Back in January, when we surveyed the presidential hopefuls’ stands on Katrina-related issues (see post of 1/11), we reported that John McCain had relatively little to say on the subject. That all changed last week when McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee, stopped in New Orleans and told the world in no uncertain terms that the government’s response to Katrina had been “terrible and disgraceful.”

“I want to assure the people of the 9th Ward, the people of New Orleans, the people of this country: Never again, never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way this was handled,” he said.

McCain made his comments during a 20-minute walking tour of the Lower Ninth Ward with his wife, Cindy, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a fellow Republican. He said the nation “didn’t have the right kind of leadership” during and after Katrina, and that “it was not only a perfect storm as far as its physical impact…it was a perfect storm as far as the federal, state, and local governments’ inability.”

McCain didn’t say much that hasn’t already been said by many others — though we certainly don’t hear it all that often these days from leading Repubicans. What was most striking was the uncompromising tone of McCain’s language and the specificity of his attacks. He criticized President Bush for flying over the Gulf Coast rather than immediately visiting after Katrina struck, saying, “I’d have ordered the plane landed at the nearest Air Force base, and I’d have been over here.”

McCain castigated the federal government for leaving “unqualified people in charge,” and complained that “there was a total misreading of the dimensions of the disaster” and a “failure of communications.”

And when a reporter asked if the leadership failure went “straight to the top,” McCain simply replied, “Yes.”

Though his website still doesn’t offer the kind of detailed Gulf Coast rebuilding plan that appear on the sites of both his Democratic rivals, McCain did offer some specific proposals during his visit to New Orleans. Those included restoring wetlands and preserving New Orleans’ barrier islands, providing more affordable housing, immediate action on climate change to help reduce the frequency of hurricanes, and requiring that the city meet a 2011 deadline for completing levees capable of protecting the city from a significant hurricane.

Astute viewers of this website may have noticed that it was recently redesigned. That change coincides with the launch of an extensive set of Professional Development materials designed to help educators interested in implementing “Teaching The Levees” and similar projects in their classrooms.

You can access these materials by clicking on the “Professional Development” link under “Resources” at right (or just click here if that’s easier). This site represents the culmination of many months worth of effort by students and professionals in the EdLab here at Teachers College, including Erin Murphy, Patrina Huff, and Brian Hughes. It features a wealth of multimedia materials on everything from fostering democratic discussions in the classroom to planning a service learning project — to New Orleans, or perhaps somewhere a bit closer to home.

In the Democratic Dialogue section, you’ll find videos in which educators demonstrate some of the techniques used in the “Teaching The Levees” curriculum, including critical thinking and the inquiry process. There are also invaluable print resources you can download free, including guidelines for “Fostering Democratic Discussion in the Classroom” and instructions for “Teaching Democracy: A Media Literacy Approach,” from the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy.

The Civic Engagement portion of the site features video samples of instructional techniques used in schools from New York to California as well as a segment featuring students from New York City’s Beacon School and their teacher Nathan Turner, who undertook a service learning project in New Orleans last year (pictured above). The section also includes a wide range of downloadable material and links to tools, such as Google’s blogging website, that you may wish to use in your classrooms.

So check it out! You’ll no doubt be inspired by some of what you see — particularly the work done by enterprising teachers and their students, including Ned Ide and Kathryn Malone and their students at the Hill School in Pennsylvania, Zach Mulert and his students at La Jolla Country Day School in California, and Dan Nichols and his students at the Heritage School in New York.

And, as always, please feel free to share with us any comments and insights you may have, either here on this blog, or on our “Share Your Lesson Plans” or “Discuss The Levees” forums on this site (see links at right).

The video clip here is from the North American Leaders’ Summit, which is taking place in New Orleans. While most of the talk at the summit is about the future of NAFTA, President Bush is using the meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to promote New Orleans’ recovery. (If for some reason the video does not appear on your browser, click here to watch.)

