The Authentic Eccentric

Fourteen months after Katrina, the pace of rebuilding has slowed to a crawl. As I noted in my earlier post, there remains a significant difference between the “photo op” spots of New Orleans versus what residents of New Orleans are actually experiencing.

Today’s NYT has an update on the Road Home program designed to help New Orleans homeowners to rebuild. The numbers don’t look encouraging:

Though nearly 79,000 families have applied to the program, called the Road Home, only 1,721 have been told how much grant money they will receive. And just 22 have received access to the cash [emphasis mine], which was provided by federal taxpayers and is being distributed by the state.

In some of those 22 cases, the grant amounts were far less than the value of the property:

Michael M. Homan, a professor of theology at Xavier University, is among the few who has been told how much he can get to repair his badly damaged house in the Mid-City neighborhood. But Professor Homan thinks the amount he was offered, about $64,000, is too low.

That is because the program assigned a prestorm value to his house of $146,000, less than he paid for it in 2002 and about $40,000 less than the appraisal when he refinanced his mortgage the next year. So he has appealed, and is hoping that his grant will be increased. Because he writes about his experiences on the Internet his results are being anxiously watched by other applicants.

Much of New Orleans still lies in ruins. Federal and state programs can only help if you have access to them, and the amount and pace of funds flowing into New Orleans isn’t helping those who need it most.

I urge you to take a moment and contact your representative in Congress about the pace of funds flowing into the Gulf so that those who want to return, can.

This year’s ballot measures to raise the minimum wage passed in six states: Montana, Ohio, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Nevada.

That means that ~1,561,000 million Americans are getting a raise, which is not only good for them, but also good for the businesses that serve working families.

As an added benefit, all of the new laws are indexed to inflation - meaning that the minimum wage in those states will automatically go up over time as inflation does.

Here’s a summary table, from this Economic Policy Institute page:

The amount of these increases ranges from $1.00/hour in Nevada and Montana to $1.70/hour in Colorado and Ohio. As many as 652,000 children now benefit from their parent’s wage increase.

While this is wonderful news for these families, it is important to note that, indexed against inflation, the minimum wage is nowhere close to a living wage - $820 a month for a 40 hour work week is still a challenge to live on, especially in Nevada.

Despite extensive research and hype, there is no correlation between minimum wage increases and job losses. In fact, a study by the Oregon Center for Public Policy on the impacts of the 1997 and 1998 minimum wage in the restaurant industry found employment opportunities increased.

Businesses actually benefit from having a stable workforce. Employees forced to work overtime and/or another job simply to make ends meet end up less productive. Turnover and replacement costs quickly eat away at any “savings” on hourly wages and can lead to quality and service issues.

The minimum wage increases that passed are great, but they fall short of a federal minimum wage act benefiting all American workers. It has been 9 years since Congress passed an increase in the minimum wage - you might want to contact your freshly elected representative and let him or her know you think that is far too long.

In the ballot issues up for decisions today, it looks like an overwhelming win for discrimination and minimum wage increases.

In an unrelated matter, I caught this article over at the NYT site while waiting for results:

Do the Rights of the Disabled Extend to the Blind on the Web?

ACCORDING to an advocacy group, Target declined last year to make its Web site fully accessible to blind people with specialized screen-reading technology last year. If true — and Target has denied the accusation in court — it was a public relations blunder, and it may have been illegal as well.

On Sept. 6, a federal judge in California held, in a preliminary ruling on the suit, that in some instances, Web sites must cater to disabled people.

Since 508C compliance isn’t all that difficult or expensive, you have to wonder why Target doesn’t do the right thing and implement a JAWS compatible site as Amazon does.

I just got back from fulfilling my civic duty at our local polling spot. Things went smoothly and despite some known issues with touch screen voting machines, my final choices appear to have been recorded accurately.

With six hours yet to go, the poll judges said that turnout today was higher than average: over 50% of the district had already voted. Now all there is to do is wait and see whether or not Virginia wants bigotry and fear or freedom and equality.

The best new surprise this year? Curb-side voting for disabled folk. They bring a portable machine right to your car. I, of course, had to go inside - I *love* the voting process and the interaction with my neighbors too much to miss it. I did accept a ride, though - it’s cold and rainy here today, my least favorite weather combination to be out in.

How about you? Did you vote today?

Follow this conversation around the web: 2006 Elections | Virginia | Jim Webb | Virginia Ballot Question #1

Four hundred and thirty one days have passed since Katrina wreaked havoc on the gulf coast. I’m lucky enough to have friends on the ground in New Orleans fighting to save their city - otherwise, I might not know about dire conditions that continue there.

Election day marks the 435th day since Katrina hit. This is what the White House would like you to believe New Orleans looks like:

Image caption reads: President George W. Bush stands with Fredy Omar outside his newly built home Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006, in the Musicians’ Village, where the President and Mrs. Bush hosted an outdoor luncheon for approximately 50 Habitat for Humanity volunteers in appreciation of their work at the 9th Ward home site. White House photo by Eric Draper

The reality on the ground is something entirely different:

The note I received with these images reads:

Sue,

I thought you might want to see these pics I took on Wed. This is a school not too far away from us that is sitting… untouched since Katrina. Every room is open, so we just walked in and started shooting. The squirrels and rats have taken over and are running rampant throughout the school. I wasn’t fast enough to get a shot though. There is also a huge water leak in some pipes that is gushing water… and feeding the rodents.

