Old Orleans?

[Arpa]

Old Orleans

 

Seems like the New Orleans we know will some day will be known as the Old Orleans when a new city is built.

Our hearts go out to all those poor souls.

Katrina, as mild mannered she seemed to be proved to be the most destructive “woman” of history since Lucrecia Borgia.

 

The rest is sarcasm.

With all the death and destruction at our Gulf of Mexico one fact has caught my attention and given me a sense of hope and “gratitude”. Is it me, or has anyone else seen, all that outpouring of charity, aid and compassion the world has shown? Is it me or anyone else has seen all those ships and airplanes laden with humanitarian supplies and volunteers arriving at New Orleans? Has anyone else seen the Indonesians with shipfuls of bananas arrive, the Iraqis with planeloads of wheat and flour? The Saudis with tankers full of fuel? And while at it check the price of gasoline. The most touching of all is the sight of the outpouring of compassion shown by those highest recipients of US aid, the Turkish fleet full of “apricots, and (Turkish) coffee”, and the Israeli “ark” laden with matzos and bagels.

 

Did I leave any one out?

How about the entire globe that has merely been sustained by US aid the past 100 years or more?

Edited September 1, 2005 by Arpa

[Sip]

Very well said.

[Arvestaked]

New Orleans better survive in its old form. I like that city a lot, dammit.

[Arpa]

We may have also missed all the festive thanksgivings in the mosques across the globe praising allah for having punished the infidel satan America for its sins keeping the muslim world afloat for all these years, even if meant sinking Christian Armenia to the bottom of Lake Van.

[phantom22]

The Vieux Carre will be restored, as it is the engine of the Louisiana tourist industry. We have the technology today to bring back that district. Similar efforts succeeded after the Loma Prieta earthquake.

[MosJan]

well said

now back to us Armenians or HyeForum

what are we going to do ???

[Sasun]

We could do something, such as donating to Red Cross.

[MosJan]

donating to Red Cross???

 

 

ok Sip jan can you please stop by at your local Red Cross office and donate some blood froem all of us please

 

ok now donating to Red Cross is fine by me - who do we send it to - each person by him self or do we send some to forum member and he/she makes the donating to Red Cross

[phantom22]

It is best that help come from the ROA or our compatriotic organizations. I have supported both sides.

[Sasun]

donating to Red Cross???

ok  Sip jan  can you please stop by at  your  local  Red Cross office  and  donate  some  blood froem all of  us please 

Yeah, I agree, Sip has too much blood.

ok  now  donating to Red Cross is fine  by me - who do we  send it to - each person  by  him self  or  do we send  some  to forum member and  he/she  makes the donating to Red Cross

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We can do both ways, but I think it is better that each one donates on his/her own because we are too slow to act collectively, and besides it does not really make a difference.

[MosJan]

we are too slow - hmmm yes we are

 

Act Collectively - ??? yes we can but we are to slow

 

it's up to members of the forum

 

so just let me know

[Azat]

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/fac...ans-imagery.htm

[Takoush]

New Orleans better survive in its old form. I like that city a lot, dammit.

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It's a shame. I always wanted to see New Orleans as I was told it was very pretty and unique. Now it's gone.

 

I fee bad for the poor souls who have parished, but how about the poor 1,000 Iraqui's that lost their lives also just about a few days ago. They said most of them were old men, women and children. And how about our 50,000 wealthy and well to do Armenians in there who also lost all their wealth, belongings, their livelihood and I am sure a lot of them lost their lives as well. We had no problem with the government there before Bush and the Israelis who wanted money money money and the Gulf put their Big nose in it and engulfed it. Never mind if many and many lives were lost on both fronts and many were left mamed. Who fought for it, except some poor and beautiful American boys. And then they have distructed the whole country as well as the poor Armenians that were living in there.

 

I shall cry for them as well!

