Some Came Running

A Time And A Place

2011-08-29T07:36:00.001-06:00

No single thing abides; but all things flow.
Fragment to fragment clings-the things thus grow
Until we know and name them. By degrees
They melt, and are no more the things we know.

Lucretius

Rise

2011-08-26T17:09:00.002-06:00

It’s that time once again: Rising Tide 6

The Rising Tide Conference is an annual gathering for all who wish to learn more and do more to assist New Orleans' recovery. Leveraging the power of bloggers and new media, the conference is a launch pad for organization and action. Our day-long program of speakers and presentations is tailored to inform, entertain, enrage and inspire.

Are we really up to six? Things have gotten pretty dusty around here…long story

Dreams

2011-03-17T06:55:00.001-06:00

I’ve been sleeping for a while and dreaming. Here is one of Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, “Mount Fuji in Red”. It seems to be disturbingly relevant.

Fixing A Hole

2011-01-17T07:47:00.002-06:00

Congrats to Liprap for 5 years of news, kvetching and keeping us informed of the latest antics of the little guy. Here's some music to while away the time waiting for the hole to get fixed.

Dead Ninja Christmas

2010-11-27T08:17:00.002-06:00

The first blow of the Hostilidays has been unleashed (pretty lame one, borrowing someone elses work). Liprap counters with a truly vile display…just like racid budder.

Of course, in Bushido it is the weaker warrior who strikes the first blow, and what could puts one in the mind of Christmas more than dead Ninjas.

For the Anime fans, Samurai Pizza Cats do something having to do with Christmas.

For those who just have to see how it turns out, here is part II

Five Years

2010-08-29T08:46:00.003-06:00

It’s simple, really: We stand up for ourselves. We stand up because often the criticisms of this place seem as misinformed as they are unrelenting. We stand up for ourselves because we figure that speaking the truth — in all its complexity and all its ugliness — is better than keeping quiet after pretty-sounding lies. - Jarvis DeBarry

Danke Schoen

2010-06-05T16:05:00.002-06:00

I’ve not completely fallen of the edge of the world, or been sucked into a plume of oil, just busy with other things. But I have a moment to pass along a bit of semi-good news.

The word on the street is that the Deutsches Haus, now sitting in the footprint of the bazillion dollar medical center development has been given a temporary reprieve. The organization that has celebrated the German contribution to the tapestry that is New Orleans culture will stay put at least through the Octoberfest.

A temporary location has been secured while the future and how much cash they will be awarded for the property is determined. The only snag is that the location is a good bit smaller than the original, with limited meeting space. Anyone who has been around the place when there isn’t a festival going on knows that it can be a real three ring circus with multiple events and meetings on any given night.

And now James Watt and Ferris Bueller's favorite... a little Wayne Newton:

Requiem

2010-06-01T20:24:00.001-06:00

Our shells clacked on the plates.
My tongue was a filling estuary,
My palate hung with starlight :
As I tasted the salty Pleiades
Orion dipped his foot into the water.

Alive and violated,
They lay on their beds of ice :
Bivalves: the split bulb
And philandering sigh of ocean.
Millions of them ripped and shucked and scattered.

We had driven to that coast
Through flowers and limestone
And there we were, toasting friendship,
Laying down a perfect memory
In the cool of thatch and crockery.

Over the Alps, packed deep in hay and snow,
The Romans hauled their oysters south to Rome :
I saw damp panniers disgorge
The frond-lipped, brine-stung
Glut of privilege

And was angry that my trust could not repose
In the clear light, like poetry or freedom
Leaning in from sea. I ate the day
Deliberately, that its tang
Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.

Seamus Heaney, “Oysters” 1979

Corporate Anthem

2010-05-24T16:36:00.003-06:00

John Cole states the obvious...

BP is just acting rationally, if you ask me. They’ve looked at the landscape, realize that even if they get sued for a shitload, the courts will strike it down as unfair, and they know they have nothing to fear from the government because both parties are littered with politicians they’ve completely paid off, and they know damned well that one major party wants to get rid of the EPA and the blue dogs in the Democratic caucus would join them, so they have no reason whatsoever to listen to that agency. Basically, the rational decision for any corporation in this country is to do whatever the fuck you want, because there simply won’t be any consequences. They have a lot of shareholders who will look the other way, a country desperate for oil, politicians completely in their pocket, and they can afford better attorneys than the poor bastards who used to catch shrimp in the Gulf.

"Corporate society takes care of everything. And all it asks of anyone, all it’s ever asked of anyone ever, is not to interfere with management decisions” – Rollerball, 1975

Eleventh Earl of Mar

2010-05-03T17:04:00.002-06:00

The sun had been up for a couple of hours,
Covered the ground with a layer of gold.
Spirits were high and the raining had stopped,
The larder was low, But boy that wasn't all.
Eleventh Earl of Mar
Couldn't get them very far.

Bury your memories bury your friends,
Leave it alone for a year or two.
Till the stories go hazy and the legends come true,
Then do it again. Some Things never end.
Eleventh Earl of Mar
Won't be going very far.

Alex Chilton

2010-03-18T06:36:00.001-06:00

So long, Alex.

The Saints

2010-02-08T08:11:00.001-06:00

Tales of the Future

2009-11-13T18:09:00.002-06:00

Tough times at the local rag, as covered by the local crew:

Gambit goes in search of a rose…”Rose’s departure from The Times-Picayune staff would follow several other high-profile writers who chose to take the paper’s voluntary buyouts this year, including Rose’s fellow columnist Angus Lind, veteran crime reporter Walt Philbin and theater writer David Cuthbert.”

adrastos another hard copy hold out and Who fan runs down the Sell Out…”What shame. It's people like Gill and Larson who have given the paper both style and substance.”

Eli wonders who’s left.

Oyster ponders the future

So before the storm I was a subscriber to Wired Mag. They use to (and maybe still do) run a sort of vision of the future on the last page. Well here we have the Times Picayune circa 2010 at the rate they are going.

Look Up (To See What's Coming Down)

2009-11-05T15:37:00.000-06:00

What: Blogging 101 Class: An Introduction to Blogging for the Utter Novice

When: Thursday, Nov. 12; 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

Where: The Bridge Lounge, 1201 Magazine St

Why: To Learn About Blogging and for Free Beer.

Who: Rising Tide

This class will be taught by two local bloggers and will focus on blogging platforms, hosting, getting started, a walk-through of basic blog software, posting, adding media, blogrolls, linking, commenting and more. Laptops are encouraged.

Bears

2009-09-30T19:54:00.003-06:00

adrastos has bears on the mind watching the latest offering by Ken Burns (a living genius, no seriously, he’s in the pantheon, documentaries have never been the same since Civil War) on the National Parks.

While second rate Who songs are fodder for my own though process, this was the one that came to mind for me; Lyle Lovett covers Steven Fromholz in a live offering. My only complaint is it’s too short.

Declaration

2009-09-18T16:42:00.000-06:00

adrastos ask’s “does anyone want the job”?

Just for the record.

"I hereby state, and mean all that I say, that I never have been and never will be a candidate for ~~President~~ Mayor; that if nominated ~~by either party~~, I should peremptorily decline; and even if unanimously elected I should decline to serve.” link

Lollipops and Roses

2009-09-12T08:50:00.003-06:00

In a great example of the “having your cake and eating it, too” school of development, developers for the Plaza sight in Eastern New Orleans are pushing the boundaries of the “public option”, otherwise known as TIF in a bid to have the city not only pre-pay for the cake, but pay off the mortgage for the bakery all for the privilege of letting the citizens buying a slice, that is, if the cake even gets made.

On Thursday, the New Orleans City Council is expected to consider a proposal to use future tax revenue to help transform the site of the defunct Lake Forest Plaza mall into a modern shopping center called the New Orleans East Marketplace. TP

At least four of the seven council members have endorsed the proposal in principle, but the president of a government watchdog organization says the deal amounts to little more than a public bailout for the developers.

The very libertarian Reason Online has an article on a Cabela’s deal in Texas that points out some of the down side to the TIF model, quoting Greg LeRoy, author of The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation.

The rest of us pay taxes for normal services like public safety, building inspections, and street maintenance, and those services come out of the general fund. And as the cost of services goes up, and the money from the general fund is given to these businesses through a TIF, the tax burden gets shifted to the regular slobs who don't have the same political clout. It's a crummy way to treat your taxpaying, law-abiding citizens.

Of course, shifting the tax burden to regular slobs is pretty much are the taxation and development models of the last couple of decades.

Pro- ~~oligarchy~~ business Republican love them, because someone with very deep pockets won’t be paying taxes anymore, and they can tout the “economic” development the schemes deliver. To be fair Pro- ~~oligarchy~~ business Democrats love them just as much, as the can tout all the “benefits” the people will enjoy paying for items “many times over” with both their taxes and take home pay.

The libertarian wing of the Republican party, once would have put the breaks on such schemes, but it now resembles the back room where Flounder and Pinto are directed in the rush sequence in Animal House where we find Jugdish, Mohammet and Lonny sequestered from the “real” party.

"The mall will serve as an anchor to the revitalization of New Orleans, " said Burgos, a prominent supporter of Mayor Ray Nagin. Burgos plans to redevelop the now mostly empty site through his company, New Orleans East Design LLC. "It's an investment that will pay for itself many times over."

But this is a lot worse than your everyday average TIF scheme. Good ol’ C Ray is caught up in this and you know what that means….

Under an agreement that Mayor Ray Nagin struck with the company in May, Lake Forest would put $1.6 million in escrow, to be released to the city when the TIF is created -- essentially compelling the city to approve the TIF if it wants to get paid -- and the $1.4 million would be forgiven as the developers make progress.

Not only has he strapped the city over a barrel on the financing, he’s worked a clause in to potentially leave the city holding the ball should the project fail.

And there are no provisions for what happens if the project fails, save for a clause that if construction hasn't started in 36 months, the city and developers will "negotiate in good faith" to "successfully develop" the project.

So what’s on the table? Not much. As the article points out, the “big box” tenants being dangled like rotten carrots (and they’re likely to want tax-free deals of their own) are not on board yet, but somehow…

Burgos and Ryan plan to release a study touting their project's potentially powerful economic impact.

So what are the odds, the study will be all Lollipops and Roses? But something tells me that a developer with essentially no risk to themselves, and a built in public bailout procedure is not going to make very prudent decisions.

Heads I win, tails you lose. Lollipops and Roses for sure, just not for us regular slobs.

Pull Out The Pin

2009-09-08T17:33:00.000-06:00

Surprisingly, there is actually something Louisiana is ranked highly in that is actually good.

In two years, Louisiana has leaped from 44th in the nation to second in the percentage of toddlers getting their shots on time. TP

$10 bucks says if President Obama were to say vaccinations are good, that ranking would quickly return to the previous level, if not lower.

Magic Bus

2009-09-07T08:27:00.003-06:00

In case you missed it, there is a new deal with the company currently running the RTA’s public transportation system. For almost a year the system has been run under interm contracts by Veolia Transportation, the US affiliate of the Global Veolia Transport, a French company. It runs the Jefferson Parish Transit system as well. wikipedia

Veolia will now operate the system under a five, with a possible five year renewal based on performance. While, I am not going to comment on whether this is a good or a bad deal. I really do not have an opinion on the current state of Public Transit in this city, other than to say I really like the new smaller busses on the typical New Orleans streets. But according to Veolia themselves, this is a new model for transit management.

New Orleans is the first time in the United States that the “delegated management” model is being fully deployed…This “Delegated Management” model is widely used in Europe, but is not well known in the U.S. Simply put, it means that the RTA Board of Commissioners will fully delegate the management and operation of the transit authority to Veolia Transportation, which will assume responsibility for all the transit authority functions and operations as described above, reporting to the RTA Board of Commissioners which will oversee its contract performance, policies and budgets. Veolia Fluff

Well, okay, but those “Boards of Commissioners” all too often resemble collections of politically connected and cronies in these parts, and its’ funny how “new models” so often resemble the “Good-ole-boy model” once executed, but there does not appear to be anything untoward about the deal so far.

But there is a little something.

If you recall this Moldy City post (and seriously, David has some of the best research on the players in New Orleans on the web, search his archives, you’ll see).

David described how Veronica White’s BFF, the headhunting Tracie Washington “was ultimately dismissed, as the chief counsel of Austin’s (apparently there is corruption in Texas…who knew?) Capital Metro for obstructionist tactics involving (all together now) the release of public records.

He prints a few choice articles on the topic. This one from Mar. 5, 1997 has something we’re looking for:

The requested records range from the compensation package for General Manager Justin Augustine III to a computerized list of the checks that Capital Metro writes.

So why should that name be familiar? This hardly a case for the where are they now file from the coverage of the Veolia negotiations:

Former RTA General Manager Justin Augustine, a vice president for Veolia's California region, would be the company's local general manager if the firm is selected. TP

Nice to see he landed on his feat, several times. But this certainly appears to be one more case of the big company coming to town and being convinced they have to “hire a local” in order to “do business” in this town. Of course if they had brought in someone who cannot provide the proper answer to “where’d you go to school” an equal and opposite reaction would occur. But they jumped into the local option with both feet:

Counting Augustine, a New Orleans native, Veolia officials said they would fill four of five top management positions at the RTA with locals. TP

All one big happy family, it seems. And of course I've failed to mention the name that seems to be conected to all of them. I wonder when Veronica White lands a cushy management position….perhaps Feb. 5, 2010?

Haben Sie gehört das Deutsche band?

2009-09-03T06:46:00.003-06:00

You know, not many people knew about it,
but the Fuhrer vas a terrific dancer.

A Sort of Homecoming

2009-08-29T06:53:00.001-06:00

Time counts and keeps countin', and we knows now finding the trick of what's been and lost ain't no easy ride. But that's our trek, we gotta' travel it. And there ain't nobody knows where it's gonna' lead. Still in all, every night we does the tell, so that we 'member who we was and where we came from... but most of all we 'members the man that finded us, him that came the salvage. And we lights the city, not just for him, but for all of them that are still out there. 'Cause we knows there come a night, when they sees the distant light, and they'll be comin' home.

Shark Sandwich

2009-08-23T13:36:00.004-06:00

Rising Tide IV was by all accounts another stimulating and successful event. Particularly to be noted is that this conference has been cobbled together, not by an organization, but a group of individuals with day jobs, and scant experience in the “proper” way one plans and hosts such events. The rough around the edges quality of the venue, assortment of chairs, kooky green stage lights and so on really makes it clear that this is the product of (to use the much overused term) outsiders and upstarts who will not let you off with polite applause.

But the day passed without a signature “incident” and Adrastos’rather subdued blue and white patterned shirt remained untouched by the Gray Ghost's handiwork.

So, back to that “outsiders and upstart” thing, one post RT tradition is reading exactly what sort of backhand compliment the Times-Picayune will bestow on the event in the Sunday paper. Of course, acknowledging “bloggers” as anything other than an unseemly lot of cutthroats and villains which any sensible person would promptly ignore and up their subscription to the “balanced” and “dignified” mimeographed pamphlet that the Times Picayune seems to have shrunken to, is clearly against editorial policy. So, as with last year they instead focus solely on the keynote and minimize any mention of exactly what the conference is about.

Efforts to accurately explain to the nation what happened in New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, have failed, comic Harry Shearer told a few hundred bloggers who gathered Saturday for an annual meeting of writers committed to sharing the city's story in print and online. TP

Staff writer Katy Reckdahl would have us believe those pesky bloggers attended some sort of conference about real writers. Which, I suppose, Katy Reckdahl considers herself to be, and to prove it she proceeds to recount her impressions of Harry Shearer’s address by tripping over a sting of seemingly random quotes strung together with blocks of paraphrasing or fabricated transitions in that god awful technique that some idiot in journalism school claimed would make you seem all “journalisticy”. On the whole a real shit sandwich of "journalistism".

I remember how the biggest dolts I knew in college were “communications” majors, but seriously, does this person really get paid for this? I understand the wheels really came of the profession when the press decided they were more than "reporters", no they were "journalists" and all shall love them and despaire. No wonder they are so scared of bloggers.

And that is still pretty cool.

Rise

2009-08-19T18:34:00.003-06:00

So there was an incident with a not so sane former City Councilperson attempting to educate the masses on the finest country club cocktail party conspiracy theories.

Then there was the “Peoples Poet” the self appointed community “activist” crash the event and proceed to call the attendees wankers for not paying sufficient attention to his personal ~~vendetta~~ cause du jour.

And then there was the one which can be most simply put as; Trotsky cold-cocked Loki.

With Rising Tide is upon us and the big question is what is the big disruption going to be this year?

A big hurricane appears to be out (keep repeating the word “earth” and don’t piss off that one legged god). So here are a few possibilities:

Fred Fadke shows up and paints over Adrastos’s shirt

Ed Blakley storms the podium during the awards claiming that the work his office of recovery management made this event possible and should receive all the awards.

Local voodoo practitioners take issue with Dambala’s use of “zombie” in his blog, claiming he is unfairly associating the undead with government corruption.

Saints tight end Jeremy Shockey collapses from dehydration and lands on Mr. gloomy pants.

Dollar Bill Jefferson appears and delivers an honorable explanation.

I could be wrong, I could be right…

May the road rise with you.

Maybe The Poet

2009-07-28T19:25:00.001-06:00

I might have to start watching network television again

A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country

2009-07-04T16:15:00.001-06:00

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

...

