Louisiana Himalaya Association offers some teachings and recycled stuff

Some events courtesy of our bayou-living Tibetan organizers.These folks have been doing incredible work with in Northern India with Tibetan refugees for years.
Founded in 1997, the Louisiana Himalaya association Inc. (LHA) is a grassroots social work organization dedicated to Social Work Services with Tibetan Refugees in the Himalayan regions of India and Nepal. Having made the treacherous journey by foot over the Himalayan Mountains to seek asylum, this displaced population faces monumental resettlement issues, especially in the fields of education, employment, healthcare, and housing. LHA fundraises and organizes volunteer efforts to support social service programs in India and Nepal which focus on these vital areas of life.

LHA has spent over a decade building a cross-cultural bridge which now functions to provide needed services to the Tibetan Community while making available their vast philosophical wisdom and profound cultural experience. Here in Louisiana, LHA works with Tulane University, Loyola University and Centenary College to host Tibetan teachers and organize Tibetan Cultural Events. These Universities also send student groups to India each summer.
Support their excellent work with attending their events when you can.

Both Lama Lakshey and Tsering have time set aside for one-on-one meetings for those of you that would like to schedule some time with them. Please remember that they are both raiseing funds for their social service projects so please do make donations whenever possible. You can contact them directly to schedule appointments:

Lama Lakshey - 510 684 3398

Tsering Monk - 504 994 2557

Here are a few event/teachings to note on your calendar.

Lama Lakshey :

Events/Teachings at the Community Center ( 623 N Rendon)

Sat April 2 - Rummage Sale - 9AM - 3PM

Sunday April 3 - Tonglen Practice 9-10:30AM

Tuesday April 5 – Meditation 7-8PM

Sunday April 10- 3-4PM Treasure Vase Ceremony on Bayou St John in front of the Post Office

Other:

April 6 – Teaching at Swan River Yoga on Canal 830-930PM

April 9 - Evening Teaching in Baton Rouge

April 7-9 Tibet Culture Fair at Tulane -

(organized by Tibet Association of Tulane University "TATU")

Thurs and Friday 10AM - 3PM in the LBC at Tulane for Open Dialogue

Saturday 9AM - Noon - Teaching in Rogers Memorial Chapel on Tulane Campus

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tsering Monk :

Events/Teachings at the Community Center ( 623 N Rendon)

Sat April 2 - Rummage Sale - 9AM - 3PM

Sunday April 3 - Tonglen Practice 9-10:30AM

Other:

April 7-9 Tibet Culture Fair at Tulane

(organized by Tibet Association of Tulane University "TATU")

Thurs and Friday 10AM - 3PM in the LBC at Tulane for Open Dialogue

Thurs 6-8PM Tibetan Lama Dance Performance at the Lavin Bernic Center at Tulane



*to further clarify any of this info please contact Lama Lakshey and /or Tsering Monk


Volunteer - Donate
www.lhainfo.org

graffito power (click here to listen the Duchess)

What we learn through illegal information:

graffiti

Let's "attack" blight another way

As much as I hate to refer to cities like Detroit when talking about solutions for New Orleans, once in a while there is a reason to do so.

The thing about Detroit to keep in mind is that it is significantly smaller in square miles than New Orleans. About 37 miles less.
I bring that up because I think many of us think of Detroit as this huge city with out of scale empty factories everywhere. And that is true in some areas, but not all.
So, once again, scale is the key to success and this project shows it by dealing with one street as a project and adding ideas as they go.
Brilliant.

heidelberg photos

website for organization

Organizing 500 or less

From Witold Rybczynski's City Life:
"Aristotle thought that the ideal city should contain not more than 5,000 citizens..."

From The New Economics Institute:
The Laurel Hill Association in the town of Stockbridge in the Berkshire
region of Massachusetts is the nation's oldest Village Improvement
Association. Founded in 1853 and still operating, its members pulled weeds,
laid sidewalks, installed lamps, planted trees, and helped construct the
town library. It owns the park-like Laurel Hill near the center of town and
maintains the trail at Ice Glen.

In the period following the Civil War, Village Improvement Associations were
started all over America. Small in scale, place-based, citizen driven, they
were flexible enough in structure to respond to the needs of a specific
community. The Associations might organize concerts or put up window boxes
on Main Street buildings, but just as easily serve regular meals to those in
need or build a wing on the hospital or collect supplies for distribution
after a flood swept through the town. In 1903 the Groton, Massachusetts VIA
constructed children's gardens on land loaned for the purpose.

