Ms. Straight,

I have tried to be very creative about finding an email address for you and I have failed! So I'll ask this question thru the good graces of the folks at Salon:

I come from a long line of book lovers and I have two little daughters who are being raised to love them too. We'd like to send some books to Louisiana - for kids or for adults. It wouldn't be alot of books - but they'd be good ones. I bet I can get a few friends to do the same.Can you please suggest the best way to do this?

Thanks so much....

Judy Woodruff

al said..

... The areas most hit by the floods were where the poor lived.

No. The deepest, therefore most destructive flooding included parts of middle-class Gentilly, upper middle class Lakeview and the Northline neighborhood in Metairie, middle to lower middle class New Orleans East and the adjacent parts of St. Bernard Parish. You know about flooding in the lower 9th because it has been discussed in the national media. Parts of the 9th ward closest to the Mississippi lie on the natural levee of the river, and this area never did flood. Also, the lower 9th was not quite the cesspit that armchair libertarian "bootstrappers" paint it as. The worst violence and social decrepitude in New Orleans was never localized in the comparatively stable communities of the 9th ward.

the wealthy, upper middle class, and coastal developers want the rest of us to insure them against the risks of coastal living.

Yes, but the Greater New Orleans area is _not_ the Gulf Coast, is not within the same state, and you are carelessly conflating the 2. Inappropriate rebuilding of the Mississippi Gulf Coast casino mecca is ongoing as we write. It is funded by the casino companies' investors & lenders, aided by the state government of Mississippi which is providing rehab of the coastal infrastructure and rewriting Mississippi's law to suit the desires of that industry. And don't let me start in regarding the ongoing overdevelopment of megacondos on the coast of the Florida Panhandle.....

The Feds should pick up the tab of relocating them and allowing the low-lying areas to return to nature.

This statement is probably true, and may well come to pass. The local political in-fighting against some of the plans put forth along these lines are due to the impact of decades of de facto segregation. Middle class to lower middle class african-american communities (N.O. east, Gentilly, parts of the 9th ward) were particularly hard hit by flooding, and their politically astute citizens don't want to be disenfranchised via dispersal.

I believe that the plight of the poor and dispossessed in New Orleans is being used to make sure that any area hit by hurricanes will be made whole again at the expense of the rest of us.

Yes, and I tend to agree that communities should not be rebuilt at the national taxpayers expense in unsustainable ways. But because the national media focused far away eyes upon "poor, pitiful New Orleans" you remain wildly ignorant of the situation on the ground here, and ignorant of how money is _already_ being used, where people are already redeveloping, and just who is getting screwed. It is not the large casino corporations, not the Shaw group, but also not only the poorest african-americans. It _is_ the people with a small amount of property regardless of race, who relied upon the rule of law at both the state and federal level. That is to say, it includes the classes of people who write letters to Salon.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, city council members and Louisiana authorities agreed on Wednesday to create a single plan to redevelop the ravaged, city, ending months of disputes that have hampered recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

The agreement was required by the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which is overseeing rebuilding of areas hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year, before releasing billions of dollars in federal funds given to Louisiana.

Many New Orleans residents are frustrated by the slow pace of recovery and what they see as a lack of clear direction about how homes and neighborhoods can be rebuilt.

Nagin said the single plan, to be completed by the end of the year, would clearly describe what the rebuilt city will be like and set out home construction requirements.

In some parts of the city, residents have refused to wait and are rebuilding on their own terms.

But Louisiana Recovery Authority board member David Voelker said the final plan could make it economically impossible for residents to rebuild in some areas.

"It's going to be complicated and it's going to be tough," he said. "But I think we're going to get there."

At least 65 urban planning teams are vying to oversee development of the land use plan, which will be funded in part by a $3.5 million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and will determine how New Orleans' share of $12 billion in federal fund allocated to the state will be spent.

Oh Yeah - and it is all the federal goverment's fault - right?

However, if we're repeating parts of ceej's letter, this bit is the most important:

The way that individual Americans stepped up to help after the tragedy was awe-inspiring. But, there is no way that American charity can save this situation. The most generous outporing of charity the country has ever seen is simply orders of magnitude less than what is needed. The only entity that exists with the massive resources needed to make a dent in the situation is the federal government. That is precisely why we have a federal government and its massive bureaucracy in the first place--to mobilize the resources of the nation and apply them as needed en masse in a way that private industry, and certainly private charity, simply can't do.

(Emphasis added.)

"Every last one of them thanks those of you who contributed time, money, and prayers in their time of need. They are humbled and grateful for everything that you have contributed. The way that individual Americans stepped up to help after the tragedy was awe-inspiring."

Seems like the only letter in 14 pages to say anything like this.