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Complete Text

Yesterday and Today

2009-06-20T18:29:00.001-06:00

The first Persian Gulf War in 1991 was a watershed event for CNN that catapulted the network past the "big three" American networks for the first time in its history, largely due to an unprecedented, historical scoop: CNN was the only news outlet with the ability to communicate from inside Iraq during the initial hours of the Coalition bombing campaign, with live reports from the al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad… Wikipedia

As the age of newspapers seems to move closer to its end, and real-time, online, and citizen journalism grows in strength and credibility, this incident may in fact turn out to be an important part of media history: The day when the best news of the day was brought to you in 140 characters or less. Yahoo News

Maybe CNN should have taken CNNi feed last evening. But it was middle of the night in Iran, and even journalists have to rest sometimes. Howard Kurtz

This is ~~CNN~~ irrelevance

June 16th

2009-06-16T06:35:00.002-06:00

Happy Bloomsday!

Okay, so this post is becoming a yearly thing. Folse has new content and a suggestion for some June 16^th activities.

As for me, much like last year, I’ve been rather busy. I didn’t make it to Dublin, or to Davy Byrne's pub for a Guinness…and I never finished Ulysses, for that matter, either.

STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently-behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

-- Introibo ad altare Dei.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:

-- Come up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful jesuit.

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

And here's a little Minutemen for your entertainment...

Waiting For The Man

2009-06-13T08:16:00.002-06:00

Nagin, who is in Australia attending a conference on climate change, told The Associated Press that after a series of offers and counteroffers, Chevron has accepted the city's bid of $8 million, which he said is the property's appraised value. TP

So it appears that Nagin might actually accomplish something he said he would. But I have to qualify that by pointing out that buying the building and actually moving City Hall are two very different things. And it is when that word “actually” crops up with C Ray, that thing usually fall apart.

But I will give him this, it looked like this was one of his usual “visions” that get no further than the teleprompter.

This is of course totally ignore the issue of whether this is a good idea and whether this is the appropriate time to move forward on it.

Personally, I am tepidly in support of the idea for various reasons. I am not unswayed by the arguments against it, just that I find the scale tipped a tad to the “for” side at this point. There are a lot of things that could change the equation for me, so don’t consider me a cheerleader for this by any means. One positive point is that with C Ray on the case this will progress on a glacial/FEMA timescale so there will be plenty of time and other administrations to assess and re-asses everything.

I Ain't Got Nobody

2009-06-04T19:21:00.000-06:00

Gone, but never to be forgotton…I was blown away at his first and only 2002 Jazz Fest performance.

Keith Spera has a great write up of the 7^th ward original

"Louis's ace-in-the-hole was Sam Butera," said Gia Prima, the fifth of Louis's five wives and the singer in his band from 1962 to 1975. "That animal attraction that they had, with Sam's honking sax and Louis's jumping and jiving -- without Sam, Louis couldn't have pulled it off."

Here he is with Louis Prima in their prime:

Death’s Door

2009-06-01T20:48:00.002-06:00

Apparently a camel farted somewhere in Africa and the Corp(se) of Engineers assures us that we’re all going to ~~die~~ be safe, so we should all set our hair on fire and run to get in line now, ~~fubar~~ FEMA’s got the popcorn ready.

Its June 1^st. So get your gris gris on and make nice with that one legged god, and keep repeating the word "earth".

Crawling Back to You

2009-05-31T09:10:00.002-06:00

A week after she was indicted on federal racketeering charges, former state Rep. and New Orleans City Councilwoman Renee Gill Pratt has taken an unpaid leave of absence from her job at Southern University at New Orleans. TP

And the saga continues…

Gordon Russell has a great article on Mose Jefferson, the indicted brother and behind the scenes power broker of indicted former Congressman Bill Jefferson in today TP. Here is a quote that jumped out at me.

A candidate backed by the Jefferson establishment could count on certain things: armies of street workers canvassing voters on election day, fliers in every mailbox, signs in many yards. TP

Some would call that the good-ole-days.

I believe that we may be seeing the end of last great era of the old school of politics/corruption/good-ole-boy network in this town. I am not directing this at one particular often identified group to which it could be said Gill Pratt belongs (other than the Jefferson clan). Lots of people have had their hand in running the city into the ground for personal gain, fun and profit over the years, and they are all scrambling in the new post-K political environment. And for most of them the reality of that has not even begun to sink in.

What I’m getting at is this. I think a lot more people than are given credit had a come to Jesus moment during Katrina and its aftermath. I think people of all stripes realized that they had been getting sold a bill of good over the years, that the very people who pledged to do for them, were really only doing for themselves. Or they realized that the corruption in those neighborhoods across the road they had accepted or ignored really was their problem.

Many people who had been willing to tolerate it, or thrown up their hands at it before, realized they couldn’t abide or abet it anymore. Some got involved, others chose to stay home on election day and let the chips fall where they may, most simply paid attention and tried to make the best decision they could. That may not have always worked for the best, but the saga of Rene Gil Pratt probably confirms that often it did.

The most tantalizing development of post-Katrina New Orleans is the lack of most of the old time operatives to “deliver the votes” neatly packaged with a bow in the ways they once did. Some would “blame” the displacement of the storm for this, and that was a factor for a time, but the loss of Bill Jefferson to a Republican of all people really showed something.

But this is not just a Jefferson thing, nor a “black” thing or a “white” thing. Lakeview sent the Burneau clan packing and that story has been repeated in all corners of the city (the Audubon or “Kings of Carnival” crowd will, however, continue to back unelectable candidates in hopes of some grand restoration of their status as lords of the city while the wedding announcements continue to reveal that “the couple will reside in Atlanta/Houston/Beigeboxland).

It has not always worked out for the best, but the saga of Rene Gil Prat and Jefferson’s should give us some hope. And despite the best efforts of a lot of desparate people and a spineless newspaper, I do not think a race war is apon us. On the contrary, I think we could (with a push and a little bit of leadership) be heading for what might be called the first "post-racial" election in the cities history.

Follow The Leader

2009-05-29T07:02:00.002-06:00

Less than a week after her indictment on federal racketeering charges, former New Orleans City Councilwoman Renee Gill Pratt has been named to the inner circle of advisers to the chancellor of Southern University at New Orleans. TP

Where do you start with this?

We Don't Need Another Hero

2009-05-27T06:54:00.003-06:00

C Ray has his bags packed.

Mayor Ray Nagin plans to do some globetrotting

Shortly after hosting a farewell gala this week for his departing recovery czar Ed Blakely at a posh downtown steakhouse, Mayor Ray Nagin will headline an academic program next month in Blakely's adopted hometown of Sydney, Australia.

The theme of the meeting is "the impact of the global financial crisis on pressing issues of globalization and sustainability, " according to a Web site promoting the conference. TP

Well, that web site is right here: national-summit, and we are assured “International Experts, and Unparallel Insights”. I really know nothing on the other participants, but most at least seem to have some expertise in a related area.

What C Ray is there for is anyone’s guess. Perhaps he regaled them with tales of how Gustav, the largest storm in the history of the world which filled the entire Gulf of Mexico, was heading right for New Orleans, and how his "preparedness" saved the city from destruction. Or prattle on about how important transparency is while he fills up on a few prawns off the Barbie, Vegemite sandwiches and warm Fosters. But seeing as our city is now the set of choice for post apocalypse movies, perhaps C Ray may be doing a little research.

While this trip seems an odd one, C Ray’s last trip was for a subject for which he is indeed an expert:

… he took a much shorter excursion Tuesday, flying to Springfield, Ill., to deliver the keynote address during a luncheon meeting of the Illinois Faith-Based Emergency Preparedness Initiative.

Under C Ray's leadership, it certainly seems that praying you survive whatever emergency befalls you is about as much preparation as you'll get. Perhaps that is what he will be lecturing on that to our friends down under.

Romance In Durango

2009-05-23T08:06:00.002-06:00

Renee Gill Pratt, a former state representative and New Orleans city councilwoman, was indicted by a federal grand jury Friday on federal racketeering charges. TP

"…sometimes God puts things in places for you." Renee Gill Pratt TP

And sometimes that includes an indictment, a costly trial, and perhaps even an involuntary vacation in a facility completely lacking in the kind of amenities one would find at most roadside motels.

Adrastos has more on this new remake of All In the Family.

An one thing I’d add is given Pratts reputation for having an intelligence only slightly higher than the average house plant, her defense team is going to have their hands full. When she ran for re-election after Katrina, I was struck by the utter and complete indifference to the election, as if it was a mere formality. When she was thrust into a runoff with less than 40% of the vote, she obviously realized she had to take it seriously. That was when she came off the rails. Honestly, she did better when she didn’t care.

And for all of you who keep score at home, please note this timeline:

Early in 2006 Bernazzani, former chief of the FBI's New Orleans office, announced his intention to investigate Care Unlimited and Orleans Metropolitan Housing & Community Development with longtime ties to U.S. Rep. William Jefferson,

This article dated November 22, 2006 details the public subpoena of the records.

May 22, 2009, indictment. Two years, and seven months from subpoena to indictment. I’ll admit that seems longer than a number of investigations I can recall, but probably not by much.

Until The End Of the World

2009-05-19T20:12:00.005-06:00

So a friend sent me the link to the trailer for the new Cormac McCarthy (No Country For Old Men, All the Pretty Horses) novel film adaptation for his post apocalyptic novel The Road.

While it looks like a promising flick to me, and I great;y enjoyed the book. Something in there looked a tad familiar, and I’m not talking about the story of a father and son making their way across a devastated landscape…or maybe I am. You see, I saw the fleeting glimpse of a still shot that looked remarkably familiar. Here is a screen cap.

Look familiar? Well compare it to this photo I plagiarized of the internets which show the former Grand Theater post ~~apocalypse~~ Katrina in Eastern New Orleans. It's a bit hard to make out and there is a good bit of digital manipulation in the still, but it sure looks like the same place to me.

Is me or have we found a whole new dimension to this whole “set your move in New Orleans” thing. Either someone used a snap shot of the Plaza or our Plaza looks just like the post apocalyptic fantasies of some Hollywood type.

Maybe a remake of Logan’s Run? The new spiffed up Superdome could figure in there, but with the Plaza Mall gone, where would they film the rest? They could attempt to revive the Mad (and he puts the “mad” in it for sure) Max franchise? Perhaps a Boy and His Dog, as they’ve managed to remake Omega man several times…The possibilities are endless.

For You Blue

2009-05-15T08:25:00.003-06:00

As if I needed another reason to stay the hell out of Metry, and as far from their main “street” which is apparently defined as a traffic snarled, exhaust choked no-mans land of national franchises and manufactured ambiance littered with trash and all the other detritus of suburbia, now with sidewalks, shrubbery and art. The latest addition...

Artist George Rodrigue says the 16-foot aluminum dog being built in Lafayette will be the biggest artwork he's ever created…he expects it to be placed atop a 10-foot base in the Memorial Park area of Veterans Memorial Boulevard near Severn Avenue in Metairie. TP

But wait, it's even worse than you think.

The Veterans version of the sculpture will be painted in red, white, and blue and will rotate so that the colors can be shifted from time to time. To further enliven the monumental dog, Rodrigue plans to apply large-scale seasonal plastic stickers -- like those seen on public buses -- that might include the American flag, a Mardi Gras mask, and Christmas gifts.

This art offends me...

Crowing

2009-05-14T19:07:00.002-06:00

It’s always interesting when you can watch an election campaign unfold in slow motion before your eyes. Without even a fig leaf of secrecy we are getting to see the development of the inevitable wave of attacks against public enemy number one Stacy Head in the great patriotic war to preserve the status quo.

Before you go thinking I am cheering Stacy Head, I am not. I’m not really talking about her at all. What I am talking about is those small time power brokers who have had their hand in the working of the city for fun and profit, and just can’t stand to see the salad days passing them by. By the most fiendish of plots, it seems a number of their favorite pols are no longer in office, and apparently a lack of votes seems to be the problem.

But they are not going to take it lying down. While past election have seen large numbers staying home, they have the solution to boost motivation among the voter, by tossing even larger buckets of whatever slop they can find.

So Tracie Washington puts three cherry picked emails of Stacy Head (what a surprise) up on the internets for public consumption and are just as quickly withdrawn, but not before being saved. But even the TP isn’t quite buying it and deviated from their “journalistic neutrality” which is a euphemism for allowing certain people in certain situations (the logic behind the decision seems to be completely indecipherable, but has something to do with trying to please everyone) to offer complete bullshit without so much as a “but”.

The messages, all written by Councilwoman Stacy Head on her city e-mail account, appeared to have been chosen to cause her maximum personal and political embarrassment.

When the whole email circus was getting underway, Tracie Washington could hardly contain herself. Perhaps she was showing up C Ray exactly what transparency was, but she couldn’t have been more obvious that she was looking to make a political hit. I wrote about that after her WDSU interview in March:

When asked why they only requested the emails of white councilpersons, she was quite clear in her response that “those were the emails she wanted”. Now, in this age of transparency this might constitute a clear answer, but she goes on to give us a pretty good idea of why, “…and if there is incriminating stuff in there, as there must be…” and then catching herself adds, “…well I don’t know.”

If the Washington/Recall “insert name here” crowd was smart they would keep their cards closer to their vest. Spring the flyers with the cherry picked phrases, distorted for greater effect, and offer some circuitous path of references for the source…or just pretend to cite something. Nobody but a few bloggers would will ever really try to follow it anyway. This isn’t rocket science.

Television Man

2009-05-06T17:31:00.001-06:00

So it appears the star of The Ed Blakely Show, Ed Blakely himself, has announced he’s leaving the show.

Back in October, rumors were ripe that the show would end its run, but the C Ray network remained dedicated to their much hyped star. I speculated that C Ray’s then marquee show might morph into something else without the star, leading to all kinds of new wacky characters to “revitalize” the show.

Just this morning we read that the C Ray network had no knowledge of Blakely’s impending departure.

Ceeon Quiett, the mayor's director of communications, said she suspects that some administrative changes at City Hall are "fueling the chatter." Some departments that have been overseen by Blakely's Office of Recovery and Development Administration are being moved under the auspices of the chief administrative office, Quiett said.

But the Blakely show had declined from its heyday. The writing clearly lacked the edge it had when it spawns such catchphrases as “cranes in the sky” or “buffoons” and production costs had been far greater than originally thought.

I also have to wonder if the new line up of crime comedy/dramas, such as the new spinoff show starring C Ray himself announced just today, and the recent entry of the enormously popular Greg Meffert Show didn’t enter into Blakely ‘s thinking as his ratings plummeted.

But the time slot remains, and Blakely himself indicated the test pattern that substitutes for content will remain on the air.

Blakely said current department directors will remain in place and current tasks, such as code enforcement and housing development, will be unchanged under the renamed bureacratic umbrella.

Exactly what the C Ray network has in store for us, the viewers, remains to be seen.

Drop Me Off In New Orleans

2009-04-28T16:39:00.003-06:00

I've posted this jam before, but it just seems to fit the Jazz Fest pause.

Folse has the text of Perkins poem "New Orleans" up which gave me the idea.

Sympathy for the Devil

2009-04-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

So yesterday we have the latest in the series of C Ray “dummkopf “ Nagin story.

As Alan Sayre of the AP depicts it, the walking Id turned down a wad of cash for no good reason, when Six Flags offered 14 million to walk away from the devastated and rusting heap of the former Jazzland amusement park. Which, I am told is supposed to represent some kind of “great” deal.

Well, seeing how much of the nation media has adopted the kind of standards that fueled the success of such luminaries as William Randolph Hearst, I did a little poking. And you can say that in hindsight it might have been a good deal, but I'm not so sure it was at the time.

You see, Sayre decided to leave a few inconvenient facts out that might make C Ray look a little less like a blathering idiot. Of course quoting City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields does help either.

A cursory look at the Wikipedia article finds a couple of problems:

Six Flags leased the intact Jazzland park from the city, which the city had taken a HUD loan for the original construction and still owes $17 million on it.

Katrina rolls in and wrecks it. Six Flags files its insurance claims, the proceeds so far amounting to $24.4 million, with $32 million in assets claimed destroyed. And it is still seeking a whopping $200 million total in damages link.

But that’s not all. In the meantime Six Flags has been stripping the park of anything of value. They began their own improvement, Batman: The Ride being the notable one, but they have moved on to removing the original Jazzland rides as well, the ones the HUD loan the city took out paid for in some measure.

One issue concerning rebuilding has been Six Flags' continued removal of infrastructure from the park… Items from existing Jazzland rides, such as Mega Zeph's trains and Spillway Splashout's boats, have been sent to other parks.

The return of other equipment taken from the park by Six Flags Inc. is also being asked for. The lease that Six Flags has with the City makes it clear that the equipment in question is City property, and its removal was not allowed. wikipedia

So, Six Flags offers to turn the wreckage over to the city for the 10 million of what it contractually owes the city in rent, and $4 million in land, while pocketing the insurance proceeds up to $75 million, and stripping the park of any usable rides and amenities, AND leaves the city $3 million in the hole. In the worst case, Six Flags walks away with $10 million, which was supposed to be used to restore the park.

This certainly casts the “wonderful” deal our “dummkopf “ Mayor rejected in a different light. As much as I dislike the Mayor this is clearly yet another of the "let's make that New Orleans mayor look stupid" hit jobs. And I say “yet another” because this is not the first time.