I’m not sure what the rest of the country is hearing about New Orleans. I have a feeling that you are being misled about the progress here. There are many schools, buildings and homes that are in this condition. Entire neighborhoods are abandoned. Just thought you should know. Please pass these on. Thanks

You can see the whole shameful set of Katrina images here.

When I vote next Tuesday, this is one of the things I’ll be thinking about. How about you? What will you be thinking about when you vote?

Jen posted a book challenge - pictures of our bookshelves. Since I like to amuse her, I’ve complied.

This is a shot of one the bookcase in my downstairs office:

This is a shot of the bookshelf in my upstairs office:

While she was telling me about the challenge, I mentioned that my bookshelves would amuse people because they’re quite compartmentalized. Different spaces, different books, basically. I promised her a lengthier post on my organizational methods since they increase my efficiency.

I read, a lot. It is a big value for my clients, since I can make all kinds of obscure connections. It’s of big value to me, as well - I love to learn and teaching others is a major source of satisfaction for me. I like to be happy, time goes by more quickly that way.

Anyway - to make it work, I compartmentalize. I use one of the office spaces for general research, and another for my personal development work. The books likewise gravitate towards those spaces. This allows me to work in and around an area briefly without scrambling for things, which saves time and frustration.

I also categorize all of my bookmarks. I make extensive use of both Firefox and del.icio.us to stay on top of material for both myself and clients. Major areas of interest have their own folder with bookmarks inside to whatever site I found useful at the time. Each client has their own folder with relevant links as well, which saves time since all of a client’s reference sites are located in one convenient spot.

Do you have organizational tips and tricks you’d like to share with others? Send me an email or leave me a comment - I’d love to hear it.

Wired writers must be on fire - Michael Calore has a great post up on the companies that are winning and losing the transition to a web 2.0 audience. Of course, it may just be that we share the same opinion of MySpace, but overall I use all of his top picks and I’ve dissed all his bottom five picks.

What’s my gripe with MySpace? It’s garish, superficial and those autoplay music things make me batty. I am already getting junk mail from the shadier element of Internet marketers pushing it as the next great marketplace, and it’s already full of blinking and shimmering ads. I don’t need to be friends with robots, thanks - I prefer interacting with real people. That said, yes, I have a MySpace page, mostly so I retain my name there, but also to monitor the climate and effectiveness.

What I’m seeing so far is that friends there translate into connections and ideas within networks, not necessarily buyers or voters. If you’re sold on the idea of automating your contact with the teeming masses at MySpace, you’re going to have to work really hard generating value out of it. As with most things, what you put into it is what you’ll get out of it.

MySpace has reached the point where people are there because everyone else is. That isn’t necessarily a good reason to be there, unless you have a clear goal and purpose to include it as a component of your online marketing tactics. Assuming a page and automated friends will fund your retirement is a slow road to sorrow.

Update: Barbarian over at Forever Geek has posted Debunking the MySpace Myth of 100 Million Users that is well worth a read. Since almost everyone I know on MySpace has at least two accounts (one for their project, another for themselves) I tend to agree with his numbers.

During more of my meandering time, I wandered across a sharp and insightful post by Prince Campbell at Chartreuse about Paris Hilton’s popularity and value - I highly recommend you read on past this snippet, it’s a good perspective to consider when developing your online presence:

I’m amused by Paris Hilton.

If Madonna was Marketing 1.0 then Paris Hilton is Marketing 2.0.

She’s a real life version of what value is and how it is created today.

Every web developer should pay attention to her.

I think website owners and bloggers should, too. His point about what to do with the attention you get is a very valid one - whatever you may personally think of Paris Hilton, she has undeniably done well for herself using this strategy.

It’s obviously a lazy Saturday night for me, since here I am wandering the web catching up on what I’ve missed while I’ve been focused on projects. It was time well spent, though, since I came across the best post from Stephanie at Back In Skinny Jeans:

How to explain RSS the Oprah way

Today, I’m going to explain how RSS can help you live your best life online.

We all have busy lives with very little time. Web surfing is fun but can take hours going to visit every single website and blog you enjoy. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if you could just get all the headlines of the most current stories from all your favorite websites and blogs in one place?

I really struggle to explain the benefits of RSS to people I work with, and it’s a shame. Using RSS feeds allows me to monitor over 100 sites for updates, news and information at a glance. More importantly, they are the secret to an endless stream of website visitors if you understand how to leverage it.

I added Stephanie’s feed to my reader a few months ago - I’m such an organizational freak that I categorize my feeds, so while trawling tonight, I immediately glommed onto the headline -

How to explain RSS the Oprah way

I once read there are roughly 52 headline formulas out there, and this is one of the oldest and most effective forms of that headline, the “How to” lead. Toss in the keywords RSS for geek bait, and Oprah for gossip/celebrity fans and voila, you have an article everyone starts talking about and linking to. See? I’m doing it too. Really - stop over and check Stephanie’s blog out - she’s better at demystifying it and you’ll appreciate the new stream of things you can comment on and about, promise.

In a feed reader, you have roughly 35 characters and spaces to hook readers into actually clicking over to read the full post. It’s the ultimate tease - it’s up to the combination you create to reel them in and hope they’ll comment or link back. Everyone who blogs develops their own method of doing this, but the better you craft your post title, the more effectively you’ll attract surfers to you, whether it’s a slow Saturday or a Thursday idle hour.