Assignment #3

This again, is mandatory assignment, this time discussing "What went wrong" with Katrina. As I have previously discussed, there were many indications that a disaster like this could and would occur. In my previous posts, I have discussed the vulnerability of the city due to it being built below sea level, the weak structure of the levees, and the erosion of the land that has been occurring for many years.

It is not only the geographical vulnerabilities that caused Katrina to be such a devastating natural occurrence, it was also in part due to unresponsive and incompetent government agencies. As the authors of City Adrift state, "Katrina and its devastating aftermath were much more the results of cumulative, incompetent, insensitive act of man than an act of nature."

As City Adrift continues to explain, help and especially FEMA did not come for days after the devastating event which is in complete contradiction to the belief and notion that Americans and the United States are ready all the time, for everything and anything with the best and most competent leaders guiding us through times of trouble. As we learned the hard way, this was by no means reality. We were not prepared, even though there were years and years of warning, so even if we took no precautionary measures to ensure that this would not happen you would think we would have a plan in case it did, but we didn't. This lead to many more deaths and much more destruction than was necessary.

80% of the city was under 20 feet of water and still no help arrived for days. The Superdome which became a 'safe haven' was not safe or clean to be in, let alone live in for days or even weeks like many had to do. New Orleans had lost confidence in its government who ignored the signs of trouble for many years prior to "The Big One." These government agencies that were set up to protect and help us through times of trouble were not and probably are not much more competent than they were before "The Big One." If another Katrina were to strike again today, do you think we would be better prepared and would have less death and destruction? I don't think so.

Finally, a sigh of relief

Finally finals are over and winter break begins!!! To me, this semester has gone by so fast but the last few weeks have been really stressful. Last week I was sick for 5 days and I couldn't just sleep and get better, I had projects for school, finals and work to worry about in addition to my family's annual Christmas party at my house that was last Saturday.

This Christmas party started a few years ago because I really love to cook. I love cooking and trying all different and new types of things, I generally try and not cook things more than two or three times as half the fun of it is trying something new. My family is a pretty quiet family and we rarely have people over. My mom gets stressed when we have an 'event' going on so a few years ago I told her I will worry about all the shopping and cooking and you just worry about inviting the people, and she agreed! I was in my glory. Now I had to go through a few hundred recipes and pick out the top 5 or 6 to make, and of course I could not make anything that I made last year!! All in all it turned out great, but I still had finals to worry about.

At this point in the semester, I am so over school and I cannot focus on studying for finals, the most important part of the semester. Well, I worked my way through it and studied quite a bit and they are over. I only had three finals, but none of them were a piece of cake. I had a final in finance, accounting, and management, and finance and accounting are really not my thing! So we will see, right now I am just glad they are over!!

Good luck on your finals and have a great winter break!!!

Assignment 2

This is another mandatory blog assignment, but this time about the historical, cultural, and geographic characteristics that make New Orleans unique and similar to other cities in addition to historical indicators that could have prepared us for hurricane Katrina. To start off, New Orleans was founded by the French, in particular Jean Baptiste Bienville, in 1718. He built the city in this particular location for a number of reasons. First, this location had the potential to be a major shipping port due to its proximity to the Mississippi River, Bayou St. John and Lake Pontchartrain. In addition to proximity to the bodies of water, New Orleans was build on the highest part of the land, where the Mississippi River left high sediment deposits. Because New Orleans is built on the sediment deposits of the River, most of the city of New Orleans is actually below sea level. This is one of the major differences between New Orleans and most other major cities.

Some of the other characteristics that make New Orleans unique are the history of its residents. Because Louisiana, and New Orleans in particular, were owned by both the French and the Spanish, there are many different cultural influences that are unique to this particular region. Firstly, many of its residents came from France or Spain through either Canada or the Caribbean. Creole was a result to the influences of Spanish and French colonization.

The way in which the black slaves were treated is another major difference between New Orleans, and the North and the South before and after the Civil War. The slaves in the North and South were treated with little respect and interacted very little with the white landowners. However, in New Orleans, backs were able to buy their freedom, which allowed them to live in the same area as the whites. In addition, there would be many times that everybody, regardless of race, would be outside in the street talking like normal neighbors.

Although New Orleans seemd very progressive, and it was, by the time the Civil Rights movement came along, New Orleans was taking steps backwards. Free Blacks were no longer free, and they became increasingly segregated from society. As a result of this segregation, blacks were forced to move to less desirable land, the old bayou which has since become livable due to the implementation of the levee system. Although the levees made the land livable at the time, it was not as permanent as we all believed and learned through hurricane Katrina.

There were a number of indicators throughout history that could have prepared us for Katrina. The Great Hurricane of 1722, as stated by Douglass Brinkley, brought 10 foot storm surges and the town disappeared but was rebuilt in the same location because of all the potential there was for the trading industry. Had Bienville rebuilt in a different location, more inland, Katrina might not have had such a catastrophic outcome. Another indicator was that over time, due to costal erosion the wetland, which served as a buffer, disappeared. “Dredging killed the wetlands, which, in time, would leave Louisianans more vulnerable to hurricanes.” Finally, a 5 part series run in June of 2002 by John McQuaid and mark Schleifstein warned of “high probability of the levees breaking”, and as we now know they were what protected the city from disaster, a disaster that could have been prevented had we learned from history.

