A Statement About New Orleans
- Posted on: Aug. 18, 2006
- 10 Comments
Posted in New Orleans, chartreuse
10 comments
1938 Media
Old Values - New Media
Frankly, Prince rubbed some people down here the wrong way with his initial pronouncements that no one was getting the truth out about New Orleans so he was coming down here to starighten that out.
We’ve all been at this story for a year. We been down the FEMA-concentration-camp and dynamitting-the-levees road and there’s no there there.
Too bad y’all have decided not to talk to the local bloggers, but that’s your decision. Anyone who’s getting information out about New Orleans is going good work, so I’m going to continue to stay out of it.
Its really a damn shame that y’all are going to miss the blogger’s conference at the end of the month, when you could find a room full of people to talk to about what’s been going down here for the past year. But the city is full of stories, and I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for.
I just suggest you tread carefully around the most sensational ones, because there’s plenty of well documented craziness down here already. For example, FEMA’s position (rescidnded when it came out) that trailer park residents could not speak to the media, on or off property. People went ballistic, and the backed down.
If nothing else, we welcome all visitors to New Orleans, just as we always have. They have become too much of the city’s bread and butter through tourism not to. Its the same way the city and state not just welcome, but actively recruit the film industry to shoot in the city and the state.
People down here are testy. I don’t think people outside of here can appreciate the frame of mind of people down here. No one in the United States has gone through anything even measurably close to what has happened on the Hurricane Coast this year, and people are stressed to the max. 9-11 cost more lives (but it was close) but instead of the devestation of square blocks, we’re talking about the devestation of 23,000 square miles, and the work of a lifetime to try to put it back together again. Unlike the response to 9-11, we’ve had to fight the government every step of the way.
People are weary and suspicious of outsiders at this point because they’re basically being gang raped by outsiders from the government, contrctors, etc.
Try to keep that in mind as you come down here. We’re the large block of people to suffer mass PSTD since the Vietnam war, but we’re down here plugging away at it in spite of everything.
The truth is out there. I’d suggest the approach that Easton Ellsworth has taken on teh NewOrleansTruth.com site. You’ll get more done by putting the ugliness of a few behind you and talking to or at lesat reading the people who’ve been on the ground and on this story for the last year.
Good luck.
ReplyMark,
Thank you. You seem to be the only person I’ve encountered with some balance. I would like very much to try and speak with you when we come down if that’s okay with you.
ReplyI think you do get it.
The NOLA bloggerss antipathy toward your visit has always been the arrogance involved sending down four bloggers to get “the truth” when the issues that so bothered Chartreuse had been firmly dealt with weeks, even months before, by a large groups of dedicated local bloggers, none of whom you or Chartreuse or anyone involved could be bothered to even link to (initially, anyway). As well as the continued arogance you display in positing that NOLA bloggers are “jealous” of not getting the attention we think we deserve– what? We’ve all been interviewed by national (and international) pupblications. We’ve gotten recognition. And please believe me: an obscure New York pop culture blog is not the platform we all dream of gaining access to.
We’ve been mean since the beginning? Maybe some have. Others reached out to the project and welcomed the extra attention given to the city. But your continued arrogance (You won’t meet with us? We’re crushed!) has turned nearly every local blogger against the project.
If you wanted to come down here to learn, to experience what it’s like, that would be different. But I’m pretty sure you have no intention of learning anything. My bet is that this is, in the truest sense of the word, an ego trip.
ReplyGreg,
An ego trip for me would be to go to St. Tropez to sleep with models.
As far as New Orleans bloggers go. It ain’t your city pal, get it. Other people live there with stories to tell
ReplyNo kidding Loren… but we will defend it and have been doing so since the storm.
You have personally raised our ire and continue to do so with your arrogant
and childish behavior.
You’ve doing a heckuva job getting outthe word on our distress.
ReplyWe never even started and you guys started ripping us. As far as raising yours or anyone else’s ire - tough. You raised mine by making us out to be profiting in some way. Go do your thing, I’m going to do mine. That’s America.
Replythis has been interesting to watch. It goes deep.
This is like the 2nd Reconstruction we’re talking about here. And that’s a touchy subject…
ReplyThanks, Loren for sharing your thoughts and feelings here in the video, and thanks to everyone here for continuing the conversation. As wonderful as online communication is, I think if we could have all just met in a room together for 30 minutes, we might have cleared things up a whole lot faster.
Again, I’m sorry for Know More Media’s poor planning - we really should have talked to New Orleans-area bloggers before we started the blog in order to ensure that they knew we are just trying to a bit of good here, without making money from it. Going forward, we’ve talked to as many people as possible to clear up their confusion and establish an atmosphere of collaboration. And as our posts at NewOrleansTruth have shown, we’re linking out to NOLA bloggers and others, and we’re sharing tips and links and promoting ideas that we think are worthwhile.
None of us understands the situation in the New Orleans area completely. All of us could benefit by keeping the dialogue going, and being willing to say sorry, forgive each other for any misguided words or actions, and move on trying to get more done together than we could apart.
We at Know More Media are working hard to improve the look and feel of NewOrleansTruth.com so that it better reflects the fact that we want people to learn more about organizations, blogs and other resources that may motivate them to make a positive difference in that area.
I’m looking forward to seeing what Loren and his fellow travelers publish, and I urge everyone here to keep in mind the perspective that he, Chartreuse and Know More Media and others involved have shared.
If anyone has questions about anything, please email me at (myfirstname) at knowmoremedia dot com, or Skype me if you want (firstname underscore lastname). Or leave a comment at the NewOrleansTruth blog. Or at my blog (businessblogwire.com). Or even just leave a comment here and coComment will tell me about it shortly.
ReplyThis has indeed been very interesting to watch and from a non-American perspective it has been very revealing about the possible north-south divide, as well as the divisions within divisions in the NO area.
You all need to stop bitching and pull together. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I believe it is in all our interests to have as much information from as many non government/non-corporate sources as possible. When it comes down to separating the gold from the dust, as it were, that is the role every individual must assume when reading any information source full-stop.
Reply[...] No. In all the blogs belonging to these folks, I have yet to find one that really talks about a Nola (that’s shorthand for the New Orleans area, all y’all who don’t know) blogger’s blogsite. (For that matter only two- Chartreuse and 1938Media- seem to be actual real bloggers; the others: recruited for the cause, I’m guessing?) There are now links to some Nola bloggers at NewOrleansTruth.com, but only after it was pointed out loudly and voluminously that this was a Gaping Omission in a site theoretically devoted to the Truth. [...]