[Recovery Pen has been a column about New Orleans life, from the vantage point of a transplanted northerner with a soft heart and an eye for detail.]

When I was a kid, my mom tried to cheer me up at the end of a fun weekend or family vacation with this old saying: all good things must come to an end. It wasn't much comfort then, and it's not much comfort now. "But why?" I'd ask her. "Why do good things have to end?"

She didn't have an answer for me, and I don't have an answer for you. My fellow bloggers have already said their goodbyes, and now it's my turn. As you've heard, our blog has been cancelled, obviously not because of our writing quality, but because our parent company wants to go in other directions. Bloggingneworleans, and its short-lived predecessor bloggingohio, were to be the vanguard of location-specific sites across the AOL network. But when Bloggingla and bloggingbrooklyn never manifested themselves, well, it didn't come as much of a surprise when we heard they were pulling the plug on us.

Personally, I can say that I received the news with a mixture of sadness and relief. Unlike my fellow bloggers, who plan to set up camp in new spots in the blogosphere, I am looking forward to the old-fashioned pursuit of writing a novel. It's something that I couldn't balance with my full-time job, healthy social life, activist pursuits, and weekly blog, but now I can fit it in. And I'm so grateful for this site which has forced me to sit my butt down and write on a semi-regular basis. Having this practice will help my novelist pursuits immensely.

And yet, and yet... As we recently passed the two-year Katrina anniversary, it saddened me to realize that the city still needs a Recovery Pen, because we're still recovering. And maybe we always will be, the way alcoholics call themselves "recovering" for years after they put down the bottle.

Well, I let you know about the sad news of our site's retirement last week I said I'd tell you more about the future and then... well I dropped off the face of the planet. Before I tell you about the future one last story... Tuesday afternoon(September 11th, ugh) the a rain the dusted the city was the final staw for the roof of the building my apartment is in and water started to pour (and I do me pour) into my bedroom. My poor extremely pregnant better half was home and managed to move the last of our future offspring's future out of the room before the ceiling started to come down around her. So now I'm in a bad situation with an apartment that needs to be emptied and a new one that needs to be found (and now you know why the podcast was late). I have some options and the help of our families is going to help a lot, but I had to cut off my blogging for the week and only just now could get to you... so on to the future... I think my future includes a break for blogging. I loved being able to post my thoughts on the state of the city in this space, but I think I need to take a step back. The tracking of some of the underbelly of the recovery can be really upsetting and I am finding the stress of the country looking at us as the ugly step-sisters of the nation extremely hard. Sometimes you just want to be a techwriter who fauns over the latest websites instead of dealing with hard realities of the recovery.

Maybe I'm just a little tired (as are many in the city). Maybe I'm just a little to angry. Maybe I just need a break.

Wow, that was a little depressing. On a high note, we must end. Thanks for reading my rants. Thanks for commenting on my podcasts. Thanks for sending in your ideas. Thanks for saying hey. Thanks for everything.

I loved covering Jazz Fest for you. I loved getting to know my city again for you. I loved getting politically angry for you. I loved posting for you.

Thank you.

Dirty Coast is one of the most recognizable local t-shirt companies around town. Infamous for their New Orleans inspired tees, such as "Be a New Orleanian. Wherever you are." and "Where's Nagin?", the company got started shortly before Katrina, but things really took off as displaced New Orleanians began snatching up these tshirts as a way of showing hometown pride.

Dirty Coast is hosting an End of Summer Party tonight at Tipitina's uptown. Rotary Downs and The Other Planets will be playing and doors open at 9pm. It's only 8 bucks to get in and sounds like it will be a lot of fun. (The Dirty Coast folks usually know how to throw a pretty good party.) Dirty Coast also recently opened their new retail location at 5704 Magazine Street. I haven't had a chance to drop by and check it out, as I'm rarely uptown these days, but I'll have to make a special visit soon.

