The Battle for a Free Wireless Network in New Orleans

The Chief Technology Officer of New Orleans, Greg Meffert, and Earthlink, are my newest heroes. They're taking on communications giant Bellsouth in an epic battle over controlling internet access. I happily posted in November that New Orleans was providing free wireless internet service. However, it turned out that you can only access it in a few areas, and they are quite a distance from where I live and work. Originally I understand that the network was converted from a wireless mesh network along St Charles Ave for surveillance (especially during Mardi Gras), so that the downtown area is basically all that it covers. But Mayor Nagin and Meffert had plans to expand it throughout the city. New Orleans was going to be the first city in America to offer free Wi-Fi. Cool.

But then an angry Bellsouth got involved. First they withdrew an offer to donate a building to the New Orleans police department. Then they pulled out the big guns, and lobbyists convinced the state legislature to keep with a state law that prohibits cities for offering anything more than a 128-kbps connection except in times of emergency. Basically, 128-kbps (kilobytes per second) is way too sluggish to be functional. The current free Wi-Fi service is at 512-kpbs. Moreover, lobbyists are trying to close the loophole so that even in times of emergency, the limit is 128 kpbs. Bellsouth won't comment on pending legislation. But a spokesperson for Cox Communications claims that free Wi-Fi is in violation of the Fair Competition Act. It seems clear that our government is working for businesses, not for the citizens. New Orleans wouldn't have free Wi-Fi. Not cool. Not cool at all.

New Orleans then approached Earthlink and asked if they would take over and expand the wireless network. Earthlink agreed. They said they would provide a 15 square mile zone with free wireless access at 300 kpbs. They also said they would provide a premium 1 megabit service throughout the city for about $20 per month. Earthlink is applying for a telecommunications franchise license to make this possible.

In the meantime, what can we do? First, residents of Louisiana can contact our state representatives and let them know how we feel about their actions. Second, people who live anywhere could leave a comment on Earthlink's blog about this news. Third, you can contact Greg Meffert and ask how you can help.

For more information on this topic, check out The Library Chronicles
and The Red Herring and this AP article.

Racial Harmony

Last night I attended a City Council Forum where candidates for my district in New Orleans (District A) answered questions. The best question was "What have you done to promote racial harmony?" None of the candidates adressed this important issue very well in my opinion. But...one of the candidates, who shall remain nameless, spent his allotted minute basically explaining that he hired African Americans to wash his car. Uh, I won't be voting for him.

I Don't Want to Wait In Vain

I feel like I'm in a slow motion movie at times. Like I achieved a state of nirvana and it's now gotten to the point where I really don't care how long it takes Allstate to pay our insurance claim. We used to call them everyday to ask for updates. That lasted about four months. Then we called weekly. That lasted another two months. We filed this very official "Proof of Loss" form at the end of December, and while that got them to return our phone calls for a week, still nothing really has happened. We've now had six different adjustors and basically it comes down to this, at least according to Allstate: they can't proceed with our claim until they get an Allstate engineer's report to determine if our house is leaning from wind or flood. I was in the house during the hurricane, and it was racked from the wind. It was like being on an old wooden boat, rocking all over the place. But the saltwater really did damage to our brick & mortar piers, so the leaning was made worse by the flood. But I really don't care what the engineer determines. They'll no doubt say that the house is leaning from the flood, because then the insurance money comes from the Federal Government, and Allstate saves about $150,000. It is starting to look more and more like we'll move to another house in New Orleans, one that didn't flood. But of course all of that is on hold until we settle with Allstate. I'm starting to think that maybe they would like to delay this claim until after the next hurricane season, because if our house floods again, they won't have to pay twice. When the family moved back down to New Orleans after Christmas, Therese and I thought we would know our path at the end of March. It's now the end of March and we really don't know anything more about our future than we knew back in December, or even September of 2005 for that matter. When I see Allstate commercials on TV I honestly smile. The whole thing is comically surreal.

But that is just about me and my family. There are more pressing matters that will effect the entire city.

The Bush administration's Gulf Coast recovery czar Don Powell just said that it may take 25 years for New Orleans to recover, and that much of this city's rebirth will depend on factors outside of the government's control. I would have to agree with that estimation. As a friend of mine said, ten years from now if a day goes by that we don't think of Katrina, that will be a good day. More alarming, Powell told Louisiana officials that the 3 billion it would cost to bring the area levees to pre-Katrina strength is um, well, it's about 6 billion short. And we have just two months until the start of the 2006 hurricane season. It seems that my neighborhood and 30% of New Orleans will be covered for a category 3 storm with the initial 3 billion, but to protect the remaining 70% it will cost an additional 6 billion. And I heard on the radio that Louisiana is now officially the poorest state in the country. And so we wait, and wait, and wait. And once in a while I try to do something to expedite the process, but it turns out to be a waste of time, and so we wait, and wait, and wait.

Tom Levy or Jazzfest?

When I was a student at UCSD I had the privilege of working with Tom Levy. He supervised and co-supervised many archaeological excavations on which I worked, both in Israel and in Jordan. It was great working with him. Today I received in the mail an invitation for the inauguration of the Norma Kershaw Endowed Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands, and of course, Tom is the recipient of the chair. So I thought about going. I even went to Continental's website to purchase a ticket. It would be great to see my friends at UCSD. Plus the list of speakers is pretty damn impressive, and includes Jodi Magness, Bill Dever, Baruch Halpern, and Lawrence Stager, plus the UCSD Judaic Studies Faculty (Tom Levy, David Goodblatt, Bill Propp, Dick Friedman and David Noel Freedman). But then I checked my calendar and it turns out that the inauguration is the first weekend of Jazzfest. Damn! And this Jazzfest will be extra significant this year, very symbolic and emotional. So I can't decide what to do, but my dilemma revealed to me how much I have been changed by the whole experience of Katrina. In years past I would have gone to UCSD for sure, no hesitation. But now I sort of feel like being with my family and friends at Jazzfest that first weekend is where I am supposed to be. I'd wager that Siduri, the alewife in the Gilgamesh Epic, would advise me to go to Jazzfest. But then again the King of Uruk himself would probably go to UCSD. What to do?

Give Me Some Sugar Allstate

I just read that Allstate is sponsoring the next Sugar Bowl. That's good news for me and Therese, because now I know that Allstate will be here in the city of New Orleans in January 2007. I hope they might have enough time in their busy schedule to maybe come see my house that was structurally damaged by Katrina and then they might think about paying me for my loss because, and I know this doesn't mean much today, I had insurance with these good hands people.

A Time for Heresy

Bill Moyers recently spoke at Wake Forest Divinity School for the inauguration of a scholarship in religious freedom. His speech, entitled A Time for Heresy, is simply amazing, and it outlines how the wealthiest few have hijacked this country. In his words:

For a quarter of a century now a ferocious campaign has been conducted to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual, cultural, and religious frameworks that sustained America’s social contract. The corporate, political, and religious right converged in a movement that for a long time only they understood because they are its advocates, its architects, and its beneficiaries. Their economic strategy was to cut workforces and wages, scour the globe for even cheaper labor, and relieve investors of any responsibility for the cost of society. On the weekend before President Bush’s second inauguration, The New York Times described how his first round of tax cuts had already brought our tax code closer to a system under which income on wealth would not be taxed at all and public expenditures would be raised exclusively from salaries and wages. Their political strategy was to neutralize the independent media, create their own propaganda machine with a partisan press, and flood their coffers with rivers of money from those who stand to benefit from the transfer of public resources to elite control. Along the way they would burden the nation with structural deficits that will last until our children’s children are ready to retire, systematically stripping government of its capacity, over time, to do little more than wage war and reward privilege. Their religious strategy was to fuse ideology and theology into a worldview freed of the impurities of compromise, claim for America the status of God’s favored among nations (and therefore beyond political critique or challenge), and demonize their opponents as ungodly and immoral.

Then Moyers describes how they exploited our political system so that it now requires millions to get elected to congress and these people who "mastered the money game" have sold "democracy to the highest bidder." Moyers ends the speech with: "This is the heresy of our time – to wrestle with the gods who guard the boundaries of this great nation’s promise, and to confront the medicine men in the woods, twirling their bullroarers to keep us in fear and trembling. For the greatest heretic of all is Jesus of Nazareth, who drove the money changers from the temple in Jerusalem as we must now drive the money changers from the temples of democracy." Amen.

So thanks Bill Moyers for chronicling so eloquently the past 25 years of political history in this country, and thanks to my friend Mark Luvzus, or whatever he calls himself these days, for recommending the article.

Kingdom of Oprah

This week I get to talk with my Intro to Biblical Studies students about some of my favorite passages in the New Testament, such as the Beatitudes. We’re trying to discern Jesus’ primary message and explore such terms as the “Kingdom of God.” We discuss how the Gospel authors believed that it was being implemented in Jesus' lifetime, and how the implementation would bring out the opposite, as in if you are hungry now, in the Kingdom of God, you will be sated. And based on this I extrapolate the following: I'm currently a fat white guy so in the Kingdom of God I might be a skinny brown girl. My students eagerly eat up all of this rich material, UNTIL we get to the Jesus stuff about the preferential option for the poor. Suddenly, they all seem to believe that Jesus was OK with them becoming rich, and not just a little rich, but billionaire rich. That when Jesus says "Blessed are you poor" or "Woe to you that are rich" in Luke 6, he really means morally poor and the secluded rich. My students claim that you can make as much money as you want, just so long as you "give back a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ to society." I bring up Bill Gates, who does give back quite a bit these days, but I ask them if he might have made some morally questionable decisions along the way in building his company, as in selfishly squashing rivals. My students agree that Bill Gates doesn't match well with the terms that Jesus mentions concerning the Kingdom of God. But then my students always bring Oprah into the discussion. As in she is rich, powerful, and they say she makes the world a better place by giving audience members cars. They all seem to think that she somehow personifies the Kingdom of God. I need to do some research about Oprah and then next semester I’ll be ready. So if you have any dirt on Oprah let me know. Thus far I’ve found two things, both of which are pretty bogus. First, there is this website that claims Oprah is the tool of Satan. Second, there is this magazine cover:

I'm guessing it's slightly doctored. Of course, all of this inquiry could lead to my death, as Oprah is pretty powerful. I imagine it will play out much like the film Angel Heart.
Later note: it took me all morning to load this blog entry, as blogger.com is painfully sluggish today. Is it technology, or could it be Oprah in her first of many diabolical moves to crush me?

After The Levees Failed

My friend Bart, the media-artist for BibleDudes, since 1992 has been producing an online television show called J&B on the Rox. He's the B part of J&B. They just finished episode 93, and part of it covers a trip that Bart and I made back to New Orleans just three weeks after Hurricane Katrina. You can download the episode and see links to the online versions here.

The Price of Eggs

Late last night I arrived back in New Orleans, and I was very happy to be back. I feel like my time is better spent here, sort of like New Orleans needs me more than other places. Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe I need New Orleans, as recently I'm so emotionally invested in this devastated wasteland. I had been in Nebraska for a few days to visit with my family, as my father just learned that he has lung cancer and he's pretty sick. It was good to see him. He seemed scared but strong. I don't think he'll be around a year from now. Only one of his lungs is working and he keeps coughing up blood. Moreover, he has several other health related issues, such as Parkinson's, his memory is slipping, and his balance wasn't very acute. But we spent the few days we had together talking about life, and getting his "house in order" so to speak. We visited his attorney and my siblings and I have power of attorney to pay his bills and make medical decisions if need be. We talked about burial, and though it all sounds pretty morbid, I'm glad we got to talk about these things. They seem important. It was also nice to see my family and catch up with them. Therese, the kids and I will be driving back up to Nebraska just before Easter to spend a few days with my dad and others in our families.

But being in Nebraska bothered me in some ways, as life there continues as if the destruction in the Gulf Coast never happened. People spoke at length about whether the eggs were cheaper at HyVee or at Baker's Grocery. At my home in New Orleans, just last Thursday the Sav-A-Center reopened, the first major grocery store within 15 miles of my house. That seems more important to me. There was also a peace rally in New Orleans that I missed Sunday, but I was happy that Therese and the kids went. People at the demonstration wanted the government to spend money protecting citizens with levees more than they wanted the US to kill people in foreign countries. Therese said at one point our son Gilgamesh was on her shoulders, and an older man approached her with a framed photograph. He explained that the boy in the picture was his son, and he was killed in Iraq. That also seems more important.

Nobody here feels very safe with the 2006 hurricane season on the horizon, and moreover, we feel like many in the Federal Government are working against our efforts to rebuild. Take for example Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah), who questions the rebuilding of New Orleans because it is "a place that the laws of physics say doesn't make sense for people to live in." He sits on the Appropriations Committee, and to date he still hasn't visited the area. But unlike Senator Bennett, I have seen the destruction, and even before I moved here I knew that New Orleans was a major port city on the mouth of the Mississippi River, and so barring a shift in the river's course, there will always be a major city here. So while we have to keep on arguing for our existence, time and resources are wasted. It seems as if the government can't quite understand the magnitude of destruction--as if they are treating this like a Hurricane Andrew, but it is at least 10 times bigger. And the rest of the country talks about where they can find cheaper eggs.

Grocery Stores and Saints

So I'm sitting in my office waiting until "2ish" when my friend and department chair Jerry Farmer will take me to the airport so I can go and see my father who just found out he has lung cancer but honestly sounded pretty healthy on the phone and then I think about how happy I am that the Sav-A-Center grocery store is finally opening today so I will no longer have to drive 20 miles for milk and stuff and then I realize that my life sure sucks if I am happy about a grocery store opening or reopening as the case might be and then it hits me--All I need for happiness are season tickets to the Saints NFL team and I had heard that the sales were up 600% and I SURE want to see that first game back at the Superdome for its emotional symbolism and how exciting is it that we have Drew Brees as quaterback if his arm doesn't fall off at the shoulder so I go on the web and in the end spend a large sum of money to see rich giant men tackle each other but it is New Orleans and it's after Katrina and this seems to matter to me just like a freakin' grocery store opening matters in this crazy world in which I live.