Christmas Tree Picking

(First off, let me say that this picture is from quite a few years ago so everybody has changed quite a bit, but its funny to look back on.)
Every year for probably the past 15 years, the '3 families' have gone Christmas Tree picking either the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving. The '3 families' consist of my family and 2 other families that have been friends for the past 19 years, and we all went to play group together and all the way up through high school graduation, we were together.

This year was a little different than in the past, but still great. This year, all of the 'older kids' (there are 6 of us we consider as part of the older kids) had boyfriends or girlfriends, so this means more people in the extended family. So my sister, and friend, and I all brought out boyfriends and girlfriends which was in interesting mix of people. My boyfriend is quite a few years older than I, my friend Ryan's girlfriend is about our age and my sister, who is a 2 years younger than me, brought her boyfriend who is 1 year younger than her. This left us with a wide age range and we must have talked about every topic possible, the conversations were hilarious!! We always have fun when we are together.

Then we had to cut the trees. There is always a competition with this one!! Who picks their tree the first, and who get the most perfect tree. Well, my family never wins the first picked tree. There are four kids and we all want to be the one who picked the tree for the house so its a pretty long process because nobody wants to give in to the other sibling and tell them 'they picked a better tree than you.' Then the fun part, cutting it down. Nobody really likes doing this because you have to lay on the ground under the tree and saw the truck, it sounds easier than it is!! But now that my brother is old enough, we make him do it!

And the last question we always ask each other "Whens the next 3 family get together?!"

So thats about it for our Christmas Tree excursion this year.

Working on Thanksgiving

So much for giving thanks, I had to work. I work on Long Island at Michael's Arts and Crafts store. I have only been working there a little over a month, but so far so good. I am the Front End Supervisor, fancy name for the person who runs around like a chicken with no head. I figured that because I was the 'new girl' that when they were picking the schedule of people to work Thanksgiving I would be the first on their list, so I decided to volunteer instead. I didn't think it would be too bad because my family does not do anything for Thanksgiving and I don't like turkey, but when the day came, there was nothing else I wanted to do more than lay in bed or watch TV.

So you think that if the store was going to be open, it would be open from 9am - 6pm or something like that, but no. the store was open from 5pm - 9pm!! How crazy is that, right at dinner time!! I finally got myself up and ready to go to work and as I am driving I see all the stores with all their lights out and I get even more annoyed. When I get to work there are 3 other people there and 3 more were coming in shortly. At about 4:45, customers start showing up outside and waiting for the store to open. When I saw this I was like 'you have got to be kidding with me, don't these people have families!' After the initial rush of 10 people the store got really quiet and there were probably 15 customers in the next 3 hours. At about 8:15 when I was getting ready to close out all the registers and everybody was getting ready to go home, there was a mad rush of about 50 or so people. As soon as everything was clean and neat, all the customers started showing up an messing it up, just my luck! The day wasn't that bad, but really why were we open. They paid more to the employees, electricity and other expenses then they made and we all know that that just doesn't make sense.

So for next year, please stay home and don't go shopping so that EVERYONE can have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Assignment 1

Although a blog is supposed to be random and you are supposed to write about what you want, this one is different. This post is an assignment and its purpose is to write about blogging and it advantages, disadvantages, citizen journalism, and Yoani Sanchez's blog Generacion Y.

The book Blogging by Jill Walker Rettberg has a very important chapter on citizen journalism. She start off the chapter talking about freedom of the press citing Liebling in 1960 "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." Although we have a 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, as much as we speak and write, true freedom only comes to those who own a press and can express their thoughts and feelings through one. However, blogging has changed this. Although blogging doesn't allow everyone freedom of the press, only those with computers and internet access, it allows many more people than just the printing press alone. Blogging has allowed citizen journalism to come to be which has many advantages as well as disadvantages. In contrast to traditional journalism, that has many regulations and 'check points', blogging and citizen journalism are much more free. Although both citizen journalists and traditional journalists can give first hand reports, tell stories about current events, and filter articles according to interests, they come from very different perspectives. Traditional journalist have to appeal to the masses and cannot have the writers opinion or perspective throughout the article. However, blogging is all about the individuals perspective or their account of particular activities, and can be both advantageous or disadvantageous. The advantages of this is that everyone is able to express their feelings and opinions on certain issues and stories which allows a much broader view of the topic and can give you many different perspectives. On the other had, you have to take what you read with a grain of salt because in the end, it is an individuals perspective and they made not be a credible source.

Through her blog Generacion Y, Yoani Sanchez takes advantage of the resources available to potential citizen journalists. Yoani Sanchez writes first hand, about the political, economic, and cultural aspects of living in Cuba and the restrictions that are placed upon all its citizens. This blog allows the world to see Cuba from an inside perspective which was something that was never allowed or done before blogging. Although there are advantages to getting an inside look at life in Cuba, there are disadvantages. One of the major disadvantages is that the blog is written from a person whose natural rights are oppressed by her own government and therefore she is coming from a biased perspective.

Although there are many advantages and disadvantages to citizen journalism, I believe that the positives outweigh the negatives. The disadvantages, like biased sources, can be overcome by the number of blogs and perspectives out there in the blogosphere. The more sources there are, the more opinions you have and it is easier to find a middle ground between the two extremes. All in all, blogging has changed the world forever, for the better... at least for now.