Two years after Katrina the population of New Orleans is still growing, but only 40% of children in the public schools are previous inhabitants. Homes are for sale everywhere and, though the prices have dropped in some neighborhoods, home prices and rents remain high. The economy is considered to have regained 79% of its former energy, in labor force size, sales tax revenue, jobs and employers. Employers are being lost in the Central Business District, since it has seen little growth in the labor force in 2007; the unemployment rate is higher than a year ago (Liu 1).
Homes being newly built or rebuilt have slowed, with only 14,000 permits being issued this year, compared to 46,000 in the first year (Liu 12). Because of the slowing of construction and the growth of the labor force, workers who are unemployed are increasing. Cost of living in the city is high and increasing, though more slowly than a year prior (Liu 2).
During 2007, the absence of further hurricans helped New Orleans continue to grow in numbers of households and jobs, though infrastructure and housing recovery is still uneven. The area is looking forward to some $3 billion in new Road Home money from Congress and some coastal protection funds from the Water Resources Development Act, which was passed over President Bush's veto (Liu 1).
Since construction has continued, there is some optimism, but public infrastructure repairs have stalled and it is hard to find public services. The Road Home program has given out checks to only one-fourth of those who should receive them. Only two-thirds of the hospitals in the region are open. Schools, public transportation, child care, libraries and other basic services are only half-restored. It appears that though New Orleans has regained most of its population and economic base, growth has slowed over the past year and the hardest-hit parishes. Orleans and St. Bernard, have a long way to go (Liu 2).
New Orleans has undergone a major racial population shift in the years since Katrina struck that city. It now faces the problems that most cities in the Southeast have faced, that were not faced previous to Katrina, because New Orleans had few Hispanics. Since it lost more than half of its population, many of them blacks (about a quarter of a million) - it gained about 14,000 Hispanics in 2006 (Belsie 1).
Many Hispanics have come to stay, as well; something that the city leaders have not expected or prepared for. The Hispanic immigrants, only 13% from Mexico and the remaining 87% from other parts of the United States, moved to New Orleans after the storm to take advantage of the construction job market. At that time, the U.S. government gave them special waivers on the immigration restrictions so that employers could hire Hispanic workers, but the State decided in 2006 that it was time to reinforce the laws against illegal immigrants. The may of New Orleans voiced dismay about the city being overrun by Mexicans, but during his subsequent reelection campaign made conciliatory gestures to the Hispanic community (Belsie 3).
Luz Molina, a law professor at Loyola in New Orleans said "You have a judicial system that has no clue how to accommodate Spanish speakers, a healthcare system that is geared toward excluding them, and a [political] system that in general is slowly tightening the noose around them," she says. "It's so short-sighted" (Belsie 4).
In spite of New Orleans' pride in its racial mixture and combinations of cultures found in music and food, the Hispanic population has never been a part of the black and white mixture. "This [influx of Hispanics] is going to create some new challenges for the city," says Katharine Donato, Sociology professor at Rice University. But "there is a certain tolerance and understanding of diversity in New Orleans that perhaps other cities new to foreign immigrants wouldn't have" (Belsie 5).
Businesses have been serviced by the Hispanic population since Katrina, but the growing number of businesses catering to the Hispanic population has only just begun to grow. This is…
Panama is notable for its harsh legal environment for journalists, and events in 2006 did very little to improve the situation. President Martin Torrijos had ratified the repeal of the country’s “gag laws,” enacted under military rule more than 30 years ago; however, a commission of lawyers and academics, which was set up by Torrijos to examine penal code reform, in July submitted a proposal that included harsh penalties for criminal defamation. Among the amendments, Article 214 would drastically increase penalties and raise the maximum prison term for defamation to three years. More than 100 journalists took to the streets demanding the withdrawal of the draft bill, which was designed to protect the reputation of government officials.
A new bill, which still considered defamation and libel to be criminal offenses, was also being considered at the end of the year. The draft bill would make it a crime punishable by up to four years’ imprisonment to publish “confidential information involving state security.” There are also concerns about other existing provisions, including Articles 307 and 308 of the criminal code, which contain two insult laws with similar language to the desacato (disrespect) laws. Several cases against journalists under this law are pending in the courts, including that of Jean Marcel Chery, a former reporter with the daily El Panama America, who was accused of libel by the Supreme Court judge Winston Spadafora. Chery had written about a Supreme Court decision that canceled Spadafora’s US$2 million debt to a government canal agency known as the Interoceanic Regional Authority. In another case, Spadafora filed a civil lawsuit that sought US$2 million in damages from the publisher of El Panama America, for a 2001 story that allegedly “insulted” him when he was minister of government and justice. Such legal tensions cause many journalists to practice self-censorship.
Access to public information still remains limited because government officials are not held accountable for refusing to release information and public institutions still lack an effective mechanism for expediting information requests. There were no attacks on the media in Panama in 2006.
Independent media are very active and express diverse views. The media often reflect the polarized political scene, with different outlets openly supporting various factions. All Panamanian media outlets are privately owned with the exception of one state-owned television network. The law prohibits cross-ownership, but there is considerable concentration of media ownership by relatives and associates of former president Ernesto Perez Balladares, whose party President Torrijos now leads. Poor salaries encourage corruption among some journalists. A number of domestic journalists and press freedom advocacy groups allege that the government manipulates the “free flow of information” by buying advertising space from organizations that report positively on the government while withdrawing funding from organizations that do not. A bill to standardize government advertising and reduce this was under consideration but not acted upon before the end of the year. There are no government restrictions on the internet, which was accessed by nearly 7 percent of the population during 2006.
Barack Obama joked Saturday about his plans for a radical second-term evolution from 'strapping young Muslim Socialist' to retiree golfer, all with a new hairstyle like first lady Michelle's. He doesn't deny being Muslim or a Socialist. Understand that now Barack Obama is throwing his real ideology in the face of the American people and sadly we are allowing him to do it via our elected representatives.
President Obama then said, "These days I look in the mirror and have to admit, I'm not the strapping young Muslim Socialist that I used to be. Time passes, you get a little gray."
In one version of the night’s story (as seen at Huffington Post, Time Magazine, Breitbart Wires, the Ottawa Citizen, and The Columbian to name a few), the AP's Bradley Klapper forgot one part of the President's joke.
"I'm not the strapping young Socialist that I used to be," the president remarked, and then recounted his recent 2-for-22 basketball shooting performance at the White House Easter Egg hunt.