Katrina 5th Anniversary Blog Stroll

There is lots of television coverage about the poverty and the despair of the lower 9th ward in New Orleans after Katrina, but until this year there has been little or no mention about The Mocha Mayberry of New Orleans.

With more than 1,000 modest ranch homes, wide curving streets and 200 acres of green space, Pontchartrain Park was our very own "mocha Mayberry" built around a golf course that later included a Little League ballpark, tennis courts and two historically black colleges. This community, built during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation in Louisiana, was a safe haven for working-class and upper-income blacks. In many ways it shielded us from the harsh realities of racism and prejudice that pervaded just beyond its borders.

Watch a video of Pontchartrain Park underwater a never before seen nightmare in New Orleans.

Oil from the BP oil dumb has seeped into New Orleans Lake Pontchratrain.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- New Orleans, which managed to escape the oil from the BP spill for more than two months, can't hide any longer.

For the first time since the accident, oil from the ruptured well is seeping into Lake Pontchartrain, threatening another environmental disaster for the huge body of water that was rescued from pollution in 1990s to become, once more, a bountiful fishing ground and a popular spot for boating and swimming.

Environmental racism is still rampant post Katrina

Environmental racism is a policy, or structured practice having to do with the built environment that negatively impacts a racially homogeneous group at a disproportionately higher rate than its (often) more affluent counterpart. These biased policies are reflected in deliberate efforts to concentrate toxins and other hazardous waste and pollutants in low-income communities of color or divert necessary infrastructure improvements from these very same communities. Research has confirmed that long-term exposure to toxins in the air, land, and water lead to long-term negative health conditions, including increased risk of asthma, cancer, and other chronic and deadly diseases. However, the impact of environmental racism is not only confined to health--the economic impact can be just as fatal.

New Orleans cops were told they could shoot looters post Katrina.

Police Captain Harry Mendoza, and his lieutenant, Mike Cahn III, told federal prosecutors last month that they were ordered by Warren Riley, then the department's second-in-command, to "take the city back and shoot looters.'' Mendoza quotes Riley as saying: "If you can sleep with it, do it."

Be sure and catch the Frontline Special Report Law and Disorder on air and on line on PBS starting tonight.

Washington has yet to address the key failures exposed by Katrina.

Our report, Learning from Katrina: Lessons from Five years of Recovery and Renewal in the Gulf Coast, finds that many of the problems exposed in the botched federal response to the storm--from breakdowns in disaster planning to a misguided and mismanaged recovery--have yet to be addressed in Washington.

What's more, these key flaws in federal policy will stall Gulf Coast rebuilding and put lives at risk in future disasters unless the President and Congress take action soon.

Must see Youtube In Honor of Those Who Sacrificed in the Civil Rights Movement

There are no words to express or anything to say. Sometimes showing a story is better than telling it.

H/T The grio.com, SouthernStudies.org, PBS.org, GrannyStandingforTruth.com