Travelogue: Gazette Story on Trip to Rwanda

Katsey Long, one of the therapists of our team, prepares to attend the Healing Mass where 5,000 people showed up.  Some people walked 15 miles to get the Mass, which lasted 4.5 hours.

I went to Rwanda in November to accompany my pastor, Fr. Ken Schmidt, and his parish associate, Sharon Froom, a therapist, as they gave trauma recovery workshops to 123 priests and human service professionals who are counseling people who survived the genocide of 1994.  One million people were killed during the 100 days that the genocide lasted and 100 percent of country is traumatized by this event.  

We stayed in Cyangugu, Rwanda, which is located in the southwestern part of the country.

Here is a link to a story I published in my home newspaper, the Kalamazoo Gazette on Saturday, December 11.

During the trip I kept a daily blog of our activities and you can see it on Trauma Recovery Associates in Rwanda.



I'm currently writing more articles and will post them on this blog as they are published.

Travelogue: Into Africa

I will be traveling to Rwanda and Kenya October 27 through November 16 with my pastor, Father Ken Schmidt, and his associate Sharon Froom, a licensed therapist.  They have developed a worldwide reputation for their work in trauma recovery and were invited by the Rwandan Catholic Church to provide workshops for priests, educators, and health care workers who work with survivors of the 1994 genocide.

My role on this trip is to document their work.  This will be my first trip to Africa and my first gig as a "foreign correspondent."  I am keeping a separate blog called:  Trauma Recovery Associates in Rwanda, taking photos and videos, and writing stories that will be published subsequent to our trip.


Wish us a bon voyage.  We leave for our two-day journey to Africa on Wednesday.

Travelogue: Passenger Trains--Our Hope for a More Sustainable Future

President Obama's proposal to spend $50 billion on transportation infrastructure—including 4,000 miles of rail lines—couldn't be a better expenditure of our federal tax dollars.

After spending two days on the Empire Builder, the long-haul Amtrak line from Chicago to Seattle/Portland, I quickly realized that our investment in trains should be readily and heartily embraced.  And, if more Americans were to take such trips, I’m sure they, too, would choose trains as an alternative mode of travel.

Amtrak staff was courteous and responsive to passengers, a bit quirky as train people can be, but absolutely delightful while we all traveled the miles and hours together across the country. Riding the train, especially on an overnight, was romantic and adventurous and we kept to our schedule despite the numerous times we had to yield to freight trains.

Actually, it’s a miracle that Amtrak has lasted these past 40 years since President Richard Nixon deliberately designed it for failure.  Different administrations—both Democratic and Republican—have either ignored passenger rail or, like President George W. Bush, actively sought to scuttle it.

James McCommons, author of Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service (2009) tells the story about Amtrak and America’s relationship with trains along with some great travelogues of his year-long train trips around the country.

He points out that most legislators who vote on appropriations for passenger trains have never ridden a train, which severely works against Amtrak. Others have been adamant that Amtrak make a profit.

Truth is, there is no public transportation system in the world that earns a profit.

What is clear is that train networks serve as a means to an end, namely, they contribute to an area’s economic development, an idea that is capturing the attention of more and more mayors across the country, especially in this weak economy.

Actually, highways and airports are not money-makers either and the federal government subsidizes them to the tune of $180 billion per year. Amtrak only gets $1 billion. Unfortunately, many Americans don’t realize that a transportation network is one of the benefits of their taxes.

The reason that Amtrak has been short-sheeted is that passenger rail has simply not been a government priority.

After 100 years of moving people within our cities and around the country, trains lost favor because people were sick of the rapacious and corrupt conduct of the railroad corporations. The vehicles were dirty and staff was rude or mean. Ridership had been steadily declining since 1920. After World War II, the nation made a dramatic switch to invest in highways because our roads were poor and lacked connectivity and, well, people liked driving their cars. It didn’t help that the automobile, oil and tire companies conspired—or at least lobbied—against the public transportation system for their own interests as depicted in the 1996 PBS film, “Taken for a Ride” and its 2008 Part II version. 

Promoted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 required citizens to finance the Interstates by paying 15 to 20 percent of the price of a gallon of gas. The 46,876-mile Interstate system took 35 years to complete and cost $128.9 billion.  The feds paid 90 percent of the cost or about $114 billion—$425 billion in 2006 dollars— even though the Interstates were under the control of the states.  Governors and mayors signed onto this massive public works plan without hesitation because they saw it as an economic development tool for their cities. They would be proved wrong within a couple decades.

As more and more people needed and bought cars, they found themselves stuck in more traffic jams and having to contend with endless road repair. Operating an automobile amounted to $6,000 to $7,000 per year (outside its purchase) and the accident and death rates related to cars—at least 40,000 deaths per year—were overwhelming.

Building the Interstates in the cities also drastically changed urban life, something Eisenhower never intended and experts never foresaw. Neighborhoods were torn up to make way for the highways. Social stratification and racial discrimination intensified as middle class white people migrated to the suburbs and left poor people and minority groups behind in the cities. Downtowns that were designed for pedestrians became congested places and the influx of cars made them frustrating to navigate. Old buildings were demolished to create surface parking, which then created gaping, ugly holes in the cityscape.  People felt unsafe and increasingly reluctant to go downtown. Retail moved out to the suburbs and the companies eventually followed. Of course, all of this out-migration ended up depleting the tax base and making ghost towns out of our once vibrant and prosperous downtowns.

By the late 1990s transportation engineers and analysts began questioning the Interstate’s “externalities” as they costed out pollution, energy waste, land disruption, accidents, time wasted in traffic jams.  They also learned that spending hundreds of millions of dollars to add highway lanes and interchanges didn’t relieve congestion.

The airlines tried to make up for their operational costs with reduced legroom, poorer air quality and overcrowding. Greater demand for air travel also necessitated building or expanding airports, which all takes up a lot of tax dollars.

With the 1990s came new attitudes toward cities and toward the environment. Young people and empty nesters found cities a “hip” place to live and began moving back. They reduced their car usage and demanded more public transportation options. People started a movement to restore historic buildings and revitalize their downtowns.

Meanwhile, rail advocates were keeping Amtrak alive, albeit by a thread. Among them was Gil Carmichael, a former highway lobbyist, owner of five car dealerships and an airport charter service. He later founded the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver where he advocates for what he calls Interstate II.

Interstate II involves double- or triple-tracking 20,000 to 30,000 miles of mainline freight railroads, establishing corridors for high-speed trains and eventually electrifying the trains to replace diesel engines. Carmichael estimates this could all be done in 20 years for two cents on the motor fuel tax.

“We have this incredible railroad network that goes out all over this land from city center to city center. That's what is so amazing. It's already there,” said Carmichael (in McCommons).

Another idea train advocates promote is the re-establishment of a combined freight and passenger rail system through private-public partnerships that work with state transportation departments.  Dedicated passenger lines have a multiplier effect that can relieve traffic congestion, reduce freight bottlenecks, diminish flight delays, reduce this country's carbon footprint and accommodate people without cars or the means or desire to fly.

When Amtrak was created, politicians, lobbyists and fiscal conservatives really wanted to deep-six passenger rail altogether within two years. It was only through political wrangling and arm-twisting that train advocates were able to save passenger rail by separating it from freight and calling it Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. That did not mean, however, that it would be efficient, well-funded or make a profit despite Nixon’s caveat that the new railroad be off the government dole as soon as possible.

The United States has never had a vision for an integrated railroad network nor has it adequately funded one, says John Gibson, vice president of Operations Research and Planning at CSX (quoted in McCommons).  Instead, passenger rail has been a hit and miss enterprise as Amtrak has tried to put its trains on networks owned and managed by the freight companies.

Could there be a renaissance in trains? Yes, says McCommons, because as the nation’s population increases, as more people decide to lead urban lives and as cities increase in density, it makes sense to use rail—especially with energy costs expected to climb.

