Here is the National Hurricane Center page. Here is animation of what a category 4 storm surge would look like for New Orleans. Why is New Orleans so terrified of hurricanes? See this outstanding package of stories from The Times-Picayune. The city sits in a bowl. A direct hit would be devastating. The levees that are designed to protect the city might well be New Orleans' undoing.
Even a Category 3 storm could burst the city's levees.
Here's some New Orleans TV coverage:
Here are some New Orleans radio station Web sites, including WWL news/talk radio.
Here is a collection of live cameras throughout the region. http://www.usnewslinks.com/webcams/la.html
Here are some wave/water/flood monitors:
See coastal populations by county. It will give you some idea how many people are affected at landfall.
See this page from NOLA.com, which graphs damage from previous hurricanes to the Louisiana coast. Here's a Louisiana hurricane history page.
Of course, the storm will only add more pressure to gasoline prices as oil companies evacuated Gulf platforms. Oil opened at $70 Monday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5612507/
Citizens Cover Katrina
Newspapers, TV stations and networks are asking everyday folks to share their stories in what they are calling "citizen journalism." Here are some examples:
Car Thefts (city by city)
Modesto, Calif.,
Stockton, Calif., and Las Veg
as were the top three hot spots for car theft in 2004, according to the latest National Insurance Crime Bureau survey. Of the top 10 car theft communities, seven are in
California and all of the top 10 cities are west of the
Rockies.
Check city by city to find out how your community is doing when it comes to car theft.
The bureau's Web site says:
The rate is determined by the number of vehicle theft offenses per 100,000 inhabitants using Census 2000 population figures.
Two cities -- Detroit, Mich., and Miami, Fla. -- fell from the list and were replaced by Visalia-Tulare-Porterville, Calif., and Seattle-Everett-Bellevue, Wash., ranked at seven and 10 respectively. Phoenix-Mesa, Ariz., improved, moving from second to fourth place while Stockton-Lodi and Oakland, Calif., each moved up a notch from last year as did Las Vegas, Nev.
In 2004 there was a slight drop in auto theft nationally. Preliminary FBI data shows a 2.6 percent decrease in motor vehicle thefts from 2003's activity and that is good news for consumers, law enforcement and the insurance industry. This decrease comes after four years of steadily rising auto theft figures.
"The small reduction in auto thefts is good news for our member companies and the general public," said NICB President and CEO Robert M. Bryant. "NICB has attacked this problem through expanded efforts with our member companies and law enforcement and by embarking on an aggressive public awareness campaign to educate and inform consumers of the many ways in which they can help prevent auto theft," Bryant said.
We've covered auto theft on Al's Morning Meeting before, and some of those resources might be helpful to you as you pursue this story. In February, the NICB came out with its most recent list of most-stolen cars in America. You can even search state by state to see which vehicles are most frequently stolen in your area of the country.
Freedom of High School Press
The Poynter Institute does a lot of work with high school journalists in addition to our work with professionals and college students, so naturally, this story in The Indianapolis Star captured my interest. There are obvious story ideas in this piece.
Look at your own community school newspapers. What are they covering and who, if anybody, is trying to control them? (See more than 300 student newspapers nationwide here.) Don't forget to look at student TV newscasts and Webcasts, too. Teachers often tell me they are under pressure not to tackle anything controversial or meaty.
The Indy Star story says:
Two high-profile cases have drawn Indiana into a long-brewing national debate over how much freedom high school journalists should be given.
Earlier this month, Franklin Central High School's former newspaper adviser sued the school over what he said was a demotion after the paper published a story last year about a student's arrest on murder charges.
Last year, Clark-Pleasant Schools in Johnson County approved a policy ensuring administrators could censor anything written by student journalists.
The two cases have attracted criticism from student press advocates who argue some administrators are overreaching and violating First Amendment rights.
In the Franklin Central dispute, adviser Chad Tuley, 26, said he was transferred to a middle school as punishment after a disagreement in November about whether the principal had ordered him to withhold the student-arrest story.
In Clark-Pleasant Schools, the district enshrined censorship in policy after a student sued, claiming she had been defamed when the Whiteland High School student newspaper alluded to allegations she had been raped on a spring break trip the previous month.
A 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, allows censorship of student newspapers only for legitimate educational reasons.
Often, there is disagreement about what meets that standard.