So far, he has presided with Calderon at the re-opening of the Mexican consulate in the city, across from the Convention Center and dined with his guests at the famed Commander’s Palace Restaurant. He has thanked those who have returned to New Orleans “on behalf of a grateful nation” and praised the efforts of those who “are absolutely determined to make it better than it was before.” He has met with Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Bobby Jindal, and is scheduled to meet with civic leaders today.

What Bush, Calderon and Harper won’t be doing is tour the areas most heavily affected by Katrina; their two-day summit will take place almost entirely in the downtown “Central Business District.”

Bush also took the time yesterday to do what few politicans who visit New Orleans can resist doing: he joined in the fun with one of the city’s iconic brass bands.

Let’s face it: it’s hard to maintain a neutral tone when writing about Bush and New Orleans these days. All you have to do is read some of the comments posted on the Times-Picayune’s  news stories covering the summit to get a sense of what the average New Orleanean thinks of the president at this point.

Still, it’s not the aim of this blog or of the “Teaching The Levees” curriculum to descend into endless Bush-bashing. After all, Bush could have held this summit anywhere, and decided to do it in New Orleans. That’s more than either of our major political parties could bring themselves to do, both arguing that the city “wasn’t ready” to host a presidential candidates’ debate. Given how so much of the city feels about him, does Bush deserve at least a little credit for taking the time to show his face and talk up the city’s recovery?

Let us know what you think. And if posting comments on a blog isn’t your thing, here’s an alternative idea. Those of you who watch CNN’s broadcast of Anderson Cooper 360 may be familiar with the show’s nightly feature in which viewers are asked to provide a humorous caption for the photo of the day. I thought we’d try this with the video of Bush in New Orleans. So watch the video and post your proposed caption. And remember, class, there are no right or wrong answers.

This is the kind of story I’m a bit reluctant to share — because it’s hard to read it and not give in to complete despair.

But it’s an important story, and one that gives us all a glimpse of what life can be like these days in post-Katrina New Orleans. And in a sense, it gives us a glimpse of what life can be like in any American “inner city,” in which gang violence and drive-by shootings have sadly become part of the fabric of everyday life.

The story begins with the murder of Dinerral Shavers on December 28, 2006 (see post of 10/12/07). Shavers was a music teacher and the talented drummer for the Hot 8 Brass Band, prominently featured in When the Levees Broke. Shavers had been summoned by his stepson, who found himself in the middle of a dispute in the 6th Ward. When Shavers and his wife arrived at the scene, the stepson and his friend jumped into their car. A hail of bullets followed; Shavers was the only victim, killed by a bullet in the back of the head.

Often in New Orleans these days, that would be the end of the story. But police actually succeeding in making an arrest of a teenager named David Bonds, charging him with second-degree murder. The case was dropped at one point when police could not find anyone willing to testify against Bonds. Public outrage led to re-instatement of the charges, and earlier this month Bonds went on trial.

In the end, only one witness, a teenage girl, identified Bonds as the shooter. The young man who had jumped into the car with Shavers’ stepson, Guy McEwen, told the jury he could not identify the shooter. (He is pictured above leaving the courthouse after testifying.) Neither could Shavers’ wife or her son, who were also in the car that night.

Based on the testimony of one girl, the jury voted 11-1 to acquit Bonds.

In a way, the whole sad affair might have been considered a small victory for New Orleans law enforcement. At least there had been an arrest, a trial, eyewitness testimony. That doesn’t happen very often.

Unfortunately, the story did not end there.

Thursday night, Guy McEwen, who had turned 20 the day before, died in a hail of gunfire on the 700 block of Peniston Street in Uptown New Orleans. Police said at least two guns had fired more than a dozen shots and that they believed McEwen was the intended target. The Times-Picayune reported that at least 25 gun casings were found at the crime scene.