Dirty Coast was featured awhile back as one of StayLocal.org's success stories. This will obviously be my last Where to Shop piece here on BloggingNewOrleans, as today is our last day to post, but may I refer you to Stay Local's extensive local business listings? In these days of recovery it's especially important to keep our dollars in the local economy. If you need a reminder why, just check out their top 10 reasons on why to shop local.

[This is a continuation of the author's series on New Orleans lessons, to commemorate both her 10th anniversary of living in New Orleans , as well as the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.]

U is for Under

When considering the letter "U," this preposition popped into mind first, although after yesterday's weather, I could have easily gone with "umbrella." Yet I feel like "under" says pretty much all you need to know about New Orleans, America's underdog, the steamy underbelly of our Puritan Union. It's also one of the few places - outside of San Francisco - where you can go out wearing your underwear and people don't even blink. Although I prefer a robe.

V is for Vampire

Although tourists flock to New Orleans to tour vampire author Anne Rice's house, hoping to come across a vampire in the evening shadows, they'd find more bloodsuckers out at our construction sites. Ask anyone who's had work done on their home - including our own Kelly Leahy - and you'll get an earful about dishonest contractors who either bled them dry or sucked the life out of them with postponements and switchbacks until the homeowner finally ended up in the fetal position. Now I know there are some good, honest contractors out there - and really, the three of you should form a club.

On the subject of vampires, I could go into detail about some of the gentlemen who have taught me valuable lessons during my time in New Orleans, but this isn't that kind of blog. Besides, you boys know who you are.

It's time for the last Blogging New Orleans podcast. Each week I record a podcast about all things New Orleans on Tuesday evening and upload it for all of you to listen to on Wednesday afternoon. Comments, questions, concerns? Comment on this post or contact us via the tips link on the site. This week I give my podcast good byes and interview the most important expert I know, my dad. Mark Schleifstein is the co-author of Path of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans & the Coming Age of Superstorms (note: I am the current webmaster of the official book site and Mark is my dad) and a reporter for the Times Picayune who covers environmental issues and hurricanes (and more).

• Welcome
• Good byes and the reasons for the delay
• the interview with my dad
• The future of New Orleans
• The Levees
• Lakeview, Gentilly and the Ninth Ward
• Katrina and Rita's effect on the Ninth Ward
• Politics
• Sports
• A bright future with new engineering projects and lots of jobs
• Thanks

Thanks for listening to the last 35 episodes of this podcast. Its been great telling you my thoughts every week and talking about the city.

Update: there was an error in the filename of the podcast, fixed now.

SUBSCRIBE to the Blogging New Orleans podcast in iTunes
LISTEN to the podcast now
ADD the Blogging New Orleans podcast feed to your RSS aggregator

[Terra Nola documents the long-distance love affair between a New Yorker and New Orleans.]

Well, if I hadn't read it with my own eyes I would not have believed it (not that we should believe everything we read). Looks like there is to be a second Camellia Grill, this one in Destin, Florida, beloved by teenagers on spring break everywhere.

As I said to Kelly Leahy, co-blogger here at bloggingneworleans, there can be only one. Even if the reopened version in Nola is doing well enough, the new owner is messing with some pretty serious karma to try and duplicate his success outside of the Crescent City. It was a miracle the Camellia Grill reopened at all given the devastation and destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Why tempt fate?

But, that said, if you're going to tempt fate, you might as well do it in the pan handle. If a greasy spoon operation is going to make it anywhere, it can make it in Destin. Not that Destin is lacking in diners--to the contrary, they're everywhere.

Recently spotted on the West Bank, this fixer-upper mere blocks from the Mississippi River. Priced to sell; act fast before the termites get in.

Well, it's probably too late for that. Nice holes in the wall, eh?

Geez, I wish that I had known. Maybe these guys can recommend a plumber to me. "This Old House" will be making its way to New Orleans to focus on the rebuilding efforts in the 9th Ward. They will be taking a look at the Musicians Village (no so old) and also zoning ordinances in Holy Cross (very old).

