The Wetlands and Iraq

I read in the Times-Picayune today that 1) the wetland restoration is being stalled in some places because of land-rights issues and 2) George Tenet is not to blame for the Iraq War, this according to George Tenet.

Where to place the blame? Does it matter? A lot of blame to go around. Because the problems of war and wetland degradation and the decision making process about how to solve each is disassociated from the people who are directly impacted, people may point the finger back and forth until a) the entire Middle East blows up or b) the Gulf is in the backyard of New Orleans and JazzFest gets a whole lot wetter. All of which are possibilities.

What does this advocate for? Local control, carajo! Decision-making where it counts. If you believe that only governments can get our energy resources secured for us, or save our necessary wetlands, then you don't understand how the government is responsible for the loss of wetlands or is responsible for the scourge of war or the insecurity of the entire world. Okay. enough ranting.

Low Impact Development is one way to rebuild New Orleans and other devastated cities. Devastated by natural catastrophes or by Wal-Mart stores. You can look up Low Impact Development on, ironically enough, the EPA's website. Think about the principles of LID, notice how it's taking a completely different route than regular development. Different thinking. Follow nature. Could be driving all our planning. And all our living.

Cypress Triangle

I went to see the Cypress Triangle yesterday, escorted by a very esteemed elder. The Triangle is where the marsh directly to the north of the Ninth Ward begins. I saw stumps where many cypress trees had once been. The cause for this graveyard was not Katrina but the salt water intrusion into the marsh over the past several decades. The arrival of saltier waters into the wetlands is due to rising of the sea level and the simultaneous sinking of Louisiana into the ocean. The cypress trees, had they been viable could have slowed down Katrina's winds and storm surges, but there were no leaves to catch the energy, just stumps left. Katrina would breach the levees about a mile down the Industrial Canal into the Ninth Ward, flood the entire neighborhood, and bring a barge from the Canal smashing down on houses and dreams.

The salt water intrusion is happening in all of the wetlands wherever land is sinking relative to the ocean. It so happens that in those wetlands hit hardest by intrusion, pollution, are adjacent to economically depressed communitites. This in fact is a case of Environmental Justice.

My escort, a resident and activist, showed me the place where city, state officials want to put a trolley station and renovate the area. The location is at the end of Caffin Street, directly in the heart of the Lower Ninth Ward. Real estate prices would subsequently rise and in order for developers to make money, they want those displaced homeowners to not come back. Build up a richer, cosier environment for people who can afford it-just a train ride from the French Quarter. And replant the Cypress Triangle with live trees. Finally.

So how do activists work in solidarity with residents to rebuild a devastated community, better than it was, as cozy and lush as the in plans of the developers, move the salt-water out of the marshes and bring in secondarily-treated wastewater to feed the trees nutrients?

As far as rebuilding, restoring the Lower Ninth, some want to proliferate solar panels, advocate turning off the TV. Others advocate DIY projects that use waste, are cheap and easy to maintain. Not only are they "off the grid" but they promote self-reliance and self-confidence and autonomy. That in a crisis people can and should rely on each other, and not look to the government.

Is anarchism a white middleclass game?

Second Sex

I've just started reading The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir and I was thinking as I wrote it, and considering woman today-How much have woman won in getting into the mainstream, which is still male-dominated? Getting into the system, whether through professional jobs, college admissions, is still within the male context, the patriarchal history and context. So I ask, has the dominant culture learned to adopt those strengths of what it means to be feminine (de Beauvoir will let me know just what that means), or have woman adopted those characteristics of the patriarchy necessary to survive? Which has changed? And who is better off for it?

Green Chicago, White Chicago

Here's an article about Greening of Chicago. There is nothing said about the gentrification of Chicago-sending people of color out of the city as the white people from the suburbs are brought back in.

Old Chicago Factory Finds New Life as Green Exchange

CHICAGO, Illinois, April 5, 2007 (ENS) - A four-story concrete loft building in Chicago that once housed an underwear company is being renovated according to LEED certified standards to become the Green Exchange, the city's first business community committed to environmental sustainability, profit and positive social impact.

Green Exchange will include an organic restaurant and caf�, a sustainable furniture store, a green building supply company, an eco-friendly printer, architects and designers focused on sustainability, an environmentally-friendly clothing company, a car sharing service, and a bike shop. The first tenants will move in at the beginning of 2008.

The 250,000 square foot Green Exchange located at 2545 West Diversey Avenue is a project of Baum Development LLC, a comprehensive commercial real estate development firm.

