Some Great NOLA Links

Thanks to my lovely sponsor, Jill, for passing this along:

"First, a little something music-related. A dear friend of mine moved from Milwaukee to NOLA in 1992 to pursue his love of jazz music. He's one of the many who returned after the hurrication and has been trying to maintain some semblance of sanity in an insane post-K NOLA world. His band, the Hot Club of New Orleans, has a website replete with music samples here. I'd be a fan even if I weren't biased. Their slogan is 'Rebuilding New Orleans one song at a time.'

Secondly, a couple of NOLA blogging solidarity nuggets... Don't know if you're familiar with Metroblogging, but I'm a fan of the folks who do it in NOLA. They can be found here, and provide a good sample of how bad things still are down there.

Lastly, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was kind enough to let me blog for them over the course of a week the first time I visited post-K. It's a heavy violence against women focus, but ifin you're interested, that can be found here."
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I'm listening to the Hot Club of New Orleans album samples right now, and they are fantastic. And here's an excerpt from Jill's excellent MJS series:

"Every single person I met offered their gratitude that we were there. My friend, his friends, restaurant owners, service providers - every last person thanked us for being in New Orleans. Some of their appreciation was because we came all the way from Wisconsin to pitch in. Much of their gratefulness stemmed from the simple fact that we haven’t forgotten them."

I got the sense from a number of people that they fear they are in this struggle alone and that the nation has long stopped noticing what they are going through. They are aware that the storm no longer drives the national nightly news, despite the fact that Katrina-related stories fill the New Orleans Times-Picayune every day."