Alan Gutierrez

Trying to tone down the self-congradulations at the Wikipedia articles for AmericaSpeaks. Wikipedia, another idea that is not quite right, when you look at it from the perspective of a person who is effected by the information it disseminates.

Not quite right.

I can’t possibly compete with the millions that AmericaSpeaks has to produce advertising copy. How do you find a middle road view based on the advertising copy that people will cut and paste into the AmericaSpeaks article?

That was to be the title of a wail of anxiety about how it’s the last minute when I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do. Just wrote an excellent little post in Kiloblog about how to use Chip In to raise money for Bayou Boogaloo. Then, before I press save for the first time, I wonder, should I post this at Daily Beta. I’ve not done anything with that site in a long time.

Now, something that was supposed to make life faster, is making it slower. Injecting long term decisions into short term decisions. This is driven by a false sense of permanence. The sense that permalinks mean that one must choose carefully.

The point of this post, and of this theme, Getting Things Half-Done, is to study all the places where I stop. How do you overcome the dead stop? The paralysis of indecision?

In this case, it’s a variation on the fear that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. When I write a post, I have one chance to position it. I had better choose wisely. That is the foreboding nonsense that speaks in hushed tones in the back of my head. How neurotic.

In the last year, I have become more of a programmer. Still not (self-)published, but at the very least plugging away, happy with the foundations, and not turning back for another rewrite. This comes from a way of dealing with the many little murmurs of doubt. I write it down the doubt in the form of a question. Then I wait for it. In a day or so, the answer comes.

This is not always going to work. Waiting for it assumes that you have a the knowledge of the technique necessary to have those moments of illumination. More to the point, am I really going to allow a quandry like, “where do I post my little rant?” to simmer in the background? It’s not really a problem to be solved.

With some problems, stop means wait. With others, stop means nothing.

The problem with templating languages it binding. Perl would treat markup as a string. That is an honest interpretation of markup.

Ruby wants to turn markup into objects. PHP wants to turn markup into logic.

Java straddles objects and logic. There are two ways to embed. Path languages or embedded logic.

Attempt to make something that is delcaritive?

Can you represent all of the iterative constructs with a declaration? Or a call to an implementation in Java? That is a worthy goal. Let’s see if it works. Novel an interesting enough to put out there for people’s consideration.

I’m in email triage. I am applying my new habit. My new habit for email triage is to tag. This is the processing step of my getting things done regimen. (Getting Things Done is an organizational principle for people who work in information and communications heavy fields.)

Today, I come across an email message from an academic and I take pause. Why don’t I care about helping academics with their social research on New Orleans, I wonder? They are kind enough students. They mean well.

Certainly, there are good friends in New Orleans who’s work I assist in any way I can, who work for or study at a university. I’m referring to the academics that rotate in and out of our crisis.

When someone writes me asking for help with the Road Home, housing, or for a connection into the neighborhood organizations when they are a neighbor, I take the time to answer, as best I can. This is my mission.

However, someone who doesn’t have connections and is turning to me for connections, for the purpose of a paper, doesn’t motivate. That’s an email that sits in my inbox. Now, finally, it triggers the business sense that I’m struggling to develop.

Perhaps it’s common sense of some kind. (I have common sense, I just don’t listen to it.)

Tim Ryan of NOVAC sent me an email yesterday looking for technical assistance on a grant. I called immediately. A successful local nonprofit needs technology input to raise money. Common sense says that this is perfectly aligned with my professional objectives. Common sense says pick up the phone and call.

Fortunately, I have emails that are just that actionable, that I can place in contrast to the request to do public relations work for a research paper. An inbox is one imperative after another. It helps you tackle that inbox if you know how to say no to a bulk of those calls to action.

Getting over it, and going pro, means that you must realize that helping is not question of equity. Not every request needs to be fulfilled. You can tell when a request should be fulfilled, because it tugs on your sense of decency. That is the mission oriented stuff.

Otherwise, it’s all business. (Ergh. Something about that sentiment makes me wince. I am an approval junkie.)

At second glance, the academic seeks interviewees. In return, I’m offered the research for any projects. That sounds like doing work and in return I get more work.

I don’t know that we have time for more interviews that do not lead directly to material help for our recovery.

How do you decide to help an academic with their research?

Is this that stuff they call stucco?