It’s entirely unclear whether McEwen’s testimony had anything to do with his death. At least one news report so far indicates that it did not. A story issued last night by WWL-TV suggested that McEwen was killed as a result of a neighborhood dispute he had become involved in last week — possibly the same kind of feud that led to Shavers’ death.

Dinerral Shavers’ death was heartbreaking. What word is then left to describe McEwen’s death?

How many times can New Orleans’ heart be broken?

During my recent visit to New Orleans, I came upon this T-shirt for sale in the French Market.

I thought it would make a most interesting topic of discussion for a high school class.

I’m not sure what the Cadillac refers to, but I’m pretty sure the “plasma TV” is a reference to Sharon Jasper. At the height of the debate over the demolition of public housing in December (see posts of 12/18 and 12/21), the former resident of the St. Bernard housing complex made headlines when she lamented the living conditions she had been provided with by city housing vouchers. Jasper allowed photographers to tour her apartment; a photo of her sitting in her living room appeared in the Times-Picayune the next day. (Click here to read the article and see the picture.)

That set off a flurry of online commentary dubbing Jasper a “welfare queen” and a “hypocritical ungrateful loudmouth.” What seemed to really get at people was the fact that Jasper’s apartment looked kind of nice in the picture, with its renovated kitchen and, yes, a big-screen TV. (For the record, it looks more like a rear-projection TV than a plasma, though I don’t suppose the distinction really makes much difference.)

The comments on the Times-Picayune’s website were not simply negative, they were largely downright hostile. Someone suggested Jasper’s TV must have been one of those looted during Katrina; someone else wrote that Jasper was typical of the welfare recipients who learn how to “work the system.” Another exhorted Jasper to “get off your a** and take control of your life.” Bloggers all over the web had a field day for months.

Much of the anger was directed at Jasper’s complaints about her situation: the caption in the Times-Picayune quoted her as saying, “I might be poor but I don’t like to live poor.  I thank God for a place to live, but it’s pitiful what people give you.”  Elsewhere in the article she was quoted as saying that even though her rent was paid by a housing voucher, she could not afford the deposit or the “steep utility bill.”  One writer called Jasper typical of people who “think the world owes them.”  Another suggested “She should be kicked out onto the street and made to WORK for every thing she gets, like MOST of us do.”

Even if one concludes that Jasper has nothing to legitimately complain about, you have to wonder where all the venom comes from. In the entire post-Katrina mess, why is so much of the acrimony reserved for Sharon Jasper? Are we as a nation more angry that our government hasn’t done a very good job of taking care of people made homeless by Katrina — or at the people themselves? And even if the government does provide them with housing, do they then forfeit the right to express anger about anything?

Of course, it’s unclear whether Jasper owns the TV, whether it came with the apartment, or whether it even works. The overall calculus of the comments was eminently clear: if you have a big screen TV, you are not poor and have nothing to complain about. The further implication was clear, as well: if you are poor, you should be living in substandard conditions.

I’m guessing more than a few students agree with the comments posted online about Jasper. And I think the whole incident — and the T-shirt — could be a very powerful spark for a classroom discussion about our general attitudes toward the poor.

The general difficulty in suing public agencies notwithstanding (see post of 4/8/08), it appears that at least one couple prevented from crossing the Crescent City Connection Bridge in the chaotic days following Katrina will get its day in court.

Last week a New Orleans civil court judge ruled that Kevin McCusker and his wife have the right to sue the city of Gretna and its police department for causing them mental and physical harm when they stopped the couple from crossing the bridge, which spans the Mississippi River and connects the city of New Orleans with Jefferson Parish.

The blockade of the Crescent City Connection makes for one of the most compelling incidents in When The Levees Broke (see Act II, Chapter 1, “Jeffersonia.”). The film raises the question of whether the bridge blockade was an act of racism: NAACP lawyer Vanita Gupta argues that when police said they were tyring to prevent “thugs and looters” from crossing the bridge, they were really using code for “African Americans.”

