauser got to act a little, although the clutching the sailboat necklace at the end was hokey. I like Cole Hauser, and I finally figured out that I have seen him before in among other things, Tigerland. Great movie if you haven’t seen it. Well, ok, pretty good.

Hurray for K-Ville using the underworld connections of Cobb to 1) develop a plot and 2) give us more Trevor Cobb backstory.

And is it just me or is this guy ever going to get laid?

And I liked the “Gardenia Affair” of Boulet’s wife. Though I didn’t quite get how that guy (who was kinda hot) accused Boulet of abandoning his family because he sent them to Atlanta. Even if he didn’t “send” them, who was paying their bills? Give the guy a break. New Orleans was devastated, it’s his home town, he got his wife and child to safety, and he stayed behind to help, rather than jump ship. Seems like the right thing to do to me. If anything, it’s the lecherous elementary school teacher that hits on married women that comes across as a jerk to me. Beware those teaching lotharios, ladies…even if they do pay attention to what your favorite flower is.

K-Ville, Cole Hauser, New Orleans, Tigerland, Gumbo, Alligator

k-ville