life just got a little bit tougher in Lagalou..

Please first read the lead story on nola.com for Saturday, March 31:
http://www.nola.com/

Then,I ask all of you to seriously think about how you feel about the proposed MidCity big box development. As a very close neighbor, I am distraught and concerned that my plans to build a new home and be a part of a new liveable community at the end of Bayou St. John are being seriously jeopardized.

I grew up in a small, inner circle suburb of Cleveland Ohio, where the city had been left alone as a walkable, bikable community for the most part, with most people going to the city for their shopping- 10 minutes away.
Over the time I lived there and then since, there has been some big box intrusion at the level that is found on Metairie Road- somewhat fitting into the fabric of the area, but terrible traffic issues, with more corporate chains taking over the small stores until it seems like a suburban area. Still my hometown fights large scale corporate developers (to their credit) and have allowed a selection of small stores to be still viable. Not the best city today, but stil some flavor survives; when there, I can go to the 30 year old natural food store, to the best bakery I have ever been to (sorry LaSpiga, you're close!), and bike to a great fair trade coffeehouse (not as good as Fair Grinds!)

One town over, the city has not been so lucky. A strip mall was allowed on a small county type road, widened to 8 lanes and today, it is unrecognizable as a area that had existed as some homes and some retail, as all of the homes have been bought on this road and turned into strip mall after strip mall. Miles and miles of it. same stuff you see everywhere.

We all say in our heads, yeah, but that is not New Orleans. New Orleans is an historic city. We love our small neighborhoods. We use our small stores.
That was, before Katrina.
Since, we have seen the disappearance of almost all of the individually owned hardware stores in downtown, replaced by large chain stores. They are doing very well folks. At the same time, the small stores that have stayed in business like United Hardware on Elysian Fields and Eddie's on Downman cannot even get all the items sold to the Lowe's and Home Depot, like paperless sheetrock.
Could not get it in 2006.
Only sold at big box stores thank you.

We have seen the corporate chains who built big box food stores and wore out the small stores decide in many cases NOT to reopen after the storm. Thanks for everything Winn Dixie. And yes, to be fair, where is Robert's I do wonder?

So to hear that the type of retail that has no executives that will live within 200 miles of these stores, that believes only in concrete empty facades, that pays their employees below a living wage, will be taking over quiet, green residential MidCity has brought me to tears a few times today.

I have even worked at two of these chains, and they treated me passably well as a manager, so should I complain? I think I should, since I know if I had a choice back then to work at a locally owned bookstore or natural food store I would have grabbed it. And you know, I would probably still be working there.
Not that my coworkers or boss were evil; that's the thing- all of the power is WAAY above store level, so there is no way to work one on one with a bad neighbor like that. You get the same blank facade as the store itself when you try to refashion its size or its practices. Not possible at store level.

Do we need these stores in Orleans parish? Well, I would argue we mostly don't but I work very hard to not shop for a living. Clearly, fashion ain't my strong point, nor is having new stuff to put in my FEMA trailer.
But if we need a department store, or a sporting goods store, why not offer an incentive to Massey's to build a 10,000 square foot store on Carrollton and Tulane in that decomposed strip mall? why not refashion that area as a pedestrian mall, a state of the art bus stop, recycling station for the city behind it and a few local stores to anchor like Massey's? Why build MORE concrete and less water basin in an area that had 9 feet of water in 2005!
Why not take the BOHN Ford building, make it a bicycle/scooter/pedestrian friendly storefront on Lafitte, get some local hardware folks to put a store there, have a Octavia Books type store and okay, maybe we need a national department store. Is there not a footprint right next door to Bohn to put a SMALL architecturally significant clothing/housewares seller? one that is mandated to add green space (and I mean REAL green space, not the Tulane Albertson's type of green space), a children's playground and some natural elements? (good examples abound in Richard Register's book Ecocities and also in the classic A Pattern Language among many many others).

Listen, I feel as if many of you will say, "yeah, it sucks but what can I do"-understandably so. We are absolutely overwhelmed by our own day to day and cannot take every battle on.
But what is clear to me is MidCity is being sold off; and remember it is called the Heart of the City for many reasons, not just because it's in the middle. This is Brocato's, City Park,Venezia's, Bayou St. John, JazzFest, Voodoo Fest, Cabrini Bridge, Jesuit, the FairGrounds and all of that life IS threatened when national chains build concrete 100,000 square feet buildings, and bring the traffic, the light pollution, the trash (have you noticed the sides of Sav-A-Center? ever see employees out picking up trash?).
If MIdCity falls, all is up for grabs, except the sliver of historic areas that many of us cannot afford to live in. I love the historic areas; some of my best pals and my best parents live there, so keep on keeping them on. But do not sacrifice my neighborhood to include suburbia outside of it. How can I seriously think about putting my life savings and more into building a house where this will be across the street basically? Why would I work very minute of the day to save a city to walk in stores that I could see anywhere and that have no concern about who I am and if I am a regular customer or not?