[Arvestaked]

Apparently the French Quarter survived. I'm not celebrating yet but it's looking like some light at the end. Ah, the French quarter. Cool buildings, Preservation Hall, and the rancid smell of the street party from the night before. I want the cemetaries to be ok too. Edited September 8, 2005 by Arvestaked

[Dave]

Did I leave any one out?

 

Armenia sent 200 000$ to help.

[Anileve]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050902/us_nm/...rina_foreign_dc

 

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the article. Israel and Turkey are on the list. Chavez and Castro are the most surprising of all. It would be highly undiplomatic of other nations not to offer help, considering how powerful this empire has become. Do you not offer your services to the Mafia family that has been "protecting" you for decades?

 

And more...

 

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti...EWS06/509030480

 

Russia pledged to send a whole 3 planes!!!! Wow...

 

Now what concerns our own gov. that's where the real problem is. From the stories I've heard from students and people that have come back from New Orleans...most atrocious and unreasonable things are happening there. But most of all good ol' Racism reared its ugly head, particularly during this catastrophe. It's very sad.

Edited September 17, 2005 by Anileve

[DominO123]

The Vieux Carre will be restored, as it is the engine of the Louisiana tourist industry. We have the technology today to bring back that district. Similar efforts succeeded after the Loma Prieta earthquake.

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Water domage can be worst than Earthquakes.

[phantom22]

Water domage can be worst than Earthquakes.

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The Vieux Carre (French Quarter) was on higher ground and was flooded by only one foot of water at the peak of the flood. It received much less damage and will be reopened next week. The water damage will be taken care of. It is other parts of New Orleans that were under 20-30 feet of water that are in worse shape. The French founders of old New Orleans had the sense to build it on high ground. It was only later that the lowlands were leveed and developed. The tourist mecca has sustained the least damage of the whole city.

Edited September 17, 2005 by phantom22

[Sip]

Apparently the French Quarter survived. ...

 

Yah I saw it on CNN a couple of days ago ... video from the French Quarter and it seemed ok ... nothing like the rest of the city.

 

And as far as me giving blood, I'm just waiting for them to figure how to do it online. Once they figure that part out, I'll be hooked up to the donation center 24/7

[Arvestaked]

Yah I saw it on CNN a couple of days ago ... video from the French Quarter and it seemed ok ... nothing like the rest of the city.

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I better have places like Preservation Hall and that other jazz club that I want to say is called Fritzel's waiting for me.

[Arvestaked]

Preservation Hall Jazz Band reunites in NYC

Members scattered to escape Hurricane Katrina but spirit lives on.

 

http://media.msnbc.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Sources/sourceAP.gif

 

NEW YORK - John Brunious flew in from an evacuation center in Arkansas, wearing donated clothes and carrying a borrowed trumpet, his voice shot from swallowing polluted floodwater.

 

The 64-year-old leader of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band went straight from the plane to a Manhattan TV studio for a reunion with the world’s ambassadors of New Orleans jazz. The musicians could play only one tune that night. Everyone agreed it should be “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?”

 

“I was so happy to see that the others were OK, because I knew what I had just come from,” said Brunious, 64, who was treated for dehydration at an Arkansas hospital after enduring days without food and water at the horrific New Orleans Convention Center. “I was very emotional because I really wanted to sing that song to let the world know that we do know what it means to miss New Orleans.”

 

Long tradition of jazz

For more than 40 years, the Preservation Hall musicians have spread their infectious, joyful rhythms from African villagers to British royalty, from the White House to the former Soviet Union.

 

Jazz lovers from around the world have made the pilgrimage to pass through Preservation Hall’s wrought-iron gates at 726 St. Peter Street. Inside the dimly lit hall with no air conditioning, fans sat on benches or cushions spread on the rough wooden floor as they listened to pure, unadulterated, traditional New Orleans jazz.

 

Despite their worldwide renown, the Preservation Hall musicians remain deeply rooted in their local neighborhoods, where such legends as Buddy Bolden, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong created jazz nearly a century ago.