Today, the TP followed up with a story by local reporter Rebecca Mowbray on the Six Flags situation which has quite a different bent than Sayre’s version of reality; it mentions the insurance angle.

While Mowbray quotes one Dennis Speigel who feels the city should have factored in the precarious financial situation of Six Flags, this is still a debatable point, and I am sure there are those who would defend the city’s decision at the time.

No doubt our Mayor has made some dumb moves, but we don’t need to be inventing them, or twisting the facts to fit the prejudice. The fact that this was an AP story, leave little doubt that it will be picked up in one of those places in “real

America

” as opposed to the ersatz version we have here and one more fuckmook will dump on us. And that may be what Sayre’s whole story was really about.

Look Up (to See What's Coming Down)

2009-04-23T10:42:00.003-06:00

"I've told people . . . if their quality of life hasn't changed post-Katrina, they need to be looking somewhere and figuring out what's going on." - David Welker, new local FBI chief TP

"We discussed the relevance of the mayor's request to our purpose and decided it met our guidelines." - Yvette Jones, president of the seven-member board which sent $100,000 of funds which were to "assist, support and recognize the families of and individual victims who lost their lives, family members, property or were otherwise injured [due to] Hurricane Katrina" to the University of Sydney. TP

"They were destinations that didn't look like places New Orleans would have any business in." - Glad Jones, attorney for plaintiffs suing the city over the crime camera program, on trips for the Mayor, former Chief Technology Officer Greg Meffert, the mayor and their families paid for by NetMethod, a company connected to the program. TP

"It is my understanding he was having an extremely tough time making ends meet for his family on his very meager city council salary." – Mayor Nagin writing to then President George Bush seeking a pardon for former convicted former City Councilman Oliver Thomas currently serving a prison term for bribery. TP

Good Times Roll

2009-04-17T17:25:00.003-06:00

With all this talk of tea, this is what came to mind for me.

This quote can be applied to a lot things these days:

“The press grabbed hold of the wrong end of the stick and started to beat about the bush with it...”

Thick As A Brick, Radio Edit

2009-04-06T09:30:00.003-06:00

A little history...

First we were met with the planning eggheads in their ivory towers. The ULI “plan” produced shortly after Katrina, aka the “green dot” plan, wasn’t much more than a collection of loose ideas, and ham handed at best. Then came the Bring New Orleans Back commission, which was largely a dead letter at the time, mostly because it did not involve any public input. That changed with the “Lambert” plan, called for by the City Council.

That ditch is Boss Kean's ditch. I told him that dirt in it is your dirt. What's your dirt doing in his ditch?
I don't know, Boss.
You better get in there and get it out, boy.

The Lambert Plan was limited to specific heavily damaged areas, and was rather inconsistent in approach, scope, and the quality of the material produced. Some loved it, other hated it, but it was a plan for the devastated areas. The LRA, however, decided it wanted a citywide plan.

Luke, what you think you're doing?
Just getting my dirt out of Boss Kean's ditch, Boss.
I'm damned if you're going to put your dirt in my yard. You hear me? Now let's get it out of here.

So we moved on to the UNOP plan, which incorporated, or was to incorporate all of the previous planning efforts, and was by all estimation the largest citizen driven planning effort ever undertaken. But the 2008 Charter Change that sought to change the focus of land use from the political arena of the City Council to the professional City Planning Commission (as is customary in the rest of the country) mandated yet another citizen driven effort, supposedly to be the culmination of all these past efforts.

I told you to get your dirt out of Boss Kean's ditch, didn't I?
Yeah, Boss.
Then how come it ain't out?
I don't know, Boss.
You don't know.

We’ve been digging this ditch for a long time. Even as a draft, the Master Plan is a monumental work. So monumental and so far reaching and so utterly and impossibly complex that it can be easily tossed aside with little fanfare. After all, you need several more years of planning simply to understand what a lot of it means.

At face value, the Master Plan is the apotheosis of planning, seeking to enshrine weekend meetings with cold pizza in dingy multi-purpose halls to draw circles on maps and discuss important issues into the culture of the city for the next twenty years (the window of time the plan addresses).

I am sure some good beyond the CZO will come out of this effort. There are some very good proposals and ones that can and likely will be implemented. The plan will be consulted for decisions in the future. But I suspect that much of it is just so much dirt. Who is going to tease out something actionable, form all the requisite panels and committees, conduct all these studies and ultimately formulate the policies, is a real question. And why they even would is another. “Because the Plan says so” seems a rather weak motivation, and the bologna has been sliced rather thin for there to be much more than niche support of a lot of it.

I certainly understand the argument that freed from land use issues the City Council can take up all these Master Plan issues and continue to neglect the oversight and other charter mandated functions that are traditionally ignored by our City Councils. And much of this would require a wholesale rewrite of the City Charter, which is not a bad thing, but can we afford to put what passes for a recovery on hold to work on that Gordian knot?

What would inevitably have to be sacrificed on the high alter of planning to do this is another big question. Unfunded mandates, and saddling agencies with new functions for which they neither have funding or manpower seem to be a cornerstone of the plan, despite its claims otherwise. And somehow I don’t think the diligence of the inspector general is going to make up the difference.

Sorry, but what we needed was A Tale of Two Cities, what we got was Ayn Rand’s outline for her rewrite of the collected works of Charles Dickens (no political illusion meant in the Rand reference, only that she needed an editor really, really badly).

What's all this dirt doing in here?
I don't know...

Thick As A Brick, Part 2

2009-04-05T09:22:00.001-06:00

To continue…We are back to the major goals. I cited “Recognize the city’s historic character…” in my previous post, so I’ll stick with that. From the goals we get to the “Actions”, as if they haven’t inundated us with “action” words enough already. Here are a few:

Coordinate economic development initiatives with historic preservation and restoration to leverage historic assets as part of the city’s competitiveness as a place to live, visit, invest and do business.

This is pretty typical in that the whole ball of wax revolves around some as of yet unidentified entity implementing some kind of program that wedges its fingers into nearly every facet of modern life and somehow everyone is thrilled to go along with it.

Enlist active participation by the Preservation Resource Center and the Neighborhoods Partnership Network to jointly lead an effort to create a wide range of illustrated easily understood information materials on rehabilitation of historic buildings, particularly those that may not be located in a designated historic district.

I don’t know, but suppose they don’t want to? What if their resources are directed into other endeavourers? And then, let’s suppose, just hypothetically, because I know this is crazy talk, that such attempts to legislate taste fail? Again, we have that vaguely patronizing attitude, in this case naming some of those who, I assume, are deemed sufficiently “correct” in their opinions. And, as you’d expect, exactly who is supposed to do the “enlisting” is unknown.

Explore partnerships with a major retailer of building materials (Lowe’s or Home Depot, for instance) to produce and distribute a catalogue of appropriate-to-New Orleans off-the-shelf materials like replacement windows, shutters and other items often installed by small contractors or homeowners themselves.

[rant on] Okay, I own an old house…the major building retailers do not have off-the-shelf appropriate-to-New Orleans materials, nor will they ever. It is complete lunacy that a major national retailer will completely alter their national sales model to appeal to one segment of our little corner of the market. We should feel privileged that they stock more generators and plywood during hurricane season. Of course this would make a great ploy to finally put the last nail in the coffin of locally owned businesses that deal in these sorts of specialized things. You know the ones that actually pay taxes and live in the community as opposed to the big boxes. [rant off]

Where was I?

Actually, the thing really isn’t that bad. Besides the goofy copywriting, on the whole, it is hard to quibble with most of the basic premises.

In the final section called “First Steps” we at last find a “someone” who, I can only assume, is supposed to be doing that enlisting, exploring, coordinating, and so on.

Begin by forming a pursuit group comprised of leaders from preservation, development, business and historic districts. Aim for bi-racial membership. Start by framing what a strategic plan for preservation would need to accomplish if it is to be successful. Work towards producing a competitive funding request.

Of course, under that we find yet another layer in this onion. Who is supposed to form this “pursuit group” and what, if any, legally binding power it or the subsequent “strategic plan” is to have is never mentioned. But even more impressive is how we are back to the beginning again. That’s right, it’s time for more planning!

In summation, substitute “more planning” for “third base” in the following and you have it...naturally.

Thick As A Brick, Part 1

2009-04-03T08:15:00.001-06:00

So, more on the draft of the Master Plan. While I discussed some of the interesting bits of the implementing and of the overarching “plan” I am now going to give you an idea of one of the major sections. It got rather long so it will be divide into Thick As A Brick, Part 1, Part 2 and finally the radio edit.

I looked over Chapter 7, Historic Preservation, something I have some interest in.

From my examination so far, I would tend to say more often than not I was left asking who’s supposed do this, what’s it exactly that they’re supposed to be doing and I (still) don’t know where this funding is supposed to come from. It is full of useful zingers with all those “action” words you are encouraged to use in your resume, such as this, from the all important goals:

Recognize the city’s historic character as a unique asset in the identity of New Orleans and the profile it presents to the nation and the world.

Okay, mission accomplished on my end, but what does that exactly mean as public policy? From that there is a subset of “policies for decision makers” which list a lot of things to “implement” “acknowledge” “enhance” and “coordinate”. Here is one that is a particularly good example of one of those calls for kumbaya moments that manages to smack of a certain patronizing attitude while couched in multicultural language:

Enhance understanding of the contributions of all ethnic and cultural groups in the creation and preservation of the city’s architectural legacy.

It’s as if there some speech someone will give in some dingy multi-purpose center that will cause the scales to fall from people’s eyes. That by virtue of the incantation “Master Plan” the people with these scales would actually show up. And that the people with these “scales” are somehow wrong in the first place.

I understand preservation requires some education. However many of its proponents display an attitude that the correct shutters is a kind of moral issue, and those who fail to meet their particular standards are somehow deficient and in need of “education”. That attitude is laced throughout the section, and it is not going to play well outside of that particular “preservationist” cadre.

Here is an example of one of the ones that you could actually imagine happening. This is great, except for the fact that we are sort of supposed to have this already, and you don’t have to look very far to see how well it works.

Provide adequate resources to HDLC and more deliberate oversight and coordination among all city agencies involved in demolition decisions to prevent demolition of historic structures.

I run into this kind of thing a lot in my line of work…that somehow words on paper will compel people and politicians to do what you want them to do.

It isn’t that there aren’t some good ideas, but there is an utter and complete lack of who is supposed to do this, what it is exactly that would compel them to do it and in the case of the first I don’t know how you are supposed “enhance understanding” when we can’t even convince people that tossing trash out of their car windows may not a good thing.

Following the “goals” are sections that lay out a lot of the assets the city has in both existing historic fabric and existing program that work or can work as well as some of the problems and issues the communities brought to the table. This actually is some of the best material in the section.

That leads to the “Strategies for Tomorrow” which besides sounding like a Disney World ride, also has a whole air of unreality about it as well. This is where we get to how things are to be “implemented” and we go back to those major goals and is the subject of my next post.

Arousing Thunder

2009-04-02T14:01:00.002-06:00

Something about the weather today seems to fit the mood and the man.

In honor of the late Ashley Morris I repost one of my favorite of his posts. Sure FYYFF and Sinn Fein get the lime light, but lets not forget the small ones like these, that were as much a part of who he was as anything.

Why I'm not in marketing

Idea: crab boil flavored jellybeans. Full strength. Put one in every bag just to keep 'em honest.

Then again, why not? They make licorice...

link

No Certainty Attached

2009-04-01T13:53:00.005-06:00

I’m still perusing the newly released draft of the new Master Plan, and I am blogging some notes on what I’m finding. I discussed some of the interesting bits of the implementing of the overarching “plan” in my last post, now here is an overall impression of the bits (and it’s only a fraction of the whole) that I’ve covered.

First I’d like to remind everyone who has not read any of it that what in your mind might constitute a “Master Plan” may not bare any resemblance to this “Master Plan”.

It doesn’t take much looking to realize this is not a hopped up Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance (CZO). The CZO may be a part of the “Master Plan” and based it, but the plan is even remotely a land use regulation. It is more an amalgamation of ideas, approaches and general strategies that frequently passes the buck, and often veers perilously close to utter irrelevance and calls for touchy-feely kumbaya moments as a matter of public policy.

In the web introduction we are told:

Each of the Master Plan elements will include an implementation and action plan identifying WHAT should be done, HOW it should be done, WHO should do it, WHEN it should be done, and WHERE the funding could come from. The new Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance will reflect the land use policies in the Master Plan as they become available. MP

Well, that sounds really good, and the document is largely based on the premise of saying it being equivalent to doing it. But far more often than I’d like, I found myself having a real hard time getting any handle on WHAT exactly were they even suggesting, HOW any of this, outside of planner fantasyland, was feasible, WHO might fill the role of this shadowy and undefined entity that would do all this, WHEN the vague “someday” promises would materialize, and WHERE the magic money machine is or the political priority to fund anything more than the mandated CZO.

The only thing that is “real” in the whole plan seems to be that CZO. The rest is good information and some pretty great ideas, with a vague notion of “implementation” largely based on wishful thinking with some as of yet unseen force that will motivate those unnamed “leaders” to action.

I have often heard that past planning efforts were disappointing. Plans were summarily shelved never to see the light of day. While we are, in any analysis better off with this in place, the CZO alone is a huge step, I can really see no overriding reason why much of this isn’t slated for a similar fate.

I am sure someone out there is about to spit all over their screen bleating the “the people will demand it” mantra. Sure, it’s real inspirational, and civic action can push through on some limited fronts, but it is shear lunacy to base anything of substance on the hopes of some grand united front in a town where “transparency” is a code word. And I’m not buying the “give the people and neighborhoods real political power” mantra either until you can demonstrate that those “neighborhoods” will not suddenly find fifty new members show up at their next meeting and replace them with same “people” who have be on the graft gravy train for decades. But that’s another issue…

I'm working on a semi-fisk of one of the sections so you can see exactly what I'm talking about...since yall are too lazy to actually read the thing yourselves (at least a lot of you).

Suspended in Gaffa

2009-03-30T15:35:00.000-06:00

I’ve started to peruse the massive heap of PDF’s of the newly released draft of the new Master Plan as mandated by the October Charter change. I encourage you all to look over any aspect of it that grabs your attention. This is really more than one person can tackle.

The early draft of the new Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance (CZO) maps are particularly interesting. A comparison of the existing maps with the new is pretty interesting. The redefinition of several old and new classification such as “Neighborhood Commercial” and both a low and high density “Multi-family” categories is encouraging. The first full draft of this portion is due in June, for public review. Until then a solid assessment can’t really be made.

The bottom line, so far, is that there is a lot of very sound thinking in the plan, swimming in a sea of touchy feely BS and extremely annoying copy. But exactly what value a “Master Plan” has outside of the legal outlet of a Zoning Ordinance remains to be seen.

To recap what this is all about:

The current city charter requires, in general terms, that the City Planning Commission must prepare a citywide master plan and that land use actions should be consistent with the Master Plan. Among other changes, the proposed amendment specifies the legal relationship between the Master Plan, the CZO, and the city capital plan and budget...MP

Now, that “city capital plan and budget” is an interesting bit. It says that capital improvement projects (infrastructure, city owned facilities, etc.) should conform to the plan. It has a lot of suggestions for how that might be accomplished, but at the end of the day, there isn’t really any mechanism besides good faith to see that anything conforms. At least nothing that wouldn’t make the issue of garbage contracts look like a walk through the petunias.

Besides the various creative writing exercises that are proposed for city agencies and private developers to show how their proposals “conforms” to the plan, all of it involves a whole lot of new legislation. This would include the wholesale restructuring of relationships between agencies and of the agencies themselves. Some, such as City Planning would (and do) need large funding increases and would require a huge increase in their power and reach. How comfortable some would be with that or any of the proposals is certainly a real question.

This looks to be the next series of big political football games, albeit ones with significant repercussion to the city and its future. Expect the first to be about delaying any approval until after the next City Council and Mayoral elections.

I’ll have more on this.

9 Volt

2009-03-18T14:13:00.003-06:00

Oyster keep promising us some kind of Dr. Manhattan moment or at least some kind of earthshaking atomic blog post.

Sorry, but Blogs are closer to 9 volt batteries than atomic piles. Nothing released on a blog is ever really earthshaking. If it was it wouldn’t be released on a blog. While it might power a warning light for a stuck-open valve, what happens next is a function of if the big boys recognize the situation for what it is.

Hemming and hawing over the antics of Veronica White (who is black) and Head (who is white) and the shifting statements of C Ray on the deletion of his own emails may be entertaining, but what’s atomic in this is what is (or was) in those emails. And I’m not talking about the Stacey Head’s next Netflix rental or a certain blogger's complaints about the street lights or where C Ray charged lunch. I believe that’s what Oyster is hinting about, and it seems the big boys agree:

A top aide to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that a federal investigation is under way into the administration's controversial release of thousands of unfiltered City Council e-mails to activist lawyer Tracie Washington. TP

People smarter than myself, such as Clancey DuBois are trying to interpret and tease out hints from the threads of information available on the email fluffle.

Our undead friend who claim some kind of special knowledge has been laying the weft and sketching in a great tapestry on crime cameras, with, as of yet very little of the warp to speak of.

