Louisiana Elections: Race-Based Voter Purge Or Fairness?

Today's headline is from the BayouBuzz. The headline is Louisiana Elections: Race-Based Voter Purge Or Fairness? posted on August 31, 2007 by Stephen Sabludowsky.

Best Quote: Too many people have lost too much as a result of Katrina. If they do not want to vote, that is their choice. If they did not receive adequate notice and obtain the best opportunity to convince the registrar of their intentions, the Courts under the circumstances of the past and based upon the difficulties associated with Katrina should and must intervene and do what is just, not what is political.

Super Bowl MVP makes pitch for tourists to visit New Orleans

Today's headline is from USA Today. The headline is "Super Bowl MVP makes pitch for tourists to visit New Orleans", posted on August 29, 2007 by Michael Marot, AP Sports Writer.

Best Quote: "Certainly there's been some progress, and there certainly needs to be more," he said. "It's taken two years to get to this point, and I think two years from now there's still going to be more work that needs to be done. I will say in my visits down there, that spirits are high. ... But what they really need is people to come back to New Orleans."

Rebuilding New Orleans' psyche

The Headline today is from the Baltimore Sun. The headline is, "Rebuilding New Orleans' psyche" by Marc Siegel on August 29, 2007. Today is the second anniversary of Katrina.

Best Quote: Yet the city's two major hospitals, at LSU and Tulane, lost their in-patient psych units in the storm. The facility run by LSU was destroyed. The DePaul Tulane Behavioral Health Center had a 110-bed psych hospital that was permanently damaged. So far, LSU has been able to reopen a 20-bed emergency psych unit (only five are in use, for detox), and it's slated to open a 33-bed acute adult unit. The Office of Mental Health reports that of 578 in-patient psych beds in New Orleans at the time of the storm, only 236 remain. The city's major remaining in-patient facility is the state-run New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, where Diane Graham works; its 45 beds now must be used for adults as well as children. One community facility, the Enhanced Health Treatment Center, has reopened in New Orleans East - without a penny in federal funding. In the suburbs, Jefferson Parish takes some overflow, but regional hospitals accept few patients, as they are pressed to meet local needs.

Boeing wins contract for work on new space vehicle's rocket; some work on project to be done in New Orleans

The hdeadline today is from the Time-Picayune. The headline is, "Boeing wins contract for work on new space vehicle's rocket; some work on project to be done in New Orleans from kquillen on August 28, 2007 at 3:22PM.

Best Quote: Boeing will assemble the Ares I rocket at the Michoud Assembly Facility in eastern New Orleans, but there is no word yet on how many local jobs the contract will represent. NASA announced the contract, valued at about $900 million, minutes ago.

Hottest Colleges In America Ranked

Today's headline is from NBC6.net in southern Florida. The headline is, Hottest Colleges In America Ranked, Newsweek Lists Top Schools In 25 Different Categories, updates August 27, 2007 at 2:56PM.

Louisiana gets two nods:

Hottest Liberal Arts School You Never Heard Of: Centenary College Of Louisiana, Shreveport, La.

The smallest Division I school in the nation combines academic flexibility with big-time sports. Centenary has a solid reputation in various professions from performing arts to geology.

Hottest on the Rebound: Tulane University, New Orleans, La.

Students had to abandon the campus while Hurricane Katrina ravaged most of New Orleans in 2005, but recent numbers show the school is bouncing back.

Against The Tide The Battle For New Orleans Documentary To Air On CNBC

Today's headline is from CNBC. The headline is Against The Tide: The Battle For New Orleans premieres on August 26, 2007 10pm Pacific/1am Eastern.

No quotes today. Just descriptions:

Big Business
Two years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans still faces a difficult road to recovery. CNBC analyzes how the big and small businesses have worked together to recover from the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. The original primetime documentary profiles the people and the progress they've made Against the Tide.

A Long Road Home
The Road Home Program was set up to distribute $7.5 billion in federal money to help homeowners rebuild. Many believe it’s the single most important program for the recovery of Southern Louisiana. But as CNBC’s Scott Cohn explains, problems with the program have become one of the biggest obstacles to people coming back.


And there's more. This is one to record.

New Orleans now sings a different tune

Today's headline is from the LA Times. The headline is "New Orleans now sings a different tune" by Steve Hochman on August 25, 2007.

This article has great pictures and great quotes. Well worth the read.

Best Quote: And in a city where music more than anything -- except maybe food -- is its identity, something handed down from generation to generation, from Neville to Neville, Marsalis to Marsalis, this is crucial. The very repertoire of New Orleans music has undergone a sea change.

