WADE RATHKE is the founder of ACORN, Chief Organizer at ACORN International, and Author of "Nuts & Bolts", "Citizen Wealth", "Global Grassroots", and "The Battle for the 9th Ward".
Pearl River A half-moon was peaking through the clouds as I walked the dog in the predawn, but they had become wispy as I left the dock to navigate my way up the bayou. The water had risen during the night, so it was easy to climb into the canoe. When it’s low, it’s more of a downward …
New Orleans It was just another day for my mother, but it was her birthday, and she was now 92 years’ old, and that’s quite something in itself. Several times during the week before she had asked me if her mother was still alive, and I would explain that she had died forty years earlier. …
New Orleans There’s a U-Haul location right at the railroad tracks hardly more than a half-mile from where I live and even closer to where we were assembling to move stuff from half a shotgun double to a storage unit a couple of miles down the road. Given the convenience, it never occurred to me to call …
New Orleans In the red-hot real estate market in Hong Kong they are selling something called “mosquito” apartments that are less than 180 square feet. There was a picture in the paper comparing the size, unfavorably, to that of a parking slot. Real estate brokers were suggesting that you could use the window sill for …
New Orleans There’s just something about reading the rehashed stories every year on the front page of the local New Orleans papers about the surprise of some uptown swell at being named King of Rex and the shock of some debutante at being chosen as the Queen. All of this balderdash we are supposed to …