The Associations created a way for citizens to initiate community projects
that local government and local business could not. In our age of
professionally run non-profits each focused on addressing a single issue,
VIAs might be dismissed as generalists and amateurs. But the Associations
were experts in knowing where the resources were in their communities --
human, technical, financial, and natural resources -- and they were skilled
in mobilizing these resources when the need arose.

As federal, state, and local budgets are cut, and professionally run service
programs close, it may be appropriate to imagine the emergence of modern day
Village Improvement Associations and consider what projects they would now
inspire.

Westport Green Village Initiative started in 2008 with a
simple objective: to ban plastic bags in Westport, Connecticut. The project
engaged concerned citizens to act together. The success and fun of the
project encouraged the group to stay together and turn their combined
energies to other green initiatives. Westport Green Village Initiative was
organized to turn Westport "into a model of social-inclusivity and
environmental sustainability," that could well serve as the mission of
Twenty-First Century VIAs.

Relying on much volunteer labor and a little bit of well-placed
philanthropy, WGVI has built gardens at the public schools; run educational
programs on energy-saving techniques, organic gardening practices, chemical
free homes, and the local economy; and identified the resources and local
businesses that could help with transitioning to greater sustainability.
WGVIers increased membership in the local Community Supported Agriculture
farms and organized RSA -- restaurants banding together to pre-buy from
farmers, saving the farmers from marketing and creating cooperation in the
restaurant community.

Westport Village Green Initiative includes an understanding of the importance
of producing locally what is used locally, creating jobs for local youth,
maintaining production skills and infrastructure, and gradually freeing the
region from dependence of goods shipped over long distances. Westport
Essentials (WE) is an effort to indentify basic goods now imported to the
region that might be produced locally and setting up conditions to encourage
their manufacture -- access to land, job training, consumer pre-purchase,
and investment. Westport Essentials, a project of WGVI, uniquely
characterizes a new type of Village Improvement Association, citizens
reaching to that intersection of ecology, economy, community, and culture to
leverage local capacity for change.

WGVI is just over two years old and already news of its accomplishments has
spread to neighboring towns. As a result WGVI recently changed its name to
Green Village Initiative in order to serve as an organizational vehicle for
volunteer efforts in Ridgefield and Bridgeport amongst other nearby
communities.

Building suburbia

Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000 by Dolores Hayden

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I could give you some excellent examples of my suburban cred-I'll give you two:
I would ride my bike to my tiny side or back yard, and just leave it laying there til i wanted to ride it again.
I had no idea how to take a bus until I was a teenager and then still got confused.

Lucky for me, my urban mother moved me to the city when I was a teenager and I escaped its grown-up clutches. Maybe because of that, I go back to that suburb and find sweet things to muse about almost every time.

Suburbia has its many detractors. It has few supporters. I won't say this author is in either camp entirely. She does seem to understand them, which of course is the first step to changing them.

7 vernacular patterns of suburbia? I had no idea. But now I do. I can roam the old cities I see and find the patterns from "borderlands" (Ohio City in Cleveland to the Garden District in New Orleans), "picturesque enclaves" (oh my Lakewood for sure) to "streetcar suburbs" (my current neighborhood of MidCity New Orleans) and so on.

Builders (not necessarily developers in every case) were the main actors, we all know that but not always for the reasons you would think, is her argument. The communitarian movement, women needing to find paid work and so on.

Another round of applause for how she incorporates what has been written before. How can you write about suburbs and not mention the brilliant "Crabgrass Frontier"? Don't worry-She does.

Well worth it. Useful. Well designed. Just like some suburbs.









View all my reviews

Cuts for them and for the rest of us, compared

Well maybe New Orleans will thrive...

But not if this law passes and spreads....

Please do watch this video to see how Michigan can take control of towns through "financial emergency" controls and they can be handed over to corporations.

disaster capitalism

Link to short Eris video

These cops seem frightened, tense and unsure of what they are there to do. That gives me a great deal of fear for all.
Eris/NOPD

and another account from someone in the parade who was arrested:
Eris parader account

a bystander account:
bystander


this is an interview sent to me by Todd P. as a way to show some of the issues with how Eris operates. Some may see it that way. Glad to have it-thanks Todd.
As always, happy to post anything that gives information, but I think it proves the paraders' point of operating as "creative chaos" and needs to be understood as such by the police, as much of Mardi Gras operates in that way. Yes, illegal vandalism et a needs to be stopped, but I am still not sure that the two are connected directly.
organizer interview

there is a thread of comments between a friend of mine and me too.

