New Orleans and the national organizations -- please read

[Marta Napiorkowska]

Why did AAASS change their upcoming conference location from 
New Orleans to elsewhere?  

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 21:37:39 -0400
>From: Devin Browne <dpbrowne at MAC.COM>  
>Subject: [SEELANGS] New Orleans and the national 
organizations -- please read  
>To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>
>Hi all -- I just came back from visiting my sister and her 
family in
>New Orleans.  A year later and that city is still a wreck.  
Vast
>stretches of poor and middle class neighborhoods (and a few 
wealthy
>neighborhoods, to be fair) are still untouched, many with no
>electricity or other services.  I witnessed a boat on top 
of a house,
>dozens of cars in yards and sticking out of buildings, and 
hundreds of
>flattened houses.  My partner and I took a tour of the city 
areas
>affected by the hurricane.  Our tour guide, a retired 
school teacher,
>even took us by what was left of her house.  The 
devastation is beyond
>what you read about, what you see on TV.  It's hard to 
imagine that
>this is an American city, so little has been done.
>
>The French Quarter, the Garden District and a couple other 
more
>tourist-friendly sections are fine (including my sister's
>neighborhood, Algiers Point, which is above sea level and 
was spared
>major damage), but many stores, restaurants and other small
>non-corporate businesses are really struggling.  The city 
needs so
>much, most of which has to come from federal, state and 
local
>governments.  There is little you and I can do outside of 
visiting New
>Orleans itself and continuing to pressure our 
representatives to fully
>fund reconstruction and urge them to visit the city 
themselves.  Here
>in Pennsylvania, last I read, only one of our congressmen 
and neither
>of our senators have seen the devastation first-hand.
>
>However, as language teachers, many with connections to 
national
>organizations, we can urge these organizations to schedule 
their
>conferences and conventions in New Orleans.  The city is 
again able to
>handle these types of events -- the national librarians' 
association
>was the first to come back into the city and the convention 
went very
>well.  New Orleanians are very friendly, welcoming people 
who are
>proud of their city and love to entertain visitors with 
incredible
>cuisine and wonderful music.  For those of us who work 
closely with
>the nationals, please ask them to consider New Orleans as a 
conference
>destination.  Without an increase in tourism and 
conventions, the city
>might not ever recover.
>
>Thanks for taking the time to read this.
>
>Devin Browne
>French & Russian Teacher
>Pittsburgh Public Schools
>Pittsburgh, PA
>
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-------------
M. M. N A P I O R K O W S K A
Dept of Comparative Literature
University of Chicago
117 Classics Bldg
1050 E 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637

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