So please, cut and paste any of this you agree with, send it uncut to anyone you think will send it to their city council (all of them need to hear from us) and say, " we want houses, we want street lights, we want walkable liveable neighborhoods that will last into the next century, not concrete monuments to waste."

http://www.nocitycouncil.com/

home and away

I landed in San Francisco on Friday evening, took the BART from the airport, got off at Embarcardero. In the early evening San Francisco light, I took my luggage and walked down Broadway to Columbus Avenue. At Broadway and Columbus, I could see City Lights Bookstore, the world's greatest Beat landmark and in the distance, the Transamerica Pyramid, the Coit Tower.
Headed up Columbus, looking in North Beach Italian restaurants, coffeehouses along the way, where I stopped to have a plate of eggplant lasagna and a glass of house wine in a beautiful Italian eatery, with waiters chattering in Italian all around.

The next morning, off to Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. The crowds were there, the vendors were out in force and I stood for a minute looking at the Bay Bridge in the distance, watching shoppers with bags of everything, and thought: I can't leave this.
It was too much, all of the beauty and the fullness of life in a city that is thriving and...
normal.

I literally couldn't imagine-for those minutes- leaving. I was overcome by it all, and suddenly tired, so tired of life in a FEMA trailer and hard work ahead still.

I slowly walked back to the Knolls Farm stand, looking at people, the view out over the bay...

Then, I saw Poppy Tooker, our New Orleans Slow Food Leader who was my working partner on this trip (to set up White Boot Brigade events for our shrimpers); Poppy was our food leader in New Orleans, our exhorter and, suddenly, I was very glad to see her.
Because I remembered why I lived in New Orleans still and always; people like Poppy, Richard, my neighbors Musa and Veda (hard at work on our new homes) and my parents and grandparents who gave me my own culture, who have worked non-stop since the storm to keep it alive.
I am lucky to be able to tell the world about our food culture, work to save it by bringing it to our exiled New Orleanians and to our fans around the country.

Offering (sought after) Mardi Gras shrimp beads and our stories and ideas to happy interested faces at Williams-Sonoma, Google, Chez Panisse, among others all week, I kept thinking, this is because you are from New Orleans; this is because you share a special world.
Sharing champagne with Fish Restaurant owners Kenny and Whitney in Sausalito with Slow Food leaders who raised 13,000 for our efforts and gave us the check as we laughed, ate and talked on a picnic table overlooking the bay, I thought:
We're so lucky.

I can't wait to go home.

join us

In association with community activists and ecologists, Planet Drum developed the concept of a bioregion: a distinct area with coherent and interconnected plant and animal communities, and natural systems, often defined by a watershed. A bioregion is a whole "life-place" with unique requirements for human inhabitation so that it will not be disrupted and injured.

Bioregional organizing
Dear food, environmental, and all self-organizing activists in the Lake Ponchartrain watershed:

I am hoping we can gather together those interested in our natural habitat to start to share information about work being done within our bioregion.

I propose a meeting with urban and rural agriculture proponents, wetlands and coastal restoration activists, green building proponents, wildlife refuge designers, eco warriors, geologists, peak oilers, local economy organizers, regional planners and others who are in the belief that we can and should organize around the life systems outlined in the paragraph at the top of this page from Planet Drum.
I know so many have been engaged in this work for many years and we need to hear from you, learn and help.

This work closely follows my work at marketumbrella.org (the org that runs the Crescent City Farmers Market), but is not a direct project under the umbrella, but rather, my personal quest to work in my spare time on bioregional sustainability.

I would like to ask that those individual and organizations interested in building a loose clearinghouse of information and possible funding mechanisms, comment here after this post.

Meeting space and time possibilities are the first conversation to have via email; Please forward this to as many people as you think might want to be involved, and I hope that someone can help design a simple wiki where we can start to post ideas, projects and conversation.
Yours in bioregionality,
Dar Wolnik

from our friend Pat Jolly's website

Cell Phone Usage
THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR CELL PHONE COULD DO.

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for
survival. Check out the things that you can do with it:

FIRST Subject: Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself
out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an
emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to
establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number
112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

(DW: Oh that worked!)

SECOND Subject: Have you locked your keys in the car?
Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may co me in handy
someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the
car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell
phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your
car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button,
holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock.
Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no
object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach
someone who has the other "remote" for your car, you can unlock the
doors (or the trunk).

(DW: my car is 20 years old, so someone else will have to try this for me)

THIRD Subject: Hidden Battery Power
Imagine your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys
*3370# your cell will restart with this reserve and the instrument will
show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you
charge your cell next time.

(DW: I will be trying this out soon; always forget my charger when I travel!)


FOURTH How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?
To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits
on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen.
This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it
somewhere safe. When your phone gets stolen, you can phone your service
provider and give them this code.They will then be able to block your
handset so even if the thief changes he SIM card, your phone will be
totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least
you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody
does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

(DW: this did not work for me.)

And Finally....FIFTH
Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for
411 information calls when they don't have to. Most of us do not carry
a telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes this situation even
more of a problem. When you need to use the 411 information option,
simply dial: (800) FREE 411, or (800) 373-3411 without incurring
any charge at all. Program this into your cell phone now.

(DW: yep, seemed like a free 411 call; will look at next bill to be sure.)

This is the kind of information people don't mind receiving, so pass it
on to your family and friends.