It certainly makes sense that they will be making their way down here and I'm glad that they will be looking at a house in Holy Cross which is a beautiful neighborhood. When you get the chance, drive down there and check out the two Doullut Steamboat Houses. The neighborhood is sandwiched between Jackson Barracks and the old Holy Cross school. There is a significant amount of renovation in the area led by the PRC and prices are great.

I look forward to catching a few "This Old House" New Orleans episodes in January.

Last Saturday, the Common Ground Health Clinic in Algiers Point celebrated its second year of providing free health services to thousands of New Orleanians since its formation in the week after Katrina struck. Clinic supporters organized a block party at the corner of Teche and Socrates where the Clinic is located, serving up a barbecue and music and offering tours of the recently refurbished clinic (see photo below).

In a city with an international reputation for low-quality health care post-Katrina, the two Common Ground-sponsorerd free clinics -- the first in Algiers, the second on St. Claude St. in the Lower 9th Ward -- are much-needed community institutions that have served thousands of people since opening. Ancillary programs like the Latino Health Outreach Program, a spinoff project that serves the needs of non-English speaking residents and workers, also spread the tattered net of social services in New Orleans a little wider.

A staff member at the Algiers Clinic informed me that the Algiers Clinic sees between 20 and 50 people per day of operation; due to limited resources and red tape, the clinic is open on a limited schedule four days out of the week (Monday through Wednesday at various hours, and Saturday 12 - 3 pm). Despite ongoing shortages of medical services in the area, and despite the tremendous need for basic health care in the city, the Common Ground Clinics have had to fight for everything they have.

Judging by the state of medical services here two years after the traumatic events of 2005, it looks like their struggle to provide free, basic health care to neglected or impoverished populations will remain an uphill battle. But the anniversary party demonstrated that the community still needs and supports the services they offer.

At last week's "International Tribunal on Katrina and Rita," one of the more striking parts of the event was the presentation of the second witness on the subject of Women's Rights. Ms. Stephanie Mingo, a resident of New Orleans for 40 years, lived in St. Bernard Housing project prior to Katrina. After the storm, she evacuated with four children and one grandchild in tow. Her mother died on the Gentilly bridge, unable to survive the physical and mental anguish of the storm's aftermath. Ms. Mingo's testimony was powerful and informative.

Ms. Mingo and her family evacuated, returned, and are now staying in the Iberville project. She doesn't like it there and wants to move back into her St. Bernard home. She has worked for the Orleans School Board for ten years -- "not that long" Ms. Mingo says -- and is determined to stay in her home town.

Her stubbornness in staying in a project known as much for trouble as for housing might seem odd to those of us who have never stayed in government housing, but it's the home that she wants to come back to. She loves her job as a food services technician at a local school, and isn't afraid of hard work. As Ms. Mingo said from the witness seat while testifying to the court, "When I tie these shoes, I'm not too proud to do anything." Her home and community were humble, but she managed to raise and put through college three of her kids, and the fourth is college-bound.

Public housing may be the upscale-white developer's nightmare, but a lot of hard-working, disciplined people lived there before Katrina, and want to return to their homes and communities which they are trying against all odds to preserve.

By mid-August of 2005 there were 192 murders. I remember it being a deadly summer. With a smaller population, we are at 140 murders already for this year, 26 in this August alone. Mark over at m.d. filter sums it up pretty well on his site complete with quotes from our mayor and police chief.

I often wonder what would have happened if Landrieu had gotten those few extra votes to become mayor. I know that no politician is perfect but I feel like he would have been more involved with stopping crime -- he would have had more to prove in the new position. As it is now, I feel like we not only have an incompetent mayor but one that doesn't care. I'm sorry that Nagin is not running for governor as that would have at least gotten him out of City Hall.

We had a perfect opportunity after Katrina to quell crime here with the help of the National Guard. We blew it. Although i never would have said this three years ago, I think that the police need to knock more heads.