"It's meaningful change," Johnson says. "It's bringing a new part, a new part to go along with the old part. It's not that it's changing anything old, it's adding on, expanding into what's going on now and that's the way it should be. Katrina was devastating and we have to talk about it and sing about it."

Nets plan Katrina anni coverage

Today's headline is from the Hollywood Reporter. The headline is "Nets plan Katrina anni coverage", Friday, August 24, 2007 by Paul J Gough.

Best Quote: ABC News said Thursday that it will air "Katrina: Where Things Stand" beginning Sunday. It will encompass all of the network's platforms, including "Good Morning America," "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" and "World News With Charles Gibson." "GMA" co-anchor Robin Roberts will report from Mississippi; Dan Harris, Jim Avila and other correspondents will report from elsewhere on the Gulf Coast.

Mayo makes 5-month commitment to New Orleans

Today's headline is from Rochester, MN Post-Bulletin. The headline is "Mayo makes 5-month commitment to New Orleans", Thursday August 23, 2007 9:16:27 AM by Jeff Hansel.

Best Quote: Enos said she just wants Minnesota residents to remember that hurricane survivors still need help. "They're just so grateful for everything we do," she said.

New Orleans Launches Web Push To Lure Travelers Back

Today's headline is from Media Post's Marketing Daily. The headline is "New Orleans Launches Web Push To Lure Travelers Back", Wednesday August 22, 2007 at 5:00AM by Karl Greenberg.

Best Quote: Last year, New Orleans-based Market Dynamics Research Group surveyed 5,000 online travelers on their perceptions of conditions in the city. Twenty-two percent of respondents said they believed that some neighborhoods of New Orleans still had standing flood water from Hurricane Katrina, 14% believed New Orleans is not safe to visit due to contaminated air or drinking water, and 12% indicated that the historic districts in New Orleans, such as the French Quarter, were destroyed or are devastated.

A city in recovery - First-hand impressions from ground in New Orleans

Headline Of The Day, Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Today's headline is from Sports Illustrated, Alexander Wollf's Viewpoint. The headline is "A city in recovery - First-hand impressions from ground in New Orleans", Tuesday August 21, 2007 at 12:06PM.

This is such a good article that instead of the usual "Best Quote", there will be three "Best Quotes". If you decide to read one article today, make it the Viewpoint.

Best Quote #1: My other post-disaster experience was in Manhattan, where I lived at the time of the September 11 attacks. By the two-year anniversary, New Yorkers had moved on to debating the details of the memorial and Rudy Giuliani's presidential ambitions. On the other hand, Katrina's scope -- and the number of people touched by its where-to-begin despair -- dwarfed 9/11's.

Best Quote #2: Again and again, I felt the practiced distance between interviewer and interviewee disappear, as New Orleanians gave in to a deep desire to share that they've been through. Jim Miller, the athletic director at the University of New Orleans, is still waiting for the roof of his basketball arena to get fixed. You'd be correct in assuming he'd love to find someone to blame. Yet, he says, the disaster was of such epic scale that "there really are no villains. I've just learned to be patient. My wife tells me I don't raise my voice with our kids the way I used to."

Best Quote #3: What I love most about the city -- and what, I believe, argues most eloquently for its preservation, regardless of the cost -- is the devotion to it of the people who live there. Its music is a cultural treasure. Its food is too. There are precious few Arby's in New Orleans because no one wants anything but the debris po' boy at Mother's on Poydras Street. Dunkin' Donuts hardly stands a chance because a beignet at Café du Monde cannot be improved upon. And the daily newspaper is not dying in New Orleans, where per capita readership of the local paper is higher than in any other city in the country, because neighbors have a common sense of investment in their town.

Firms hired to widen Huey P. Long

Headline of the Day, Monday, August 20, 2007

Today's headline, Firms hired to widen Huey P. Long, is from The Times-Picayune. It's actually from Saturday, but I just read it today. ;-)

Best quote: The additional expense for this phase is only the latest in a string of cost increases and construction delays on the project over the past few years. The bridge expansion was initially estimated to cost $300 million, then $660 million and most recently a price tag of more than $800 million.

Dean's wobble a tell tale sign

Headline of the Day, Sunday, August 19, 2007

Today's headline is from NOLA.com, New Orleans Hurricane Center, Tropical Storm News, Warnings, Satellite and More. The headline is "Dean's wobble a tell tale sign" by Mark Schleifstein at Sunday August 19, 2007, 2:27 PM

Best quote: The forecast calls for Dean to hit Category 5 strength before its eye goes ashore south of the island of Cozumel and the resort city of Cancun on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The likely target at the moment is the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, near the Mayan Ruins of Tulum. The reserve's beaches, swamps and mangroves sit along a 70-mile stretch of barrier reef.