“In terms of efficiency—fuel savings, lower carbon outputs, smaller footprint on the landscape—the advantage is really rail,” said Armando Carbonell of the Lincoln institute of Land Policy in Cambridge (quoted in McCommons). “It has been significantly underinvested in and disadvantaged against the other modes. We once had good train service in this country. We need to recover that capacity.”

The Obama administration clearly sees the possibilities of rail and so it gave Amtrak $8 billion in the stimulus package and another $1.3 billion for car rehabilitation and infrastructure repair on the Northeast Corridor. Vice President Joe Biden, a well-known train buff and consistent passenger during his senatorial days, obviously had a lot to do with this boost for Amtrak. 

This is all a good start but we still have a long way to go.

So, ride the train if you haven’t already, and encourage others to ride also, including your congressional representatives. It's a great way to get this country back on track!

Travelogue: Detroit Tigers Baseball with the Portage Senior Center

Four of my neighbors (Anita Lawson with Dick, Dean and Sarah Hauck) and I joined the members of the Portage Senior Center fora Tiger baseball game against the Chicago White Sox. to watch pitcher Rick "the Kid" Porcello, 21, achieve his fourth win in a row. The right-hander (9-11) gave up three runs, four hits and no walks in eight innings Thursday at Commerica Park in Downtown Detroit. He threw 105 pitches, 67 for strikes. In his four-game winning streak, he has a 2.48 ERA over 29 innings and has allowed 15 hits.

The game was fun, especially since the Tigers won. But what was really stunning was the Center's excellent organization of the trip by Trudy and Roger, our guide/escorts. We stopped at McDonald's in Jackson for a breakfast break halfway to Detroit and then at Culver's on the way home we had dinner, a first time for me. They gave us a seek-and-find puzzle on major league home run hitters--with a prize, of course--and then had us give the hitters' first names. Trudy also told baseball jokes, which were pretty corny but turned out to be funny because of the way she told them. Trudy and Roger really know how to make the time pass on a bus trip!

I was equally impressed with the people on the trip. It's a rare experience these days to be a part of a group where members are respectful of each other by boarding the bus on time, friendly, and while on the bus, knew how to talk in person-to-person tones sans electronic noise.

We arrived at the ballpark about an hour before the game was to start so we got our complimentary hot dog and soft drink and had our lunch. We also had time to ride the Tiger carousel. It's been a long time since I've done that--and we it was fun!

Although I never want to be labeled a senior citizen--no matter what my age--I wouldn't hesitate for a minute to join a trip with the Portage Senior Citizens!

Travelogue: How I Became a “Rail Fan”

This article appeared in the Huffington Post on Monday, November 28, 2011

The first time I ever took a train was with the girl scouts when our leaders, Mrs. Belko and Mrs. Rieburger, planned a Saturday day trip to the Holland Tulip Festival. About 15 young girls with a couple mother-sponsors rode the rails from Detroit to Grand Rapids and then took a bus to Holland.

This was a memorable trip for me, mostly for its long distance from home, the back and forth swaying of the train that made walking difficult, the toilets that emptied their contents onto the track, and the conical paper cups that held water from the push-button dispenser.

Today, trains have more significance for me than the curiosities of my youth. They are a "green" way to travel and a key component of our public transportation system. They avoid the hassles of freeway driving and the expense of auto parking or the long waits and delays of the airport. And, they are just plain fun to ride.

After discovering the Empire Builder, the long-haul line from Chicago to Seattle/Portland, I decided the adventure of “eating up” all those miles was just too good to miss. Fortunately, a friend of mine who lives in western Montana provided me with the perfect excuse to go cross-country by train. And, after spending 31 hours and one night, I quickly realized I had a lot more reasons to enjoy this wonderful form of travel.

As a writer, I need time and space to allow ideas to flow more easily through me. Starring out the window of a train that rocks back and forth as it moves forward provides both the rhythm and the environment for solitude. The low-toned rumble of metal on metal is more soothing than the high-pitched muscle of jet engines or the droning of an auto motor. I can scribble down notes for an article I'm working on, read, reflect on my encounters with fellow passengers or just be alone in my thoughts. I can also be inspired by the passing landscape, small towns, big cities and the diversity of people that trains seem to attract like the 90-year-old woman traveling alone to see her sister; the legions of Amish who picked up the train at different stops to attend a family funeral; the young man with no legs who ordered lunch in the snack car; the cowboy with his hat, jeans and boots who sat by himself all the way from Montana to Milwaukee; and the big, hulking Native American who kissed his wife for 30 to 40 minutes before he boarded.

In truth, trains are one of the last public spaces left in our society and they also demand a different kind of behavior than we are accustomed in today's fast-paced, impersonal, high-security, privatized society. You can interact with other passengers you don't know, feel safe with them, and be with people who are largely respectful toward their fellow travelers. On a long haul train people seem to want—and conductors seem to care about ensuring—an environment that is quiet and absent the omnipresent cacophony of electronic devices, boisterous talking, and rowdiness. Of course, the Lounge Car is available for those who prefer more spirited interaction.

As with any public space, trains beckon you to explore them in a number of ways. You can walk around to stretch your legs or use the restroom. You can go to the Lounge Car to play cards, read, observe the scenery or get a snack. You can also go to the Dining Car for a delicious meal at a table complete with a tablecloth, cloth napkins, real silverware and friendly servers. Because space is limited, the maitre d’uses every seat, so if you are traveling alone or in a group with less than four, you will sit with other travelers.

Wearing some kind of identifying mark like a Chicago Cubs cap, a Lady Gaga t-shirt, or a place-oriented jacket as I did, provides you with a handy conversation starter. Several young people stopped me to ask if I knew their friends when they saw my Kalamazoo College jacket.

Train personnel are generally more interactive than those you find on airplanes. And on a long haul line, they're with you for the entire trip, so you get to know them because you both are on train time where the time boundaries are much broader and the pace more leisurely. Isn’t that what life should be about anyway?

All of these opportunities for encounters enhance your travel experience because they are energizing and engaging compared to other more hurried, confined, and oppressive forms of travel where you want to get out of the vehicle as soon as you can.

Traveling in a long haul train also allows you to feel the expanse of the country. An overnight ride is exciting to fathom when you realize that you go to sleep in one place and wake up hundreds of miles away in another. Air travel, of course, provides a similar experience except that your focus is on the hours you must sit in your cramped little seat. Flying, though fast, is more surreal because you cannot see the space you traverse since you are at least a mile high over the ground with much of it blocked by cloud cover.

Car travel allows you to traverse the miles at your own pace and convenience, but you must be vigilant to the road and, like air travel, you are confined to a small space. And although you travel on public roads, you tend to treat your car more like private space.

My ride to Whitefish, Montana (what a funky name for a town!) covered 1620 miles of the northern-most parts of the United States. I crossed the mighty Mississippi River and saw the “spacious skies” and “amber waves of grain” gradually give way to the “purple mountain majesties.” I felt both pride and blessedness in my country as we passed by industrious large cities, quaint small towns, colorful farms, and magnificent landscapes of forests, rivers and plains that have each created unique cultures and lifestyles sensitive to place. One surprising effect of this long ride was that I came out of it feeling as though I had just witnessed Walt Whitman's America.

Sleeping comfortably on a train can be a challenge but it's certainly not as bad as trying to sleep in an airplane. If you travel by coach, you might be lucky enough to have two seats to yourself, which then provides you with a couple options: you can curl up across the seats or you can sit up and use the foot rest or leg rest. I found it comfortable to stretch my small body diagonally across two seats with my head wedged in my traveler's pillow at the window and my feet on the leg rest of the other seat. Since you are primarily traveling through the countryside, there is virtually no light coming in from outside. Meanwhile, the low blue ceiling lights in the aisle help guide your way should you need to get up during the night. People seem to quiet down around ten and the motion of the train soon rocks you to sleep. I got eight hours each night while on the train, more than I usually get at home, and felt refreshed in the morning as the sun rose on the Dakota prairie.