Others in the film are more forgiving of the police force, arguing that they did not have anywhere near the kind of resources they would need to deal with the influx of thousands of hungry and frightened hurricane survivors. The entire episode remains one of the more controversial surrounding Katrina — one that will surely make for an interesting democratic dialogue in your classroom. (The “Teaching The Levees” curriculum uses the incident as an opening activity for our lesson on “Are There Two Americas?”; see pp. 58-61 in the curriculum book. You can also click here, here, and here for background articles on the incident.)

Last fall, a grand jury investigating criminal wrongdoing in the incident declined to indict anyone involved in the blockade, including the Gretna police officer who fired a shot to enforce it. But in a civil action, a federal judge ruled that six New Orleans residents could proceed with a class action suit charging that the Gretna police violated their constitutional rights and used excessive force in preventing them from crossing the bridge. That suit is expected to be heard early next year.

And now New Orleans Civil District Court Judge Madeleine Landrieu has ruled that the McCuskers can move forward with their suit in state court.

Lawsuits tend to move rather slowly, and it may be years before either of these cases is decided. Still, they are likely to provide one of the few opportunities for juries of American citizens to have their say concerning Katrina — and it will be most interesting to find out exactly what that say will be.

The short answer, of course, is no, based on the principle of “sovereign immunity.”

That is the legal doctine affirming that the government cannot be sued, unless it agrees to be sued.  In the United States, federal, state, and local governments have been known to waive their right to sovereign immunity, but only occasionally, and generally only in cases that involve “torts,” civil wrongs that entitle a victim to money damages. 

No surprise here, but the evidence is that no part of our government — state, federal, or local — has any intention of accepting liability for the effects of Katrina on the people of the Gulf Coast.

Herbert Freeman, Jr., learned that legal lesson the hard way.  Freeman is the New Orleans resident whose story is featured prominently in When the Levees Broke.  It was his 91-year-old, wheelchair-bound mother, Ethel, who became a symbol of government neglect when she died on September 1, 2005, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center while waiting in vain to be rescued.

Freeman later filed two lawsuits – one against the federal government and FEMA, and another against the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana, charging “gross negligence and willful misconduct” leading directly to his mother’s death. 

Last May, U.S. District Court Judge Jay Zainey dismissed Freeman’s federal case.  In September, Orleans Parish Civil District Judge Robin Giarrusso dismissed the state court case.  Earlier this month, an appeals court upheld that decision, arguing that as a general principle, the state enjoys immunity from liability unless defendants can show “willfull misconduct.”  The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 4-1 that Freeman was unable to prove such misconduct.

“The court is very sympathetic to the plaintiffs for the loss of their loved ones,” Judge Zainey wrote.  “However, this court is prohibited from changing the laws that Congress has enacted.  As such, the court lacks the authority to award money damages for the claims in which the plaintiffs are not legally entitled.”

In an unrelated case, another federal judge in January dismissed a class action lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers.  Judge Stanwood R. Duval, Jr., ruled that the agency is immune from prosecution against failures of flood control projects under the Flood Control Act of 1928.  (Interestingly enough, apparently the Corps is not immune if the failure involves a drainage or navigation project.  In a separate ruling in February, 2007, Judge Duval allowed a Katrina damage suit involving the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (known as “Mr. Go”), labeling that waterway a “navigation channel” and not a “flood control project.”)

In his January ruling, Judge Duval did what judges rarely do, and briefly stepped outside his legal role to issue a stark rebuke of the Corps for the failure of the levees.  While the Corps may not be forced to accept legal responsibility for that failure, Judge Duval insisted that it ultimately bears some kind of moral resonsibility for what happened when the 17th Street Canal failed.