 

“I think the band is one of the most honest reflections of New Orleans,” said bassist Benjamin Jaffe, 34, Preservation Hall’s director. “We don’t live in an ivory tower. We live with our communities and care for our communities.

 

“We all feel that we were down and then we got kicked, and that’s a terrible place to feel right now,” he said during an interview at the Manhattan office of the distributor for the Preservation Hall Recordings label, where his staff is working until they can return home.

 

Four of the band’s eight musicians had their homes destroyed in the deluge. Three of them — Brunious, pianist Rickie Monie and drummer Joseph Lastie, Jr. — also lost their prized instruments.

 

Preservation Hall itself dates back to a private residence built in 1750, when New Orleans was still a French colony. Like most of the French Quarter, the building suffered only minimal damage from Katrina, its stone walls and thick wooden shutters holding firm against yet another hurricane.

 

First separation in years

The band last performed at Preservation Hall on Aug. 27, a Saturday night, one day before Katrina hit. They played for about 20 people, one of the smallest crowds since the hall was founded by Jaffe’s parents in 1961 in a former art gallery. The performance ended early so the musicians could get out of town.

 

Jaffe arranged a car and nurse to evacuate 96-year-old retired banjo player Narvin Kimball, the last surviving member of the original Preservation Hall band. Jaffe fled the day after Katrina struck, leaving his bass behind and driving with his wife and two dogs to New York City.

 

In the ensuing days, Jaffe desperately tried to track down his fellow musicians. It was the first time he could remember that the band — most of whom lived within a few miles of each other — had been separated for so long.

 

Most of the group evacuated before the storm struck. The pianist, Monie, took refuge with his family for almost a week on the upper floor of an office building with their own stock of provisions. But it took almost 10 days for Jaffe to find Brunious.

 

A scion of one of the city’s legendary musical families, the lifelong New Orleans resident watched from the window of his ground floor apartment on Elysian Fields Avenue as the waters surged over his truck and two Cadillacs. Then the water entered Brunious’ home, engulfing his seven trumpets, his new stereo system, his suits and shirts and ties.

 

He retreated upstairs to his landlady’s apartment, watching the water creep up the staircase step by step, until some neighbors drove by in a motorboat.

 

“They picked me and some other neighbors up and brought us to this school,” Brunious said. “I had nothing besides what I was wearing, my wallet was soaking wet, and I had one thong shoe and one bare foot because the other shoe came off in the water.”

 

Brunious ended up at the convention center. He slept on the floor for four days, hungry, thirsty and in constant fear of being attacked by marauding youths.

 

“I would say that the city, state and national government just turned their backs on us because we didn’t get anything to eat or drink, there was no law and order, and no plan,” Brunious said by telephone from a New Jersey hotel that was temporarily housing some of the band.

 

After the National Guard arrived, Brunious was bused to Houston, then Dallas, and eventually an evacuation center in Conway, Ark. Volunteers gave him some clothes and helped him contact Jaffe. A Little Rock music store owner loaned him a trumpet.

 

Fighting on

Brunious landed on Sept. 9, in the middle of a BET telethon that included a Preservation Hall performance at the end. Brunious normally would have sung the lyrics to “New Orleans” (made famous by Louis Armstrong), but a bad cough prevented him from performing. He yielded the lyrics to banjo player Carl Le Blanc.

 

“We’re not going to let a hurricane stop our music. This music is too important to the musicians and people of New Orleans, and to the people of the world,” Brunious said. “This music is our treasure and we want to share it.”

 

Jaffe is now scrambling to prepare for a previously arranged international tour that begins in Thailand on Sept. 28 — securing new passports, outfitting the musicians and replacing missing instruments. “I don’t know when Preservation Hall will reopen, but all I know is that it will reopen,” Jaffe said.

 

“What my real dream is that when we reopen that it will be without fanfare and like all the other nights that Preservation Hall has been open. Because then I’ll know that New Orleans is back on its feet again, that everybody’s safe, healthy and cared for, and that’s when I’ll feel like my job is done.”

 

© 2005 The Associated Press.