Another crackdown on DOWNTOWN public gatherings

WHAT exactly is going on out there? It is clear to me the city has decided to heat up their own class war this season. We know that the good times are a rolling Uptown without any batons being wielded and yet down here, we seem to be in a increasingly combative relationship with city hall.

This account is as fair and even-handed as any in this type of situation could hope to be.

what it tells me is this:

We need to continue to stand up for our right to gather. We need to not be pushed into dramatic situations by anyone. And we need to protect each other and tell the stories quickly and widely.


eyewitness account of Eris vs NOPD

Public space is not to be used for creativity? odd time to tell us...

Irony is actually seldom seen in our world, contrary to what Alanis Morissette says (most of her examples are just things that suck).
Recently, we got a true ironic moment here in New Orleans when the NOPD shut down the 20th year of the Costume Bazaar held on Frenchman by local artists on Barkus Sunday.
(I actually was standing next to the artist who I believe wasn't even actually part of the deal, the vendor set up in front of Cafe Brazil-when the police officer told her this was illegal. Interestingly, I watched her point across the street at the Blue Nile directing the police to those folks.)
I could see it was going to get shut down by the vehemence of the officer. I could see that it was going to be a doozy of a week as well...
The ironic piece comes from the fact that many of us were coming from or going to a Carnival parade and sitting in chairs in streets, or sitting on on private property (stoops and such) and no one cared. No one cared because we know (and the police know) that most of us agree to the social contract when we are together in public space that we are just borrowing some of it for a while but not violating it. And if we overstate our control of the public space, we will probably get corrected by others or maybe the police.
And that we were in the middle of weeks of that and yet the artists who inspire us, who share their talent with us get shut down because they need a permit to gather.

Maybe we need to pass a law that if 3 or more artists gather with their handmade items they can sell without hassle if they agree to monitor themselves and to be orderly in the use of public space, leaving it better than it was, while being our eyes on the street. In other words, maybe we need to establish social contracts for many types of entrepreneurial behavior that falls under itinerant.•

Wait, something is nagging at the back of my head. Wait for it.

Oh, we do have that- Jackson Square.

but it used to be a entire city that made us famous with a street culture that came from a diverse use of our city streets where musicians, painters, sculptures, streetwalkers, politicians, sailors, and regular folks met regularly . When did we lose that exactly? When did it become just one square in the whole town?
and do know that those in Jackson Square have to have permits to get to vend even there. and have to get there at 5 am to stake out a space cuz there are so few. Something seems wrong. Permits to hang things on a fence to promote the city. nagging in head again...

Maybe its time we start to collect at our own Tahrir Squares on issues like this too. I know its not a dictator that needs to go, but maybe if we just start collecting and having these public conversations more regularly we can influence our dict- sorry, government leaders.

And maybe we can collectively agree on a simple process:

You want to have a artist sale less than monthly? 3 or more of you:
1. Ask a business owner in a cultural district to use their unused space or day. You pick an area are where there are businesses that can benefit from your presence.
2. He or she says yes.
3. Mention it to the adjoining neighbors.
4. If someone has a good reason against it they tell you and then can organize the majority against it or if that fails, just grumble to themselves.
5. You tell the city so they can make sure nothing illegal or dangerous is being sold and that they can assist the organizers if needed.
6. You sketch out a nice layout leaving room for fire exits and handicapped people which you post. You sell some stuff.
7. You clean up after yourselves.

As far as sales taxes and permits, you ask artists to register every 3 years and pay sales tax on anything when they register for what they resell that is not significantly altered by the artist, No tax on things they make.
You set up a committee of artists and citizens that serve for 5 years, making a small stipend who roam and check here and there. They cannot serve again and when they vend, are excused themselves from being allowed to inspect.
and listen, this is just off the top of my head. better minds can come up with better plans with a few weeks of thinking about it.

And you allow street culture to thrive. You allow artists to be the leaders they are and let them get out and sell their items when they are ready to do so and those who yearn for a storefront to get to be business owners ultimately that understand the city and can pick a location that is based on their itinerant experience.
You allow self-determination.
And you build your city.
And if we actually get things like this done, we can say we are on our way to being a great city.
without irony.




• A person or agent of a person who offers for sale, barter, or exchange anything of value at any place in, upon, along, or through any street, alley, or other public place, or on private property. The term "itinerant retailer" does not include an owner or operator of a business located in a building or structure being used for a commercial or retail purpose, nor to such owner or operator's activities adjacent to or abutting such building or structure when items sold on property adjacent to or abutting a commercial building or structure are the primary type of goods offered for sale inside that commercial building or structure.

oh okay.