If you want to sleep on a bed or have more privacy, you can purchase a roomette or a first class cabin. This more costly option also includes your dining car meals, a wine tasting party at 3 p.m. and certain privileges at train stations. It is a means of travel reminiscent of the days when only the wealthy could afford such luxury on trains.

The summer-long Rails to Trails Program, a special collaboration between Amtrak and the National Park Service, also offers travelers the opportunity to learn more about the countryside and its historical and geographical significance from volunteers who enthusiastically research and prepare scripts of useful information about the places you are seeing out your window. You will find them in the Lounge Car.

As a result of my trip on the Empire Builder, I have come to believe that trains facilitate your ability to be a “real traveler” because you can meet a variety of people, learn about their lives, discuss their ideas, and really see the country. This trip has inspired me to take more long haul train journeys with the goal of seeing the entire country by rail as long as I have the time and money to do so. Trains take a little longer than other modes of transportation but the experience they provide enriches you even before you arrive at your destination. Go Amtrak!

Hurricane Katrina: The Spirit of New Orleans

No other story about New Orleans matches the efforts of citizens who took the initiative to clean up the mess left by the Hurricane Katrina and begin rebuilding their city. Likewise, people’s determination to return home turned out to be the driving force toward recovery—even amid heartache, suffering, psychological trauma and incredible inconvenience.

But this wasn’t easy. Within a month after Hurricane Katrina tore through the Gulf coast, questions arose in other parts of the country about whether New Orleans could or should endure.

Known as the “Great Footprint Debate,” three options emerged regarding the fate of the flooded city: (1) abandon everything; (2) maintain everything in favor of the social and economic assets of the city despite its geological truths; (3) concede the risks and rebuild the city on higher ground.

“Topography does matter,” said Richard Campanella, associate director of Tulane University's Center for Bioenvironmental Research and a research professor with Tulane's Department of Earth and Environmental Science. He pointed out that sea levels have increased by four inches during the 20th century and predicted that in another 100 years they will rise another 41 inches. He spoke recently at the annual American Planners Association conference.

But, five years after Katrina, New Orleans and its people have endured. The question now is: how did they do it?

Tom Piazza wrote a wonderful, intimate book shortly after Katrina titled Why New Orleans Matters in an attempt to answer this question.

The spirit of New Orleans, he suggests, arises from people’s view of mortality and their utter connection to the place where they live. What it boils down to is a philosophy that espouses gratitude for another day since no one knows what tomorrow may bring. It is not a fatalistic or Pollyanna view of life but rather one that is present-oriented and open to all possibilities, something very difficult for most Americans to understand because of our rushed, busy and controlled lives.

This Weltanschauung has its roots in Caribbean and African nature religions that believe creation generously gives of its abundance so that human beings can respond to the Creator with expressions of thanks and by extending their generosity to others in imitation of Nature. Such a view is different from the New Englander’s Calvinism of judgment and renunciation or the fundamentalist’s notions that God selects a chosen few and then rids the world of sinners. Orleanians consciously give thanks for a new day, a deep friendship, a neighborhood picnic, a spontaneous parade or just simply being alive.

Nothing illustrates this view better than the famous jazz funeral. As strange as it may seem, there is a profound soulfulness that begins the procession in a slow, solemn dirge as the grieving family leaves the church and heads to the cemetery. “Second liners” join in and eventually the music turns to lively jazz with dancing and strutting.

This is not silliness, says Piazza, but rather “the triumph over the pain, the recognition of life's brevity.” And the message is that everyone attending the funeral has escaped death today so let’s celebrate that.

Katrina left Orleanians with incredible hardships that make daily living extremely stressful, especially for the poor. There isn’t enough public transportation, and neighborhood stores are sometimes two and three miles away. Roads are still in disrepair and the recognizable landscape has been drastically altered as commercial and residential buildings were destroyed and removed. Many shopping centers remain vacant. This is all emotionally and psychologically draining and disorienting; depression and suicide rates have jumped since Katrina. So when a store re-opens, people indulge in a great celebration amid their grief, anger, joy, worry and hope, according to city officials.

“Even in its most desperate precincts [New Orleans] is a city of deep and powerful humanity, of endurance, resilience, humor and affirmation in the face of adversity,” says Piazza.


The HBO series, “Treme,” which takes place in the aftermath of Katrina in the famous neighborhood of the same name, also illustrates this soulfulness. In the first episode people are feeling sad, tired and devastated, so they take up their musical instruments and start a parade. Such a reaction is not an escape or a reluctance to face grim realities. Rather, it’s a spiritual response that comes out of the Black gospel tradition of “No cross, no crown.” In other words, you can’t appreciate the good if you don’t know the bad. So you are obliged to accept your burden, finiteness, and suffering and then connect to the people around you. Actually, this is one major reason why neighborhoods have been so strong in New Orleans and why so many people have strived to return home.

Vera Triplett, a professor of counseling at Our Lady of Holy Cross College, who is a “proud resident of the Gentilly Neighborhood responded to the footprint debate with comparisons to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco and 9/11 in New York City:

“I’ve never heard anyone ask whether their city would come back,” she said. “I take that as an insult….This is my home. I have every right to come back to it. And I’ll come back no matter how many times it floods.”

But Triplett isn’t just talk. She is one of many local individuals from a number of different projects that stepped forward to lead in the recovery of her neighborhood. After starting the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association, which aims to give residents a voice in the rebuilding their neighborhoods, she later represented Gentilly in the Rebuilding New Orleans Initiative funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The initiative developed the United New Orleans Plan (UNOP), which was accepted by the city council and adopted as the city’s master plan in 2007.

UNOP addresses specific actions necessary to facilitate the recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans through input from local citizens instead of just the technicians, politicians and wealthy landowners.

“People came in with questions and concerns,” said Triplett in an interview with American City magazine on the UNOP process. “That’s when I first began to see some of the pain and distress, frustration and sheer exhaustion. Not a lot of people understood what the people of New Orleans were going through….We provided practical things like public transportation, childcare and two full meals….The other integral thing was that there were entertainment breaks. Little personal dance breaks to make people feel better.”

Many other good things have occurred over the past five years, which have made Orleanians proud and outsiders amazed, according to city officials. Various independent political entities (the city, parishes, neighborhoods and the state) are now working together toward recovery. The city's newspaper has improved its coverage and transparency. Unemployment is only five to six percent due to the vast amount of rebuilding and thanks to the billions of federal dollars that have come in for roads, housing and other reconstruction projects—although much more is needed.

City Park, a 1300-acre urban park, the seventh largest in the country and bigger than New York's Central Park suffered $43 million worth of damage. Katrina took down 1,000 trees including many live oaks. Piles of debris, some measuring 30 to 40 feet high, were collected in the park and later hauled away. The park's executive director, Bob Beck, almost single-handedly raised millions of dollars to rebuild the park and has succeeded in bringing much of it back to its former splendor.

Piazza does not shirk from acknowledging New Orleans’ many problems, many of which were there before Katrina: crime, corruption, bad schools, extreme poverty, racism and the stark mismanagement of the city as well as the threat of violent weather and the loss of wetlands. Things are definitely turning around for the city although city planners admit that recovery will probably take 20 years. Then came the oil spill and its threat to fishing, tourism and the loss of wildlife in the Gulf and the bayous.

Clearly, a loss of New Orleans would be a tragedy so I pray that Orleanians—and people in the entire Gulf region—get through this latest dreadful crisis. I suspect they’ll do it through deliberate citizen action and participation and in the spirit of New Orleans that defiantly declares: “I’m here, I’m still alive and I’m willing to take whatever comes.” What a model of recovery from disaster for all Americans!

Hurricane Katrina: How Music Helped Save New Orleans

No other American city values music the way New Orleans does. Heck, one of its airports is named after legendary musician Louis Armstrong!