That yellow fellow avoids the theorizing all together and puts together a useful summation of the Mayors deflection strategy to everything that is going on, which, come to think of it, pretty well describes the Mayors entire tenure in office.

All this latest development does is give us a glimpse at another thread, which could very well be the same thread we've been looking at all along. There really is little chance at this point of getting any kind of handle on what “this” is all about, let alone what “this” actually is, or even if the “this” we think is there isn’t just a pattern we’ve ginned up out of too little information and an overactive imagination and given a name.

It’s as if our introduction to American football was listening to a game on the radio with painfully self absorbed announcers who somehow feel terrible that one of the teams is going to loose, and give the impression cheerleaders and morons waving signs in the crowd are part of the game. Even those who know the game are pretty much in the dark as to what is really going on. The rest of us seem to be either complaining about the play calling or the officiating.

Clancy DuBois a week or so ago likened the whole mess to Watergate. This is a pretty apt comparison in several key areas, but it misses in one way. These things are scarcely what you think they are about, particularly in the beginning. But it looks as if the big boys are moving and this could be getting a lot more interesting, that is, if it doesn't just disappear.

Let’s Get It On

2009-03-04T12:11:00.002-06:00

While Schroder pines for the second coming of Jim Leten, and Oyster awaits the rapture of the “corrupt”, there are other things afoot around town. And one of the purposes may be to defang and derail just such events.

Recent events seem to indicate the first onslaught in the 2010 election, otherwise to be known as the great patriot war to preserve the status quo. And if you think what’s been going on has been bad, what’s coming will make that look like a chorus of Kumbaya.

Here we have the Nagin Administration openly passing out the ammunition. No need for a Watergate style break in to get the goods nowadays, not with technology and the utter and complete violation of any regulations, legal or ethical standards.

At the same time New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's administration was citing storage problems as its reason for erasing all but about a dozen of the mayor's e-mail messages from 2008, another administration official was providing an activist lawyer [Tracie Washington] with thousands of electronic messages written by or sent to at least four City Council members and their staffers during the past three years. TP

You know something is up when Veronica White took time out of her busy schedule obfuscating to actually do something.

So where is this going?

Tracie Washington in a WDSU interview (you can watch the complete unedited video) claims her Public Records Request was done through the City Attorneys Office and everything from her end was proper.

The e-mail also could include personal messages between the council members or their staff and their spouses, children, friends, doctors or attorneys, all of which might be considered privileged under law. TP

While that has everyone is all atwitter over the details of the “procedure” Arnie Fielkow was supposedly undergoing and the prospect of Stacey Head going down for some secret email detailing …what exactly I don’t know, but I’m told it’s terrible.*

But there is more to this.

First we get the wonderful comparison about how when “whites” ask for information and are repeatedly denied, or given incomplete records about specific activities of “black” officials it is somehow the same as a backdoor deal to dump years worth of privileged, unredacted, or screened information on “white” officials.

And now we get to watch as the “white” Council has been successfully manipulated into seeking to prevent the release of information. That it shouldn’t have been released in the first place is of little consequence. The picture has been drawn.

But there is more to this, and it may be aimed at forcing bigger (and “whiter”?) hands. I should come as no surprise that many City Council people know of, and in some cases have some level of participation in many of the investigation of the US Attorney’s office, FBI and others.

Washington said she was not sure how many e-mail files she received. But she said she plans to post the messages soon on a Web site being created for her organization, the Louisiana Justice Institute.

She said the site, www.nolapublicrecords.org, will have all the public records she has obtained during the past several years, including documents related to the closing of Charity Hospital and the names of charter school board members. TP

Go to nolapublicrecords.com and you’ll find a placeholder where “Coming soon...” blinks on an ironically gray background. I know there are some bigger fish out there who are going to try to keep it that way, but those emails are certainly being parsed as we speak.

* For the record, I really don’t think anyone of any race on the current City Council is “corrupt” in the criminal sense, or in the kind of ways we’ve grown accustom to seeing in the past. And regardless of race I actually think the make-up of the council is one of the better we’ve seen. But pursing anyone’s personal correspondence will make them out to be total psychopath.

Gone

2009-02-27T18:12:00.004-06:00

Representative Cao might just have done more to help the recovery of the city in a month and a half than Bill Jefferson did three and a half years.

Douglas Whitmer, the chief of staff at the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Louisiana field office, has been asked to take a regional assignment at another FEMA office, acting FEMA director Nancy Ward told reporters Friday afternoon. TP

Sen. Mary Landrieu was also on board with the shake-up of the local FEMA office, unlike our other Senator who remains oddly silent on the matter. Of course it helps to have a FEMA director who thinks it might be nice if the office actually functions...and some Pols who think dysfunctional bureaucrats are a problem and not a campaign slogan.

The skies darkened over FEMA's Transitional Recovery Office in New Orleans on Thursday, with U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu and U.S. Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, R-New Orleans, calling for the resignation of office Chief of Staff Doug Whitmer amid reports of misconduct. TP

Apparently, Cao seems to have put his finger on a very large problem with the recovery of the city, the bottleneck of FEMA funding. Here is one time when I will actually defend our transparent Mayor, C Ray; without the full release of the funding, projects cannot progress.

It has been a common complaint from many circles, and not just the Office of Recovery Management, that FEMA has been repeatedly hamstringing the process, changing forms or requiring additional information at the last minuet. From an earlier Times-Pic article:

Cao specifically cited talks he had with two New Orleans FEMA office employees who "alluded to the fact that the atmosphere is almost crushing at times where people are working out of fear and they are no longer focused on the recovery issues, they are just focusing on: 'How can I preserve my job' by doing possibly what the senior staff members want them to do." TP

Exactly what will replace the FEMA of Douglas Whitmer remains to be seen, but it is encouraging that someone is watching, at least for a while.

“We’re making it known to him that his representation is not wanted,” Aubry Wallace, chairman of The Recall Anh Cao Committee - City Buisness

Update:

Cliff points out that the Redcoats are already here.

What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

2009-02-26T13:56:00.003-06:00

Yes, I am posting this simply for the song title reference, but it is pretty damn funny, particularly if you are a fan of 30 Rock.

And Oyster gets the h/t.

The House We Used To Live In

2009-02-20T16:36:00.002-06:00

One last serious note…

The following item ran in today’s TP

Mayor Ray Nagin has signed a long-awaited agreement that should finally allow the transfer of more than 4,500 storm-damaged properties from the state's Road Home program to local control so they can be redeveloped. TP

Now this is huge. A lot of property is going to be put into commerce in this city. There is the “lot next door” which is now getting off the ground, and this opens the door to lot swaps and other programs, as well as re-development.

And please remember, these are largely isolated lots, not tracts of land. While a lot swap, and other programs could assemble some parcels of several contingent lots, we are still talking about small scale infill development. Exactly the kind of thing that can give a boost to neighborhoods that continue to struggle.

This is also the moment we find out if the “new” “new” NORA actually is anything but the old clinically dead version. I will say that they actually do appear to make some attempt at transparency, with meeting times, location and minutes available on the web site.

And that’s where it gets more interesting. I outlined a certain theory about NORA , our Mayor, and the political aspiration of Rob “Nagin is my ~~BFF~~ excuse” Couhig in a post titled Perfect Skin. I asked

"…is this an pre-election bid by Rob “White men can’t run” Couhig to upstage C Ray, with, of all things, a success and paint himself as the next “savior” of New Orleans?"

I don’t think Couhig has a snowballs chance of being elected Mayor, but if he wants to spend his and his friends money, I certainly won’t complain. Those sign companies are mostly local and employ a lot of good people. And if out of spite or ambition, he actually helps accomplish something that is good for the city, that’s fine with me too.

And while we are on land issues, here is a tidbit that seems to have slipped under the radar last weekend:

[The] New Orleans City Council has called on the city's seven assessors to take a new look at land and buildings exempted from paying property taxes because they are owned by nonprofit organizations such as schools or churches. TP

You have entrenched interests that have been benefiting from the lax enforcement of the law in a system notorious for back dealing, wink and a nod agreements and public corruption (convictions). I’ve blogged about a similar sort of thing before, here and here what’s similar, besides the wheeling and dealing, is it involves a lot of the same people.

Something tells me this is going to turn into the next wave of "attacks" by the “the white elite”.

Deuce

2009-02-18T16:38:00.006-06:00

We knew it was coming...TP

Will #26 be in the rafters with the likes of Rickey Jackson, Archie Manning and Jim Finks one day?

The Big Sky

2009-02-11T17:31:00.003-06:00

Karen picked it up first, but then she has a connection to it, but I would like to reiterate the good news that the terminal at Lakefront Airport (originally Shushan Airport) one of the cities tarnished (more like encrusted) gems is going to be restored.

Restoration work will soon begin on the New Orleans Lakefront airport's terminal building, years after heavy-handed renovation and Hurricane Katrina caused the building to lose much of it's Art Deco design. TP

That “heavy-handed renovation” might be the understatement of the year, as the building was encased in concrete panels to turn it into a fallout shelter. The interior spaces were carved up into offices, walls cut through and many of the features either covered or removed. But quite a bit of the original survives.

TP ran a good piece on the Airport, the history and current condition back in July and noted some forward thinking Architects.

Based on a careful examination of how architects with the Cimini and Meric firm erected the metal grid that holds the concrete panels in place, Davis said he is convinced that they intended for their work to be undone someday.

Here is another piece on the history of the construction, which, of course, includes a juicy scandal that resulted in a program to strip all references to Abraham Shushan from the building. It also has a graphic of some of the proposed restorations that it appears will be made to the building.

Now, cue the Kate Bush:

Total Trash

2009-02-03T10:22:00.005-06:00

Garbage Begins Piling Up In French Quarter

February 3, 2009

Excited residents of the French Quarter were met with another sign that the city is finally returning to normal after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The streets of the French Quarter are again littered with garbage.

In a show of bold leadership, Mayor Nagin stood firm on his promise to rid the French Quarter of the “Disney-like” cleaning services that has plagued the city since the first post-Katrina sanitation contracts were issued.

Now uncollected trash is again filling the streets, and residents and tourists alike eagerly await the stench that will replace the “lemony” scent that has recently characterized the French Quarter.

The Mayor, touting his leadership on the issue, announced the city had turned a corner in recovery.

Preservationists Object

Preservationist, however, were dismayed that the city would allow modern plastic trash bags is such a sensitive historic area.

“We are thrilled that putrid trash is back in the landscape,” said one, “however, the city should have made accommodations for some battered, lidless metal cans, or burlap sacks, something more in character than ordinary suburban trash bags.”

A Return to Normal

Residents and tourists alike are also looking forward to when the bags and other containers inevitably break open, and putrid trash and debris once again cover the sidewalks and clog the gutters.

“It’s finally returning to the French Quarter I remember,” said one uptown resident. “I’ll finally get to break out the old pair of shoes I reserve for trips to Bourbon Street.”

“You just don’t see this back home,” remarked one tourist. “It’s really something unique in America. It’s like a third world slum.”

Added Benefits

With the presence of so much uncollected trash many were hopeful to see a rebound in the French Quarter’s signature rat population as well.

“They may have parrots uptown,” remarked one resident, “but we have rats.”

Residents are excited for the future of the city.

“The mayor is right when he said this year would be the ‘tipping point’.” One resident said. “With a well attended Mardi Gras and the return of warmer weather, the Eau-de-French Quarter will finally be returning.”

“This is part of our culture,” said another resident. “It’s not just the garbage, it’s the urine, vomit and stale beer smell that makes the French Quarter the French Quarter. That’s what tourists come here for.”

Fortune Presents Gifts Not According to the Book

2009-02-02T16:12:00.007-06:00

An Austrian pastor who has been quoted as calling Hurricane Katrina God's punishment for sin in New Orleans is being promoted to the rank of bishop. TP

He is a vengeful God…with terrible aim.

Imagine a Man

2009-02-01T10:25:00.001-06:00

Oyster rounds up some of the blogger reactions to the resignation of Inspector General Robert Cerasoli which reads much like accounts from the bridge of the Titanic as they assessed the damage and number of lifeboats. We are all doomed.

I’ve noticed the general consensus around town seems to be that anyone not from New Orleans is a carpetbagging shyster looking to pad their resume as they destroy our culture with “best practice” mumbo-jumbo and steel the bread from the mouths of poor babies, especially the one who have met with any of that so-called “success” that outsiders consider some kind of qualification.

Cerasoli on the other hand, seemed to strike the perfect balance of maintaining a low profile and not really accomplishing much. This, along with the fact he was going up against everyone least favorite noun “corruption”, has endeared him to a population dedicated to the restoration of second rate facilities, hospitals that look like truck stop restrooms, derelict industrial tracks and their prized garbage strewn streets…just fix the potholes.

But seriously. Why has so much faith and importance been invested in one person?

Stephanie Grace pretty much summed up what I was thinking and then some, far more ably than I could. Here are a few quotes:

All the time, strangers told him they were counting on him. They gave him tips, suggested areas to investigate. It was understandable, given everything they'd been through, their utter frustration at the state of the city government, their city's precarious future.

It was also a bit unfair. No one person can do everything he was asked to do, be all that people wanted and needed him to be. In recent interviews, Cerasoli let on that the outsized expectations got to him.

Sorry, but no one person was or is going to “save us”. Part of our problem is that we look for some mythical great white (or whatever color) hope, who’s actions will always seem wise to us and all the “right” people and let us accommodate all our ignorance on whatever topic is at hand.

And I understand the dilemma New Orleanians have with “locals” and “outsiders”. Outsiders never understand us and impose their outsider ways on us, and we would be so much better off with some local who understands us. Locals, however, are all mired in the system, and lack the wide ranging experience that we need to really fit things, and we really could use someone from outside. Of course, the resolution is to find the failure in everything and cue up the Charlie Brown chorus of, “everything I touch gets ruined”.

With Cerasoli’s departure, the chorus is working overtime, looking for the “real” reason he resigned, because we all know the “health issues” has to be some kind of euphemism.

Exactly what Cerasoli accomplished or didn’t accomplish remains to be seen. He created the office from scratch, and I’m fairly it is well structured. He issued one major report on what is really a fairly minor issue, take home cars. Outside of emotional attachment, that’s about it. Not a small accomplishment, and one that, perhaps will bear more fruit.

Stephanie Grace ends her column with this:

But the lesson for today is that it's not about him -- as large as Cerasoli loomed during his time here, as high as hopes were for his tenure.

New Orleanians want their government fixed. They want to see it cleaned up, where cleaning is necessary. They want it to be more efficient, frugal and accountable. They want it to make sense.

This desire didn't start with Cerasoli. And anyone celebrating his departure should know that it doesn't end with him either.

No Language in Our Lungs

2009-01-27T14:38:00.003-06:00

I’m noticing that “Katrina” is taking on a new meaning of late. Just this morning the TP ran an article on the NADA convention and the address given by former Presidents Bush (the elder) and Clinton.

Clinton and Bush evoked the image of Hurricane Katrina to describe the level of perseverance they said will be needed to carry the nation through a recession that has been widely compared with the Great Depression. TP

This is one example of how Katrina, the named storm is becoming used as an identifiable reference point in discourse. In this example it refers to a more positive aspect of the event. However, that really seems to be the exception. This is more what you find:

For a town this small it's like the trauma of Katrina without the physical damage. 60 Minutes

…what is happening in Southeast Michigan especially, is what I am calling "our area's Katrina". It is a monster storm that in some ways was expected, but its catastrophic consequences are yet to be fully grasped. RJ.com

To bring in the nerd reference, the Star Trek TNG episode Darmok presents a race whose language is comprised completely of metaphors and allusions. While we are not that extreme, we have our share of these cultural buzzwords and “Katrina” seems to be entering the lexicon.

It seems to be used somewhat like Pearl Harbor and the more recent 9/11 has been, as something really, really bad (discounting the surprise part and other specifics). And as such you find a similar shameless and inappropriate use of the term. Such as Ned Lamont as quoted in the WSJ on the poor billionaires now reduced to eking out an existence on mere millions:

“It really is a financial tsunami, and it could go either way,” said the multimillionaire telecommunications mogul who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006. “It took Japan 20 years to recover from their buying binge. How long does it take us to work through excessive leverage? That could take years not months. This is our Katrina.”

But it’s more complex than that. The term is also taking on a similar roll as Rhode Island, not the state, the unit of measure. Here it is used as the yard stick for a potential disaster in Wired

When the next big earthquake hits the San Francisco Bay Area, it will be a catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina proportions.

But in the nexus of culturally loaded buzzwords, it also shares a similarity with a certain executive branch scandal from 1975 onward that has us tacking “gate” on the end of a word to indicate a scandal. Only this is a scandal of incompetence and indifference. This from ABC news, goes back to the campaign.

"I think Senator McCain just doesn’t get it – he doesn’t understand that the storm hitting Wall Street hit Main Street long ago. That’s why his first response to the greatest financial meltdown in generations was a Katrina like response. Sort of stood there. Said the ‘fundamentals of the economy are strong.’"

While recent dictionary entries on Katrina still only refer to “a female given name, a form of Katherine”. Watergate, besides being a hotel and a the scandal of note also includes; “any scandal involving abuses of power, corruption, or the like, and attempts to cover them up.”

English teachers and TV news producers despise the ambiguity “Katrina” now holds and will certainly formulate some useful definition. What that will be remains to be seen.