The story points out:
In 2003, the most recent year statistics were available, the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va., reported receiving 512 requests for help on high school censorship-related issues. A spokesman suggested many more cases go unreported.
"These issues are really happening all over the place now," (director of J-Ideas, a high school journalism program at Ball State University, Warren) Watson said. "They represent a real setback for journalism and our basic freedoms."
A handful of states grant student journalists more rights, and some bar administrators from reviewing stories before they are printed.
And there is this background in the piece:
Less-experienced journalism advisers often face more oversight than veterans. Also, restrictions can take other forms -- such as requiring permission for students to interview school employees or rejecting coverage of certain topics.
Several principals said scrutiny provides a safety net both for the school and for students.
…If administrators are considering censoring a story, Dave Emmert, general counsel for the Indiana School Boards Association, says he asks them to name the specific educational concern they have. That is the standard set by the Supreme Court.
"It can't just be because it makes you feel uncomfortable," Emmert said.
Some student press advocates are hopeful after a federal court decision in October in Michigan. Though it doesn't establish a national precedent, Dean v. Utica Community Schools rebuked a superintendent's censorship of a student newspaper story about a lawsuit against the district.
"The court made clear that ... school officials' ability to censor is limited," said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. "There are a lot of schools out there that think they can censor for any reason."
Resources:
Poynter Online has many resources for high school teachers. Check them out.
I have done a good bit of work for the Radio-Television News Directors Foundation high school project. Here is that Web site. RTNDF's High School Journalism Project, with help from Kent State University, has created RTNDFTEACHER, a free e-mail listserv that broadcast journalism teachers can use to get connected with each other for information and support.
ASNE also has a nice high school journalism collection.
My.HighSchoolJournalism.org also is a site stocked with good stuff for teachers and students.
Court Allows Web Site Name to Stand
Jerry Falwell lost a battle to protect his name. The battle has to do with a man, Cristopher Lamparello, who started a Web site with a slight mis-spelling of Falwell's name.
The outcome of that fight, it seems to me, has implications for the future of free speech on the Web. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (PDF) ruled that a New York man may keep using the domain www.fallwell.com, which is a site that criticizes the preacher's stance on homosexuality.
The appeals court said the Web site looks nothing like the minister's site, which is at www.falwell.com (one "l," not two, after the "a"), and was not intended to steal customers away. The Court said there is "no likelihood of confusion" between the two sites.
In fact, Lamparello's site even includes a banner that says it is not the minister's site and provides a hyperlink to the real one.
I want to give you a passage from the ruling because it is so clear, easy to understand and well-written.
We have identified seven factors helpful in determining whether a likelihood of confusion exists as to the source of a work, but "not all these factors are always relevant or equally emphasized in each case."
Pizzeria Uno Corp. v. Temple, 747 F.2d 1522, 1527 (4th Cir. 1984) (internal quotation marks, citations, and brackets omitted). The factors are: "(a) the strength or distinctiveness of the mark; (b) the similarity of the two marks; (c) the similarity of the goods/services the marks identify; (d) the similarity of the facilities the two parties use in their businesses; (e) the similarity of the advertising used by the two parties; (f) the defendant's intent; (g) actual confusion." Id. (citation omitted).
Reverend Falwell's mark is distinctive, and the domain name of Lamparello's Web site, www.fallwell.com, closely resembles it. But, although Lamparello and Reverend Falwell employ similar marks online, Lamparello's Web site looks nothing like Reverend Falwell's; indeed, Lamparello has made no attempt to imitate Reverend Falwell's Web site. Moreover, Reverend Falwell does not even argue that Lamparello's Web site constitutes advertising or a facility for business, let alone a facility or advertising similar to that of Reverend Falwell.
Furthermore, Lamparello clearly created his Web site intending only to provide a forum to criticize ideas, not to steal customers.
Most importantly, Reverend Falwell and Lamparello do not offer similar goods or services. Rather they offer opposing ideas and commentary. Reverend Falwell's mark identifies his spiritual and political views; the Web site at www.fallwell.com criticizes those very views.
After even a quick glance at the content of the Web site at www.fallwell.com, no one seeking Reverend Falwell's guidance would be misled by the domain name -- www.fallwell.com -- into believing Reverend Falwell authorized the content of that Web site. No one would believe that Reverend Falwell sponsored a site criticizing himself, his positions, and his interpretations of the Bible.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. 