The second editorial in the Times-Pic today ("Share the excitement") gently took the Mayor and City Council to task for the secrecy surrounding the recently-approved plan for the first stages of redevelopment of 17 targeted zones throughout the city. The editors should have gone much further in their criticism. The secrecy of the elected leaders could be characterized as disingenuous at best, at worst, it is rife with the opportunity for corruption, influence-pedaling, and back-door politics. The kind of things that people living here are pretty sick of already.

If the plans to redevelop New Orleans are agreed upon by elected officials, then the democratic population who voted for these officials are entitled to see these plans, comment upon them, and above all, take hope from these plans.

Citizens like you and me won't be able to do this, though, until next month. This month is reserved for the New Orleans power structure to assure itself a profitable central role in the rebuilding effort. There are properties to be acquired, and little old ladies and blind old men to be unscrupulously evicted or bought out of their homes for a pittance by scheming developers.

There are dummy corporations to set up, in order to apply or bid for contracts (presuming, that is, that there are any contracts left to be claimed on the first $117 million in development funds; it's even money that big time disaster profiteers Halliburton and Bechtel had a seat at the table when these plans were shown to "other stakeholders" by Tsar Blakely. After all, there's federal money being poured around, and while many still suffer, there's no reason that good, highly-connected corporations like Kellogg, Brown, & Root or Fluor can't earn a buck or two million while shutting out local contractors until the cream has been skimmed from federal largesse.).

Admittedly, the bulk of planning was likely done long ago, and the REAL players didn't have to wait for the council's approval. They already have their schemes in order, you can believe that. Incidentally, this may be the reason why Nagin's office has been so insular lately; he and his cronies have probably been busy making calls and setting up deals with friends, family, and high-powered interests. There's a lot of loot on the way.

Which reminds me of the spray painted warnings after Katrina: You loot, we shoot. Only now, the shooting should be metaphoric.

But don't be surprised to find an awful lot of looting when the development money comes to town.

So you may not have heard, but our beloved bloggingneworleans.com website has been selected for cancellation ("retired" is the preferred term) in less than two weeks. I know I'm not alone in saying that I will miss writing for the site, and will miss the chance to engage so directly with readers.

But the end has not yet arrived, it remains only nigh. Therefore, I avail myself of the opportunity to try generating a little more discussion on certain topics of interest. Here, I want to talk about ending the prohibition of marijuana, a step I believe can assist in the recovery and healing of New Orleans.

There are many reasons why not to take such a step, and I want readers who disagree to chime in. But arguments favoring such action seem stronger than those I've heard opposed. Such action can help rein in crime, reduce courthouse workloads, alleviate burdens on families with loved ones incarcerated for non-violent possession or distribution offenses, keep young people out of the criminal justice system, and create a profitable local industry, not to mention the relief that the medicinal use of Cannabis offers to patients suffering from a long list of ailments, none of them strangers to New Orleans.

I propose rethinking drug policy out of the legal morass it is in and into the realm of the social and the medical. I would propose decriminalization of recreational and medical use of marijuana in the French Quarter, depenalize growing it as a taxable crop for local use in New Orleans, allow the establishment of coffee shops and medical dispensaries, make simple possession of unlicensed weed outside the French Quarter a ticketable offense (if that)and declare an amnesty for those incarcerated under non-violent simple possession or distribution charges.

It would be major big business, bigger maybe than novelty t-shirts. Did I say "would be?" I meant, of course, that it is big business. According to sources, marijuana is the sixth-largest cash crop grown in Louisiana, despite years of withering prohibition enforcement. As an illegal revenue stream, it's just about unbeatable. As a legal one, I askk you, what do you think might happen?