True To Life

2009-01-26T12:04:00.004-06:00

Today's exercise is to compare and contrast the following quotes:

Outgoing President George W. Bush said he is willing to explore ways he could help with Gulf Coast recovery after he leaves office. TP

"When things have settled down a bit I will pursue as my primary goal in life the killer or killers who slaughtered Nicole and Mr. Goldman."

I've been busy and lacking blogging motivation, so this comes a bit late...

8 Mile Road

2009-01-14T10:34:00.003-06:00

“…streets are places of social and commercial encounter and exchange. They are where you meet people - which is a basic reason to have cities in any case.” Allan Jacobs

With three abstract pieces already installed, Jefferson Parish officials are calling on more sculptors to help turn cluttered thoroughfares into showcases for artwork.

It's part of a beautification plan aiming to soften the look of major traffic corridors, inserting sculpture gardens into the medians amid the hodgepodge of parking lots, drainage canals, commercial signs and power lines. TP

I really find it amusing when municipalities seek to “beautify” the suburban strip. The amount of ink that has been spilled on conjuring up “remedies” to that ubiquitous post-war (sub)urban pattern is quite stunning. Invariably the “solution” involve strident regulations and invariably some sort of wholesale reconstruction according to some hypothetical master plan that would make Louis XIV's reworking of Paris seem understated.

So consultants are hired and inevitably the municipality decide that adding more crap to the over cluttered automobile centric environment will magically “soften” the landscape. So the mini-mall will be required to add shrubs, approved tree species and sidewalks choked by clouds of automobile exhaust to their parking lots, and the municipality will invent the kind of beautification projects you might notice in the loop of the U-turn lane if you happened to be stuck in the traffic jam created by the construction of the next beautification project.

Louis Mumford writing in the 1950’s describe it as this:

And so today: those who work within the metropolitan myth, treating its cancerous tumors as normal manifestations of growth, will continue to apply poultices, salves, advertising incantations, public relations magic, and quack mechanical remedies until the patient dies before their own failing eyes.

Or, here R. Crumb depicts the evolution of the strip and in the final panel, included below, asks “What Next?”

Why, Art, of course! That will really class the place up, “soften” the “hodgepodge of parking lots, drainage canals, commercial signs and power lines” and receive the accolades of the public in the form of, cigarette butts, empty daiquiri cups, and all the other detritus of suburban thoroughfares, not to mention the letters to the editor.

Makes you glad you live in a city that has something the denizens of Veterans Blvd can only dream of: great streets, such as St. Charles Avenue, Esplanade Avenue, Magazine Street, Canal Street, just to name a few.

There are more, but there are even more that have been somewhat neglected, that have the potential to, as Allan Jacobs would describe, help make the community. And there are real efforts are underway to realize that potential on Oak St., Freret St., Bayou Road, OC-Haley Blvd., Tulane Ave. and others. This won’t happen overnight, but the results so far given the current leadership vacuum at City Hall certainly are encouraging.

Putting Out Fire

2009-01-10T17:39:00.004-06:00

I’ve got this morbid fascination with Christian religious leaders (and those claiming some sort of Christian moral high ground) who in their zeal to follow Christ actually turn out to more closely resemble the villains of the New Testament; the Pharisees, Sadducees, Romans, money changers, etc.

The Universal Church or Roman Catholic Church, in the form of the local Archdiocese has been something of newsmaker of late. With a large percentage of population identifying themselves as Catholics, the region would be well served by the charitable and spiritual work of the church can ably provide. However the local Archdiocese seems to have decided that there are other more important priorities than trifling with a recovering community.

While the Catholic Church claims to be a continuation of the early Christian community founded by Jesus, they also have the legacy as the continuation of the Roman Empire. And apparently, Jesus or not, the Emperor is not happy when the plebeians start thinking they have some kind of say in the way the empire is run.

I've been watching the show, with a distant interest. I certainly do not like the idea of these established congregations being eliminated, when they are such a strong anchor for the larger community, nor that two buildings will now sit empty. But I recognize the unfortunate situation facing the parishioners that the Archdiocese can do whatever the hell it wants and owes them nothing, not even the truth or a modicum of respect. And, as my last post indicates, I have watched with that morbid fascination as the Archdiocese acted like Pharisees, Sadducees, Romans, money changers, etc.

After the events of this week, I was simply floored when in today’s Times-Pic, Archbishop Hughes came out to address concerns of the community by tossing a few turds in the direction of the displaced parishioners, and stoking the fire with a little gasoline.

His biggest concern is of course letting us know that he is just fine:

"I'm at peace with myself," he said, adding that he was "trying to do what God's asking us . . . for the common good of the archdiocese."

But he does have worries:

"My greatest concern . . . is their being alienated from the Lord and the church. That continues to be a worry of mine."

No word on what he proposes to do about it, other than scold and belittle them in the press. As for the complaints that the concerns of the parishioners were ignored:

"I find it very difficult to envision a process that would have involved more listening, " he said. "But if not listening means you haven't accepted my point of view, I presume I haven't listened."

To me this sounds remarkably like he is telling the parishioner of closed churches that he did hear your concerns, he just didn’t give a shit about what you had to say.

The story ends with this zinger.

"I must say that I was very disappointed to come to the point of being persuaded that it was imperative to move forward."

Anybody have a guess what this means?

Roman

2009-01-08T09:02:00.006-06:00

A cut-and-paste Juxtaposition of bits of local note (a bit more in the Brion Gysin vein than the William S. Burroughs).

I suddenly experienced what I later learned is called anamnesis – a Greek word meaning, literally, ‘loss of forgetfulness.’ I remembered who I was and where I was. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, it all came back to me. And not only could I remember it but I could see it. The girl was a secret Christian and so was I. We lived in fear of detection by the Romans. We had to communicate in cryptic signs. She had just told me all this, and it was true.

For a short time, as hard as this is to believe or explain, I saw fading into view the black prison like contours of hateful Rome. - Philip K Dick

He wasn’t seeing, Shirley MacLaine style, that he had been a Christian in an earlier life; the point was that he was one now. The entire phenomenal world around him was an illusion created by a fallen female God, twin to a good immaterial God; he was experiencing not a flashback but a flash-in. Sometime in the first century—he later pinned it down to the year 70 C.E.—the passage of time had been deliberately stopped by the Empire, the Black Iron Prison. There was no 1974; there never had been. It was still the year 70. The Roman Empire had never ended. link

Officials from the Archdiocese of New Orleans visited two Uptown Catholic churches in the pre-dawn hours Saturday to urge parishioners to abandon their around-the-clock occupation of the buildings.

Although one of the churches was briefly closed, parishioners later managed to re-enter the building, and protesters continued to camp out at both churches Saturday evening in defiance of archdiocese orders to close them. TP

Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. "Go, stand in the temple courts," he said, "and tell the people the full message of this new life."

"We did not know how people gained access after the fact," Bishop Roger Morin said. "Father (Michael) Jacques felt he had completely scoured the entire building before leaving." TP

Then someone came and said, "Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people." At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.

Fortier said her group had received a nonspecific alert from archdiocesan sources that some action was imminent Tuesday. As a result, their networks assembled quickly -- many, like Fortier, with video cameras to record the event.

"I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done…And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name."

New Orleans police evicted parishioners from two Uptown Catholic churches Tuesday and delivered the buildings back into the hands of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, apparently ending a 72-day standoff that began when parishioners moved into the churches and occupied them around the clock to save them from closure.

Accompanied by lawyers from the city attorney's office, police arrived almost simultaneously at Our Lady of Good Counsel on Louisiana Avenue and at St. Henry Church, about a mile away on Gen. Pershing Street, around 10:30 a.m.

…news reached the commander of the Roman troops…He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd. The commander came up and arrested [them] and ordered [them] to be bound with two chains. Then he asked who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another, and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that [they] be taken into the barracks.

It was necessary for the police to break-in to Our Lady of Good Counsel because those inside refused entrance to either archdiocesan representatives or the police. Two occupants at Our Lady of Good Counsel received a summons and two were formally arrested. At St. Henry Church, the occupants allowed representatives and police to enter. Only one parishioner received a summons. There were no arrests. AD

Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. "We gave you strict orders…," he said.

…Hughes has held fast to the original closure plan, under which the buildings would remain shuttered and members of the two parishes would worship at St. Stephen, just a few blocks away. TP

They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, "…This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple area and defiled this holy place."

The archdiocese also expressed concerns about parishioners inappropriately exercising and bringing children into the closed churches. TP

Three days later he called together the leaders… When they had assembled, [he] said to them: "My brothers, although I have done nothing against our people or against the customs of our ancestors, I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans. They examined me and wanted to release me, because I was not guilty of any crime...”

Charges against two parishioners arrested Tuesday were dropped Wednesday. "According to the city attorney, they didn't want to arrest anyone, but they felt like they had no choice, " said attorney Scott Shea, who is representing Brite. "They just decided in their best interest not to pursue these cases, and obviously we agree." TP

It is our hope that the Catholic community may now heal and move forward together. Our prayers are with those experiencing anger and sadness at losing their home parishes. We pray that they may find peace and a spiritual home in their new parish. As we begin the new year, we must all work to center our faith on the Eucharist and to move forward as one community in Christ. AD

Makin' Some Noise

2009-01-06T08:07:00.002-06:00

Karen Gadbois has been named one of Gambit's New Orleanian of the year. Congratulations! It is a well deserved honor, for sure.

...I hope it doesn’t go to her head. (Please note: sarcasm)

Queen of the Forest

2009-01-03T14:24:00.000-06:00

I admit to listening to the local AM radio jaw-jacking from time to time. I’ve left a few comments when Schroeder mistakenly tuned in expecting something approaching rational thought out of some of the local “talent” who largely base their shows on things they heard in the Rite Aid Check out line or can read aloud out the newspaper.

So I was a bit worried when 690 AM WIST started going through some serious gyrations in the last month or so. Stuff started pooping up in place of several of the shows. Blessedly Michael Savage and Neil Boortz seem to have vanished (seriously, what is with the “ironic” names? Savage, BOORtz…anyway).

I flipped past the dial and caught the Clark Howard consumer advocate show, once played on 1350 AM in WSMV days. The show is actually pretty good, and you can learn a great deal about how businesses try to screw you, sell you time shares, investments that really aren’t, etc. That seems to have lasted about as long an Alabama head coach not nicknamed “Bear”.

They now proudly boast “Now Playing Classic American Standards” which roughly translates into the kind of music my Grandfather thought a bit trite for his taste. Yes they list true seminal classics The Ink Spots, Sinatra, Benny Goodman, etc. but “dollars to donuts” (one of my Grandfather’s phrases) you have to sit through a couple of hours of Pat Boone, Doris Day, Bobby Vee and a host of names that were forgotten when those polyester bellbottoms where big with the singers on Lawrence Welk before you might catch one true classic…sigh, rant over.

So what do I care?

Well I have to say, Eric Asher has a show that actually adds something to the dialogue around town, and I would not be happy to see his show lost in a station reshuffle. He goes right to the source and brings in the people involved in various issues as guests. This has included a number of local bloggers who were graciously allowed to pimp Rising Tide III. It’s pretty clear reads the drivel the local bloggers put out and that alone is good enough for me (Pssst…think about Eric Asher for a Rising Tide IV panel).

I also occasionally listen to Kaare Johnson tell us how he can fix everything if only he was in charge of something (which reminds me a good bit of this Monty Python sketch) and apparently that does not include a campaign. I do appreciate that he heaps scorn upon the “uptown elites” for their part in driving the city over the cliff. But, really, is this the best they can come up with?

I don’t like to see this sort of thing when the first of the year and a nice is rolling around, and it looks like the compete inverse of the scratch hear round Cincinnati. But Eric Asher and Kaare Johnson are billed on the web site as “Real New Orleans Talk from Dedicated Hosts” and the only other scheduled host at this point is Errol “Uninformed Sources” Laborde. No word on what the deal is, or what kind of condition the station is in, but other than the crappy music, so far so good.

One Step Closer

2008-12-27T11:35:00.001-06:00

I have to add my own acknowledgment of the profound loss to the city with the death of Rev. Dr. Marshall Truehill, and offer my condolences to his family. Bruce Eggler of the TP has another excellent piece on his recent activity.

My experience with Rev. Truehill predates the upheaval of Katrina, when the Morial Machine ran the city as a for profit enterprise…it just happened to be largely for their own profit. At a time when the wheeling and dealing seems to be at its peak (exactly of the sort I described recently), somehow a Rev. Truehill was appointed to the City Planning Commission.

While examples of dysfunctional city government are numerous, I have, and continue to maintain, that the City Planning Commission has been one of the most professional and functional of city agencies, and Marshall Truehill was a large part of that as commission member and as chairman. There was no rubber stamping of popular projects or examples of undue political influence on the process. Though the decisions would not always go the way you might want, you knew you were getting a fair shake, and that the multitude of issues involved were going to be considered.

It is in the post Katrina landscape that most know Rev. Truehill. Adrastos sums up his experiences of the candidate Truehill, E adds his impressions of the activist, and in the comments BlogofNewOrleans peice, Karen adds “He was a true bridge between blacks and whites, and we don’t have many of those in this city.” Commenter B. adds “When forces of fear and irrationality threatened, Truehill always provided a path which strove to achieve justice through dialog and understanding.”

Often only given passing mention was Truehills work with the UNOP process as an advocated for the residents of public housing. There was disagreement, myself included, but he flatly refused to debate an issue when the argument was based on outdated information or erroneous assumptions. And response was always to educate, but when the facts and real issues were the basis of consideration, he welcomed the debate. While his positions did not always carry the day, in the end there were often significant areas of agreement on many of the fundamental issues. This occurred between formally entrenched factions who had been told, and in some cases continue to be told, that this was not possible.

I’m not going to pretend to understand the complexity and contradictions inherit in the political landscape in the African-American community, let alone really believe there is something that qualifies as the “African-American community” (which also holds for the “white community” as well). But I think that Rev. Truehill might best be remembered as the first major Post-Katrina leader from that segment of the city that often corresponds to that description.

He not only recognized, but clearly articulated, that the corrupt power structure of the city, whether black or white or painted to resemble a particular color, rich, poor or otherwise was grinding down the very people they claimed to empower. Unlike the now disgraced Oliver Thomas who was once highly regarded for his ability to negotiate the racial polarization dynamic that seems endemic to this city, Truehill to another bolder route, he simply ignored it. Instead of “us” and “them”, he spoke of “we” and firmly kept the focus on the larger issues that in the aftermath of Katrina we found we often all shared.

Ashley Morris said that the blogging and post-storm activist community in New Orleans was different, because we all, essentially, were on the same side. Though I did, and many others had their differences with Rev. Truehill, he was a powerful friend and ally to have, and he will be sorely missed.

Christmastime Is Here

2008-12-24T08:38:00.001-06:00

The piece is by the largely overlooked Vince Guaraldi, (now musically typecast, if such a thing exists) and the context is the best holiday TV special ever, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Although somehow it didn’t appear on Huck's list…

It was written, as everybody knows, one of the seminal geniuses of post-war American, Charles M. Schulz. The themes and formulas Shultz developed and explored have been so copied, morphed and manipulated by marketing and advertising, with the inevitable over-saturation, that many have missed the brilliance of the strip when it was in its prime.

Comics.com has been running the original daily strips in order. Most remember the Peanuts books which chopped and reassembled the strips haphazardly if not randomly. Reading them in the order they originally appeared, however, restores the story arcs intact.

Anyway, I won’t let all this commercialism ruin my Christmas. Have a happy, merry, joyouse...whatever it is you celebrate.

Battle of Evermore

2008-12-17T16:17:00.000-06:00

The landscape of corruption in New Orleans is now facing an inevitable and irrevocable change in the alteration of the city charter to create a zoning ordinance with the force of law. Much like the effects term limits in the Statehouse, which were first felt in the last election cycle, the impact of this change will come as a surprise to many. It was quite amazing to see long term political family’s caught scrambling to preserve their monopoly on certain seats. Many failed, and some did succeed in keeping the family business afloat.

Unlike earlier, and sometimes current battles which were all out offenses simply to maintain the status quo (I discussed one such example in Running To Stand Still nearly a year ago). This time, however, we are looking at another battle for survival across the city, and one that will involve a lot more than a few political families. We saw their opening salvos, in the organized, but meager, efforts to defeat the charter change. But what most could not comprehend was that the vote was the only fight that really mattered. The creation of the master plan will proceed, and it will likely be adopted before they can do anything about it.

That will not prevent the battles to come. Rather than work to find a place in whatever new system arises, they will fix bayonets and charge in the only way they know how. And we have recently gotten a taste of what’s coming and the discourse is already approaching appalling lows.

The Mayor has had no compunction about openly announcing plans for a campaign of pure political intimidation against an elected representative, adamantly one who has an issue with keeping her powder dry. But if you bother to pull back the curtain, you can easily find exactly what this salvo is all about. And Schroeder does just that, showing the city contract connections behind the hit job.

All of this is likely be played out in the 2010 Mayorial and City Council elections. And as we all know, many of the power brokers have grown quite adept at defining every debate as a black verse white conflict, even when the debate is largely between African-Americans, and even to the detriment of other sound arguments.

And before anyone thinks I am only targeting one particular group, those facing the curtailing of their power extend across the entire spectrum of the city and are so intertwined as to be indistinguishable as any one “group”. Willingly exploiting the system for your own interests, or for what you perceive as the public good, or even for actually high minded principles, knows no boundaries.

