Ray, can you hear me now?

Mayor Ray Nagin, talking about setting up a citywide wi-fi network:

This is how technology fuels collaboration, allowing our best ideas to come together so we can speak with one voice.

Ray. Yes, Ray. Look. See, what good is a wi-fi network going to do if it just gets washed away by the next hurricane.

Ray, put your money where your mouth is. Start talking to Governor Blanco, Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu, Senators Mary Landrieu and David Vitter, (you could probably skip Congressman Bill Jefferson unless he's got about $30 billion in his freezer), and the rest of Louisiana's leadership. You see Ray, you don't need a wi-fi network to "speak with one voice."

What you've gotta do is stop hosting those stupid town hall meetings where you stroke your ego by telling irate residents that you understand what they're going through. Actually, no, I don't think you do know what people are going through, because if you did, then you'd be as pissed as they are that, 3 months after Hurricane Katrina, we still don't have a commitment to build up to Category 5 storm protection. We still don't have a plan in place to finance the rebuilding of the city. We still don't know how high to raise our houses, if, if we decide to risk rebuilding our homes and businesses. We still don't know if we have a functioning court and jails to prosecute looters, drug dealers, and murderers. You are still conspicuously silent about the public school crisis.

In short Ray, you're a lousy mayor, and no wi-fi network is going to divert attention from the far more serious problems, and decisions, that this city's residents are confronting.