Gun fire won't stop parading

Mother's Day shootings ruined a perfect Sunday, but can't weaken love for this city

By Lauren McGaughy, NOLA.com | The Times Picayune 

"The shooting has done absolutely nothing to lessen, color, or shift the absolutely all-encompassing love I have for New Orleans."

On Mother's Day afternoon at around 2:30, I was sitting on the neutral ground on Elysian Fields, wearing my second-lining outfit -- cutoffs, cowboy boots and a cropped tank - along with the blood of a fellow reveler I had tried to help after the shooting stopped. The cigarette I bummed off of a parade-goer was doing its job, calming my nerves and steadying my hands.

Then I saw Wendell, the cowbell player in the second-line's third band who two hours ago I never knew existed, and one hour ago I was dancing with in the street. He walked up to me and pulled me in close, hugging me to his chest.

"You OK?" he asked. I nodded, and we actually laughed, relieved we were both safe even though we were complete strangers. Then he started ranting about the street crime, about seeing a kid fleeing from the scene after the shooting, about ruining a beautiful day when families honor their mothers and grandmothers.

Then he looked at me again and asked, "You got a boyfriend?" I cracked up. I made a joke about it being an inopportune time, and he said no time is better than the present. I should have coughed up the digits, but I didn't.

Then my friend, and fellow reporter, found me. Passing an overgrown lot on the corner of North Villere and Elysian Fields, a rooster was strutting away, all shiny plumage and pomp, minding his own business and wanting me to do the same.

"I love this city," I blurted out. My friend nodded. I didn't say it as a conscious reaction to the shooting. It just came out of me as we were walking. Wendell. The Rooster. Second Lines. I love this city.

I live and work in Baton Rouge, but that's just geography. Just about every Friday, I jump in my car and head to New Orleans for the weekend. I've lived in Louisiana only seven months, and I've never felt about a city the way I feel about New Orleans. On Sunday, I was determined to be in that number for the Mother's Day second line in the 7th Ward.

And that's what put me about 20 feet from the gunmen who opened fire. I didn't drop down to the ground right away, not knowing what the sounds were.

"GET DOWN," someone yelled at me. Then I was down on the ground. The clack of gunfire was over almost immediately. Most everyone started to run away. Others of us ducked behind cars. I called 9-1-1, and then ventured out into the intersection.

I feel thankful no one was killed. But in the immediate aftermath of the shots, I thought I saw three dead right away. Luckily, there were multiple people with medical experience in the crowd, and that probably saved lives.

All I could do was try to stay out of the way and help the people who had less severe wounds with water or whatever else I could. I also took some photographs with my iPhone.

Mark Hertsgaard, a freelance journalist who comes down to New Orleans often, said he thought he fell on some glass. His leg was bandaged, and he was sitting calmly in the middle of the intersection. I got him some water and tried to send paramedics in his direction.

It turns out he was shot and didn't even know it. After consulting with doctors, Mark said they've decided to leave the bullet in his leg, where it will work its way out after a few years. He said he's fine and flying back home Monday (May 13). On the phone he sounded calm, more so than me, and told me he got upgraded to first class.

I wasn't hurt. I didn't even get a scrape, and I couldn't sleep Sunday night. He got shot and said he slept fine, although maybe the painkillers helped.

I didn't know really how close I was to the shooting until I saw the NOPD video released early Monday morning.

Honestly that video triggered something that I didn't feel Sunday, just seeing how close the shooter was, with his gun pointed in my direction. I guess the feeling was fear, but really I don't know how to describe it. The bottom just fell out of my stomach, and I felt instantly tired. My hands got sweaty.

The problem is I can't stop watching the video.

I've watched it 20, 25 times in the last couple of hours. In it I can see Mark falling; I can see the shooter hanging out, nonchalantly watching the people flooding the intersection; and I can see the group of people I was hiding in fall to the ground when the shots started.

I wasn't sure about writing about it. I kept thinking, if I don't have anything additional to add to the now national discussion about this, why say anything? But I decided to do it for two reasons, 1) I hoped it would be cathartic, and 2) I wanted to get across what I couldn't in the brief interviews I did Sunday.

I might not be going back to a second line right away. That's just my personal choice. But the shooting has done absolutely nothing to lessen, color, or shift the absolutely all-encompassing love I have for New Orleans.

In my adult life, I have never been as happy as I have in the last seven months. There's something about being down here. Second-lining is a good example, for me, of everything I love about New Orleans.

Before the shots were fired, there was not one ounce of anger or fear in that crowd. Three or four hundred people marching, dancing down the street, beers or bottles of whiskey in hand, young and old, black, white, local, tourist.

Then a few people took it into their hands to shatter that. That could happen anywhere, but, unfortunately, it happens more often in New Orleans. In this city with such creativity, with such life, death stares its residents in the face every day.

