AddieStan

photography: Robbie Caponetto for Cottage Living magazine Marianne Cusato's version of the Katrina Cottage is a dignified alternative to the FEMA trailer. For emergency housing, the 308-square-foot cottage is remarkably inviting with a traditional front porch, exposed rafter tails, and clever storage to maximize space. Text and photograph from Cottage Living magazine. Speaking of Hurricane Katrina, this feature in Cottage Living magazine reveals a tour de force in affordable housing: the Katrina cottage, a trailer-mounted little house that can be used as the core of a new, permanent abode. And get this: one of these starting-over homes costs no more than FEMA pays for one of those trailers it has sitting in yards controlled by the Bechtel Corporation, while former Gulf Coast residents remain scatted throughout the U.S. Alas, the federal government apparently wants no part of this sensible rebuilding effort, and so it is left to private entities to fund. Here's how you ca...

Forgive, mes amis , your poor blogstress, who has been so innundated with work that she has not been able to bestow her ususal shower of wit on her devotees. Foremost among your Webwench's preoccupations has been her prepartions for this weekend's journey to New Orleans, from whence she will report on the various activities commemorating the anniversary of the landing of Hurricane Katrina. With any luck, she will be posting audio material as well as her written stream of consciousness -- if her ailing computer permits. In the meantime, she welcomes your thoughts about the grander meaning of our nation's response to the Gulf Coast tragedy.