When people look at New Orleans online, they see festivals, St. Charles and the French Quarter. This is because, most of the photographs taken of New Orleans, and subsequently shared online, are taken by tourists. There are the adventurous and artistic sorts that live in the Marigny and Upper 9th Ward for sultry favors, but that is a neighborhood that is gentrifying, not recovering, per se.

It is a case study in the 20/80 rule.

The 20% of neighborhoods that was survived the flood are taking 80% of the photographs.

For those Americans that participate in social media, who search the web to see how things are doing, New Orleans looks fine. Everyone is wearing beads and watching parades.

Take pictures of your neighborhood, so that people can see the 80% that is suffering a slow and mismanaged recovery. I know that it is difficult to take pictures of people, but pictures of people are important. Folks can see that we do not spend our days in beads.

This is how it is done. I walk with the camera out. I take pictures conspicuously. When I walk past someone, I say “Hello. How are you?”. “Fine. How are you?” “I’m fine. Just out taking pictures.”

There is plenty to talk about with your neighbors. You talk about the Road Home Program, ask if part of their house was stolen and sold for scrap, talk about contractors, or ask what businesses have returned in the area. Ask them if they are active in their neighborhood organization, or if they even know that they have one.

If you have a neighborhood organization, hand out a card or flyer.

Oddly enough, I’m part of the problem. I live in the Sliver by the River, in a neighborhood that is and was high and dry. When I take pictures of the recovery, I have to travel to do so.

I left City Council Chambers yesterday to take a walk with my camera. I ended up in Mid City.

Ever since those dudes won that prize, micro-finance has been all the rage. The point of this new trend toward micro-finance is sustainability at a micro level.

Nothing is more sustainable than something that turns a profit, even if it is a small profit.

Poverty, in New Orleans turns a big profit, as it is structured. Section 8 housing is an obvious example. There are others that are more subtle. Predatory lending, payday loans, deep fried everything, products that work against their consumers.

Bart Everson writes about Section 8 housing in Puzzle.

She shared some of the particulars of her financial situation. The Housing Authority of New Orleans is paying Debra’s rent under Section 8. The check, which goes directly to the landlord, is for the amount of $1,300 every month.

That’s more than our monthly mortgage payment. Our house is almost as large as the entire fourplex in which Debra’s apartment is located. Right, that’s $1,300 for a somewhat crappy, small, unfurnished apartment in a fourplex. Appliances not included — fridge and stove must be provided by the tenant.

Bart collected some links to crack this nut, National Housing Law Project’s Section 8 pages, the Homeowner Assitance Programs: Louisiana page of HUD, and the Homeownership Vouchers pages of HUD.

Recently, the President of the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization got a call from someone in California. Someone had gotten her number off the Internet. The caller wanted to know about Section 8 Housing, had heard that there was money to be made in New Orleans renting houses to the government.

Incredulous, she said no, it was not true, and hung up.

The tragedy of the massacre at Virginia Tech, it feels like I must acknowledge it in my writing, in a post, but I don’t want to.

I don’t want to, because I have nothing to add. At the core of it, the loss of so many, very young lives. It is miserable.

I want to write about it, though, because I was unaware of what happened for most of the day.

We had a spate of pointless news, Anna Nicole Smith, the Imus Scandal (don’t know his first name), and the presidential pageant. I began to make a point of tuning out the 24 hour news cycle. It’s not real journalism. They don’t investigate or ask questions. They just watch.

I don’t look at CNN for headlines any longer, because they dredge up some horrible tales of misfortune. It is outrage based journalism.

Like the boy who cried wolf, they managed to keep me uninformed of the massacre until the day was over, until I was reading about it over someone else’s shoulder.

And now, the details that will emerge, as the did after Columbine, as the plow the depths of indecency down to stills from the security videos of the murders in Time Magazine. We’ll be outraged and outraged and outraged, and there will be no changes.

How can we turn to the same conduit for news that so recently broadcast 24 hours of Anna Nicole Smith? When will the outrage be directed at the purveyors of outrage?

Why do I bother to write about it? Why would I write about it when I have nothing to add? I don’t want to be like them.

There is much for me to write, but I know that I have nothing to add.

I missed a great deal of events recently, and Michael Homan testifying before Senate Judiciary Committee is one of them.