Music is not something that is tangible, linear or measurable, said Nick Spitzer, producer and host of the National Public Radio show “American Routes,” but it is one of the things people value.

Even in the midst of their own gloom over Hurricane Katrina’s destruction where homes and neighborhoods were crushed and where there was little infrastructure and not much support from state or federal government, music helped many evacuees rebuild their lives with a strong hope in the future and a deep connection to a place they loved.

“That's what life's about,” said Spitzer, “creating space for creativity.”

Spitzer and several jazz musicians spoke at the annual conference of the American Planning Association held recently in New Orleans where many sessions discussed the recovery effort after Hurricane Katrina.

Before the storm hit, Benny "Big Benny" Pete, tuba player and leader of the Hot 8 Brass Band, headed to Atlanta with his family. Only two of his band members were there while the rest were scattered all over the country. One day he received a phone call to reunite the band in Baton Rouge to perform for the evacuees living there. He jumped at the chance—despite the fact that neither he nor any of the band members had their instruments. Students from Louisiana State University and local high schools loaned them their band instruments just to hear a concert.

Pete said that all he cared about was playing music again but he soon realized how important it was for the evacuees who were homesick and traumatized by Katrina to hear their music.

“We found out the power of our music, said Pete, quite surprised. “We didn't understand that before but it was music that pulled us all together. It showed us the value and power of our culture.”

The music Hot 8 performed that day hearkened back to the social aid and pleasure clubs, said Pete, where a well-dressed band led a parade down the street, forming the “first line,” while onlookers joined them to form the “second line” with strutting, jumping and high-stepping underneath their decorated parasols as they blew whistles and waved feathered fans.

These clubs, called benevolent societies, developed in New Orleans during the mid- to late-1800s to help poor African Americans, and later other ethnic groups, defray health care costs, funeral expenses, and other financial hardships. The presence of these societies gradually fostered a sense of community among the people as they provided charitable works and hosted social events. The benevolent societies were also responsible for the “jazz funerals” where bands play somber, processional music from the church to the cemetery. On the way back, the music became more upbeat and joyous as mourners celebrated the deceased’s life with tears and joy.

The evacuees living in Baton Rouge recognized their culture and joined in the “second line,” said Pete. Once they returned to the city to pick up the pieces of their lives, they often held similar parades in order to obtain some relief, even though the familiar stores and landmarks of their streetscape were missing because of the storm.

Irma Thomas, known as the Soul Queen of New Orleans, said that storms have been a part of her life and career over the past 50 years and that she has left New Orleans three times due to hurricanes. Katrina, however, took on new meaning for her.

“Katrina gave us a look at the way we are and how vulnerable we are to weather,” she said. “It also showed us how lax and unconcerned government agencies are.”

When Katrina hit, Ms. Thomas was in Austin, Tex., on a gig. She said she saw the rooftop of her home in water on television.

“You always know where you live,” she said. “You know it.”

She and her husband lost both their home and her club, the Lions Den.

However, the tragedy didn't sink in for her until one night she sang “Back Water Blues,” a song written in the 1930s about a Louisiana storm. When she came to the line: “I went high on a hill and got no place to go,” she lost it in front of her audience.

Ms. Thomas lived in the 9th Ward. Like all evacuees who were dispersed throughout the country, she and her husband had to decide whether or not to return to New Orleans. For two years they stayed in Gonzales, 60 miles upriver, until they were able to return home “where their hearts were.”

Katrina inspired Ms. Thomas' new album, After the Rain, which won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 2007.

“Music orients us to the place and provides the creative spark for ourselves and the whole city,” she said. “Music was all Orleanians had after Katrina.”

In fact, the city lost a lot of its musicians, many of whom lived in the 9th Ward. They either couldn't return home because of finances (many work for cash and don’t have a credit record) or the older ones were on tour in Europe.

Losing many of the city’s musicians created a problem for young people looking to be mentored by them. Most schools had closed and opportunities for kids to join bands and play music were severely reduced. As a result, the first Mardi Gras after Katrina had few high school marching bands playing in the parades.

“We want to let them know that they have a culture,” said Pete. “Without that [music] connection, they are lost. We needed to let them know that they have a rich culture here in New Orleans.”

“Music kept the kids out of trouble,” said Ms. Thomas. “Music teaches them discipline.” If students have bad grades, they aren't allowed to play in the band.

Since Katrina, the Tipitina's Foundation's Instruments a Comin' program has been helping students obtain musical instruments and to learn to play them.

Music has also inspired many musicians to write songs about saving the wetlands in Louisiana, which would have helped protect New Orleans from Katrina by providing buffers between land and sea.

“We're losing wetlands the size of football fields every day,” said Ms. Thomas. “If you lose New Orleans, you've lost America,” she said.

Five-time Grammy winner and singer/songwriter, pianist and guitarist Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr, known as Dr. John also expressed his concern about the wetlands as well as his love for the city.

“Thirty years ago we had a plan to build new wetlands,” he said, “but corruption in the state made the money go elsewhere.”

As a boy growing up in the bayou where people lived with the land, Dr. John learned how to hunt, fish and trap. However, 50 years later most of these wetlands are gone.

He performed his song, “Please Save Our Wetlands” on piano for conference attendees.

Dr. John now lives in New York but he retains the reputation not only as ambassador of New Orleans but as its social critic through his music.

For example, he has often railed against the influence of the oil companies whose 8,000 miles of man-made canals have played a role in Katrina's destruction.

The companies own the politicians who built the canals for “Black Gold,” the title of another song, despite the vulnerability of the coastline, he said.

Murphy Oil storage tanks spilled one million gallons of oil in St. Bernard Parish, one of the worst hit places in the city, due to Katrina's 145 mph landfall winds.

The City That Care Forgot, an album produced in 2007, won Dr. John his fifth Grammy. He said he wrote these songs because he found he couldn't live with himself if he didn't say something.

Seeing all the damage, having friends whose homes were destroyed and going to funerals was a real heart breaker for Dr. John. A post-Katrina function of the New Orleans Jazz Foundation was a great relief for people, he said. They were so glad to be there because it was a diversion from all funerals they had been attending. Now he is trying to save the city's Charity Hospital because “it has personally saved me a bunch of times.”

“Any civilization has health care,” he said as he riled against the hatred and confusion that had come out in the health care debate in Washington.

“It's simple to see what's going on. The insurance companies, chemical companies and pharmaceuticals have everyone locked in and they're making a fortune on people dying. That's not the thing to do. We all have a right to live.”

Dr. John is now working on a song about insurance companies turning their backs on Orleanians and stranding them such that they can't come home again.

“I love New Orleans and south Louisiana. It is a real sacred place.”

Hurricane Katrina: Climate Change Begets Delta Urbanism

The famous canals of The Netherlands are not just unique tourist attractions. They are water control systems that help the Dutch in their battle against the ever-encroaching North Sea. Now this tiny country is now faced with a new, more grave challenge: rising seas caused by climate change.

“Climate change leaves us with no way back,” said Renée Jones-Bos, ambassador of The Netherlands to the United States. “We must rethink our cities and inhabitants because climate change is shattering any notion of having water under our control. We must realize that we can't use any land for any purpose.”

She spoke recently at the annual conference of the American Planning Association (APA) in New Orleans about “Delta Urbanism,” her country’s new concept of water control for cities located on deltas.

Delta urbanism addresses the water landscape as well as flood risk mitigation, urban design, green buildings, green roofs and climate proofing and other technologies that cope with sustainability and resiliency issues.

“The key is sophisticated, integrated water management and sound urban planning,” said Jones-Bos.

She went on to say that because international cooperation and collaboration produce better ideas and solutions for these difficult problems, the Dutch have initiated dialogues with engineers, urban planners and designers, landscape architects, and soil/hydrology experts in several delta cities of Europe and the United States as well as with Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Taipei, Taiwan and Orangestad, Aruba. Participants also swap ideas about taxing residents and occupying new lands for increasing populations that are expected to create the new global problem of accommodating “climate refugees” who must escape land taken over by rising sea levels.

