Friday, September 08, 2006

The Nation: Don't Mourn, Link

The first paragraphs of Michael Tisserand's Don't Mourn, Link in The Nation:
By the first week of September 2005, New Orleans was in effect a virtual city. Most phones, cell and otherwise, were useless; only e-mails brought news to and from evacuees. Instead of neighborhoods, there were neighborhood forums on the Times-Picayune's website, for those trying to locate relatives and friends.

By then, activists had also discovered that the Internet was the only way to send and receive reliable information about what was happening on the ground in New Orleans. First-person accounts of the flood and its aftermath began circulating widely, including 'This is Criminal,' written by former Black Panther Malik Rahim, as well as a detailed account of a blockade that prevented New Orleanians from crossing to safety over a Mississippi River bridge, first posted by Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky on the Socialist Worker website.

A year later, the Internet remains a crucial link in the effort to rebuild New Orleans and its communities. 'The Internet is now used like a telephone tree,' says Greg Peters, a Lafayette, Louisiana-based cartoonist and blogger who last fall helped evacuees access computers in that city's Cajundome shelter. 'When someone finds out about some hastily called planning meeting, they alert everyone through the blogs and get a crowd there to see what's going on.'
While it would have been nice to see some, you know, links in this article, they've been gathered in a second one, "Linking to New Orleans." Strangely, blogs are listed but not linked! there either, something I'll correct:
Most bloggers offer political commentary, on-the-ground reports of life in New Orleans, and links to other bloggers. The most insightful include "Your Right Hand Thief," "People Get Ready," "Suspect Device," "The American Zombie," "The G Bitch Spot," "Gentilly Girl," "Library Chronicles," "Suspect Device" [well, yeah -- ed.] and "Ashley Morris."
Well, we had one. :|

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