New Orleans Lite

I don't know if anyone saw the piece by Naomi Klein in the Nation or today's Guardian. She quotes Jordan Flaherty, a New Orleans-based labour organiser, "Now the developers have their big chance to disperse the obstacle to gentrification - poor people." N'Awlins gentrified!?! Whatever next? The Queen joins the Communist Party? Anyway if the relief and re-developement effort in Sri Lanka is anything to go by. Bugger!

I quote. A council of the most prominent business people have been put in charge of the process, and they were handing the south coast over to tourist developers at a frantic pace. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of poor fishing people were still stuck in sweltering in-land camps, patrolled by soldiers with machine guns and entirley dependant on relief agencies for food and water. They called reconstruction 'the second tsunami.' It doesn't look good for the only city I would have got on a plane for.