In fact, the Dutch were among the first to come to the rescue of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina’s surge flooded the city and then followed up with a series of meetings called the Dutch Dialogues.

“Thank God for the Dutch,” said Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) in a keynote address to the 5,000 planners at the APA conference. They provided “extraordinary expertise when our government failed to understand what happened here” after Katrina.

The first of the dialogues was held in March 2008 to explore if, where and how Dutch approaches to water management, landscape architecture, flood protection and urban design were relevant to New Orleans as it recovered from Hurricane Katrina.

Dutch Dialogues 2 was held in October 2008 and brought together 60 experts to develop illustrative solutions and design approaches that could make the city more flood-proof, sustainable, resilient and attractive from both urban design and economic perspectives.

The Dialogues have been developed, organized and supported by the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, D.C., Waggonner & Ball Architects in New Orleans, the American Planning Association and the Netherlands Water Partners. Numerous local New Orleans organizations and individuals have supported the Dutch Dialogues with monetary and in-kind support.

Water problems in The Netherlands
With 70 percent of The Netherlands vulnerable to flooding in one of the most densely-populated urban areas of the world, the Dutch have struggled to stay high and dry over the past 1,000 years. After much trial and error, they developed a system of dikes in the 13th century, which proved that it was possible to live below sea level in a country the size of New Jersey.

They continued to have major floods but the 1953 flood was the worst with nearly 1,900 people killed and 50,000 buildings destroyed as a result of a vicious North Sea storm. That’s when the government created the 40-year Delta Works storm protection program, which included the construction of 62 floodgates on a 1.5-mile stretch of North Sea coastline. Levees near the delta city of Rotterdam were replaced with storm surge barriers.

Among the considerations that go into planning their systems are the currents and winds that shape the coastline. In the 19th century, they developed dredging technology to provide a coordinated and interconnected dike and drainage system that influenced the spatial organization of their cities. Dams were built, a traffic network was conceived, and dike belts with safety norms were created. Much of this infrastructure was built underground, so in the 1970s the government decided on another approach of flood control for four reasons.

First, the land is sinking and this makes their soil—and their food supply—vulnerable.

Second, their hydraulic infrastructure threatened the ecological habitat of oysters and lobsters so a new type of dam had to be constructed with an open-and-closed system to handle storm surges. This development marked the beginning of a changed mindset where environmental considerations were built into hydraulic designs.

Third, urban waterfront development has evolved from merely maintaining ports to finding relationships between safe buildings and hydraulic technology.

Fourth, climate change was contributing to higher seas in a country where half of it lies one meter above sea level and one-eighth is below sea level. Since 2008, the Delta Committee is helping the government identify the vulnerabilities of the system and find ways to protect it.

Always on the alert for flood control ideas, Dutch planners also discovered that engineers in Hamburg, Germany, are building elevated street systems and closing ground floors in buildings when floods occur. Today, the Dutch are trying to introduce similar flexibilities into their systems, like building houses on pillars and finding places where flood waters can go and be stored. However, these designs will not be sufficient because it is not known how they will work in extreme storms.

“We are trying to work with Nature instead of fighting against it,” said V.J. (Han) Meyer, professor of urban design at Delft University of Technology. “This has caused us to re-vision how we deal with water in urban areas. It has led us to a new program called Vision 2053.”

Vision 2053 approaches flood defense in new ways. Among the proposals are building earth dunes and beaches in front of the existing coastline instead of constructing higher dikes that can be weakened against the power of sea waves.

The Dutch also want to create more water storage areas and water networks in order to provide a new spatial element that binds cities together and denser neighborhood development. Netherlanders would also keep their water rather than throw it away.

Finally, they have begun a new project called Room for the Rivers that would create more space for river water to go in times of high discharge. Over 40 projects are planned (or in progress) and they will greatly influence urban design and architecture.

Meyer indicated that the Dutch strive for a three-layered approach to flood control: concern over the urban life of the city, infrastructure, and the underground. This approach aims to protect and deal with the environment and it shapes the look and functioning of cities.

The American Experience
It is interesting to note that the Dutch plan for “the big one” to occur in 10,000 years while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed a flood control system for New Orleans to protect against an extraordinarily bad storm occurring only once in 100 years.

Of course, the Netherlands is quite different from New Orleans, said Meyer.

The Rhine River in The Netherlands is a “small creek” compared to the mighty Mississippi, he said, so the Corps’ strategy would be comparable to one storm in 500 years by Dutch standards. Nevertheless, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been working on new strategies and new approaches toward flood control.

One lesson New Orleans has learned is to elevate the houses in low-lying areas, said Richard Campanella, associate director of Tulane University's Center for Bioenvironmental Research and a research professor with Tulane's Department of Earth and Environmental Science. The Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish had floods with depths of 18-20 feet so the “Brad Pitt houses” currently under construction are an example of what can be done to protect these homes.

“It is important that we build a city that doesn't have to evacuate,” he said.

Another lesson under consideration is about making water planning an integral part of other plans—including regional plans—like organizing space efficiently and sustainably, sharing costs among several governmental entities and boosting civic pride.

“I’ve always believed that we needed a water plan for New Orleans,” said David Waggonner of Waggonner & Ball Architects, New Orleans, in an interview with Planning Magazine (Ruth Eckdish Knack, AICP, August/September 2008).

“People think about the riverfront, but no one is thinking about water connections between the lake, and the river,” he said. “What we need is a strategic vision to inform the master plan. Hearing how the Dutch have turned their water resources into attractive assets is a good thing.”

Hurricane Katrina: The Fate of New Orleans Hangs in an Uncomfortable Balance with Mother Nature

Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the havoc Mother Nature can play on a modern city.

It also brought to light the way our concerns about economics can compromise people’s safety when we attempt to control Nature.

Over one million people in the Gulf area were affected by “the storm,” as residents call it, including just about everyone in New Orleans. Ninety percent of this 485,000-person city evacuated as 125,000 homes were severely damaged and 250,000 homes were summarily destroyed.

“The 150 mph winds from the east funneled water into the man-made navigation canals and the Category 5 surge strength made the levees breach starting with the 17th Street Canal of the Industrial Canal,” said Richard Campanella, associate director of Tulane University's Center for Bioenvironmental Research and a research professor with Tulane's Department of Earth and Environmental Science. “Sixteen feet of water poured into an area that was four feet below sea level. That caused a flood of 20 feet in St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward. This area had been developed after Hurricane Betsy [of 1965].”

“There was no electricity and the city was empty, with no sound, no birds and in complete darkness,” said Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) relating her feelings a few days after the storm as she looked over the city from a high bridge. The born and bred Orleanian and former mayor found Katrina's damage to be an unbelievable “out of body experience.”

They both spoke at the annual conference of the American Planning Association (APA) recently, which focused on the effects of Katrina and the recovery effort.

“Topography does matter,” said Campanella, who pointed out that sea level increased by four inches during the 20th century and predicted that in another 100 years they will rise another 41 inches, mostly due to climate change. (The U.S. Global Change Research Program reports that by 2100 global sea level is projected to rise 19 inches along most of the U.S. coastline.)

While the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is usually fingered as the culprit of Katrina flooding, responsibility really rests squarely on the shoulders of all those who believe they can control the Mississippi River and make the land something it is not. Actually, that includes just about everyone: the U.S. Congress that funds water projects, business and industry that demand these projects, and Americans who benefit or depend on the commerce conducted on the river.

The "Big Muddy"
The Mississippi River remains a key influence on life in the Crescent City. It stretches 2,320 miles from Lake Itasca, Minnesota, to the Gulf of Mexico, just 95 river miles south of New Orleans. The “Big Muddy” is the largest river system in North America and it includes all or parts of 31 states from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Appalachian Mountains in the east to the U.S.-Canadian border in the north.