The corrosive effects this “strategy” has had on the community is something I don’t need to describe. We have seen open corruption and incompetence simply papered over or even defended in the name of “fairness” and officials still can be cowed from doing their jobs. But recent events have shown what was once unthinkable, is now possible.

And a huge factor in this has been, with the exception of the presidential election, anemic turnout among African-Americans. I do not wish to try to speak for anyone, but I can’t help but wonder if some of it isn’t due to dissatisfaction with leadership that ended with a bus ride to the ballot box.

"The African-American community has been repeatedly victimized by ad hoc, whimsical and singularly discretionary planning on the part of the City Council" and the charter amendment would help "wrest power from the hands of the powerful" and give the people "a greater stake in the democratic process." Rev. Dr. Marshall Truhill from the Times-Pic.

The Song Remains The Same

2008-12-14T18:02:00.008-06:00

We have two threads coming together in the city right now, and it is making for some very public and ugly battles, but hopefully one that represents the death throes of at least some of the established order that has successfully lined their pockets built little self-serving fiefdoms, all while running the city into the ground.

The battles have historically centered largely on three areas; elected offices, city contracts, and lastly land use issues. The first two are covered quite extensively by many other bloggers, but the third usually slips under the radar. Sure, we get rants on the vast conspiracies of the developer illuminati, the pestilent evil of developers both large and small who feel entitled to some sort of profit from their effort, and the inevitable peons to the renovation fairy.

While city contracts hold a special place in traditional corruption, New Orleans has come up with another. It’s that land use system we have “enjoyed” for years and it isn’t about greedy developers or preservation. It isn’t even necessarily about elected officials. It’s about all the little self-appointed kings in the community who have some influence to peddle. From my Making Plan For Nigel post:

[T]his is the perfect Louisiana system, perfectly designed to feed the tradition of wheeling and dealing and endemic corruption. If you want to build an 85 foot condo tower in an area zoned for a maximum of 40 feet, you simply find the right people to squeeze and the right ones to stoke.

In the lead up to the Charter Change vote Karen began noticing something that changed her initial opinon:

Could it be that there are powerful, and influential people who like the system just the way it is. The “done deals” and the well funded fear campaigns?

To answer her question, yes. Again from my earlier post:

Those of wealth, power and influence, are structurally put at the advantage, and that is for true those seeking to develop, those seeking to stop it, or to demand a piece of the pie for their “support”. More often than not, the decision is based on political leverage and not on any plan or community interests. More often than not, the process if competed before the public even finds out about it.

If your first thought is the greedy developer Illuminati, think again, they are in many cases a victim of this as much as the public. This isn’t about money or even development, it is about peddling influence, sometimes for cash, often for favors, sometime for nothing more than spite, but it is rarely for anything that appears in the public records. The style and substance of the deals often differs depending on the circumstances, and those involved, but the outcome remains the same; the well-connected make the decisions we all have to live with.

Well, something has changed. And the handful of those with power to loose who saw it coming were unable to stop it despite being given several potential weapons gift wrapped by the organizers of the charter change effort. But as I have said before, our corruption is not that smart nor imaginative and they certainly cannot conceive of ever having to do anything differently than the one play they continually run.

I’ll have more on this.

Last Nights Sleep

2008-12-13T18:24:00.003-06:00

Greg notes that technology has been developed to peer into our dreams. Oyster, fresh off a bad holiday video kick, gives us a cir 1984 Dennis Quaid flick that should have remained safely forgotten in the 80’s.

I prefer to think of (and watch) this 1991 Wim Wenders effort, which has been proved to be rather prophetic in more areas than just dream research. Rather than psychics killing people in their dreams, in Wender's film viewing the recorded images of one’s dream prove to be a self destructive addiction.

The soundtrack (which is pretty damn good, including one of my favorite Talking Heads song) features the following lyrics in the song Last Nights Sleep by Can.

Dreams seen by a man-made machine
How does it seem, how does it seem
That we can see each others dreams
That we can see each others dreams

Last night sleep, only to the beat

You can listen to the clip at last FM

Sadly, I can’t locate a good clip of the dream watching sequences from the film, which were created using Sony HD TV technology which was at the time experimental. But here is the trailer, which has a snippet, but can’t be embedded.

White [Crap]mas

2008-12-11T09:25:00.003-06:00

So Oyster has been cataloguing the atrocities. I'm sorry it has come to this, but I must add the following:

Yes, there's plenty of cheesy Christmas Eurodisco out there, but how about Christmas Eurodisco with a heaping dose of fetish porn and a Swede with a caterpillar on his upper lip? Okay, it’s a repeat from last year, and you might have made it to the ~~Christmas sluts~~ The Sunshine Girls in the g-strings, and hey there's nothing wrong with hot swedish chicks, but I doubt anyone lasted until 3:04 in when the handcuffs come out let alone 3:12 when the dwarves get shirtless and dance. What better way to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior than…dwarf porn? Consider yourselves warned.

And as special treat here’s one that actually tries to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior with Erik Estrada, dressed as Santa…it gets worse from there.

Jingle [Blech]

2008-12-10T13:30:00.003-06:00

Since Adrastos has decided to get international on us…

To quote a youtube commenter “This song AND the video just make me feel good inside. I'm not a…fan at all, but this is just a work of art. Whoever thought of this song and video was a genius." Really, they found a way to make the original song even worse.

This one goes out to Huck, and all the fans of Speedy Gonzales…and bad ethnic stereotyping.

Silent [Wretch]

2008-12-10T10:54:00.002-06:00

Oh, Lord! Here we go again. Greg "Barney" Peters starts it, Oyster joins on, Huck tosses in a real turd, Maitri joins the fray and now Adrastos gives us a possible reason for Greeks to be rioting…okay, I’m piling on.

Hit it!

But wait! “Chuck” the announce gets in on the action. Sort like Al Hirt getting mugged by John Tesh in a mega-church parking lot.

King Is White and in the Crowd

2008-12-04T10:09:00.003-06:00

Apparently our old friend is back on the trail, and it’s not Louisiana that's the battleground state. This time Florida is the focus of the titanic battle for the future of the white race, and our own David Duke is lending a hand.

Much like Duke’s rise, it seems Derek Black, the son of a former Grand Wizard, who contributed a “Kids Page” to an old Stormfront web forum, has been elected to the Palm Beach County's Republican Executive Committee. Yes, that same “butterfly ballot” Palm Beach county, and apparently, the same kind of attention went into vetting this particular candidate. Here is the story from the Palm Beach Post that recounts the whole public version of spit take by the county’s Republican leadership. Black isn’t having it.

Derek Black says "of course" he will attend a meeting Wednesday for new members of Palm Beach County's Republican Executive Committee. Never mind that the party chairman says Black's "white supremacist" associations are not welcome and he will not be seated.

"I was elected," Black, 19, says.

Sporting a black hat, the son of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Don Black was seated last week in a restaurant off Southern Boulevard. Sitting next to him was one of his supporters: David Duke, former Louisiana state legislator and another former KKK grand wizard.

"We're going to fight," Duke said. "I know Derek Black is going to fight for his constitutional liberties. That's why I'm here, because I want to assist Derek."

Duke really was ahead of the curve. It’s been hard to overcome the stigma the Librul media has manufactured over wearing white hoods and giving yourself grand sounding titles. But with the holy crusade against Muzlims, the immigration debate, an African-American running for president, and the great purges of the impure from the ranks of GOP, this really could have been Duke's Elvis year. Sadly he squandered his opportunity well before the country was ready to accept the hard “truths” only he was man enough to say…well, he and Stormfront and Aryan Nations, and so on.

Duke said the historic election has helped galvanize support for the causes he believes in: "Obama enables people to see more clearly. It makes it clear we're losing control of our country."

If Duke is really concerned that he and his supporters and sympathants are losing the country they calls thier own, then that’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time. The second best is that, for once it seems, this is not being played out in Louisiana.

Beyond Belief

2008-11-26T08:14:00.003-06:00

It is firmly believed by a seeming majority of people that by some law of physics renovation of an existing structure is less expensive and cheaper than new construction. I don’t know how this meme got into the public consciousness but it is erroneous.

Were it true, you would see a whole lot less new construction in the world, but then, as I have been told the developer Illuminati care nothing for cost or profit and seek only to use their ill gotten money to destroy the pleasant and familiar to construct giant white elephants on the bodies of the poor and virtuous.

The reasons and justifications for renovation are many, and sometimes cost savings do enter into the picture. However, the limitations of the building layout and structure are far more important. The retention of a turn of the century façade, something too expensive to duplicate, would be weighed with fact that all of your required functions may not fit, or may be greatly limited.

It is true that in some renovations you can, in the end be left with something better than you could have constructed from scratch. But there are always enormous trade offs in doing so. Some business types are better suited to this than others, condo and hotels, are more flexible, so long as the minimum room counts are accommodated, and they can generate the kind of revenue needed to pay off the renovation. Others are more difficult. Historic office buildings rarely are renovated as new office space. The income is too low, and those old floor plans are often narrow, limited by columns and make lousy office space compared with the newer competition.

Some time can be saved in renovation, but not as much as you might expect. A large building that can be demolished in a couple of weeks, could take six months or more to gut and remediate and prepare the shell for the new work, almost as long as erecting a new shell. Time savings usually come in the design portion, not the construction schedule, as production of plans can proceed while the gutting is underway.

And don’t assume I am disparaging renovation. I like renovation. I’d like more renovation, but I understand some of the complexity of the equation. But “Renovation is faster and cheaper” meme is about as intellectually sophisticated as the “tax cuts pay for themselves” meme and is just as ignorance of how complex the issue is.

This is not specifically about the damn VA/Charity hospital. I will delete any comment that assumes I am taking some kind of position on this issue. I make no comment on the worth/worthlessness of anyone or anything related to that issue in this post.

And, please, spare me the “buts”. I know it’s what you believe, and how it’s formed the cornerstone of your thinking on a whole host of issues, and how you feel the need to defend your intellect. You are not going to convince me to believe in the renovation fairy. Please read the following article which is quoted below.

My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended. RAW

Address Unknown

2008-11-20T07:59:00.002-06:00

Katy Reckdahl in a Times-Pic article thin on specifics points out a rather significant event in the history of post-Katrina blight in New Orleans.

The Housing Authority of New Orleans on Wednesday approved the sale or demolition nearly three-quarters of its scattered-site properties, targeting more than 500 of 700 total apartments.

HANO's one-woman board, Diane Johnson, approved the agenda item without discussion, but the written resolution noted that the jettisoned units had been inspected and "no longer meet the standards of safe, decent and sanitary housing." Since Hurricane Katrina, storm-damaged units have drawn fire for contributing to neighborhood blight problems.

I sure don’t like that “one-woman board” part. It kind of raises the hair on the back of my neck in the same way as when the Mayor promises “transparency”. However, the numbers…500 out of 700, seem to coincide with this Times-Pic article from Aug. 2007, which has a lot more information.

The units, called scattered sites because they are located across New Orleans, numbered 773 pre-Katrina. Today, 532 mostly flood-damaged units mar the city's landscape. In some dilapidated units, the tousled, muck-covered possessions of former tenants still rot in rooms. Litter and five-foot weeds complete scenes of neglect.

This was a point of contention when the Good Neighbor Scam was in full swing. How could the city force people to clean up their property when the city itself was in countless examples one of the worst offenders? Well, as we know, no one had to clean up anything. It turned out to be just another a city sponsored scam, however the city sponsored blight remained. And when you dig into it, a number of these HANO properties were a real problem before Katrina.

Well, apparently something may be done. However, there is no word on what, if anything is to take their place, or on the ultimate fate of the “scattered site housing” program. The latest article only notes the properties are to be “demolished or put up for sale” which leaves a lot of questions.

But the earlier article points out a push to turn some of the property over to non-profits for redevelopment. HANO has actually done that, on a very limited basis for sure, but the precedent is there.

Among those wishing HANO would swing the wrecking ball is the New Orleans area Habitat for Humanity. If HANO would follow through with the proposed demolition of flood-damaged duplexes in one eastern New Orleans neighborhood, Habitat for Humanity could quickly build dozens of affordable single-family homes to be sold to the working poor, said Jim Pate, director of the local Habitat for Humanity.

Well, "the devil is in the details" and right now we really don't have any. We will need to keep an eye on how this develops.

Remember

2008-11-17T09:52:00.001-06:00

A belated recognition of the passing of one of the seminal drummers of the 60’s,Mitch Mitchell. Mitchell is best know for his work with Noel Redding and Jimi Hendrix as the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Mitchell was a genius at fusing his jazz influences into the rock medium and pioneering what would be called jazz fusion. Mitchell passed away last week, here is a good obit from the Telegraph.

And here are two of his noteworthy efforts.

The phenomenal Voodoo Child (slight return)

And the lost performance with The Dirty Mac. A true super group of John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell put together for the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. Here they are doing the Beatles Yer Blues. (I will spare Adrastos the video of the jam which included Yoko Ono, but it can be found here).

Money For Nothing

2008-11-13T09:09:00.003-06:00

If we’re going to do this bailout, and shovel heaps of money to corporate America, I think we ought to look to this British model of how to do it properly.

Perfect Skin

2008-11-12T08:44:00.001-06:00

So, here is a possible scenario that I’ve been ruminating on concerning the Gentilly Woods shopping center that I blogged about yesterday.

The center in now in NORA’s hands. Rob “Nagin is my ~~BFF~~ excuse” Couhig was on Garland Robinette's show on Monday to explain what this was ~~all~~ sort of about. In short, NORA plans to see the site developed as a Community Improvement Project or CIP, which is one of its purposes.

There is a process for all of this and it is what Rob described. Basically the City Council officially designates an area of the city as eligible for a Community Improvement Project (that’s already done), which begins the process to create a specific development plan. This is where the neighborhood and citizens participate, with the results going before the City Planning Commission and City Council for approval. And then the plan is implemented. An RFP will be issued for the development, design and construction package(s) based on the plan.

Let’s just suppose this can actually succeed.

NORA is a quasi state agency created by the Louisiana Legislature. The board members are selected the same way as most of these quasi state agencies. Candidates are nominated by State Legislators, The mayor select from the slate of nominees and the New Orleans City Council must consent to the appointments.

What’s C Ray’s opinion of NORA?

After the storm, Mayor Ray Nagin seemed — at least temporarily — to recognize potential. He won legislative approval of changes that strengthened the agency and appointed a new board packed with prominent civic and business leaders of his choosing. Then he turned his back on them, despite repeated pleas to give them the money they need to do the job NORA's Nagin appointed them to do. Gambit

Who is in charge? Rob “Nagin understands bizness” Couhig. And what’s Couhig’s recent stance on C Ray?

Civic leaders are relatively unguarded in their criticism. “The question is, is he relevant anymore?” asked Rob Couhig, a lawyer who ran against Mr. Nagin and then served as an unpaid adviser to him.

“What does he do that the city couldn’t do without him?” asked Mr. Couhig, who is the secretary of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, a city agency. NYT

Couhig has more traction right now that C Ray and Ed “buffoon” Blakely whose efforts resemble a bad sitcom based on the McCain campaign than any sort of recovery. In a battle for credit in the media, the jump ball would go to Couhig.

So, is this an pre-election bid by Rob “White men can’t run” Couhig to upstage C Ray, with, of all things, a success and paint himself as the next “savior” of New Orleans? In my crappy post comparing Blakely to bad television I asked if there was a “surfer dude” or other wacky new character in the cities future…Uh Oh.

* Garland every so often likes to pepper his show with references to the “bloggs” and “what the bloggers are saying” and proceed to recite whatever opinion from the NOLA.com or other message boards that best fits his premise. It’s pretty clear that this “real Renaissance man” has no idea what bloggers do, particularly in this city, or he can’t bear to admit that some rank amateur might have had a thought better than his own. I find this really annoying when so many other media personalities have come to realize that bloggs can be of real value to them.

Over My Head

2008-11-10T08:16:00.002-06:00

This Times-Pic article has me a bit puzzled. It seems NORA used its limited funds to yank the Gentilly Woods shopping center from Developer Kailas Properties.

Flexing newfound financial muscle, the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority recently used public money to outbid a private developer for the abandoned Gentilly Woods Shopping Center…That was a Monday. On the previous Friday, local developer Kailas Properties had thought it was about to buy the site.

That Friday, Kailas' chief financial officer, Denise Gaines, received a purchase contract from the property's owners, Thor Equities and Green Tree Realty LLC of New York, offering to sell the mall for $3.6 million, well below what NORA is scheduled to pay.

Private development by its nature is an inexact and perilous endeavored. Much like a game of Gin Rummy, you never really know what cards you will get, and the challenge is to remain flexible enough to take advantage of what comes your way, yet still putting together a complete hand. Some do it very well.

In my experience Kailas Properties is not one of them. They are typical of a type of lower end developer that dream of playing with the big boys. Everything they do exudes a cheap feel, and mark them as the kind of developer who thinks that whirlpool tubs and crown molding will somehow elevate the Hampton Inn Airport to the level of the W.

Lots of options on notable properties, big announcements, even some fairly good architects brought on board. But ultimately they can’t put together a complete hand and nothing big ever seems to come. You get their bread and butter of middle tier suburban development with third rate web sites that open with a crappy renderings that actually look far better than the end result.