It’s worth quoting from Judge Duval’s ruling, because his words echo the sentiments of a whole lot of people in New Orleans.  Those words may provide little comfort for people who lost their homes and family members after Katrina, but they provide powerful ammunition in the larger debate about the responsibility of government towards its citizens:

“While the United States government is immune for legal liability for the defalcations alleged herein, it is not free, nor should it be, from posterity’s judgment concerning its failure to accomplish what was its task. The citizens of each and every city in this great nation have come to depend on their government and its agencies to perform certain tasks which have been assigned to federal agencies by laws passed by Congress and overseen by the Executive Branch.

“It should not be unreasonable for those citizens to rely on their agents, whom they pay through their taxes, to perform the tasks assigned in a timely and competent way. However, because of § 702c, there is neither incentive, nor punishment to insure that our own government performs these tasks correctly. There is no provision in the law which allows this Court to avoid the immunity provided by § 702c; gross incompetence receives the same treatment as simple mistake.

“This story–fifty years in the making–is heart-wrenching. Millions of dollars were squandered in building a levee system with respect to these outfall canals which was known to be inadequate by the Corps’ own calculations. The byzantine funding and appropriation methods for this undertaking were in large part a cause of this failure. In addition, the failure of Congress to oversee the building of the LPV and the failure to recognize that it was flawed from practically the outset–using the wrong calculations for storm surge, failing to take into account subsidence, failing to take into account issues of the strength of canal walls at the 17th Street Canal while allowing the scouring out of the canal–rest with those who are charged with oversight.

“The cruel irony here is that the Corps cast a blind eye, either as a result of executive directives or bureaucratic parsimony, to flooding caused by drainage needs and until otherwise directed by Congress, solely focused on flooding caused by storm surge. Nonetheless, damage caused by either type of flooding is ultimately borne by the same public fisc. Such egregious myopia is a caricature of bureaucratic inefficiency.

“It is not within this Court’s power to address the wrongs committed. It is hopefully within the citizens of the United States’ power to address the failures of our laws and agencies. If not, it is certain that another tragedy such as this will occur again.”

For the complete text of Judge Duval’s ruling, click here.

If FEMA can’t get the job done, can Wal-Mart?

That’s precisely the suggestion of a most interesting policy paper just released by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, written by St. Lawrence University economist Steven Horwitz. The report, “Making Hurricane Response More Effective: Lessons from the Private Sector and the Coast Guard During Katrina,” argues that big box retailers in New Orleans — Wal-Mart in particular — did an exemplary job of providing relief in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, even as FEMA stunningly failed to do so. The report argues that these retailers (which also include Home Depot and Lowe’s) had the knowledge of the local community, a decentralized command structure, highly organized infrastructure and established delivery systems, and the incentive of wanting to strengthen their customer base after the crisis was over to make a considerable contribution to the city’s recovery efforts in the days and weeks after Katrina hit. (Click here to download the complete report.)

“Profit-seeking firms beat most of the government to the scene and provided more effectively the supplies needed for the immediate survival of a population cut off from life’s most basic necessities,” the study concludes.

Horwitz cites the decision of Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott to give discretion to local managers and employees to make decisions without waiting for instructions from above. While days passed and jurisdictional battles between local and federal officials kept government relief efforts in gridlock, Wal-Mart was already delivering truckloads of basic necessities. Even before Katrina made landfall, the firm had 50 executives gathered in a command center, already armed with satellite phones. Scott told local Wal-Mart officials, “A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level. Make the best decision that you can with the information that’s available to you at the time, and, above all, do the right thing.”

(I have no idea if Scott knew he was invoking the title of a Spike Lee film, but either way there’s a certain poetic symmetry there.)

That decision enabled an employee of the chain’s Kenner store to use a forklift to break down a warehouse door to get water for a nearby retirement home, and for employees in another store to let local police use the building as a temporary headquarters and place to sleep. Jessica Lewis, the assistant manager of the Waveland, Mississippi, store, made the decision to run “a bulldozer through her store to collect basics that were not water damaged, which she then piled in the parking lot and gave away to residents. She also broke into the store’s locked pharmacy to supply critical drugs to a local hospital.”