Every spring for thousand of years, the river’s banks have overflowed as million of tons of sand, silt and clay sediments settled and nourished wetlands and formed the delta coastline of southern Louisiana. Traditionally, the river and its distributaries were able to compensate for subsidence with fresh sediment spread in floods and decayed vegetation that turned into soil. That all changed when Congress decided it could tame the river.


Before cities were built, native peoples merely moved their stuff to higher and dryer ground when the floods came, and they continued with their lives, according to John McPhee (1990) in his book, The Control of Nature. In the nineteenth century, Congress funded the building of levees to hold back the floodwaters and several drainage projects in the wetlands as means of preventing disease and encouraging economic development. While this strategy has reaped hefty rewards for the farmers and industrialists who took advantage of the river’s navigational assets, it reveals the folly of the unremitting determination to control Nature with the Army Corps of Engineers at the helm.

The Mississippi River has served as a major navigation route for Native Americans, explorers, and modern commerce. In 1718 the French built a fort on the high ground of a portage route through Lake Pontchartrain and up the St. John Bayou. This fort would become the town of New Orleans. Even back then its soil was soft, the water table high, and the area prone to storms and floods. Nevertheless, the fort provided a strategic position for viewing ships about to enter the mouth of the Mississippi River. It also saved 100 extra miles of travel from the port cities of Biloxi and Mobile, which were both founded in 1682. A few months after the fort was built, tragedy struck and like a harbinger of bad things to come, the settlement flooded.

A series of geopolitical events in the late 18th century also greatly impacted New Orleans, said Campanella. The slave insurrection in Haiti in 1791, the cotton boom of 1793 and the granulation of sugar in 1795 made the city a major port. President Thomas Jefferson recognized the strategic and economic importance of the city at the mouth of the Mississippi River and bought it from Napoleon in 1803. He got half a billion more acres of land (863,072 square miles) stretching across the Great Plains on a good deal known as the Louisiana Purchase.

Steamboats running up and down the Mississippi River through the 1820s transformed New Orleans into a major agricultural center and an immigration port, second only to New York. However, the Erie Canal and the expansion of the railroad system in 1825 reversed the river's dominance as a transportation center. As Americans moved West into the Ohio Valley in the late 1840s and racial strife led to the Civil War in the 1860s, the city experienced further drops in population.

Campanella said that land in 19th century New Orleans was far more resilient than it is today because the whole area was at or above sea level and buffered by healthier wetlands. The first levees were built in 1828, that’s when the trouble started: the river refused to be confined and every once in a while it lashed out with a terrible flood.

In 1850 Congress wanted higher and stronger levees so it passed the Swamp and Overflow Land Act to give states bordering the Mississippi acres of land that they could then sell to help finance levee construction. Much of this land was a swamp, so farmers and plantation owners drained them and then demanded more flood protection.

The Army Corps of Engineers had been stationed in the area since the War of 1812 so it was asked to continue its presence. When Congress created the Mississippi River Commission in 1879, it assign the Corps the job of “prevent[ing] destructive floods.” The Corps took its orders seriously and for the next 125 years it built levees, gates, dams and reservoirs, spillways, floodways, and cutoffs. These efforts minimized the flooding, except in some exceptional years like 1973 and 1980, but the sea waters of the Gulf remained an ever-encroaching threat because of all the disruptions to the natural processes of the river.

Some people predict that in one hundred years, the Plaquemines and Terrebonne Parishes, now the ruined sites of the BP oil spill in the Gulf, will disappear into the sea. In fact, over the past 50 years half of Placquemines Parish has disappeared due to oil and gas pipelines, according to Oliver Houck, professor of environmental law at Tulane University.

Turning Up “the Heat”
The 20th century brought more federalized river control and levee construction as New Orleans became a modern city with a downtown, streetcar networks, electricity, skyscrapers, a municipal water treatment plant and sewage system as well as a world-class drainage system.

In 1950 the U.S. Congress ordered the Corps to maintain the “latitude flow” of the river at 30 percent in perpetuity. While this order makes sense to promote stability of cities and industries that lie between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, known as the “German coast” or the “American Ruhr,” the Mississippi River had other ideas, namely, to change course.

Actually, the Mississippi River changes course at its Gulf outlet once every thousand years. Currently, it has sought to divert more of its flow to the Atchafalaya River, a distributary of the Mississippi and Red Rivers, into the Atchafalaya Basin, the largest swamp in the United States. The Atchafalaya River is approximately 170 miles long and 60 miles west of New Orleans. A change of course would bypass river cities like New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Vicksburg, Natchez.

To solve this problem, the Corps built the Old River Control Structure in the 1940s where its floodgates could be opened and closed as needed. A film that showcased this project reveals the Corps’ confident “macho” approach toward its mission to save the economy from Nature, its declared enemy:

“This nation has a large and powerful adversary. Our opponent could cause the United States to lose nearly all her seaborne commerce, to lose her standing as first among trading nations….We are fighting Mother Nature….It’s a battle we have to fight day by day, year by year; the health of our economy depends on victory.”

Between 1950 and 1973 the “intensification of land use in the lower Mississippi” occurred through suburbanization, agriculture and the gas and oil industry, which helped make New Orleans a lot harder to protect against storms and the floods. In New Orleans, which is as much as 15 feet below sea level, two per cent is terra firm, 18 percent wetland and 80 percent water (McPhee, 1989).

As the city grew larger, it began to sink and by 2000 it was six to eight feet below sea level thus creating “the bowl” that Hurricane Katrina so catastrophically filled. The natural flooding and drainage of the Mississippi River had been ignored in favor of creating a canal and pumping system. And although Hurricane Betsy sounded the alarm in 1965 that this system literally rested on shaky ground, the water control projects continued.

For example, in 1960, the metropolitan area occupied 100 square miles with 630,000 residents. In 2005, it occupied 180 square miles with a population of 480,000. It didn't help that one-story suburban ranch houses built on concrete slabs in the most vulnerable areas had replaced the traditional shotgun houses that were raised off the ground. Today, less than 350,000 people live in the city after 90 percent of them evacuated because of Katrina.



Meanwhile, over the past 60 years, the oil and gas companies have built 8,000 miles of canals in the wetlands. These canals were dredged up to six or seven feet deep and 15- to 25-foot wide to accommodate the transportation of drilling rigs. However, a typical canal would double its width in five years through wetlands erosion.

The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) is an example of a shipping canal that eroded three times its original width and killed off 39,000 acres of cypress forest and wetlands between New Orleans and the Gulf. Over the years it allowed saltwater intrusion and tidal action to seep into freshwater ecosystems and turn the marsh into open muddy water. MRGO (pronounced Mr. Go) probably acted as a funnel for Katrina’s storm surge and helped overwhelm the levees. It was built in the 1950s as a response to its rival for trade, the St. Lawrence Seaway, which permits ocean-going vessels to travel between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes. After Katrina, MRGO, which was little-used by that time, was filled in.

“The rise of the petroleum industry and the building of new canals had all sorts of ecological impacts, including increased saltwater intrusion and continuing erosion of the wetlands,” said Campanella.

The delta region is comprised of wetlands that supports a vast diversity of wildlife and that protects people from storm surges. The wetlands have been eroding at the rate of about 25 square miles annually or about one football field every day. Katrina’s storm surge broke levees in 53 places and caused the flooding of New Orleans and many people are concerned about the dangers ahead for the region.

“The coast is sinking out of sight,” Houck. “We’ve reversed Mother Nature.”

“By 2050, the city will be closer to and more exposed to the Gulf of Mexico,” noted the authors of Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana, a 1998 coastal restoration plan put together by the State of Louisiana and the federal government.

Hurricane Katrina helped step up coastal erosion like the Chandeleur Islands, a 40-mile-long series of uninhabited barrier islands southeast of New Orleans. The storm took five meters of sand and marsh and left only half a meter, according to Gregory W. Stone, a coastal geologist at Louisiana State University.