The redevelopment has the support of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. "We want Chicago to be a shining example of how a major urban area can live in harmony with its environment � and we want our city to be an advocate for green practices in city planning, construction, energy use and day-to-day management of government and the private sector," said Mayor Daley.

"Green Exchange is a great example of the public/private partnerships that are working together to help make Chicago one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the nation," the mayor said.

The project's architects Hartshorne and Plunkard intend to preserve many of the existing historically significant features. The team will comply with LEED standards when renovating by incorporating an energy efficient environment, a green roof, clean air quality, a landscaped courtyard, bike rooms, meeting and event space, and priority parking for hybrid vehicles.

Green Exchange seeks to broaden the sustainable business marketplace from niche to mainstream. For more information, visit: www.greenexchange.com.

In Legal News

Here is a report from a week ago. The Police spied-extensively-on protest groups. This isn't going to stop until people realize it's going on. And they face their consciences and decide that it's not right. The whole article is not reprinted, but it is NYTimes.

March 25, 2007

City Police Spied Broadly Before G.O.P. Convention

By JIM DWYER

Correction Appended

For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show.

They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department’s Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms.

From these operations, run by the department’s “R.N.C. Intelligence Squad,” the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence.

But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped “N.Y.P.D. Secret,” the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show.

These included members of street theater companies, church groups and antiwar organizations, as well as environmentalists and people opposed to the death penalty, globalization and other government policies. Three New York City elected officials were cited in the reports.

In at least some cases, intelligence on what appeared to be lawful activity was shared with police departments in other cities. A police report on an organization of artists called Bands Against Bush noted that the group was planning concerts on Oct. 11, 2003, in New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and Boston. Between musical sets, the report said, there would be political speeches and videos.

“Activists are showing a well-organized network made up of anti-Bush sentiment; the mixing of music and political rhetoric indicates sophisticated organizing skills with a specific agenda,” said the report, dated Oct. 9, 2003. “Police departments in above listed areas have been contacted regarding this event.”

Police records indicate that in addition to sharing information with other police departments, New York undercover officers were active themselves in at least 15 places outside New York — including California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montreal, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Washington, D.C. — and in Europe.

The operation was mounted in 2003 after the Police Department, invoking the fresh horrors of the World Trade Center attack and the prospect of future terrorism, won greater authority from a federal judge to investigate political organizations for criminal activity.

To date, as the boundaries of the department’s expanded powers continue to be debated, police officials have provided only glimpses of its intelligence-gathering.

Now, the broad outlines of the pre-convention operations are emerging from records in federal lawsuits that were brought over mass arrests made during the convention, and in greater detail from still-secret reports reviewed by The New York Times. These include a sample of raw intelligence documents and of summary digests of observations from both the field and the department’s cyberintelligence unit.

Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department, confirmed that the operation had been wide-ranging, and said it had been an essential part of the preparations for the huge crowds that came to the city during the convention.

“Detectives collected information both in-state and out-of-state to learn in advance what was coming our way,” Mr. Browne said. When the detectives went out of town, he said, the department usually alerted the local authorities by telephone or in person.

Under a United States Supreme Court ruling, undercover surveillance of political groups is generally legal, but the police in New York — like those in many other big cities — have operated under special limits as a result of class-action lawsuits filed over police monitoring of civil rights and antiwar groups during the 1960s. The limits in New York are known as the Handschu guidelines, after the lead plaintiff, Barbara Handschu.

“All our activities were legal and were subject in advance to Handschu review,” Mr. Browne said.

Before monitoring political activity, the police must have “some indication of unlawful activity on the part of the individual or organization to be investigated,” United States District Court Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. said in a ruling last month.

Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represents seven of the 1,806 people arrested during the convention, said the Police Department stepped beyond the law in its covert surveillance program.

“The police have no authority to spy on lawful political activity, and this wide-ranging N.Y.P.D. program was wrong and illegal,” Mr. Dunn said. “In the coming weeks, the city will be required to disclose to us many more details about its preconvention surveillance of groups and activists, and many will be shocked by the breadth of the Police Department’s political surveillance operation.”

The Police Department said those complaints were overblown.

On Wednesday, lawyers for the plaintiffs in the convention lawsuits are scheduled to begin depositions of David Cohen, the deputy police commissioner for intelligence. Mr. Cohen, a former senior official at the Central Intelligence Agency, was “central to the N.Y.P.D.’s efforts to collect intelligence information prior to the R.N.C.,” Gerald C. Smith, an assistant corporation counsel with the city Law Department, said in a federal court filing.