If you don’t live in or around New Orleans you may have forgotten, but August 29 is the day Hurricane Katrina assaulted the Gulf Coast with Category 3 winds (up to 175 mph) and storm surges of 25 to 28 feet, killing 1,833 and costing some $108 billion in damages, the...
Infrastructure
Cool Digs! NYC’s 2nd Avenue Subway Tunnel in Progress
* Making Tracks on the Line That Time Forgot Talking Points Memo posts some ultra-kool photos of the excavation of the Second Avenue subway tunnel under the East Side of Manhattan that is due to open for business in December 2016—only about a century after the need for an additional East Side subway line was first […]
Gov. Cuomo cites “dramatic change in weather patterns”
Sees Evidence of Climate Change, Need for Upgraded Infrastructure In his 11:30 a.m. briefing the day after Hurricane Sandy, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo made a clear reference to climate change, or global warming, about 30 minutes into his remarks: “Anyone who thinks...
Isaac Aims at Mouth of Mississippi, Greater New Orleans
* On exactly the seven-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (Aug. 29), Tropical Storm Isaac is heading toward the mouth of the Mississippi River, likely to make landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, and possibly as a Category 2, with wind speeds up to about 100 m.p.h....
Framing the Case for Infrastructure Investment, Taxing the Rich
Attn.: Pro-Infrastructure Activists and Democratic Strategists: In a Feb. 4 letter to the editor of the New York Times, Rick Stone of Madison, Wisc., makes a point that more of us should heed: If the wealthy knew with certainty that their increased taxes would make...
“Pass This Jobs Bill”
* “I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away. It’s called the American Jobs Act. There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and...
Go Big, Obama: Give Us a 10-Year Jobs Plan
* As Long as They’re Calling You a Socialist, Go All the Way What does “Labor Day” mean to the 15+ million unemployed? Below is our Happy Labor Day card to President Obama in advance of his address to the nation Thursday, Sept. 8, about proposals for alleviating the...
Republicans Secretly (Seriously) Like the Stimulus
Begin here, President Obama: Create jobs by approving all G.O.P. requests for stimulus funds. Here’s the best new idea we’ve heard in a long time (h/t to Rachel Maddow): When HuffPo’s Sam Stein reported that “Michele Bachmann Repeatedly Sought Stimulus, EPA, Other...
New Orleans Is Most Likely Safe from River Flooding
* There’s a certain trepidation in writing that headline, but . . . Despite over $2 billion in damages, possibly to reach $4 billion from the Mississippi River Flood of 2011, including dramatic flooding upriver around Cairo, Memphis, and Vicksburg—and despite scary...
Mad About Trains—High-Speed Trains
All Aboard, America! httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R57ZwTquraE&feature=related * Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell) and Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) have cut a Mad Men–style web commercial with U.S. PIRG and Funny or Die to show that high-speed trains are cool....
Public Works in a Time of Job-Killing Scrooges
[ A modified version of this piece appears at New Deal 2.0, a project of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. ] Last week we went to a panel discussion on public works and infrastructure at the Museum of the City of New York: “Roads to Nowhere: Public...
A Failure to Communicate—Not a Failure to Govern
[ cross-posted at Daily Kos ] Not Good (at All), But Could Have Been Worse A party that governs well but communicates poorly was set back by a party that obstructs well but is more interested in holding power than in governing. What could have been a hideous wipeout...
When Harry Met a Cover-Up:
Shearer Talks about “The Big Uneasy”
* [ cross-posted at Daily Kos ] We sat down recently with Harry Shearer—that is, we sat down and e-mailed him some questions, and he sat down and wrote some thoughtful replies—to talk about his new film The Big Uneasy, which tells the real story of why New Orleans...
Is Katrina More Significant Than September 11?
Thoughts on Two American Traumas [ Cross-posted at Daily Kos. ] Between 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, which do you think gets most attention, and why? What if the national focus on 9/11 is exaggerated and the nation should focus instead on 8/29—Hurricane Katrina—as the...
Launching Midterm Campaign, Obama Mocks Republican Recklessness
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klO3pM_7YHo&feature=related * “We are united. We are strong. That’s why they call them unions.” President Obama was in full campaign mode as he rallied a lively Labor Day crowd of some 5,000 supporters at Milwaukee’s LaborFest on...
Rising Tide 5 Is Aug. 28 in New Orleans: Register Today
A Conference on the Future of New Orleans The Rising Tide Conference is an annual gathering for all who wish to learn more and do more to assist New Orleans’ recovery. It’s for everyone who loves New Orleans and is working to bring a better future to all its...
Notes for Tonight’s Oval Office Script
Very briefly, what we’re hoping to hear in the president’s address is a strong commitment to progressive energy legislation—the best of the Kerry-Lieberman and Waxman-Markey bills currently in Congress. (Here are some good, sensible specifics proposed by the Center...
After “Epic Foolishness,” Time to Wake a Sleeping (Green) Giant
Columnist Bob Herbert of the New York Times, a stalwart advocate for reinforced infrastructure and an eloquent defender of the unemployed, of over-stressed and under-supplied soldiers, and other victims of neglect, is usually moderate in temperament as he shows...
Campaign to Save Ivor van Heerden’s Post at LSU
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Bd6vgtjBQ Click this video to see testimonies to the critical work of Ivor van Heerden by such experts and friends as John Barry, Dr. Marc Levitan, Harry Shearer, Sandy Rosenthal, Mtangulizi Sanyika, Jed Horne, and Dr. Oliver Houck....
“Kill the Bill” vs. “Stop the War”: A Tale of Two Protests
[cross-posted at Daily Kos] Has anyone besides us found it kind of odd that there’s been so much “fire and brimstone” about the health care reform bill compared to Bush’s Iraq War? The first thing we’ll say about the violence and threats following Congress’s passage...