“Wetlands and barrier islands are the first line of defense [against storms]. That means areas such as New Orleans would become more vulnerable to inundation,” said Stone.

Reconstruction of the Wetlands
For the past 20 years many efforts have aimed at restoring the wetlands but they require a lot of money and time and still depend on technological fixes that attempt to control Mother Nature (Tibbets, 2006).

For example, in 1990 Congress passed the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act to rebuild the state’s natural infrastructure with 118 projects at $50 million per year. Appropriations were extended until September 2009.

Coast 2050 suggested that the Corps imitate the Mississippi River’s natural processes by diverting freshwater into the delta through pipelines and canals and push back saltwater intrusion from the Gulf. Also proposed was the dredging of soils and ancient sandbars to create new marshlands and shore up barrier islands as a defense against storms at a cost of $14 billion.

Kerry St. Pé, director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program has proposed that dredge material and sediments also be pumped through canals and pipelines to rebuild declining wetlands.

The 2005 Water resources Development Act provided $1.9 billion in federal money over 10 years for restoration of the delta.

Other ideas include allowing the Mississippi River to change course at its Gulf outlet in order to rebuild the western wetlands.

In 2005, Senator Mary Landrieu has proposed the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act to provide $250 billion for hurricane reconstruction with $40 billion for ecosystem restoration and levee improvement. Although she has brought in some relief monies, she has been unable to get this act passed.

Land loss in southern Louisiana “is not a local problem—it’s a national problem,” says Gregory W. Stone.



Works Cited

Jason Berry (June 1, 2010). BP Storm: Tulane Prof Oliver Houck Warned for Decades of Peril of Lax Energy Regulation. Politics Daily. (http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/13/bp-storm-tulane-prof-oliver-houck-warned-for-decades-of-peril-o/).

John McPhee (1990). The Control of Nature. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

John Tibbetts (January 2006). Louisiana’s Wetlands: A Lesson in Nature Appreciation in Environmental Health Perspectives. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1332684/

Travelogue: Stratford Festival Theatre

Kurt and I will go for our annual creativity transfusion in Stratford, Ontario, this week. We plan to see three plays:

"The Tempest" with Christopher Plummer as Prospero
"Evita"
"For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again" starring Lucy Peacock

One of the pure joys of Stratford are the wonderful restaurants. Our favorites include The Old Prune, Pazo's, Fellini's, Ten, Balzac Cafe, York Street, and Boomers French Fries.

The artistic quality of Stratford surrounds you not only with the plays but with the food, bed and breakfast places, the grounds, the Avon River, the people. For a more extensive discussion of the wonder of Stratford, see my article, "A Place Where Beauty Matters."

A Sense of Home and a Sense of Place

Louisiana leaders have not only been voicing the anger and frustration of their constituents over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but late last week they began to mourn the place they call home.

Rep. Charlie Melancon (D–Napoleonville), who represents much of the coastal area directly affected by the oil spill, broke down in tears while delivering his remarks at the May 27 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.

“Everything that I know and love is at risk,” he said.

Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, desperately called on BP and the government to do more “multi-tasking,” not only on plugging the gushing underwater oil pipe but by attending to the spill as it enters the wetlands and threatens wildlife and people’s livelihoods.

He added that residents and officials in Plaquemines Parish did not sit idly by when the brown pelicans’ (the state bird) nesting grounds were threatened by the spill. They used their own boats to lay protective booms around a bird sanctuary on Cat Island.

Meanwhile, James Carville, political consultant and New Orleans resident, told CNN that what people feared most was the government abandoning them just as it had after Hurricane Katrina. There was even public discussion of deserting the city instead of rebuilding it.

So as this catastrophe in the Gulf continues, it is fitting and necessary for the American people to reflect on how we consistently expose our country’s lands, seas, wildlife, ecosystems—and ourselves and our progeny—to unwarranted risk and environmental danger to suit our own selfish ends.

Deepwater oil drilling isn’t bad enough, we are now set to drill in the Arctic and we have been squeezing oil out of oil shales. We blow the tops off mountains for coal and dam up or divert river waters for desert cities. These dazzling engineering feats benefit our comfort and convenience as we cavalierly contend that we have a right to use the resources of our earth—regardless of how we leave it.

However, these actions reveal not only our fundamental disconnection from Nature but our lack of a sense of place.

In my own state of Michigan, Asian carp threaten our precious Great Lakes. The carp came from China in the 1970s to be used by Gulf area catfish farmers to eat up algae in their ponds. The four-foot-long, 70-pound fish with a voracious appetite and fast breeding time has slowly escaped from the wild and traveled up the Mississippi River to the Illinois River and through the man-made Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. If it reaches Lake Michigan, the whole region will forever be changed and the $4.5 billion Michigan fishing industry ruined.

The Great Lakes mean a lot to Michiganders. Besides giving us our unique shape with 3,288 miles of coastline, they provide an agricultural diversity (over 150 crops second only to California), small quirky towns, bountiful forests, sweet-smelling wood-burning fireplaces, plaid jackets and a vibrant year-round outdoor culture. We go “Up North” to cottages and cabins to enjoy swimming, hunting, fishing and boating. For Detroiters, hot summer evenings means cooling off by the river to watch the boats pass by. So for Michiganders, losing our lakes would be akin to losing a part of ourselves.

That’s what I imagine Louisianans must be feeling now with this second environmental disaster in less than five years—and I feel very badly for them.

In April, just one week before the oil spill, I visited New Orleans for the first time to attend the American Planning Association’s annual conference and fell in love with the city, its people and its culture.

I met survivors of Katrina who evacuated to places far away and then returned to the city to rebuild their homes and their lives. I met city officials and engineers who were responsible for the recovery effort and worked day and night to bring back the city and make it safe from flooding. I heard amazing stories of people who just started clearing the debris—and then inspired their neighbors to follow suit. I met musicians who used their talents to re-generate people’s spirits for music was all the people had left after Katrina. I also met young people who chose to stay in New Orleans after volunteering time there in the clean-up. The city captured their hearts. Of course, I discovered the delicious local cuisine like oysters (raw, baked and chargrilled), jambalaya, beans and rice, muffeletta, po boy sandwiches and beignets. I walked around the jaunty French Quarter, took an awesome airboat ride on the bayou and indulged myself in the free jazz festival on the RiverWalk. There’s absolutely nothing like New Orleans!

As this oil spill spreads in size on Gulf waters and reaches the Louisiana shore and wetlands, its devastation is unmatched and unfathomable compared to the destruction of Katrina, as terrible as that was.

However, our response to this catastrophe, begs the question: Do we have the capacity to understand the environmental damage being done?

Sadly, I’m not sure we do—but we must try.

Look at photos of the oil spill’s victims and allow yourself to be sickened by the sights.

Recognize that 300,000 fishermen are facing a precarious future and that 30 percent of U.S. seafood production, a $2.4 billion enterprise, comes from the Gulf region. Where will these people go? What will they do? What will seafood cost with these decreasing supplies?

Hear the response of Louisianans like Mary Richert who grew up in Sulphur, LA, not far from the Gulf of Mexico. As blasphemous as it sounds, she is now committed to reducing her use of oil.

Listen to Gisele Perez, a native New Orleanian who proudly defends and celebrates her city for its vibrant culture, lively music, wonderful cuisine, deeply rooted religious tradition, language, customs and values that place family and community above anything else.

Read Kathy Riodan’s essay. Proud daughter of a oil roughneck, she acknowledges the need for change from “our dependence on oil, our dependence on foreign oil, our responsibility for the resource, our responsibility for the environment, our regulation of the industry, our stewardship of the planet.”

Today, preserving the environment is really the only relevant issue before us. Given the damage we have done, we are called to change our lives completely to respond to the unspoken and unrecognized reality that the industrial age is over because the costs of obtaining cheap resources to run it are too great.

