Dozens of protesters converged on the Housing Authority of New Orleans' headquarters today demanding jobs and housing. They expected a board meeting, but were told at the last minute of its cancellation. HANO did not offer a reason but said Friday it will reconvene the board.

see criticism of Times-Picayune's coverage of the event


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Organizers of the Job Action emphasized that Section 3 of the U.S. Fair Housing Act requires that 30% of the new hires for redevelopment work should be local, public housing and low-income residents, and demanded a massive Public Works Jobs Program

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On Monday, July 6, a murder case from 1971 against former Black Panthers fell apart in a San Francisco courtroom. Evidence against the defendants primarily consisted of forced confessions obtained under torture by the New Orleans Police Department in 1973.

poster by Emory Douglas, found at Just Seeds Visual Resistance Artists' Cooperative.


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In post-Katrina New Orleans, anarchist truths found fertile, if toxic grounds to take root and grow. New paths were walked on. Antiauthoritarian principles emerged as important guides for both reconstruction and the struggle against disaster capitalism. A million or more equally important stories can now be told about mutual aid, cooperation, subversion of authority, disruption of state and capitalist plans. And yet Brandon Darby's morality tale has become a media darling, due in no small part to his perfect and full adoption of his role as a state agent, regardless of whether it was official in 2006, or whether the FBI is still cutting him paychecks. We owe it to ourselves to tell these other stories of New Orleans, St. Paul and beyond.

photo taken in October 2005 in New Orleans by unknown photographer.


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Major investors have created enormous economic and political pressures on LSU to build its $1.2 billion hospital in lower Mid-City

Casual observers might think that the pro-Charity vs. LSU teaching hospital conflict is an argument over two competing plans to bring health care back online in New Orleans. It is not. The difference between the two camps is in fact much more fundamental with the pro-Charity coalition valuing health as a human right versus LSU and its supporters valuing health care as a business anchor around which an industry can grow, land values can inflate, and hospitals can make money. No set of facts better illustrates this divide and fleshes out the LSU camp's motivations than the machinations of major real estate developers in Mid-City. In spite of the post-Katrina rise in mortality and morbidity rates —due to the local health care system's bedraggled state— LSU and its allies have stubbornly refused to entertain the notion of reopening Charity, favoring their economic development centered plans over what pro-Charity advocates define as an issue of the human right to medical care.

Into this conflict numerous journalists have intervened with facts and analysis. We (“A. Caritas” is a pen name for several researchers) reported in December about real estate acquisitions of several developers in and around lower Mid-City, questioning the for-profit motivations driving the LSU-VA project. New information about these developers and biotech boosters has compelled us to chime in again, especially in response to Times Picayune reporter Kate Moran's glowing profile of one Mid-City developer published in April.

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