Entries for the 'Aside' Category
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Never Say Never »
I never thought that an article in the national press purporting to feature the pioneering spirits of New Orleanians returning to the most ravaged neighborhoods against all odds, exhibiting the enormous resolve of “ordinary” citizens to restore their homes and their dignity whether deserved assistance comes or no, could raise my hackles. But leave it to Adam Nossiter to prove me wrong. I don’t have it in me right now to go over the article in detail and how, in the guise of shedding a faint ray of light on the triumphs and struggles of New Orleans citizens, Largely Alone, Pioneers Reclaim New Orleans presents the opportunity to highlight the worst of what’s happening here and confirm a stereotypical hopelessness arising from the citizenry’s boundless ineptitude. Which isn’t to say that the crime rate, the state of public schools, and the planning leadership aren’t abysmal or bordering on it, but the article conveniently neglects to illustrate the of citizen-led efforts to decry and confront those problems the same way citizens confront the restoration of their physical homes. I’ll leave one particularly pungent quote to make my case: “only about one in five [Road Home] applicants – most of them entitled to it – have actually received money” (emphasis mine). Most of them entitled to it. What a pithy summation of the worst sort of condescension. Thanks, Mr. Nossiter, for your gracious observation that New Orleans isn’t mostly frauds and thieves.
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Road Home: Rebuilding vs Compensation »
I’m guest-blogging today at Think New Orleans on the flap between HUD and the State of Louisiana on whether Road Home is a rebuilding or a compensation program.
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Bingler in Budapest »
If this business about naming a bridge in Hungary is for real, online “democracy” is sweeping the globe. Has Concordia been consulting overseas?
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Never Get Lost on a Tollway »
I believe I singlehandedly financed the renovation of at least one Chicago toll plaza in less than 24 hours. I wonder if I can get a sign, sort of like the “Adopt a Highway Program.”
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Interwiki linking – nifty shortcut »
You can link to articles in other wikis without having to use the whole url. For instance:
Comments (0)[[Wikipedia:New_orleans|New Orleans]]will send you to http://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_orleans. Wikimedia’s Help:Interwiki linking pages has all the sordid details. -
Oh, Ray. »
So the comedy night for the anniversary of Katrina has been nixed, as have been the fireworks and the bal masque. “After general uproar over the gross inappropriateness of comedy, fireworks and other jubilant entertainments to mark the observance of a massive tragedy, the citizens were heard and their wishes carried out”–that would be the story, you would think. But no, the Mayor’s Office insists it was a logistics problem, and that they otherwise had every intention of proceeding as planned. This had nothing to do with public opinion at all. I don’t get it. Was there ever a more politically opportune mea culpa? A more shining moment to admit a mistake? This was such an easy win! The sort of thing I thought only Kimberly Williamson Butler could screw up…
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New Orleans recovery-related acronyms »
If you can think of any acronyms that could use clearing up for someone not from around here or not deeply involved in the recovery planning process, please add them to the Acronyms page of the New Orleans Wiki.
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New Orleans Wiki – headings suggestion »
I came across wikipedia’s protocol for creating section headings. They suggest reserving the single-equal sign heading designation (
Comments (0)=Cheese=) for the page title, and beginning the section headings with double equal signs (==Stinky==) and so on (===Moldy===). It not only looks nice to have the page title larger than the section headings (as the formatting is currently designed), but the number of equals signs also translates to the corresponding level of html heading tags, which should help search engines determine the topic of the page. -
New Orleans Public Schools »
I added some information on the Orleans Parish public schools to the wiki last week – mostly registration information, and lists of schools that have opened under the various boards the system has been broken up into. I’d like to include more about the charter systems and how they work, and I’m very interested in experiences people have had with post-K public education as well. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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New Orleans Public Schools 2006-2007 »
I found lists of all the Orleans Parish public schools open for the 2006-2007 school year, and added them to the Think New Orleans wiki. It was quite a lesson in wiki editing, particularly creating tables.
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