This oil spill is a tragedy of ecology and culture that will surely mark this second decade of the 21st century. It also represents the consequences of our belief that we have no limits to growth and that consumerism is good. This is a hangover of 20th century industrialization that led us not only to build one of the world’s great civilizations but now to oversee its very dismantling.

Blue Bayou

It’s morbidly painful to see ecological disaster strike at southern Louisiana—again. At risk now are the wetlands—the bayous.

Just last month I took an amazing airboat ride in the Barataria Preserve of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park, just 38 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico and saw alligators, fish, turtles, nutria, birds, Spanish moss, bald cypress (which can live to be 1,000 years old) and live oaks (that live hundreds of years, too). The guide, a Cajun who grew up in the area, discussed how these living things all were interconnected to make the bayou what it is. The air was sweet and clean and I could understand why people have loved this place and made a living of hunting, fishing and trapping. The bayou isn’t just a swamp. It is a way of life!

The bayou is a French word meaning slow-moving waterway. It is an offshoot of the Mississippi River and forms a delta at the river’s mouth. It took a thousand years of annual spring flooding for the silt and sediments to develop this unique region. But it’s taken only the past 60 years of human activity to endanger it.

Saltwater intrusion and erosion threaten to destroy 60 percent of the bayou by 2040, said Richard Campanella, associate director of the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane University. He spoke recently at the American Planning Association (APA) conference in New Orleans.

The reason this is happening is due in part to the activities of the oil and gas industry. This oil spill will surely speed up the process.

The threat to the bayou didn’t happen last month with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.

Oil rigs began to appear in the brackish coastal areas of the Gulf in the early 1930s when the Texas Company (Texaco) developed the first mobile steel barges for drilling. After World War II, other companies began to build fixed off-shore platforms near southern Louisiana. Today the Gulf hosts about 4,000 platforms.

Since 1950, an 8,000-mile system of canals has been constructed in the bayous— with channels 15 to 25-feet wide and six to seven-feet deep—to accommodate the transport of oil-related equipment.

Many people in Louisiana have been concerned about the disappearing bayous, whose loss each day is equivalent to the size of a football field. Among them are musicians like the jazz singer/songwriter known as Dr. John who wrote “Black Gold” (included in his Grammy Award-winning 2007 album, The City That Care Forgot). The song points out how canals make the area more vulnerable to hurricanes and other storms. The wetlands provide protection to the mainland, one reason why Hurricane Katrina was so destructive.

“Thirty years ago we had a plan to build new wetlands,” said Dr. John, “but corruption in the state made the money go elsewhere.” He also spoke at the APA conference.

Today, the world consumes 85 million barrels of oil per day. The United States is the top guzzler at almost 23 percent. The European Union comes in second at 14 percent, China at 9 percent and India at 3 percent.

Nearly half of each barrel of oil is made into gasoline while the rest is used in agriculture, cosmetics, soaps and cleaning supplies, textiles, plastics, recreational equipment, auto parts, kitchen appliances—practically everything, according to the Ranken Energy Corporation.

Our desire for oil makes us willing to do whatever it takes to get it. This self-destructive drive and over-reliance on oil is bad for four reasons.

First, oil is a non-renewable resource and its supply is limited. We have already extracted about half of the cheap and easy-to-obtain oil in the world. What’s left is more difficult to extract—some of which is available through the deep-water off-shore rigs!

Second, as we all know, carbon-based fuels are choking our planet’s atmosphere. Before the Industrial Revolution began around 1750, earth had 270 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere. Today, it is at 390 ppm. Climate change is linked to the increasing intensity of storms and directly responsible for rising seas due to melting Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

Third, accidents like the oil spill demonstrate how dangerous oil drilling can be to the environment and to the livelihoods of people living in coastal areas.

Fourth, our reliance on imported oil has led to an aggressive foreign and military policy in the world’s oil-producing regions.

For example, we first exposed our desperation for oil on January 23, 1980, when President Jimmy Carter initiated the Carter Doctrine, which declared that the United States would use military force, if necessary, to defend our national interests in the Persian Gulf.

In 2001 the overt fight for oil began with the invasion of Afghanistan.

Why Afghanistan? We were told it was retaliation against the 9/11 Osama bin Laden-inspired terrorists, but it was really about oil. In the late 1990s several oil companies proposed that a Trans-Afghanistan Gas Pipeline be built to transport oil from the rich fields of Azerbaijan and Central Asia to Pakistan or India. Another thousand-mile pipeline was proposed to run between Türkmenabat (former Chardzou), Turkmenistan, to Pakistan's Arabian Sea Coast. Operatives dismissed these projects because of political and security instability in the region.

In 2003 the United States invaded Iraq, which just happens to be the world’s second largest proven oil reserve.

We are still at war in both these countries with no end in sight. So far these wars have cost 4,402 dead Americans in Iraq and 1,060 in Afghanistan, a combined wounded of 37,641 and nearly $1 trillion, which is borrowed money from China. About one million Iraqis have also lost their lives and no one is counting dead Afghanis.

Oil has been a problem for the United States over the past 40 years, said David Cohen, author of Decline of Empire who notes that the nation peaked in its domestic oil production in 1970. That led to us importing more oil, which then left us less self-sufficient and extremely vulnerable to the politics of other countries, including those who hate us.

“And now we're paying the tragic consequences,” said Cohen. “Our civilization has been and continues to be built on fossil energy. As a consequence of that mindless development, humans have trashed their environment.”

America has a 36,000-mile cross-country network of pipelines that fuels 250 million vehicles. So while the media focus on BP and government regulators, we must recognize that our demand for oil makes all of us Americans responsible for the oil spill, too.

As the oil spill continues to grow from its current size of 46,000 square miles (an area about the size of Pennsylvania) and endanger not only Louisiana bayous and the Gulf of Mexico but Florida and the Atlantic coast, let us take time to reflect seriously on our relationship to oil:

·Should we continue our insatiable thirst for oil even though we are threatening ourselves, future generations and Nature itself?

·Should we send more troops and spend more money to fight these oil wars?

·Is oil really worth all the death and destruction it foists on people and the environment?

The only way out of our oil addiction is for individuals, families and communities to reduce our dependence on oil. We have long learned that we cannot expect such a commitment from government or corporations who engage in finger pointing, which is really just another dodge from addressing the problem.

Neither are the answers to our oil problem just about finding technological alternatives designed to keep up our current lifestyles.

If there’s a lesson in this oil spill it is that we must change our way of life to one that is less centered around fossil fuels.

As a start, we can prefer to walk and bike; use public transportation; support train travel and transport; eat local food or grow our own; turn down the heat; cut the air conditioning; resist using plastic products; retire gas-powered lawn equipment and other vehicles.

It is imperative that we get ourselves off oil or we will sacrifice not only our precious bayous, its wildlife, our coastal cities and businesses but eventually our planet.

Writings on Detroit's Urban Gardens

Growing Green in Detroit
http://features.csmonitor.com/gardening/2008/08/21/growing-green-in-detroit/

Planning Magazine (Aug-Sept 2009)
"Delicious in Detroit"
http://www.planning.org/planning/open/aug/deliciousdetroit.htm?print=true

Milwaukee's Urban Farmer -- Will Allen
http://features.csmonitor.com/gardening/2009/01/28/milwaukees-urban-farmer/

Energy Bulletin (Oct 16)
"These Weeds Aren't Made for Whacking"
http://www.energybulletin.net/50413

Energy Bulletin (Aug 23)
"My Pet Goats"
http://www.energybulletin.net/49928

Common Dreams (Aug 1)
"Gardening Changes Fast Food Addict's Life"
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/01-3

Common Dreams (June 16)
"Urban Agriculture as a Career Path"
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/16-2

Common Dreams (May 18)
"Back to the Old Normal"
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/29-1

Opportunity Knocks When It Comes to Local Food
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/47980

Gardens Save the Day in WALL-E
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/12/10312