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...
Levees Not War
Questions for Coastal Conservation Conversation Panel: Tonight, Aug. 20
Experts to Discuss How to Pay for Massive Coastal Restoration Effort We are raising our hands because we have a few questions for the distinguished panelists at the Coastal Conservation Conversation tonight, Aug. 20, at Loyola University in New Orleans (6:00–8:00...
Join Louisiana’s Most Important Conversation: Aug. 20 at Loyola University
A Coastal Conservation Conversation The Lens, with sponsorship from the Mississippi River Delta Coalition, is hosting a panel discussion—a Coastal Conservation Conversation—on the financing of the $50 billion master plan for coastal restoration at Loyola University,...
Must We? For Now, But for How Long?
A Reluctant, Tentative Endorsement of (More) U.S. Military Action in Iraq “As Commander-in-Chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq. . . . American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there’s...
House Democrats Demand to Know Why GOP Govs Rejected Medicaid Expansion
Show Us Why You’re Keeping Your People Poor and Sick “In order to better understand the basis for your opposition, I request that you provide . . . copies of any state-specific analyses, studies, or reports that you ordered, requested or relied on to inform your...
Louisiana Anthology Interviews Levees Not War
Usually when Levees Not War is involved in an interview, we do the interrogating. But now, we’re happy to report, the tables have been turned: Levees Not War is the subject of an in-depth interview with the editors of the Louisiana Anthology, Bruce R. Magee and...
Wishing America a Happier Birthday
. . . And Many Happy Returns We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights,...
Mississippi’s Runoff and Memories of Freedom Summer
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” —William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun (1950) * On the night of the Mississippi GOP primary runoff between U.S. senator Thad Cochran and state senator Chris McDaniel, PBS aired Freedom Summer, a powerful American Experience...
Obama Sends Troops to Protect U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
ISIS supporters rally in Mosul, Iraq. BBC photo. * White House Considers Special Forces to Advise Iraqis; Smells Like “Early Vietnam” Again “The United States has provided a $14 billion foreign military aid package to Iraq that includes F-16 fighter jets, Apache...
Here Comes the Flood
* National Assessment Finds Climate Change “Has Moved Firmly into the Present” The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States. . . . If greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane continue to escalate at a rapid...
7 Million Cheers for ‘Obamacare’
Public Health, Too, Is ‘National Security’ Congratulation to President Obama, the White House, and the courageous Democrats in Congress who voted for the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the most ambitious expansion of health care for Americans since the passage of...
Dianne Feinstein Calls Out CIA for Spying on Congress
California Senator, Long a CIA Defender, Charges Obstruction of Congressional Oversight Please join us in calling Senator Dianne Feinstein (202-224-3841 or 415-393-0707) to say thanks and, as we said to her staffer, “keep up the courage” for having spoken out...
Happy Mardi Gras, Y’all
* We wish everyone, wherever you be, a happy Mardi Gras. Where we are this morning—not at the Zulu or Rex parades, sorry to say, but in New York where it’s 17 degrees—it’s too cold to quite grasp that today is Mardi Gras, but this is indeed the day. The cold rain in...
John Kerry: Climate Change Is ‘World’s Most Fearsome’ Weapon of Mass Destruction
* “When 97 percent of scientists agree on anything, we need to listen, and we need to respond. . . . And the results of our human activity are clear. If you ranked all the years in recorded history by average temperature, . . . you’d see that all 10 of the hottest...
Pete Seeger, 1919–2014: A Life of “Defiant Optimism”
“Realize that little things lead to bigger things. . . . there’s a wonderful parable in the New Testament: The sower scatters seeds. Some seeds fall in the pathway and get stamped on, and they don’t grow. Some fall on the rocks, and they don’t grow. But some seeds...
An ‘Obamacare’ Success Story
Insurers, Too, Must Be Held Accountable Our friend Stephen in NYC, who has contributed good ideas to this blog before, shares his experience in enrolling with an insurer. Stephen makes the very important point that the news media (including us bloggers) would serve...
Welcoming the New Year 2014
Warm good wishes to all for a healthy and prosperous new year, inwardly and outwardly. We hope your prayers will be answered, especially your prayers for peace, for a stronger, more civil nation, for understanding and cooperation between persons, parties, and nations....
Honoring Mandela
* “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and...
“And Death Shall Have No Dominion”:
A Tribute to President John F. Kennedy
“So Let Us Persevere . . .” “If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our...
GOP Is Not to Be Trusted with Adult Responsibilities
Two-Week Tantrum Epitomizes GOP’s Recovery-Strangling Refusal to Share in Work of Governing And so, after 16 days, after a $24 billion loss to the economy, and just hours before the United States was about to pass through its federal debt limit, with potentially...