Marijuana is a powerful drug, there's no argument there. Local hospitals would have to be ready to deal with an upswing in emergency admissions for mixing drugs by foolish tourists (weed and booze are often a very bad combination). Driving under the influence of weed, selling it to minors, these should remain outlawed acts. But arresting a group of fellas sitting on a front porch smoking a blount is a waste of time; their time, the cop's time, and the court's time. If those fellas get up off that porch and commit a robbery, arrest them for the robbery; chances are, though, that they're gonna sit right there for a while.

Some say marijuana is more healthy for you than tobacco. I don't know if that's true or not; it's just as apparent that smoking neither is probably the healthiest strategy. It may not be the healthiest habit, but much more clearly harmful substances are freely available in every corner store and gas station in town.

Some say that marijuana helps maintain mental health. Others have long claimed it causes "reefer madness," luring perfectly good white men and women into dens of sin (you must see the propaganda to believe it) or insanity.

At the end of the day, would decriminalization create more madness than it would resolve? Would it alleviate more people's stress, or simply add to their anxieties? Would it calm people down, or agitate them? Would it be good for business, this new iteration of Storyville, or would it wind up draining the city's resources?

Readers, let me hear from you. You too, Mr. Courreges, if you're around. Our time on this site is growing short.

"I ... don't ... know ... why ... they ... keep ... asking ...," I said in tears the other day. I was clearly at the end of my rope and nearing the end of this long summer pregnancy when I read one too many "Should We Rebuild New Orleans?" articles. I can handle the conservatives who tell us to "stop whining" because often they site some of the same citizens that I roll my eyes at. However, there are a few key points that are being lost in the debate of whether or not to use federal money to restore the Crescent City.

1. We pay taxes too. It might be hard to believe but bartenders and barristers alike pay taxes from what they earn in this city directly to the federal government. Those taxes in turn pay for farm subsidies in Iowa and bridges in Alaska.
2. New Orleans exports more than hungover tourists and Girls Gone Wild footage. You wouldn't know it from a brief stay here but there are citizens of this metropolitan region who don't frequent The Quarter every night and actually make it to work on time Monday morning. Our citizens pump crude oil out of the marshes and into your cars. Our citizens also operate one of the largest ports in the country. If you combine our port with the nearby port of LaPlace, was have the largest port system in the world ton for ton. How else could we possibly import all of those tacky beads?
3. If the global economy doesn't appeal to you, perhaps this will: New Orleans is beautiful. There is no other place like it. There is a reason why people return here year after year. In a nation that is becoming homogenized by strip malls and quiet suburban housing, New Orleans is a gem worth protecting.
   

This has all been said by other bloggers better than I but as the 2nd anniversary came to pass and more people weighed in about what a waste of money we are down here, I just wanted to provide a few simple points.

I was listening to a previously recorded Garland Robinette show this afternoon on WWL. I think that it was from last week and C Ray was the guest. He has a regular monthly appearance where Robinette throws softballs and Nagin dodges some of the tougher questions from the live callers. Today a caller asked, "in your personal opinion, what have been the biggest successes of your second term?" A good question, I thought. Nagin paused for a moment and this is what he came up with:

1. Bringing 300,000 people back into the city. I don't know about you, but I'm quite sure that Nagin didn't factor into my moving back into my home. In fact, I don't remember him filling my gas tank and I certainly don't remember him picking up the household trash that festered outside of my house for weeks on end.
2. Nagin pats himself on the back for cleaning up the city and lifting people's spirits. Do you remember how long those cars sat under the I-10 overpass? Months and months and months. In fact, I seem to think that it was over a year before the cars were cleared. It took Nagin that long to find the right towing company for the right price when it was rumored that one company offered to PAY US to take possession of the flooded vehicles.
3. Lastly, Nagin claims that he has succeeded in providing utilities to most of the city. I'm not sure what he had to do beyond give a single command to the Sewerage and Water Board and a nod to Entergy. Speaking of utilities, I'm not sure I'd want to take any sort of credit for what Entergy is doing right now given the sky-rocketing utility prices.

So, there you have it. Nagin himself can't come up with a good enough justification for his paycheck.