So, NORA may feel the same as to Kailas ability to put the cards in order. The TP continues:

But Gaines acknowledged the document was unsigned, and based on a rocky year and a half of negotiations, it is unclear whether Thor ever intended to sell the property to Kailas.

NORA's commercial property expert, Richard Monteilh, also questioned whether Kailas could deliver the kind of high-end shopping center NORA has promised community leaders.

It remains to be seen what the hell is NORA going to do with this dirt. They seem to understand that this is a key piece of retail for the area. I genuinely believe they want to see it redeveloped, but this is one to keep a close eye on.

Something in the Air

2008-11-05T14:32:00.001-06:00

Four years ago when the re-election of George W Bush was decided, I posted the following warning to those who had clamored for their king of one party rule.

Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, "This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day."

But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles."

When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. The Lord answered, "Listen to them and give them a king."

The King is dead...and for the first time in a while, I feel like we are in reasonably good hands.

And as this is the Fifth of November, I thought this little bit highlighting the fundamental dilemma of the flesh and the ideal, seemed appropriate.

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot...

But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes and I know, in 1605, he attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. But who was he really? What was he like? We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world.

I've witnessed first hand the power of ideas, I've seen people kill in the name of them, and die defending them... but you cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it... ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love... And it is not an idea that I miss, it is a man... A man that made me remember the Fifth of November. A man that I will never forget.

Custer’s Blues

2008-11-04T08:36:00.001-06:00

A song for the day: Custer’s Blues

Well you look just like General Custer
on the day of his last stand
Heading up into the black hills
glorious and grand
I saw it by your side
a map in your hand
Heading up into the rain
singing "This land is your land"

But now you're bursting into my country
you're messing up my fields
You're playing games with my holy places
you're tearing the earth with your wheels
Right now your star is ascending
and your head is bursting with pride
But I wonder if Custer was still singing
“This land is my land” when he died?

This is not a prediction, but someone somewhere is making their last stand today, and their failure is going to have long ranging repercussions.

Making Plans For Nigel

2008-11-02T13:08:00.003-06:00

I’ve blogged about the flaws in the effort to pass the charter amendment mandating the creation of a master plan with the force of law in the earlier post Keep the Dream Alive.

I’d like to add to that and give you my take on the proposition itself, and what it means.

Let me describe what we have now. The New Orleans Zoning Ordiance in an alphabet soup of categories defined, redefined, amended, expanded, and spun off for the last 30+ years. It was a blunt object when created, as was typical of the times, and all the years of amending in an attempt to put some subtlety in it have left it a confusing mess.

One key provision is the “Conditional Use”, in short anything but a house or basic commercial building (even these, sometimes) is permitted via a legislative process. And a particularly onerous legislative process, where what’s being decided affects one single case. And campaigning and deal making by those that stand to gain or loose from it are part and parcel of getting the approval.

The Zoning Ordinance itself, is this case, is a mere suggestion. Issues of height, size, and whether the proposed development is “proper” for the location are ultimately decided, with a vote of the City Council. Those of wealth, power and influence, are structurally put at the advantage, and that is for true those seeking to develop, those seeking to stop it, or to demand a piece of the pie for their “support”. More often than not, the decision is based on political leverage and not on any plan or community interests. More often than not, the process if competed before the public even finds out about it.

Here is the Rev. Dr. Marshall Truhill from a Times-Pic piece on the amendment:

I will add it isn’t just the African-American community who looses in this arrangement. It is anyone not connected to a political machine, with the “right” friends, or the doesn’t have the “wrong” enemies.

In short, this is the perfect Louisiana system. Perfectly designed to feed the tradition of wheeling and dealing and endemic corruption. If you want to build an 85 foot condo tower in an area zoned for a maximum of 40 feet, you simply find the right people to squeeze and the right ones to stoke.

For one thing, the charter change proposed to dump this system onto the ash heap of history. The Zoning Ordinance will actually mean what it says. But this is paired with an effort to address the pile of crap that is the current Zoning Ordinance, by mandating a citizen driven effort to create a Master Plan and zoning code that will, whatever the result, be backed by the force of law.

Who’s lining up against it? A coalition of those with legitimate concerns about putting their trust in a planning process and it’s yet to be known final product, and those who stand to loose by the adoption of a plan with the force of law. In other words, those of wealth, power and influence, who see their influence as threatened, and they have the ready made argument that resonates with a lot of people.

For example, here is a WDSU bit on “Citizens For The Right To Vote” who held a “protest” against the change. While Ronald Nabonne, a political consultant for several candidates, including former mayor Barthelemy, cites the groups objection as "voting on a plan that doesn't exist", I suspect his motivations are a bit different. It is a shame that the effort did not for see this eventuality.

To make it clear, I will vote for the change, simply because whatever this planning effort as I have seen it produces, it really can’t be worse than what we have now.

As to it’s passage, there are two forces at work: the distrust of the general population of an unseen, unknown plan, and the tendency of people to check off the “yes” box on the laundry list of initiatives and amendments. Toss-up.

Update: corrections made to my background on Ronald Nabonne

Uncorrected Personality Traits

2008-10-30T07:37:00.003-06:00

While many insist the Republican presidential campaign is best described as “Rovian,” I think it is pretty clear that Karl Rove or even Lee Attwater or their surrogates have nothing to do with the train wreck of the McCain campaign. No, those bastards were far better than this. Personally, I think the proper term for this mess is LaRoucheian. Consider this:

57 Channels (And Nothin' On)

2008-10-29T14:51:00.004-06:00

While rumors and hopes of cancellation turned out to be misplaced, it now appears that The Ed Blakely Show may be getting repackaged.

While panned by critics and viewers alike, the C Ray network has so far remained dedicated to their much hyped star. But now it appears that C Ray is considering its options for the program that has been the centerpiece of the line-up for almost two years. From the Times-Pic

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said Tuesday that he wants his often-criticized recovery director, Ed Blakely, to stay for a third year, even as the mayor introduced a plan to dissolve Blakely's department by June.

On Tuesday, Nagin announced his plan to convert Blakely's Office of Recovery and Development Administration into a Community Development Department by June.

This could be as extreme as when Three's Company ended and we saw Jack Tripper return with a whole new cast and situation in Three's a Crowd, or more akin to when The Brady Brunch ended, and the family with a substitute kid or two resurfaced as the The Brady Bunch Hour, the Brady Brides, and finally The Bradys.

Exactly how much of the current cast will survive the transition remains to be seen. C Ray continues:

When asked how that would affect Blakely, he said the focus had shifted from recovery planning to implementation, the specialty of a new Nagin aide, Bill Crissman. The mayor then left Blakely's future up to the longtime urban planning professor.

"It's going to be his call," Nagin said. "I'd love for him to stay a little longer, but, you know, he's done his duty."

Not exactly the ringing endorsements we are accustomed to. This might indicate the Ed Blakely show is heading the way of Valerie with the “star” summarily dumped while the supporting characters carried on rebranded as Valerie's Family: The Hogans and finally just The Hogan Family.

It also must be pointed out that when the “star” leave usually there is a ham-handed addition of sometimes wacky new characters, like Rip Taylor in The Brady Bunch Hour or Sandy Duncan in Valerie's Family: The Hogans, or Alan Campbell as the "surfer dude" in Three's a Crowd.

So what’s in store? Is there a "surfer dude" in the cities future? It seems this episode of The Ed Blakely Show is “to be continued”.

Here Comes the Trick

2008-10-29T07:49:00.001-06:00

The mythic struggles of C Ray Nagin have apparently born fruit, as his fantasy city takes shape:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin today painted a very bright future for the city. "We're in our final transition from recovery planning to recovery implementation," he told the city council…Nagin said 2008 would be a tipping year for the city. Today he said, "New Orleans has tipped in a very positive direction." - WWL

All this tipping is making me sea sick. Perhaps that why I was caught napping. You see, apparently there was some sort of "recovery" and I seemed to have missed it. But wait, here comes the trick…

Offering an upbeat appraisal of New Orleans' recovery, Mayor Ray Nagin unveiled a record $1.16 billion 2009 budget proposal Tuesday that relies on continued borrowing from the federal government and a $24 million property tax increase City Council members appear reluctant to support. - Times-Pic

I tell, you what C Ray, I‘ll give you one fantasy dollar for every crane in the sky of your fantasy recovery.

The Kids Are Alright

2008-10-23T17:27:00.001-06:00

So what happened to Kaiser Ed? The federal recovery chief Odell got a good bit right in his comments, via the Times-Pic

When it comes to solving complex problems, the city has not delegated authority up and down the line to hurry progress forward: "Below Ed Blakely, there's virtually no authority and lots of responsibility. At Blakely and above, there's lots of authority, but no responsibility."

Blakely's office produces "ethereal visions" that vastly overreach in asking for federal recovery dollars.

So, you charged with a task, yet aren’t allowed to make the necessary decisions, and the one who can spends more time airborne than in the office. The staff is left with no direction, nor any clear hierarchy, and to top it all off when Blakely is in town he spends it directing you to draw up whatever pet idea he came up with on the plane ride in. Not only that, but you know these flights of fancy only eat up resources (your time) while the necessary and achievable work languishes.

And, as you might imagine, the staff began to turn over. Now, I don’t know if you’ve been aware of the kind of market we have for planners, architects, engineers, etc. but it is tight. To be available in this town tends to mean you are striking out for a better position, or you have been fired for whatever reason. Those with skills or who have some degree of competence can find work without too much trouble. Blakely, however, was left with the ones who had neither.

So when Blakely, as City Business reported, “…blamed so-called “bureaucrats” at his Office of Recovery and Development Administration for spending too much time on getting reports done – and slacking off...” he may have actually been right.

And it is worse for the citizens working on recovery and development projects. They get a revolving door of staff unable to give them anything concrete, and Blakely dishing out a litany misleading, if not delusional promises. I have heard that Blakely would claim to know of grants that would help fund some aspect of a project. But no kind of follow up would occur, nor would Blakely’s staff even know what he was talking about. When finally identified, they usually weren’t remotely close to what Blakely thought it was, nor even applicable to the project.

I’ve worked with these sorts before. Some of them were actually talented. What they needed was a strong support staff to pull them back to reality and get them to focus. Blakely had nothing of the sort and was left believing his own bullshit.

"If this plan fails, it won't be because I failed New Orleans," he told U.S. News. "It will be because New Orleans failed itself." Blakely in May 2006

Blakely really expected everyone to jump when he said so, from the community to the City, State and even the Feds. His worst mistake was expecting C Ray to do anything but cheerlead between fundraisers. He got absolutely no leadership or facilitation from the Mayor (surprise!).

There were tensions, some racial as Blakely described. But I don’t think anyone but Blakely expected this wouldn’t happen to some degree. But rather than a problem of “blacks taking orders from whites” a lot was a result of pushback from frustrated planners and citizens not willing to sign on to whatever the latest Blakely edict was.

So Blakely fell back on announcing all sorts of fabulous recovery project, claiming credit for every repotted plant and promising even better things are just around the corner. Touting the great success of a replaced roofs and repaving streets, and as federal recovery chief Odell put it, via the Times-Pic,

…[expecting] a "tectonic" shift in the political landscape that will bring more recovery dollars to the state after November's presidential election.

I think the Times-Pic editorial noted the tectonic shift that might be necessary:

Mr. Blakely all but argued for a more hands-on recovery manager when he spoke to the council last week. If he can't handle that job, and no one in his office can handle that job, Mayor Nagin ought to find someone who can.

I’d add that Mayor Nagin should join him in spending more time with his family.

I Can’t Explain

2008-10-23T07:43:00.005-06:00

I’ve been harping lately on some of the stupidity oozing out of the latest episode of the Ed Blakely show. It seems every few months we are treated to another episode of the city recovery director opening his mouth and letting loose with some inflammatory blathering and the inevitable stunning revelation that Blakely is seldom even here and that absolutely nothing is happening.

Well, we are in one of those cycles and yesterday the Times-Pic chimed in with an editorial, and columnist James Gill had his own take. Oyster has offered his theory on Blakely’s latest jaunt, and is worthy of the read.

But now it looks like the Ed Blakely show may be canceled.

Saying he's confident that the proper structures are in place at City Hall for long-term success, New Orleans recovery leader Ed Blakely said he is weighing whether to leave his post in January, when he completes the second year of his tenure.

I'm glad he is confident, because other than Mayor, no one else is.

And on that note, I'd like to relay a little inside information and opinion on Blakely's run. I have a few friends and colleagues around town who have had some dealings with Mr. Blakely’s office and have passed along a few insights into the inner “workings” of the office. So this is a little of the history of Blakely’s office as I have heard it described.

At the start, there were hopes that Blakely could step in and provide some leadership in the vacuum that was and still remains the centerpiece of C Ray’s tenure as mayor. It was clear the man had a mouth ample to accommodate even the largest foot and an ego to match, but most people seemed willing to put up with it. Of course, most people also anticipated that an actual recovery would occur and not the street paving and new roofs that are the crowning achievements of Blakely’s efforts.

And despite Blakely’s big mouth, there were some very promising efforts at the start of his tenure. This was largely due to a good staff. As in so many other areas in post-Katrina New Orleans, a number of well equipped and talented people stepped up to help their city. The result was the initial 17 redevelopment zones announced in April 2007 that I blogged about here. After analyzing them, I came away quite impressed, as did a number of other civic leaders that I know. Of course, most people anticipated that some measure of actual effort to pursue them would result.

April was also a big month for Blakely’s mouth, as City Business reminds us:

In April, Blakely told the New York Times that were a lot of “lot of tensions in the staff.” He pinned the problem partially to race. “Black people have a hard time taking instruction from white people,” said Blakely, who is black. “It’s really bad. I’ve never encountered anything like this,” he said.

That was his first crack at his staff, but I believe Blakely was also aiming his venom at the citizens participating in the process as well. Of course, it’s not that we don’t have racial issues in this town, but most people anticipated such issues to be addressed with efforts to bring people together and build trust. But that was not what happened and what I was hearing was that the “tension” was more due to Blakely’s management or lack thereof.

Then there was the “cranes in the sky” quote. While it was not impossible that things could proceed that quickly, it was highly unlikely, particularly when the public dollar is involved. A whole lot of oversight, review and public comment would have to be by-passed to even get close to his “goal”. Of course, most people anticipated Blakely’s office would be given the fast track to cut red tape and access funds, but even in C Ray “emergency edict” Nagin’s city that is a very tall order.

Blakely threw this at his staff, which had some good people aboard, and they really tried. I was told the work was progressing to some degree from some of the community representatives involved. It might not be September, but it would be "soon". Of course, most people anticipated a modicum of competence from Blakely himself.

But this was about as far as things got. And about as long as a post should be, so I'll have more later.

Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere

2008-10-19T09:31:00.001-06:00

Funny how right after I harp on the spinelessness of the TP, something seems to sneak by the editors. In the Times-Pic today, David Hammer lays out the non-reality of Blakely’s leadership:

Blakely told one committee that his staff in the Office of Recovery and Development Administration shuts down when he isn't there. But he hasn't shut down his globe-trotting consulting work since signing on as the city's recovery director nearly two years ago.

Let’s contrast that with this quote from the City Buisness article I noted in my last post:

Every hour that he is away from his desk means another hour that “nobody is working,” the jet-setting University of Sydney, Australia, professor said.

And this one:

A year and a half after announcing a plan to spur investment with 17 target recovery zones, New Orleans recovery czar Ed Blakely is preparing to open the competitively bidding process for sites within the zones.

Is it just me, or am I seeing what the problem might be?

A Quick One While He's Away

2008-10-18T08:55:00.000-06:00

So there is the Ed Blakely character and his Office of Recovery Management. Sure, they got the grass cut, and repaired a roof or two, claimed credit for a host of successes that were achieved despite their meddling and mismanagement, and things they had nothing to do with at all. But it seems that just about everyone has concluded that the efforts of this office have foundered.

Unfortunately, “everyone” does not include Mayor C Ray Nagin, Ed Blakely, and most critically the editorial board of the Times-Picayune. The ol’ TP insists on “balanced” coverage, which in the current state of the media means the fantasies and power addled ranting of C Ray and Blakeley must be treated as legitimate positions in a “shape of the earth, opinions differ” sort of way.

Most recently, it appears some other ~~sucker~~ entity has decided they need a taste of Blakely’s wise council. E fills us in on Blakely’s new deal with Dubai Real Estate Corporation, between posts where he hope to strike some kind bargain with the Mayor to fund his graft-of-the-day program in exchange for Blakely’s head…stage three, bargaining.

Jeffery by contrast has staked out stage two, anger, and shows little sign of moving on. But he also directs us to the City Business Blog which notes a City Buisness article on the latest ranting of Blakely:

Blakely also blamed so-called “bureaucrats” at his Office of Recovery and Development Administration for spending too much time on getting reports done – and slacking off. Every hour that he is away from his desk means another hour that “nobody is working,” the jet-setting University of Sydney, Australia, professor said.

If they’re spending so much time getting reports done, when do they have the time to slack off? Just wondering.

The Ecstasy of [Football]

2008-10-14T15:55:00.002-06:00

From the unintended Irony department…

This new Nike spot is making the rounds, showing LaDanian Tomlinson and Troy Polamalu as destine from to the womb to meet on the gridiron. I think it is extremely well done, and a big element is soundtrack, a hip hopped remix of a particularly haunting Ennio Morricone piece. Somehow no one seem to have connected the whole “ecstasy of football” theme with the piece’s title; The Ecstasy of Gold, which is pretty much what the NFL is all about these days.