I once told someone being in New Orleans is overwhelming, it's life at its most saturated. I guess Sunday's shooting fits within both of those descriptions. But that's not how I meant it to when I first said it.

Other than Mark and myself, the Gambit's Deborah Cotton was also there and was injured during the shooting. I've never met her, but after the shooting I watched a video interview she did last year on violence in the city. At one point she said the frequency of the violence here "begins to really tear at you internally."

I've only experienced one event like this in my life, and it was Sunday. But there are people who live with this weekly, daily. Later in the video, Cotton says it's not too late to stem the tide of violence.

I don't have the answers. But on Sunday, I joined the growing ranks of people determined to stop talking about it, and start figuring it out. 

Lauren McGaughy is state politics reporter for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. She can be reached at lmcgaughy@nola.com.

©  NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Healing Center heals body and mind

I am convinced the most naturally beautiful women in the world do yoga at New Orleans' Healing Center. Supremely coifed they're not nor dressed in designer workout gear, but buff - you bet.

Not only do healing yoga classes occur at the Bywater center, but also shamanic healing circles, body work, massage, belly dancing, voodoo, Turkish cuisine, natural foods, films and music, among other things.

Awhile back, the Healing Center hosted a Sacred Music Festival. I missed it last year, but wanted to see it this. What we enjoyed most were the Taiko drums played by a tiny but powerful Japanese woman. I'd never heard Taiko drumming  before, but now I am hooked.

Environmentalists urge nature is best at repairing marshlands

Volunteers planting grasses and mangroves for coastal restoration.

Use the Mississippi River to rebuild Louisiana's coast

By Contributing Op-Ed columnist Davi Muth 

Coastal experts have been telling us since Katrina that our marshes are getting perilously close to a tipping point. If we don't act very quickly, we may be too late. We lacked a plan, and we lacked money. Now we have both.

As sources of funding from the BP oil disaster become available, the likelihood that big river sediment diversions -- which are proven strategies to build land -- will actually be done has some folks up in arms. Opponents of the plan, Louisiana's2012 Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, are organizing to stop it. At this critical time, when restoration plans can finally become reality, it is important to revisit the clear science and community need that drove the master plan's creation. It succeeded with both broad public support and unanimous passage in the Legislature.

The scientists who worked on the master plan concluded that only the sediment carried by the river can build sufficient land to begin to offset our frightening rate of land loss. Some opponents respond that "it will take too long" and "the river doesn't carry as much sediment as it used to." Those arguments truly leave me scratching my head. They seem the best possible arguments for getting started on big diversions immediately.

Whether or not the Mississippi River can build land is not a scientific question. The evidence is what is beneath our feet. The evidence continues to accumulate every day in the few places like the Wax Lake outlet and West Bay where we allow the river to empty into shallow water. To be able to go on living here, we just have to let it do so now in a way we can control and in places where it can do the most good. This is exactly what the master plan proposes.

The rub is all that river water introduced into our salty estuaries. Opponents argue that the change in salinities will destroy our fisheries. What they really mean is that it will move our fisheries. Estuaries are where freshwater and saltwater meet -- and there will always be a place where that mixing can take place on our coast. Right now fresh and saltwater meet at the bases of our levees. It's the salt, subsidence and sea level rise that are eating our marsh and bringing the sea to our doors. That is good for shrimp and oysters and speckled trout -- while it lasts.

The problem is, it can't last. The very forces that make estuarine fishing so good so close to home are the forces destroying our marsh. Once the marsh is gone the fisheries will collapse. The antidote is the river and its sediment -- what built the marshes in the first place. It ain't rocket science.

Some of us want to cling to the comforting illusion that we can dredge our way out of this crisis. If you read the master plan, you'll discover that it proposes to spend $20 billion on dredging for marsh creation over the next 50 years. For that it projects we'll end up with 200 square miles of new or maintained marsh. In the meantime, spending a fourth of that total on sediment diversions will net us 300 square miles.

So, for about $25 billion we get about 500 square miles under that scenario. But that is measured against the 1,900 square miles we've already lost. And it has to be measured against the additional 770 square miles that we are going to lose over the next 50 years if we do nothing. So we are still going to be down an additional 270 square miles even if we manage to raise and spend the $25 billion. What if by some miracle we could raise and spend even more on dredging?

Dredging takes the sand and heavy sediments off the bottom of the river. But there is a reason we call her the "Big Muddy." Most of the sediment the river carries doesn't lie on the bottom -- 80 percent of it is suspended, unavailable to the dredges. That clay and fine silt is what built most of coastal Louisiana. That is what is being wasted. We would be insane to let 80 percent of the land-building sediment slip past us, unavailable to rebuild our coast.

So when we talk about not having enough time or river water destroying fisheries, what we really mean is not enough time for us here today. What we really mean is moving the fish and shrimp and oysters from where they are now easy to harvest, to somewhere else, making it more difficult for us.

Those are legitimate concerns. But for us the writing is already on the wall -- our home is disappearing before our eyes, and the fisheries will go with it.

Shouldn't we really be concerning ourselves with them? Shouldn't we make the necessary adjustments now so that there is something for our children and our grandchildren? Will it take too long for them if we start now to build a new coast? Isn't a fishery a little farther away better for them than no fishery at all?

David P. Muth is director of the Mississippi River Delta Restoration Program for the National Wildlife Federation.

©  NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

New Orleans one of top 12 U.S. boom towns

Photo by Rusty Costanza, Getty Images

By Bloomberg News Service

Immigration, despite the tortured national debate emanating from Washington, has always been about people seeking better opportunities. Within U.S. borders, Americans are also in search of a better life, one they may find across state lines. Bloomberg Rankings sorted through U.S. Census data for metropolitan areas to rank those with the greatest population growth, then scored areas on growth in gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation. Combine the two scores and winnow the list to regions with more than 1 million residents, and you have American’s fastest-growing cities.


2. New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, Louisiana   
2007 Population: 1,030,363
2011 Population: 1,191,089
Percent Change: 15.60
GDP Compound Annual Growth: 2%

Reporter Geraldo Rivera sparked controversy recently by referring to everything outside New Orleans’s French Quarter as a “vast urban wasteland.” The area is growing as it rebuilds from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Tourism is booming, and the New Orleans area gained more residents than any other in the U.S. from 2007 to 2011. The population rose to 1.2 million in 2012, and there’s plenty of job growth in heavy construction and even the television and motion picture industry, according to New Orleans demographer Allison Plyer. The unemployment rate, at 5.9 percent, is below the national average. One worry: Governor Bobby Jindal’s tax plan could change the state’s motion picture investor tax credit, reducing a key incentive to film in Louisiana.

Fest celebrates Native American culture

New Orleans Jazz Fest celebrates American Indian music, culture

By Sheila Stroup, The Times-Picayune 
Think of the Cultural Exchange Pavilion as the heart of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival this year. It celebrates  American Indian culture, and it's in the center of the Fair Grounds, surrounded by Food Area I, Food Area II and the African Marketplace.

"We're right in the middle, in a high traffic area," Valerie Guillet, pavilion coordinator, says. "People won't miss us."

You can happily spend hours there, watching performances by nationally known musicians and dancers; taking in living history presentations; watching artists turn a blank wall into a mural; seeing creative weavers and carvers at work; and purchasing fine art and jewelry from around the country.

"We have 10 artists with booths each weekend, and we'll have master craftsmen demonstrating their crafts," Guillet says.

You'll see a teepee, representing the Plains Indians, and a cedar building like Native Americans of the Northwest would build. And, if it rains, you can step inside the one-room houseGrayHawk Perkins made out of 650 palmettos last week.

"It's dry inside," he says, checking it out after Wednesday's deluge.

GrayHawk, a Houma-Choctaw educator, storyteller and musician who lives in Mandeville, started the Native American Village at Jazz Fest in 2000 and and turned it into an annual tribute to the tribes of Louisiana. 

"We've had a Louisiana presence," Guillet says. "This year, we're bringing in Native Americans from all over, and it will be a national presence."

If you talk to Native Americans from Alaska and Canada, New Mexico, Arizona, North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin, and watch their dances and listen to their music, you'll begin to understand how rich and diverse their culture is. That's what GrayHawk hopes you'll take away from the experience.

"We're not just 'Native Americans,'" he says. "We have different beliefs, traditions and lifestyles. We're unique and individual within our own nations."

He also wants to help eliminate stereotypes. "I come from a mound-building culture," he says. "We knew about agriculture, astronomy, medicine. We didn't just walk around in loin cloths."

You can see the unique talents and traditions of Native Americans, not just in the Pavilion area, but throughout the 2013 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell. "Our goal every year is to infuse the whole festival with the culture we're celebrating," Guillet says.

This weekend includes a series of nine panel discussions in the Louisiana Folklife Village near the Fais-Do-Do Stage. The discussions cover such subjects as "Confronting Stereotypes," "Native American Women as Culture Bearers," "African-Native Americans," and "Environmental Challenges for Native American Communities."

"We tried to get topics non-Indian people don't usually hear about," GrayHawk says.

The United Houma Nation will serve fry bread, maque choux and Indian tacos at its usual food booth adjacent to the Native Nations tent in the Folklife Village. And at the Food Heritage Stage and Cajun Cabin Stage the first weekend, Loretta Barret Oden, host of the PBS series "Seasoned with Spirit," will have food demonstrations and samplings of traditional Native American dishes from around the country. You can try such dishes as possum grape dumplings, alligator sauce piquante and spicy green chile stew.

In the Grandstand exhibit area, see "Native Nations of Louisiana:  A Traveling Exhibit by the Louisiana State Museum," plus an art installation by San Carlos Apache artist Douglas Miles, who also will also create a live mural with Thomas "Breeze" Marcus in the Pavilion and have a booth where you can check out his Apache skateboards both weekends.

The Kids Area will feature Native American stories, musical performances and dances. "And kids can help build a palmetto house," GrayHawk says.

Renowned Native American singers, dancers and bands perform on various stages throughout the fest. "We have a pretty amazing roster of artists coming through," Guillet says. "It's a mix of those who have appeared here before and new ones."

The first weekend features the Stoney Creek Singers, the Yellow Bird Indian Dancers, hoop dancer Lowery Begay and A Tribe called Red, a Canadian group with a signature style called powwowstep that combines traditional powwow vocals and drumming with electronic music.

"They're very popular with young people in Canada," Guillet says.

Also appearing the first weekend is Martha Redbone, an acclaimed blues and soul singer who is Cherokee, Shawnee, Choctaw and African-American. In the past, "Redbone" was sometimes used as a derogatory term for someone of mixed heritage. "She claimed it as a stage name," Guillet says. "She said 'This is who I am, and I'm proud of it.'"

The second weekend will feature singer and songwriter Bill Miller, flutist Robert Mirabel, singer Pura Fe and the Native Nations Intertribal, all popular Jazz Fest veterans.

"Native Nations has been coming for as long as I have," GrayHawk says. "They'll have dancers from all over. They'll do different dances and explain what they are, and they'll get the crowd involved."

Making their first appearance will be the Oneida Longhouse Dancers from Wisconsin, who will perform energetic earth dances and smoke dances.

What's great is that all the artists performing on various Jazz Fest stages will also do a second show in the Cultural Exchange Pavilion tent.

"It's a small intimate space where we've asked them to do an acoustic unplugged show," Guillet says. "The audience will get to see them up close. It will be a real treat."

GrayHawk, 56, will be all over the place during Jazz Fest. The first weekend he'll be on two panels and he'll be telling stories in the Kids Tent, and the second weekend, he'll perform with the GrayHawk Band.

He epitomizes the uniqueness he wants us to see in Native Americans. He describes himself as an "Indian boy who grew up in New Orleans."

His mother was from Terrebonne Parish, but he was born at Baptist Hospital. The kind of music he plays has been called "tribal funk." "I've always written my own music. It's uniquely New Orleans and Southeastern Native American," he says.

He remembers his mother telling him, "Don't say you're Indian when you go to school," but he never denied his heritage. "I was always proud of who I was and where I came from," he says.

When he was growing up, his family moved to Jefferson Parish, and he calls Lester Wright, his band director at Worley Middle School, an early influence. "He was very strict and demanding, but he was a very nice guy," GrayHawk says. "I was always a percussionist, and he was always encouraging me to take up other instruments."

Another influence was Miss Anderson at West Jefferson High School. "She really encouraged me. She told me, 'You need to learn about your own history,'" he says.

His grandparents filled him up with Native American stories, and inspired him to write a song called "Listen to the Words," about a wide-eyed boy listening to his grandmother. "They made me want to be a storyteller," he says.

He was always fascinated by the Mobilian trade language, an old language used by Southeastern tribes, slaves and French settlers to communicate with each other. His grandmother spoke it and passed it down to him, and in 2010, he began writing a series of songs in Mobilian. He called the series "13 Moons" and recorded some of the songs so he could listen to them. His CD got passed around.

"Then the French consulate (in New Orleans) called me and told me some musicians in France had heard my songs and would like to work with me," he says.

He sent the Mezcal Jazz Unit seven of his songs, and they arranged them in French progressive jazz. In 2012, the French government sent the group to New Orleans to perform with GrayHawk. "We played in Lafayette, at Cafe Instanbul and at the Dewdrop in Mandeville," he says.

Then, in early 2013, he was invited to France to collaborate with the modern jazz group, so he took some time off from his Jazz Fest gig and spent February performing, touring and recording with the Mezcak Jazz Unit. "The whole thing was like a fairy tale," he says.

If you go see the GrayHawk Band perform, you'll have a chance to listen to some of his memorable songs from "13 Moons." It's Native American music like you've never heard it before, and you'll want to hear it again.

"I want people to look at how wide this culture called Native American culture is," he says. "I want them to see how different we are, and how special."

Contact Sheila Stroup at sstroup@bellsouth.net or at 985.898.4831.

©  NOLA.com. All rights reserved.