Horwitz’s report notes the similarity with the way commanders of the U.S. Coast Guard operated. Viewers of When the Levees Broke know that the Coast Guard was the one government agency to perform admirably after Katrina, largely because its commanders agreed forgo “standard operating procedure” and the traditional chain of command.

Horwitz’s report offers four major policy recommendations for future disasters. Not only should government relief efforts be decentralized, the report suggests, but the private sector should be given “as much freedom as possible to provide resources for relief and recovery efforts and ensure that its role is officially recognized as part of disaster protocols.”

What’s most interesting about the report, of course, is that it is citing exemplary behavior by Wal-Mart, the retail giant so many Americans love to hate. This is the same chain that was the subject of a 2005 documentary called Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, which depicted the chain as a greedy goliath that mistreats its employees and drives local economies into the ground. This is the same chain that just got a week’s worth of relentlessly horrible press from CNN for trying to recoup $470,000 from a former employee severely injured in an accident. (Wal-Mart ultimately relented and dropped its lawsuit.)

Talk about challenging conventional wisdom. That’s something we should always encourage our students to do. This report should be required reading for any class discussing government responsibility in the aftermath of Katrina. Even if you don’t ultimately agree with its conclusions, the story this report tells raises intriguing and important questions about the role — and limitations — of government in caring for its citizens when disaster strikes.

Here’s a question that’s sure to stimulate some democratic dialogue among your students:

If a person holds a full time job but can’t afford a home, does society have an obligation to care of him or her?

I pose the question because on my last morning in New Orleans two weeks ago, I was greeted at the door of my hotel room with a copy of USA Today, whose front page bore the headline, “New Orleans Homeless Rate Swells to 1 in 25.”

According to the article, New Orleans now has one of the highest homeless rates ever recorded in an American city — 4 percent, or roughly 12,000 people — double its pre-Katrina level and four times the rate of most American cities.

“In a modern urban U.S. city, we’ve never seen it,” University of Pennsylvania professor Dennis Culhane told the paper.

The article cited skyrocketing rents and a shortage of affordable housing stock in the aftermath of Katrina.  According to the Brookings Institution’s most recent “Katrina Index,” the average rent for a studio apartment has risen to $764 from $463 in 2004.

In an accompanying USA Today article, “Homeless Still Feel Katrina’s Wrath,” Ron Gonzales, executive director of the New Orleans Mission, noted a significant difference between those filling beds in the shelter before Katrina and today.  Pre-Katrina, most were jobless and many faced mental health issues, Gonzales said.  Now, he estimated, now, 40% of those sleeping at the shelter  hold full-time jobs.

“They’re homeless because they can’t afford an apartment or house,” Gonzales said.

There’s no way to verify the accuracy of that figure, but the soaring homeless rate in New Orleans indicates that something out of the ordinary is happening there. (It’s further complicated by the controversy surrounding the recent decision to demolish the city’s four main public housing projects and replace them with mixed-use development; see our posts of Dec. 18 and Dec. 21, 2007.  Advocates for the homeless cite the loss of these 4,500 units as a prime contributor to the soaring homeless rate; defenders of the mixed-use projects argue that the older units were woefully substandard and crime-ridden, and that the new projects will provide superior housing for those who most need it.)

So ask your students:  if a person works full-time, but finds himself with no place to sleep other than a homeless shelter or under a highway overpass, does government have the obligation to step in and do something?

Is it a different question if the person can’t find a job?  Or if s/he suffers from mental illness?  Who is government obligated to provide for?  At what point are individuals obligated to take responsibility for their own misfortunes?

Difficult questions, to be sure.  When we launched “Teaching The Levees,” we asked the essential questions, What kind of country are we?, and What kind of country do we want to be?

At the moment, it seems, we are a country that finds 1 in 25 residents of a major city unable to find housing an acceptable situation.  The larger question is whether that’s the kind of country we want to be – or will continue to be.