Brad Pitt's Pink Pledge For 150 New Orleans Homes (video)

Brad Pitt appeared on the "Today" show this morning to announce plans to build 150 homes in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. Also showing their support were partner Angelina Jolie and eldest son Maddox.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/03/brad-pitts-pink-pledge-f_n_75159.html

I saw that interview.

:shrug:

"While filming a movie in New Orleans, Brad Pitt noticed a pink fabric house that was being used as part of the set. He perceived the visual potency of pink houses as a metaphor. Working together with GRAFT, the idea was born to merge film and architecture into an installation that would bring immediate global attention to a pervasive local issue. The scenes within the assembly create emotive storyboards containing perspectives rich with history and memories. Like a tangram puzzle, the components of each house lay haphazard at the installation's commencement. It is only through monetary donations that these pink placeholders will become reassembled, registering the effects of a collective consciousness, ultimately enabling the construction of 150 real homes. Pink, a symbol rich with the promise of homes that will be constructed for the community of the Lower 9th, resonates with an immediate and cogent message: "They have not been forgotten."



http://makeitrightnola.org/index.php

We need to defeat the Bushistas which want to turn this truly cosmopolitan city into a Pug enterprise to make money off of it for their own aggrandizement.

Wouldn't they be first in line to drown?

I get these unkind thoughts from time to time.

they're able to get even higher or raise the housing, if need be.

It's called "lower" because it is downriver from the rest of the city,
not because it is lower in elevation.

The media lied to you and many actual New Orleans residents (including
relief workers) are unaware of this.

National Geographic and Washington Post lied in the very captions of the
new elevation maps they published to "explain" the Katrina disaster.

Clear understanding of these maps reveals facts that contradict the
party line on the black areas of New Orleans, namely, the notion that
majority black neighborhoods are all below sea level and therefore
"explaining" why many whites don't want to live there.

The lowest parts of the city are Post-WWII suburbs built towards the lake,
north of I-10.

These are also the wealthiest parts of the city. They are 13 feet
below the level of the lake and they are being rebuilt because the
owners of the mansions can afford insurance.

Huge, blocks-wide levees were built composed of public institutions (golf
courses, university campuses) in the 1950s to protect these wealthy areas
in what used to be the "back swamp".

The back swamp areas of the Lower 9th Ward are 2 feet below sea level.

The river-side areas are above sea level and below the level of the Mississippi River.

This fact does not mean much since the entire city (except for the
natural levee along Tchoupitoulas and Rampart Sts) is below the level
of the river. In fact, all of Southeast Louisiana is below the level
of the river.

The river governs the geology of the area. When it overflows,
it changes channels and builds up new natural levees. The old channels
sink into the backswamp over time. There is no land in Southeast
Louisiana that was not laid down by periodic flooding of the Mississippi
river which is higher in elevation than the sea it flows into. That is
why it makes so many twists and turns. There is no bedrock channel for
it to scour out (like the Potomac, which carved out Great Falls after
the last ice age when sea level dropped 50 feet.)

Unlike most rivers, the Mississippi is not confined by the surrounding
terrain which is lower than it. It is only confined by its own
proclivity to form oxbows and cut banks, creating natural levees by
extending the length of the river over time. To give you some idea of
the importance of the river in shaping the geology of the surrounding
terrain, consider that 200 miles north of New Orleans the Mississippi
River is 200 feet deep (100 feet below sea level) at its cut bank and
flows above the surrounding level of terrain at its fill bank.

There is no bayou (riverside land) above sea level in the delta south of
Memphis that was not part of the channel banks a very short time ago
(within the past 2,000 years).

Every waterway in Southeast Louisiana is a former main channel of the
Mississippi River and every backswamp was filled with silt from
Mississippi River flooding, before which it was part of an inland sea.

Would that you were on TV explaining this...

:hi:

and they got houses fixed with insurance. When you tell them the blacks & poor have been shut out of NO they don't believe you.

And that includes "liberals", too.

effects on family life and the children in general. My co-workers and our union long ago started doing food boxes for the holidays. It became the basis for our local food pantry which still is in business more now than ever. There are many local area churches feeding those and supplying food for them. Your right people turn a blind eye to it. No one, no one in this country should go hungry it is a sin.

Charity, however well-meaning, is degrading.

I appreciate what you're doing..... I can tell your heart is in the right place. :hi:

But, I can tell you.... it hurts deeply to have to accept one of those food boxes.

Just today, I went to a church meal of us "underpriviledged". My first time. Nobody greeted me. I received not one word of welcome. I took my plate back to the kitchen, and got a small plate for more salad. Back at the table, I got roundly criticized that I hadn't "scraped" my plate. Like I was supposed to magically know?

There went my appetite.

More criticism.

More judgement.

I just left. As I was going out, I let one of the workers know that stuff like that hurts, and that those of us on the bottom of the ladder get waaaaay too much criticism, and it weakens us. If I have to endure criticism, I'll go hungry, thank you.

Just something to consider, when charity is undertaken.

This just rocks.