Levees Not War

A very merry Christmas / And a happy new year / Let’s hope it’s a good one / Without any fear —John Lennon, Yoko Ono, “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”

Positive Wishes, Sincere Resolutions

We’ll see if we still feel so new and happy and resolved when the champagne wears off, but while the new year buzz is on we want to wish all our readers (past, present, and future) good health and a little more security and prosperity, and a little less stress. But, because security, prosperity, and freedom from stress are not the hallmarks of our time, we wish you at least the strength to endure the hard parts and greater enjoyment and appreciation of the good times. We knew 2009 was not going to be easy (see our prognostications here) but did not anticipate quite how nasty it could get. It may get worse yet. In that case, we’ll need good cheer, confidence, and plenty of activism to keep us warm and in the frame of mind that can handle adversity.

As for our resolutions: We resolve to work harder and smarter to keep our readers informed about matters of infrastructure and environment—especially concerning New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Gulf Coast—and about war and peace. We’ll keep the pressure on elected officials in Louisiana and in Washington to take better care of the people and the land, to spend less on war and private contractors and more on flood protection, infrastructure, health care, education, jobs programs, and environmental protection.

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And Hoping for a More Prosperous New Year for All

“The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove, from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there. . . . Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreathes of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. . . . there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see, who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn. . . . Its dark brown curls were long and free: free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.” —Charles Dickens, “The Second of the Three Spirits,” A Christmas Carol (1843)

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Dickens is a hard act to follow, so we’ll be brief. For the holiday season and in the new year to come we wish you and your families and friends good cheer, good health, and prosperity. We wish for the “living green” that animates the spirit of Christmas Present, and for the peace symbolized by his rusted, empty scabbard. Not war, not greed, but abundance, fertility, and kindness to all, including the earth that gives us life.

We also send a special prayer for the security and safe return of U.S. military personnel stationed far from home, and for the many homeless and jobless here and abroad: May the new year treat you better, and may you have strength and good (better) fortune in equal measure.

Previous years’ Christmas and New Year’s wishes can be found here and here—these wishes we still pray for, and continue to work for.

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A word about our previous post, “Winter of Our Discontent.” We certainly didn’t want to bring anyone down—especially at a time of year when everyone seeks (and deserves) “comfort and joy,” solace and good cheer—but it’s our view that happiness is best attained by identifying what is making us sad. Then the remedy begins. And so, comfort, good cheer, and joy to all.

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Will you pardon us while we take a break from being all-serious all the time?

This weekend, Sept. 11-13, The City That Care Forgot hosts the first annual New Orleans Burlesque Festival, which we hope will be the first of many to come. Featuring Foxy Flambeaux, Praline Dupree, and, yes, Dominic Moncada (“Bustout Burlesque’s eye-candy for the ladies”).

In the Festival’s own words (we couldn’t say it better):

The New Orleans Burlesque Festival (Sept. 11-13, 2009) is the first burlesque festival devoted to classic and traditional burlesque. The festival will pair glamorous and talented striptease dancers with live traditional jazz music, the way it was done in nightclubs during the glory days of burlesque. We’ll assemble some of the best eye-popping burlesque dancers in the world to perform over three nights in sultry New Orleans. Comic emcees, singers, and variety acts flesh out the shows to provide the most entertaining and classiest risqué showcases you’ll ever see. Fun and educational daytime activities for performers and enthusiasts of burlesque are spread over the three days. Celebrate this classic form of adult entertainment that made Bourbon Street famous worldwide!

Yet another reason why New Orleans must be protected by any and all means!

The following letter has been faxed and mailed to every Democratic member of the Senate Finance Committee, beginning with Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the committee chairman. See below the fold for a list of committee members’ phone and fax numbers.

“I mean, people have access to health care in America.

After all, you just go to the emergency room.”

—GEORGE W. BUSH

Dear Senator Baucus:

Please help President Obama reform health care by supporting a strong public option—the best way to expand coverage and control costs. (What we really need is a single-payer system.) Please do not offer any “bipartisan” compromises (don’t drop the public option) to attract Republican support. They only want the Democrats to fail. To hell with ’em. Remember how many Republicans voted for the Stimulus bill? Voters will reward courage on the public’s behalf, but not cautious half-measures. Democrats, stick together.

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Sources indicate that LSU is feeling some pressure and has begun (considering?) a review of the dismissal. Could you please help us get Chancellor Martin to reverse the decision and reinstate Drs. van Heerden and Levitan and restore the LSU Hurricane Center with full funding?

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• Keep Ivor van Heerden • Bring back Marc Levitan • Restore LSU Hurricane Center

The following letter has been faxed to LSU Chancellor Mike Martin, with copies to engineering dean David Constant, vice chancellors Chuck Wilson, Brooks Keel, and Robert Twilley; Governor Bobby Jindal, senators Mary Landrieu and David Vitter; Garret Graves, Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities; and R. King Milling, Chairman, America’s Wetland Foundation.

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Photo of Ivor van Heerden by The New York Times.

This is definitely one for the Fresh Hell file: Just before the Easter weekend LSU notified Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center, that it would not renew his contract (he is not tenured) and he will be out of a job by May 2010. The university is not saying why—not to him, and not to the public. The firing comes after the university has imposed limits on his contacts with the media, demoted him, and retracted storm surge modeling responsibilities from his direction, among other limitations. Ubiquitous on CNN and in print after Hurricane Katrina—he is reported to have Anderson Cooper’s cell phone number—van Heerden is well known as a critic of the Army Corps of Engineers’ design of levees and the nation’s general unpreparedness for catastrophic hurricane flooding. He is also the author of the impressive and constructively critical book The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina—The Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist (2006). (See Levees Not War’s interview with van Heerden here.)

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“All work undertaken should be useful—not just for a day, or a year, but useful in the sense that it affords permanent improvement in living conditions or that it creates future new wealth for the Nation.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt, second state of the union address (1935)

“You can start out from Baton Rouge in any direction and pass through town after town which has water facilities or sewer facilities or roads or streets or sidewalks or better public buildings, which it would had not have had but for the Works Progress Administration.”

—WPA administrator Harry L. Hopkins, dedication of addition to
Tiger Stadium, LSU, Nov. 28, 1936 (in Taylor, American-Made, p. 234)

Levees Not War has been recommending a Civilian Conservation Corps for Louisiana coastal restoration for some time now, and here is more encouragement in that direction.

From his first days in office, Franklin Roosevelt worked to establish relief programs to ease the pain of 25% unemployment nationwide, with some 15 million men, or 60 million Americans, having no income whatsoever. But it was not until his third year in office that Roosevelt launched the Works Progress Administration, the famous jobs and public works program that is one of the hallmarks of the New Deal. Other public assistance and jobs programs had come before—FDR’s beloved CCC was created in his first month—but the WPA took relief to a whole new level: practical, rewarding, enduring.

Yesterday we went to the 92nd Street Y–Tribeca to hear Nick Taylor speak about his book American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work (2008). Mr. Taylor began research for the book in 2001, and its publication could hardly be more timely: lucky for the book’s sales and for American readers. American-Made is an engaging account of the Roosevelt administration’s Works Progress Administration (1935–1943), the nationwide jobs and public works program that put 8.5 million Americans back to work (enrollment peaked at about 3.3 million in 1938) in building roads and bridges, tunnels and airports, producing plays and painting murals, serving millions of hot lunches, sewing clothes and repairing toys, and many more useful and entertaining works.

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