Here is the Ad in question:

Here is the master himself, conducting the work in question.

Here is Metallica’s version.

Baby You’re a Rich Man

2008-10-10T08:35:00.003-06:00

Thank goodness the American Taxpayer is helping to insure that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong", otherwise these fucker might have had to sit with the peasants:

The New York Mets sold out the luxury suites in their new stadium for as much as $500,000 a year, avoiding the financial crisis. Bloomberg

And that's just for the Mets! The real money will be for the new Yankee Stadium aka "the house that taxpayers built". Something tells me they will have no problem selling those luxury boxes, or any of the $2500 seats (that is not a misprint, that is the actual top ticket price via Bloomberg). And there won't be any worries about having to sit with the peasants.

Jump? Why not, they’ll have a nice cushy landing on top of all of us.

Aint That A Kick In The Head

2008-10-07T08:28:00.004-06:00

M-Olindo Gra-Mare-tica

Here's something happy, Dino from the original Oceans Eleven:

Update:

Jeff Duncan at the TP says there is hope:

Finding a replacement for Gramatica was almost certainly at the top of Payton's to-do list Tuesday, right behind the call he likely made to NFL supervisor of officials Mike Pereira.

Carney might come available soon. The Giants' regular kicker and NFC championship game hero, Lawrence Tynes, has recovered from a knee injury and is ready to go. At some point, the Giants will need to part ways with either Carney or Tynes.

Keep the Dream Alive

2008-10-04T08:48:00.003-06:00

So I am going to do a bit of follow up on my angry rants on the latest “planning effort” Deja-vu Deja-vu part II and Don't Let Me Down and Down now that I’ve calmed down a bit in a post that is way too long.

“The charter change amendment originated with a group of citizens just like yourself.” - Commenter, MAD.

"I think we may be going a bridge too far." - British Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning

As long as I have resided in the city I have been involved with a network of activists whose passion has always been loosely aimed at the preservation of the city’s rich architectural stock. They have been fighting and more often than not loosing battles to save the threatened structures for years. For years they have devote countless hours to the myriad of studies and plans ground out over the years, either as participants or as vocal critics.

Much like Jeff Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington they (and I don’t want anyone to think that this is in any way some kind of club or political machine) will tirelessly fight every lost cause. But have also found some success in working behind the scenes in places the political leadership consider inconsequential, and they have certainly provided a lot of pushback to some true stupidity over the years, and we have befitted from their efforts.

I write this, not to disparage them. They have been fighting for this city before anyone knew there was even a battle going on, and in many ways they provided the template for civic activism in this city. But in this penultimate fight to see a Master Plan in place with the force of law, they’ve blown it. They fell into the trap that often befalls movements of this sort; they assumed everyone was just like them, and they decided to act just like one of those politico factions they had butted heads with over the years.

And much like Montgomery in Operation Market Garden they went a bridge too far, and glossed over a number of potential problems, ignored significant impediments and reached for too much too soon.

I’m sure they expected some “planning fatigue” and misunderstanding of the their efforts, but surely everyone else could smell the naplam and would shoulder on and quickly get on board what they have worked so hard to get for so many years. It never crossed their minds that to most people, napalm only smells like gasoline.

And just how much should be asked of the citizenry? At what point does a Recovery Master Plan, a School Master Plan, and all the other efforts that have sought to pin their results to some sort of Citizen Participation™ become too much of a burden on a population that, in many cases, is struggling for their own survival? Evidently, no one thought to ask this simple question.

And then there is the planning itself. For me it wasn’t planning deja vu, it was Groundhog Day. Not only were we being asked to shoulder the burden of yet another plan, but that our previous efforts were to be relegated to a quaint chart of all the other wasted planning efforts, to be “reflected” in the new plan in some vague fashion.

The activists behind this effort will be the first, and with good reason, to complain about the wasted efforts and defeats of the past, but for a shot at the brass ring, they are willing to be complicit in just such a betrayal. And I have been met with puzzled stares as I have tried to explain why I am not giddy with excitement at being kicked to the ground and told to put the dirt back in the hole and dig it out again.

Dixon said. "If we can get people to believe in the value of planning, of sitting in a room together and working out differences and goals, that's what we hope to accomplish." TP

Unfortunately, much of the population was lost to that idea in the early disastrous days of the UNOP process, and there are going to be a lot more. And this new effort hasn’t even considered the fact that the altar call to a tired and skeptical public might not succeed.

The true believers, along with a few others will gather to draw lines on maps and put circles around pithy observations, and thoroughly enjoy Goody Clancy’s “…and games for the ~~children~~ citizen” approach to planning and place the stamp of Citizen Participation™ on the proceedings. But in the end what will the result be?

I was not impressed by Goody Clancy’s attempt to combine the UNOP district plans into a whole, nor their management of the district processes. Exactly who decided on Goody Clancy and why for this effort, I don’t know, but there seems to be little if any concern that the plan could turn out to be a steaming pile.

But the largest problem, and the one that could shut the whole thing down, is the huge problem of the proposed charter amendment on the Nov. 4th ballot. The immediate response by even well educated citizens is “why are we voting on a plan that doesn’t exist?” That it requires a few minuets of explanation to even correctly make the case is a huge PR problem, one I don’t know if they will be able to overcome. That is, if people even buy the explanation.

The argument that the “force of law” would be a motivating factor for the public and ensure the “will of the people” was reflected in the plan is a hard sell in this town. They discounted that the whole thing might smack many as yet another back room deal, which in many ways it is.

Not helping is the Advisory Board, which seems (and can only use that term because nothing definitive is out there for public consumption) to have been selected by the City Planning Commission. A fantastic and ironic top down approach for an effort billed as a bottom up effort, and yet another miscalculation. A legitimate complaint voiced at the first day wasting meeting was how such a board could be selected without citizen input or review.

It’s okay, you can trust us.

Now I am off to vote.

Open the Door, Homer

2008-10-01T06:51:00.002-06:00

I ran across this old interview with Sarah Palin. Apparently she worked in a Nuclear Power plant.

Seriously, it’s pretty scary when she's channeling Homer Simpson.

COURIC: And when it comes to establishing, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and understand the world?

PALIN: I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

COURIC: Like what ones specifically?

PALIN: Umm… all of them. Any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.

COURIC: Can you name any of them?

PALIN: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news…

What's next? It was like that when I got here...That's the way we've always done it...it must be someone else's job?

Don't Let Me Down and Down

2008-09-28T12:33:00.005-06:00

It is clear that despite the assurances from our “leadership” that a legal mandate of the charter change will magically cause people to take more of an interest, there are going to be a lot of people, such as myself who are not going to sit though another series of tedious meetings to rehash the same points over and over and over again. With assurances from the same fucktards who feel the need top toss out the previous efforts, that somehow this one will actually count.

For very good reason I cannot give these bastards any benefit of the doubt. I would rather see this effort crash and burn than have to live with the results particularly when so much effort by some of the most dedicated of our citizen is to be added to the pile of city sponsored shams like the “good neighbor” program, et al.

I will be voting AGAINST the charter change unless there is some kind of assurance that this will not be the pile of crap that it appears to be.

What will result from this effort as it is? Well, I find the fears that this is some kind of Nagin/Blakley ploy or a backdoor attempt by the developer Illuminati to tear down more houses and not grab the land, or rid the city of it’s citizens in favor of rich white elites via setback requirements to be ludicrous. And the composition of the people behind the effort really belays all of that. As for C Ray and company, I really needed to get a picture of the pathetic sight of Blakely’s recover office table shoved off in the corner. Hijacking the effort would require executing a plan, and we all know how well the administartion is at that.

However, this effort will not match the participation of the UNOP effort. And what you would be left with is a much smaller, less experienced, and often less connected group of citizens and community leaders. The result will likely be quite close to what we came up with before. The concepts of walkability, public transit and all the other things that are represented in the UNOP plan will be there. But it will be a dumbed down version, lacking a lot of the details and bravado of many of the proposals, and become something far more representative of the planners intentions.

What would I like to see? How about starting with what in the hell we are supposed to be doing, and cut the bullshit "how we prosper" mission statement crap. I am more than aware that the recovery plan is not a master plan, but it certainly is a good place to start. Pull them apart, evaluate them, look for what's good, what needs changing, and so on. Something weak in the UNOP plan was the connection and integration of the different districts, there's something. Yes, you need to look at big overarching concepts, as well as the individual neighborhoods. But start with what we fucking have, what we've already done, what was adopted by the city. That would be something I could get behind.

Deja Vu - part II

2008-09-28T11:33:00.004-06:00

When I arrived, I found a lot more people than I expected, and what I found was a cadre of neighborhood leaders from across the city, and tons of friends and familiar faces. To paraphrase and twist Colonel Kurtz; put these people in charge and “our troubles here would be over very quickly.”

After several conversations, I was convinced that I should do a post, explaining what this effort was to be, what a “master plan” was and why the charter change vote made sense. In short, the charter change mandates the process that this forum marked the beginning of. However, as by the end of the day, the post I was considering had changed greatly.

Leaders spoke, and babbled about the “importance” of the effort. Planners and architects followed, stressing that this is to be the “implementation” phase of all the planning that went before. However, I found nothing about the planning that had gone before, other than a laughable chart of the many efforts that had preceded this one, and assurances that the other master plans out there would be “coordinated.”

And I was struck by one telling fact. At no time did anyone ever tell us what a “master plan” actually was; what it contained or what it did not contain, nor was there any mention of how the UNOP or any other effort was to be addressed, despite the fact that a large number of participants were veterans of this effort.

Then it was on to the ubiquitous round table with the same giant pad of paper and easel where we were urged to “brainstorm” and “think outside the box” and even more hackneyed clichés on such hard hitting issues as “how we live”. I'm not faulting the participants. I met some wonderful people from all over the city showing the kind of passion and respect for others that is what makes this city great.

But without guidance, these things usually turn into attempts to make a grocery store materialize out of thin air, reinvent the reinventing the crescent plan or school master plan or fill-in-the-blank plan, to save Mardi Gras Indian culture through rear yard setbacks, or better yet, bend the process into their personal vehicle for objecting to fill-in-the-blank. But that was not what bothered me.

By the end, I was beginning to get the queezy feeling that Goody Clancy’s ultimate goals are not results but simply planning for planning sake, that everything that had gone before was to be discarded and that I was facing the prospect of having to do it all over again. I have had all these conversations before, I have heard all these concerns.

It wasn't deja vu, it was fucking Groundhog Day. And I simply can’t stomach it again. By the time I got home all I could think, was that I had wasted an entire fucking day on this.

Deja Vu

2008-09-28T10:13:00.002-06:00

I really love how UNOP has become the butt of jokes in the bloggosphere. I find it even more interesting how it’s harshest critics are the ones who never participated in it (the cool kids were never going to hang out with the nerds, anyway), and could never lower themselves to…you know, actually read it. That would, of course, get in the way of the fun of trashing it and the geeks and nerds that actually participated in it.

I documented some of the process, and blogged information on the plan along the way. Here are some of the key posts if you are interested, but, again, that might spoil the fun of trashing it: Oct. 2006 Nov. 2006 Jan. 2007 Mar. 2007 May, 2007.

The irony is that even if the plan proved to be worthless (and far too many simply decided to treat it as such) the relationships and network of citizens, activists, and civic and neighborhood leaders that resulted have fundamentally altered the landscape of the city. The efforts of the local bloggers, championed recently at Rising Tide, would have never reached the level they have without these networks that had their genesis in the UNOP process. For that alone, the process, at least, deserves some respect.

But this is not what I am really wanting to blog about. But I think it needs to be said for context. What I want to blog about is about the latest planning deja vu as Adrastos calls it.

As an active citizen, neighborhood representative, “stakeholder” and all the other hackneyed clichés that come out of peoples mouths when placed before a microphone, I shleped down to Xavier for the first forum to create the city wide master plan. As the post has gotten a bit long, I am breaking it up, so stay tuned.

Drowning Man

2008-09-24T16:12:00.009-06:00

It seems there is a lot of blogging on the latest Louisiana lunacy. City Business first identified LaBruzzo’s modest proposal and Jeffery got the ball rolling.

Adrastos: calls it imbecility.

E: calls it 19th century craziness

Greg Peters has his own idea.

Varg asks questions.

Oyster's truck just isn’t going to be the same

Mr. Clio questions this big government solution

Cliff has his own question

Morwen gets all Ashley on it

Swampwoman finds it appaling

David looks on the bright side…big news cycle.

Aaron explains the geography

Clay calls the ploy

And Dambala quips “It never ceases to amaze me how protective Republicans are of human rights and human life, as long as the human lives in question are the ones that matter to them.”

For those who may have missed it, here it is from City Business:

State Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, fears Louisiana may be headed toward an economic crisis if the percentage of people dependent on the government is not decreased. His solution: pay impoverished women $1,000 to have their tubes tied so they will stop having babies they can’t afford.

Today the Times-Pic, hoping to co-opt the Stormfront (no link provided) comment section, got into the act in today’s rag with a “balanced” piece that elevated the idea to one worthy of some sort of twisted debate. This was quickly followed by talk radio looking to stir up all the race baiting fun the hot “controversy” has to offer.

Outside of the nuts and mouthbreathers, most immediately call it out as “racist” (”stupid” or other synonyms would run a close second, and “eugenics” would probably round out the top three) citing the loaded term LaBruzzo uses of “welfare” and directly mentioning those who required city-assisted evacuation. By virtue of the unerring accuracy of the idiot box, we know these people to be of a certain race, and I have no doubt what pictures were dancing in LaBruzzo’s head as the idea came to him.

But LaBruzzo wants us to know this isn’t about race. From City Business:

Despite the criticisms that have been leveled against him, LaBruzzo insists that voluntary sterilization has nothing to do with race.

"The majority of people on welfare in the nation are white. So the people making those arguments are less concerned with helping those people and more concerned trying to convince themselves that they're not prejudiced, that they're these wonderful, good people. The politically safe thing to do is to not touch this, but the train is potentially going off the cliff and everyone just wants to ignore the problem."

You see, I think LaBruzzo is actually correct, here. This isn’t about race. LaBruzzo goes on in the Times-Pic:

"It's easy to say, 'Oh, he's a racist, ' " LaBruzzo said. "The hard part is to sit down and think of some solutions."

As Varg's Q&A illustrates, LaBruzzo is quite light on the thinking himself.

Many have brought up Swift’s A Modest Proposal, as a counterpoint, but I believe Charles Dickens is a more suitable source. Had LaBruzzo been able to get past Dickens “liberal worldview” he might have discovered the wonders of the Poor Laws and Workhouses, which would be ideal for privatization. The Wikipedia article on the Poorhouse provides the key sentiment:

“In Victorian times…poverty was seen as a dishonorable state caused by a lack of the moral virtue of industriousness.”

That, my friend, is it in a nutshell. Throw in the “virtue” of the rich and all the social Darwinist clap-trap with a bit of Ayn Rand and you the mission statement of much of the right wing.

It isn’t about race in the same way that the people who were left to rot on their rooftops, in the Superdome and Convention center after Katrina just happened to be largely African-American. It was not the result of some kind of racist conspiracy. It was and is about the “moral failing” of a degenerate and dependent underclass which deserves neither help nor sympathy, and the toxic effect of this sentiment goes far beyond mere race, and doesn't end with the poor.

Note: This post has been continually updated with more local links

And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?...

Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

Chocolate Jesus

2008-09-23T12:51:00.003-06:00

I never thought much of the ubiquitous Hershey’s milk chocolate. Once I turned eleven or twelve years old, that brown crayon flavor and clingy syrupy sweetness just wasn’t moving me like it had. These days I find a certain 60% concoction to be quite a nice treat. I particularly enjoy the lingering cocoa aftertaste in contrast to the candle wax taste of Hersey’s fine products.

However, it now appears that the “brown crayon” slur may not be far off the mark. It appears the cocoa butter is now gone from the “milk chocolate” in many of Hershey’s products, as reported by msnbc, and that has cause a small wrinkle in the land of chocolate (not to be confused with Chocolate City).

According to the FDA, cocoa butter is considered one of the key ingredients of “milk chocolate” and therefore Hershey can't call it "milk chocolate" anymore. Of course, Hershey’s did like any major corporation did when they were caught with their pants down; they tried to get the definition changed (more at the Candyblog). However the checks evidently weren’t large enough. From the msnbc article:

“Chocolate lovers need not be alarmed about the future of their favorite product,” the FDA said in a consumer update. “Cacao fat, as one of the signature characteristics of the product, will remain a principal component of standardized chocolate.”

What in God’s green earth is “standardized chocolate” and why do I have the same reaction to it that I do when a restaurant has the word “family” in their name?

But here is the thing about the whole I find interesting: no one noticed.

The whole kerfuffle seems to be about the packaging. Apparently, “milk chocolate” has been so dumbed down by overprocessing and "standardization" that no one can tell the difference between it and “chocolate candy” or “made with chocolate” anymore. From the msnbc article:

“A lot of people don’t notice it. The package looks exactly the same”

This may be the biggest thing in food news since Velveeta was forced to call itself a "cheese product" rather than a “cheese food”.

I need some Tom Waits right now: