People Get Ready

Moving

2006-12-27T18:31:00.000-08:00

Looks like I'm going to complete the transition off of Blogger.

~~Please visit People Get Ready at WordPress.~~

1/02/07 update:

~~Maybe moving ... ???~~

6/05/07 update:

Here ... here ... LOOK HERE for the new home for People Get Ready!

Merry Katrina Christmas, 2006

2006-12-22T06:43:00.000-08:00

New Orleans' free wifi rollout

2006-12-21T07:35:00.000-08:00

The official announcement.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | Rebuild New Orleans | Media Democracy

Going underground

2006-12-15T23:14:00.000-08:00

The last-minute mayor

2006-12-15T06:18:00.000-08:00

Raise the volume: Raze corporate media

2006-12-14T07:31:00.000-08:00

As New Orleans goes, so goes the nation

2006-12-13T06:44:00.000-08:00

We all sink or swim together

2006-12-12T09:14:00.000-08:00

WordPress vs. Blogger evaluation

2006-12-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

I'm still evaluating WordPress as a new host for People Get Ready.

When the road leads nowhere

2006-12-11T10:32:00.000-08:00

Let's talk about the racial thing, again

2006-12-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

"Mommy and daddy, why did you vote for the crook?"

2006-12-10T14:51:00.000-08:00

Cynicism wins in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana loses

2006-12-09T22:03:00.000-08:00

I'm not supporting carpetbaggers anymore

2006-12-09T17:20:00.000-08:00

Since I’ve been called an elitist …

2006-12-07T06:03:00.000-08:00

Left Behind: The story of the New Orleans Public School System

2006-12-06T06:23:00.000-08:00

Urge Congress to support revenue sharing for Louisiana

2006-12-06T06:19:00.000-08:00

Republicans can't "get-r done" for Louisiana

2006-12-05T22:34:00.000-08:00

The Dollar Bill printing press

2006-12-05T15:50:00.000-08:00

The Dollar Bill printing press 2nd run

2006-12-05T06:49:00.000-08:00

Do we really need two mayors?

2006-12-04T10:48:00.000-08:00

"And you didn't punch her in the face?"

2006-12-04T06:23:00.000-08:00

"We shall beat our plowshares into swords"

2006-11-30T22:12:00.000-08:00

WIST is an "entertainment" station

2006-11-30T05:42:00.000-08:00

On Wisconsin

2006-11-28T20:16:00.000-08:00

I'm back from my trip to Wisconsin.

Tinky Winky attends economic summit in Hanoi

2006-11-20T05:24:00.000-08:00

Don't buy cypress mulch

2006-11-17T13:49:00.000-08:00

Is commercial radio listening to you?

2006-11-15T21:41:00.000-08:00

Kill corporate media

2006-11-15T06:30:00.000-08:00

No harm done when you're already braindead

2006-11-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

Better dead than blue

2006-11-12T08:50:00.000-08:00

How corporate control kills media democracy

2006-11-10T13:26:00.000-08:00

Whoring for WWL

2006-11-10T05:59:00.000-08:00

Dems win, Entercom kills progressive talk

2006-11-09T06:01:00.000-08:00

"Don't let Mark Foley pat your ass on the way out!"

2006-11-08T06:27:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning feeling like an American again.

"Please do something"

2006-11-07T04:45:00.000-08:00

Today.

"He's a ruthless little bastard"

2006-11-06T06:35:00.000-08:00

Vote for a Democrat in your district on November 7th.

Got neighborhoods?

2006-11-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

Here.

EarthLink drumroll ...

2006-11-03T23:21:00.000-08:00

Here.

John Kerry is a two-time loser

2006-11-03T06:06:00.000-08:00

Here.

How does your Blogger blow?

2006-11-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

I'm testing out WordPress, trying to decide if I'll permanently migrate People Get Ready. WordPress imported all of my Blogger posts remarkably efficiently. It took about two minutes to step through the import wizard. After that, WordPress churned through a year and a half of posts for about an hour. When it was all over, I discovered that the formatting was altered in Blogger, and that Blogger blocks it's images from being displayed outside of Blogger. That last detail alone pisses me off enough to want to switch, but I may be wedded to Blogger if I don't want to redo all the images on WordPress.

Why am I thinking about switching? I'm getting pretty fed up with delays caused by problems like these:

11/03/06 update:

It appears that WordPress may not be as robust as I might wish. I'm also experiencing slow page loads, just as I have seen in Blogger.

Sean Payton for mayor

2006-11-02T06:51:00.000-08:00

Here.

Halloween 2006

2006-11-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

Here.

Happy Halloween

2006-10-31T06:31:00.000-08:00

Be on the lookout for Ray Nagin handing out "Dollar Bills" from an ice chest.

This was what Halloween was like last year, just two months after Hurricane Katrina.

"We have more than that at the 4:00 mass on Saturday"

2006-10-30T06:48:00.000-08:00

That was Community Support Organization advisor Terrel Broussard's reaction to the level of participation at the last Unified New Orleans Plan district-level meetings. He added that if more people don't start showing up for planning meetings, the legitimacy of the process may be questioned.

The solution: UNOP managers Steve Bingler and Troy Henry are revolutionizing civic participation in New Orleans with the "21st Century Town Meeting®".

Another problem with civic participation, according to WWL's Garland Robinette, is people who scream and shout at public meetings. Well, Bingler and Henry have seen to taking care of that.

It's important to ask exactly who Robinette is referring to in his imagined world, who is being affected by the approach Bingler and Henry are using to engage citizens, and critically, if any group of people benefits over others.

Robinette disparaged civic participation, falsely, on WWL Thursday while interviewing Bingler and Henry on the Unified New Orleans Plan process (right-click to download the mp3 recording -- another essential interview not available on the WWL archive).

When the Bring New Orleans Back Commission aired their final report -- and it was a public meeting -- you could barely hear what the report was about because of the protestors that came up to the microphone. And this, I would think, is as volatile as the BNOB thing. How do you control that part. How do you communicate along these lines. The people that plan on coming to the Saturday meeting, are they gonna hear a lot of screaming and shouting, or facts and figures and what's being done?

Funny ... I don't remember seeing Robinette at the last BNOB meeting. And I don't remember "protestors" screaming and shouting over the presenters. True, there were some angry people with legitimate concerns about the BNOB plans, but everyone used the public comment period granted after the formal presentations for those frustrations to be expressed, and they adhered to the two-minute time limit.

It's useful to recall that the BNOB plans were drawn up without civic participation. Whatever the merits of its recommendations, and despite participation by the intellectual and business elite of New Orleans, citizens weren't polled to reveal what they wanted to happen in their neighborhoods before the BNOB plans were completed.

It may be true that some people stand up at some public meetings and rant. I'd say the problem is more that it's the only time they feel like they've been allowed to meaningfully participate in a political process. By the time they get to a microphone, all they can do is vent all that pent up frustration -- and that is a failure of the political process in a profound way. There ought to be a better way to channel people's thoughts and feelings before they get in front of a microphone.

Which leads me to the Unified New Orleans Plan process. Bingler and Henry claim to have a solution to orderly civic participation in the AmericaSpeaks "21st Century Town Meeting®":

AmericaSpeaks’ 21st Century Town Meeting Town Meeting restores the citizens’ voice in public decision making by creating an opportunity for the general public to give those in leadership positions direct, substantive feedback on key public issues. Each meeting effectively restores the balance of the 'political playing field' by engaging thousands of general interest citizens at a time (up to 5,000 per meeting), effectively and quickly summarizing citizen input and widely disseminating the results through media coverage. AmericaSpeaks’ role as neutral convener increases confidence among citizens and decision-makers that the content, process and outcomes are fair and balanced.

Considering the results at Saturday's Community Congress, I'm unimpressed. I don't find the use of technology to collect citizen input as the problem. I merely question its utility and accuracy when there's extremely limited participation. That's not necessarily AmericaSpeaks' problem, but I would think that the non-profit would be concerned about participation, and establish, minimally, an acceptable statistical threshold of representative participation. Instead, the organization may be more interested in using New Orleans as a proving ground for its methodology than in making sure the outcome is demonstrably robust. From the outset, AmericaSpeaks may be, intentionally or not, misrepresenting the current character of New Orleans. For the organization to claim that "more than 100,000 New Orleanians ... have not returned to their city following Hurricane Katrina" when the actual number is twice or three times as large, is about as accurate as saying that more than 10 people have returned.

In the WWL interview, Bingler said that 1500 people turned out for the 13 planning district meetings across the city on October 14th, with attendance as low as 75 in some districts, and up to 200 in others. Compared to over 100,000 homes destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people still homeless, 1500 is a pitiful number. Nevertheless, gullible Robinette accepted Bingler's response that, thanks to Bingler's "polls," he could say that the few who attended those meetings were representative of the demographic cross-section of those districts. Really? I wouldn't say that Bingler's claimed complexion of the District 4 planning meeting I attended reflected the actual demographic character of District 4.

It's true that at Saturday's Community Congress, instead of the emotional outbursts Robinette imagined, thanks to AmericaSpeaks, there were people participating in "even-handed input" using a "set of interactive, very simple keypads ... to express preferences and priorities associated with a number of different areas." On the other hand, the people who attended aren't the types who normally feel disenfranchised from the political process. It's also true that the questions people were asked to answer were extremely banal. Of course people want good schools and hospitals.

What was immediately apparent walking in the door was that there were a lot of empty tables (which might be considered an improvement from previous venue fiascos), and that of the 200 to 250 people in the room (far fewer than the 1500 at the last citywide meetings), about a third were AmericaSpeaks facilitators, planners, or students monitoring the process. As Michelle Krupa reported in The Times-Picayune from actual AmericaSpeaks participant poll results, the vast majority were relatively wealthy white residents from dry neighborhoods, compared to about a 67 percent black population in New Orleans pre-Katrina, having an average income of less than $30,000.

Now, imagine that January 15th rolls around and the citywide UNOP plan emerges, but there's more investment going to well-off, predominantly white neighborhoods, than to poor black neighborhoods. Imagine what that could do to the process.

Rather than balancing the political playing field to create a fair outcome, by empowering a minority population with the ability to make decisions about what will happen for the majority, AmericaSpeaks may actually be creating the conditions, and the evidence, for a process that may be criticized as illegitimate if the rest of the population disagrees with the outcome.

And what of the use of multiple choice responses fed into a process using keypads. Is the use of technology in the planning process a pancacea, or the latest filter to control opinion and outcomes by controlling access to the machinery of decision making, and hence, access to money and power?

What is the message to people who have more to say than what they're permitted to input in a keypad? For some people, the message may be that their story isn't important. Their voice isn't important. UNOP isn't interested in the fact that they feel like they haven't been heard before. UNOP isn't interested in anything they have to say, or scream or shout if they feel that's what they need to do. The only acceptable input is to enter preferences into a keypad, and the menu of choices to think about will be supplied. Once those preferences are indicated, they'll be posted on a Web site. It's all there for everyone to see (eventually) on the Web site (if you can find it). Of course everyone I've met whose involved in the UNOP process cares about the people struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina, but the process design may send a message of disinterest or disregard.

It might be that the Community Congress isn't an appropriate venue for people to comment on the process -- that the Community Congress is an opportunity to vote on a narrow range of planning choices. Still, the "21st Century Town Meeting®" sounds like a whole lotta mumbo jumbo for what we in the United States have for over 200 years more popularly called a ballot box.

No, no, no. We've outlived that antiquated technology. As Steven Bingler can frequently be heard to say, in apology for poorly-planned meetings that collapse into chaos and accomplish little of substance, "somebody once said democracy's a very messy process." No, he can't remember who said that. It might have been him, as a way to ameliorate his own failure to create the conditions for public input in an organized manner (it has also been said that it may be personal style to create chaos as a way to divide and conquer in forums with potentially contentious groups). It certainly may be true that issues can be controversial and emotional, but the means to decide on those issues without bloodshed and chaos absolutely do exist, and have worked for over 200 years in this country, as long as the affected participants feel like they've had a fair playing field to express their views.

It's all wires and chips and keypads and groupware and passing information and receiving information and a bunch of gratuitous terminology to make modern civic participation sound sophisticated. But civic participation using paper and ballot boxes doesn't require high-tech contracts. It only requires the large-scale participation of an informed public, a box to collect their preferences, and fair counting. The same problem that renders ballot box elections illegitimate, however, appears to be plaguing the UNOP/AmericaSpeaks process: Participation.

I'd like to call for the use of a technology that's not quite as antiquated as the ballot box, which isn't trademarked, and which may be more helpful with public participation: Buses.

I have to question the expenditure of $2.3 million on a "21st Century Town Meeting®" when it might be more effective, and a better guarantee of participation, to send planners out to the places where New Orleans residents have been displaced, or to bring those residents to planning meetings in New Orleans. It may be true, as was mentioned at the Thursday UNOP Community Support Organization meeting, that planners will eventually be sent to "diaspora" cities. I just wish that mass transit were built into the process a long time ago -- like before the UNOP process began -- like right after Hurricane Katrina -- and for that vision failure, I place blame, and shame, on Ray Nagin, who still doesn't seem to understand what's going on, and how buses could be part of the solution for the city's problems.

It's important to try to understand the reasons why participation in the planning process has been so low. It's true that over 200,000 New Orleanians are still displaced far outside the city. That's a problem Concordia should try to resolve through outreach. But there are other factors. People are working. They have busy schedules. They may need transportation. They have families, and children who may need child care. A lot of people I've talked to simply can't attend some of these meetings when they're scheduled. Maybe more than one meeting place and time needs to be made available.

Loyola professor Virginia Olander wrote an opinion which was printed in the Times-Picayune on Saturday in which she mentioned how teachers need to understand Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs when they go into a classroom. Teachers can't teach effectively if they're competing for the attention of kids whose basic needs for sleep and food and stable homes aren't being met. It's the third time I've heard Maslow's Hierarchy mentioned since Hurricane Katrina. Lisa and Valerie have both mentioned it too. It's true -- a lot of people are just struggling to survive. They may not be able to afford the luxury of attending planning meetings, and may expect that someone will look out for them to make sure that planning for their neighborhoods' recovery will be taken care of.

I talked to a pair of black women from the Treme neighborhood as they were exiting the Community Congress. They weren't exactly critical of people who couldn't be there, but they did say that if it were important enough, people would be there. They seemed to be placing blame on citizens themselves, but it's also important to recognize that both women were living in their houses. Others may not be so lucky as to have a house they can live in right now, in particular if they were renters before. On the other hand -- as it occurred to me later -- they might also have been inferring that the planning meetings, like the Community Congress, were lacking in the type of substance that would attract many people.

Then one of the women said, "they can have a second line here, but they can't make a meeting." They're right. There have been some very well-attended second line parades in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. At the same time, both women suggested I should try to understand better what people are experiencing. They both underscored how hard they've worked to fix their homes, and how hard they were working to plan the rebuilding of the city. They expected the same level of commitment from others.

I think the second line comment merits investigation. Why is it that people can attend a second line but not a planning meeting? Is it that their informal communications networks are more effective than UNOP's more traditional outreach approach to date? Is it that second line parades are considered more valuable as community building experiences than official planning meetings? Do official planners understand how to communicate with these people? Apparently not -- and who could blame them. The Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs are fairly secretive operations -- or at least fairly inaccessible to the outsider. But precisely because of the strength of those organizations, it might be a good idea for Concordia to tap into those parade networks -- maybe hire some club leaders to stimulate interest in upcoming planning events, or move planners into those networks to conduct planning activities.

It shouldn't take months to figure out this stuff. I'm not saying the job of outreach is easy or obvious. I just wish we could stop hearing excuses for the lack of participation, and I wish it were stated openly what the consequences of low participation rates may have on the perceived legitimacy of the process later. Instead, it seems we were treated to the Henry-Lukensmeyer corporate team-building show, with each in turn running onstage to shake hands, and calling for the audience to give rounds of applause to various speakers.

I'd like to see Concordia not just apologize for the shortcomings of the planning process it's managing, but start to actually deliver on its promises of more participation, and more transparency. And when it promises to make available what it says is one of the most important deliverables in its celebrated extensive data collection process, the Recovery Data Atlas, citizens ought to be able to see it before they're expected to use it. The atlas wasn't available as promised before the Community Congress, nor at the Community Congress, nor on the UNOP Web site (still). Citizens were told at the Thursday CSO meeting that the atlas wouldn't be available on time because it was so good, and Concordia wanted to surprise everyone at the Community Congress. We're still waiting to be surprised.

I'm beginning to think that everything Concordia says now is just a ruse to disguise either unintended incompetence, or intended negligence. I'd prefer the former, but neither is acceptable. It's unfortunate that I have to characterize the process that way, because we all want to see the citywide planning effort succeed in an inclusive manner, but I'm just reporting what I see and what I hear.

It's long overdue time for change in the way things are done in this city. What Robinette imagines as the way things have been done, are instead symptoms of the way things have been done. It's time to address the real problems, not the symptoms -- imagined or otherwise.

Who but an urban planner would know how to solve problems, how to make order out of chaos, and how to gather public opinion in an effective manner? Where problems arise, analysis occurs, and the problems are solved.

Turning Bingler's frequent refrain upside down, the results of a democratic process may be "messy" (or politically difficult), but the process doesn't have to be. The process should justify the results -- not the other way around.

As for improving levels of civic participation, there may be hope (maybe Concordia is starting to get it right). As I was leaving the Convention Center, a woman stopped in the road in her Chevy Avalanche to ask me if there was a meeting in there somewhere. I said yes, but the meeting was over. She seemed extremely concerned that she missed it. I observed that she had piles of clothes and other personal possessions in the cab and bed of the SUV, including a kitchen sink. It occurred to me that she might be one of many New Orleanians still living in their cars for lack of anywhere else to go. As she got out of her SUV, I noticed she was wearing hospital scrubs -- so she was working. She admitted as much, and said that she was extremely busy, so she regretted she couldn't attend the meeting. She didn't really understand that it was a neighborhood planning meeting, but she knew somehow that she needed to be there. She asked a lot of questions, so I left her with a flyer and the 877 number to call. Like me, however, she doesn't subscribe to cable TV (hard to do if you're living out of a truck), so she won't be able to participate in the broadcast AmericaSpeaks forums. I suspect she'll be at the next meeting if it's scheduled at a time and place that doesn't conflict with her schedule.

10/30/06 update:

Among the participants I saw walking out of the meeting was Bishop O.C. Coleman from Greater Light Ministries. His entourage of four was far less than one might expect from a self-appointed leader in the community. Where were the buses Bishop Coleman? Coleman was reported to have donated $10,000 to Ray Nagin's re-election campaign. His company, Management Construction Consultant Inspection Inc., received $2.5 million after Hurricane Katrina to inspect the city's sewer and water systems, but MCCI wasn't incorporated until December 2005. A federal grand jury investigation of Coleman and his associate, Rev. Benjamin Edwards, is underway into corruption in the awarding of Sewerage and Water Board contracts to MCCI. Edwards sits on the Sewerage and Water Board. He admitted to spending $269,000 on radio ads and billboards to get Nagin re-elected. Meanwhile, Coleman's "False Prophets" page is still under construction.

Becky Houtman -- The Ballroom Speaks

PGR -- New this fall: Citizen clowns do back flips in the planning fake democracy circus reality show

3/25/2006 Community Gumbo

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED NO END IN SIGHT

2006-10-27T06:11:00.000-07:00

Please tell me I didn't just hear WWL's Garland Robinette say we should nuke Iraq!

2006-10-27T06:06:00.000-07:00

"Low-level nukes," he said.

I couldn't get through on the phone to demand that WWL apologize, or fire Robinette.

It's the second time in a couple of weeks that he's suggested the United States should actually consider using nuclear weapons.

The first time was in a conversation a couple of weeks ago when Robinette asked a guest if bombing Iran with nuclear weapons was an option.

Robinette opened up the phone lines on Wednesday's ~~"think tank"~~ toilet tank to ask listeners what the United States should do about Iraq -- stay the course, win the war, or pull out.

In his little tirade -- using that phony, deep-throated radio voice he projects to feign a self-righteous, educated opinion -- Robinette asked ad nauseum why the United States wouldn't just do whatever it has to do to win the war.

He characterized Iraq, and the entire Arab world, as filled with Islamic-crazed terrorists, suggesting that the only way to defeat them, is to hit them hard, over and over again, and to keep pushing them back.

What he fails to recognize is that it is that very attitude which is used to recruit more terrorists. If there's anything we should know by now, it's that the United States can never win hearts and souls by bombing the shit out of poor brown people. What he fails to conjure in his feeble mind is the notion that a lot of those people he's talking about nuking aren't terrorists, but don't want the sort of "freedom" or death tradeoff the United States is offering at the end of a rifle. Maybe Iraqis question the intentions of the United States, since we are the reason why "freedom" wasn't an option for them for over thirty years while the United States propped up Saddam Hussein. Maybe we're the terrorists Mr. Robinette!

Bottom line: People who suggest that we "nuke" countries lack the education and restraint to host radio shows broadcast across the United States, and as Mr. Robinette likes to advertise, streamed on the internet around the world.

Part of the problem is that hate radio has been allowed now for almost twenty years, ever since Ronald Reagan killed the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987.

The Fairness Doctrine was a quaint FCC policy which Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party argued was limiting debate. What they really meant, was that the Fairness Doctrine limited their radical, right-wing views from being aired, because they would be immediately challenged and lampooned.

Witness the rise of Rush Limbaugh since 1987. Has debate on issues increased? Of course, you'd have to know what broadcast debates were like before 1987, but we could still ask the question, do broadcasters present their views, minimally with objective facts to support their arguments, or do they just ram the American public with the day's talking points to achieve partisan goals? If we still had the Fairness Doctrine, for example, would any broadcaster have allowed unchallenged Rush Limbaugh's statement that Michael J. Fox was opportunistically faking his Parkinson's symptoms to promote stem cell research?

Is it any wonder why the American middle class doesn't feel like it's being represented in the public sphere when people like Rush Limbaugh occupy the public air waves with their hate-filled rants and inconsequential filthy partisan attacks?

It's people like Rush Limbaugh who have trained an entirely new generation of broadcasters to promote the view that public participation in politics is futile.

And exactly who is served by that view?

WWL's "Spud" McConnell is worse. He's just a fat redneck hick. He still seems to think that Iraq attacked us on 9/11, and he projects the view that if anyone criticizes (i.e., Rush Limbaugh's arch-rival, Ted Kennedy) the Bush administration's incompetence in the execution of the war in Iraq, it could only mean that those critics are playing into the hands of the terrorists, rather than that they're trying to save American soldiers' lives:

We can't just pull out. I'd rather it be there than here. When you're own political opponents in your country say things, and they are quoted by our enemies ... If I were Ted Kennedy, and they were quoting me ... we're still Americans. I don't know.

Shut your fat ass Spud! Idiot! And by the way, if "you'd" rather be there than here, why don't you enlist?

It's people like Rush Limbaugh, Spud McConnell, and Garland Robinette -- all on WWL -- who are dumbing down civic discussion in our country. That's WWL's secret -- that it promotes an image of professionalism, when in actuality broadcasts programs hosted by dim-witted partisan hacks.

In a conversation with Bobby Jindal the other day, rather than ask Jindal why his OCS revenue legislation failed, and why Mary Landrieu was more successful in promoting her legislation, WWL's Tommy Tucker suggested that Jindal was somehow impaired by the democratic process.

When Jindal conveniently bypassed talking about why critics in other coastal states don't like the fact that Jindal's legislation because it would open up their coasts to oil drilling, he suggested that the reality was that he wasn't going to listen to critics, but was going to do what was right for Louisiana.

"The key word is 'reality'" said Tucker, "the reality of Washington, rather than what you read in your civics books."

Right -- we should burn those civics books and give the Hitler salute!

Again, who is served by disparaging civic participation in our democratic process? Hint: It ain't middle America.

We need to reintroduce the expression "I rightfully disagree" into our vernacular. We need the Fairness Doctrine restored, and we need to confiscate the licenses of broadcasters who spew hatred over our airwaves.

I frequently tolerate WWL because, tragically, in a broad spectrum of radio licenses in New Orleans, there is no other alternative for talk radio where local newsmakers are heard.

I'm afraid that other people just give up on radio altogether, conceding a powerful medium of communication to the purveyors of stupidity and hatred.

We can't give up. We have to fight back.

There is no place for the purveyors of hate-filled speech to exclusively own the means of mass communication in our democracy.

Related:

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting -- The Fairness Doctrine: How We Lost it, and Why We Need it Back

PBS' Now -- What Happened to Fairness?

Alternet -- Time for a Digital Fairness Doctrine

"Get as much of it as you can get your hands on."

2006-10-26T21:14:00.000-07:00

"Buy dirt!"

It's Ray Nagin again, telling a contractor recently to buy real estate in New Orleans, because "dirt in New Orleans is like gold."

It makes me wonder, yet again, (as Dambala pointed out) why Ray Nagin is hesitating to engage pro-actively in a process of recovery that guarantees people can get back into their homes. At the same time, he's joined his former campaign finance director David White in what looks like it could only be a real estate venture, AFO Investments.

So exactly who stands to benefit from Nagin's market-based recovery philosophy -- where the wealthy are allowed to profit from the plight of the poor?

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | America's Wetland | Ray Nagin | Worst Mayor Ever | Recall Ray Nagin | Rebuild New Orleans | We Are Not OK | Katrina Dissidents | Failure Is Not An Option

Overexposed

2006-10-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

This almost falls into the pain perdu category, but it really merits attention. It might be the understatement of the year from "our [boneless] mayor":

I am overexposed.

Isn't it curious for an invisible mayor to acknowledge that he has a bad image?

Ray Nagin made the statement in order to put an end to the lobbying effort by Rev. Ben Edwards Sr., at a recent Sewerage & Water Board meeting, to have images of "our mayor" posted in the SW&B building, along with images of board members. Edwards has been a Sewerage & Water Board member since former mayor Sydney Bartholomew appointed him.

Edwards spent $269,250 on radio and billboard ads to help Ray Nagin get re-elected, calling the financial support an "independent expenditure." Hmmm ... if it were an "independent expenditure," shouldn't his ties to the Nagin administration be questioned? I wonder if Nagin's opponent in the mayor's race, Mitch Landrieu, could have gotten some of that "independent expenditure" support from Edwards?

Where does a "reverend" get that kind of money to support political candidates?

God gave it to him, of course. God probably also told him that he wanted Ray Nagin to be the mayor of New Orleans again.

It's also possible that Edwards paid for the ads with bad checks.

I wonder if the sheep in Reverend Edwards flock support his political choices.

And shouldn't the reverend's "ministry" lose its 501(c)(3) status if it engages in political activity?

From a previous PGR post:

Edwards is also in a key position on the Sewerage and Water Board, where he has used his position to steer contracts to friends like Bishop O.C. Coleman of Greater Light Ministries. Coleman, oddly enough, is a principal in a company that does business with the Sewerage and Water Board, Management Construction Consultant Inspection Inc., or MCCI.

Morial, who is the subject of a grand jury investigation, has defended Edwards from critics, saying he likes Edwards' style of stirring things up and of pressuring the S&WB to hire minority firms (no word which minority firms). I have no doubt Morial liked Edwards, in particular if the reverend stirred things up for Morial in the same denominations as he did for Nagin.

Edwards has been on the road, visiting six cities in seven days. Asked what he was doing on those trips, TP reporters Michelle Krupa and Frank Donze wrote that Edwards "burst into a lengthy belly laugh," repeating the line, "we just travel a lot," five times. That sounds like nervous behavior.

Watch for images of Dollar Bill Jefferson around the country. Nagin endorsed Jefferson, despite a federal bribery investigation of Jefferson. Edwards wouldn't say if he was working on Jefferson's behalf, saying he wouldn't reveal who he was supporting until after the 2nd Congressional District election on Novmber 7th.

I'm certain of at least one thing -- Edwards' behavior couldn't be overexposed enough!

Both Edwards and Jefferson are on the PGR tar-and-feather list.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | America's Wetland | Bush is a moron | Impeach Bush | George W Bush | Bush | Worst President Ever | Ray Nagin | Worst Mayor Ever | Recall Ray Nagin | Rebuild New Orleans | We Are Not OK | Katrina Dissidents | Failure Is Not An Option | Katrina One Year Anniversary

The New York Times is for Louisiana

2006-10-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

2,803 American soldiers killed in Iraq

2006-10-24T19:27:00.000-07:00

There have now been 2,803 American soldiers killed in Iraq, 21,077 injured (not counting those suffering psychologically), and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and injured.

Nearly $337 billion has been spent to date in Iraq. About a half trillion has been allocated for the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Veteran John Shuler wrote:

Most Bush backers are cowardly chickenhawks who love to talk about kicking our enemies' butts as long as someone else is doing the kicking. Have a Republican senator seriously bring up the subject of the draft, and Bush's base of flag-waving patriots will evaporate.

The young Republicans' motto is, "You go join the Army; I'm too busy studying to be the next Jack Abramoff."

If you doubt that many young conservative Republicans will serve in the military now, offer them a ride to the nearest Army recruiting station.

I have no doubts about my patriotic credentials. I don't have to wave a flag, and I don't have to put a magnet on my truck.

Bush's cracking facade

2006-10-24T06:31:00.000-07:00

What do you call a long, multi-year flip-flop?

BUSH: We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We’re just going to stay the course. [12/15/03]

BUSH: And so we’ve got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course. [4/5/04]

BUSH: And my message today to those in Iraq is: We’ll stay the course. [4/13/04]

BUSH: And that’s why we’re going to stay the course in Iraq. And that’s why when we say something in Iraq, we’re going to do it. [4/16/04]

BUSH: We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. [8/4/05]

BUSH: We will stay the course. [8/30/06]

Now that the Republican party is imploding on its own corruption, hypocrisy, and lies, now that the cherry-picked "intelligence" has been revealed to be a neocon sack of lies thrust upon the American public to drag 2,799 American soldiers in Iraq to their graves, now that it's clear that the flowers and democracy promised by Iraq's "liberation" turned out to be brambles and civil war, now that George W. Bush will go down in history as the worst president ever ...

BUSH: Well, listen, we've never been "stay the course", George. We have been, "We will complete the mission, we will do our job and help achieve the goal, but we're constantly adjusting the tactics." [ABC This Week, 8/22/06]

This is what it looks like when Tony Snow-job, the Fox News neocon Newspeak director embedded in the White House, tries to explain the nuances of this muffaletta-sized flip-flop.

Isn't it funny how a policy shift is a nuanced position when it's used to defend a miserable president, but it's a "flip-flop" when it can be used to attack his opponents?

Meanwhile, Bush apologists like Bill "falafel" O'Reilly continue their attempts to make Bush look like an average Joe -- as though that's good enough for the most powerful office on the planet -- rather than an incompetent monkeyass who sold the people's house to his frat of draft-dodging little ~~Hitlers~~ Mussolinis (at least Hitler was competent) so they could take another swing at creating a global empire.

Nobody knows how Iraq will play out in the two years the president has left in office. But what I can tell you is that he is committed to the fight and believes in it with all his heart.

Is that enough for victory? It's impossible to tell. But I'm praying it is.

Compare the following two photos to see how Bush apologists like O'Reilly handle the monkeyboy preznit.

The caption for first photo, posted next to a Bill O'Reilly column:

A spry President Bush hops out of a vehicle last week before boarding Air Force One to attend a fundraiser. O’Reilly says the president is secure in his commitment to Iraq.

The second photo shows close up just what that "spry" northeastern cowboy really looks like trying to "hop" off of his saddle.

Now that Bush is talking about changing course, it's stunningly ironic that even some Iraqi officials are starting to criticize the possibility of troop withdrawal as cutting and running -- the same tactic used by Bush administration when it was criticized for having no plan other than "stay the course." Of course, Iraqi officials have a reason to be concerned. They'll be left trying to fix a nation quickly disintegrating into civil war.

Bill Maher recently smacked down the neocon cabal represented by organizations like the Project for a New Century and The Heritage Foundation (video):

And finally, new rule in two parts: (A) You can't call yourself a think tank if all your ideas are stupid; and (B) If you're someone from one of these think tanks that dreamed up the Iraq War and who predicted that we'd be greeted as liberators, and that we wouldn't need a lot of troops, and that Iraqi oil would pay for the war, that the WMD's would be found, that the looting wasn't problematic, that the mission was accomplished, that the insurgency was in its last throes, that things would get better after the people voted, after the government was formed, after we got Saddam, after we got his kids, after we got Zarqawi, and that whole bloody mess wouldn't turn into a civil war, you have to stop making predictions.

Active-Duty Troops Launch Campaign to Press Congress to End U.S. Occupation of Iraq (HT: The Katrinacrat).

"A buzzing fluorescent light that you can't turn off"

2006-10-24T06:23:00.000-07:00

For my money, it's his best column ever (it might be his longest as well).

I actually met Chris Rose and his wife Kelly years ago at a popular restaurant they frequented before they were married. She's a magnificent woman anyway, but for her to stand by him while they both struggled with his descent into illness -- and back -- she's earned bonus points in heaven. She's a keeper, and I know Chris is good to her. He became a changed person around her.

There isn't a honey-do list long enough to reward that kind of loyalty Chris!

I've both celebrated and criticized his columns in this forum, but he's earned the journalist's "get-out-of-jail-free card" with this last column.

Nice job Chris. Thank you for your courage in going public with your illness -- your "brainstorm" -- and for your effort to shed light on the misconceptions. Thank you for doing it so eloquently. And thank you for explaining that medication doesn't have to mean a change in the way one sees the world.

I only wish you might have clarified further how every person's "brainstorm" is different, how the side effects of medication are sometimes intolerable, and in no way is suicide the inevitable outcome for every person. You also missed another major issue. Symptomatic of the "brainstorm" illness is the logical opposite of depression: mania. It's in fact one of the reasons why some people don't want to get off the roller coaster. The inspiration that comes from the "lows", as well as the "highs", is difficult to let go. And in any discussion about this type of illness in which people can function -- nominally -- fairly well in society, it should be remembered that nobody is "normal".

Still, I can't recall the last time I've read such a courageous personal testimony, and I sincerely hope your treatment continues to work for you.

Chris Rose, "Hell and Back" (my emphasis):

I stopped talking to Kelly, my wife. She loathed me, my silences, my distance, my inertia.

I stopped walking my dog, so she hated me, too. The grass and weeds in my yard just grew and grew.

I stopped talking to my family and my friends. I stopped answering phone calls and e-mails. I maintained limited communication with my editors to keep my job but I started missing deadlines anyway. ...

Hopeless, helpless and unable to function. A mind shutting down and taking the body with it. A pain not physical but not of my comprehension and always there, a buzzing fluorescent light that you can't turn off. ...

In his book "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" -- the best literary guide to the disease that I have found -- the writer William Styron recounted his own descent into and recovery from depression, and one of the biggest obstacles, he said, was the term itself, what he calls "a true wimp of a word." ...

"Told that someone's mood disorder has evolved into a storm -- a veritable howling tempest in the brain, which is indeed what a clinical depression resembles like nothing else -- even the uninformed layman might display sympathy rather than the standard reaction that 'depression' evokes, something akin to 'So what?' or 'You'll pull out of it' or 'We all have bad days.'"

Styron is a helluva writer. His words were my life. I was having one serious brainstorm. Hell, it was a brain hurricane, Category 5. But what happens when your own personal despair starts bleeding over into the lives of those around you?

What happens when you can't get out of your car at the gas station even when you're out of gas? Man, talk about the perfect metaphor. ...

I started talking to Kelly about plans -- a word lacking from my vocabulary for months. Plans for the kids at school, extracurricular activities, weekend vacations. I had not realized until that moment that while stuck in my malaise, I had had no vision of the future whatsoever.

I wasn't planning anything. It was almost like not living. ...

Measuring depression is not like measuring blood sugar. You don't hit a specified danger level on a test and then you're pronounced depressed. It is nuance and interpretation and there is still a lot of guesswork involved.

But here's my doctor's take: The amount of cortisol in my brain increased to dangerous levels. The overproduction, in turn, was blocking the transmission of serotonin and norepinephrine.

Some definitions: Cortisol is the hormone produced in response to chronic stress. Serotonin and norepinephrine are neurotransmitters -- chemical messengers -- that mediate messages between nerves in the brain, and this communication system is the basic source of all mood and behavior.

The chemistry department at the University of Bristol in England has a massive Web database for serotonin, titled, appropriately: "The Molecule of Happiness."

And I wasn't getting enough. My brain was literally shorting out. The cells were not properly communicating. Chemical imbalances, likely caused by increased stress hormones -- cortisol, to be precise -- were dogging the work of my neurotransmitters, my electrical wiring. A real and true physiological deterioration had begun.

I had a disease.

This I was willing to accept. Grudgingly, for it ran against my lifelong philosophy of self-determination.

dangerblond -- living on a thin line

Gentilly Girl -- PTSD or Katrina Syndrome?

Ray in New Orleans - III

New this fall: Citizen clowns do back flips in the planning fake democracy circus reality show

2006-10-23T04:40:00.000-07:00

What do planners do behind the scenes in the post-Katrina citywide Unified New Orleans Plan rebuilding process?

Who the hell knows?

Speaking of which, the expression about hell being paved with good intentions may apply here.

There's no (real) accountability. There are no financial books to look at. The communications plan relies entirely upon consultants, and marketers, and official media (i.e., big dollar media purchases), rather than on basic grassroots communication. There's no answering for mistakes or unfulfilled promises.

The people we elected to represent us aren't involved in the planning process. If we don't like the job being done by the people appointed to plan the rebuilding of our city, we have no recourse.

What isn't reported anywhere but here in blogs is the conversation that's going on among citizens as they react to what they're going through.

Here's a snippet of one of those conversations:

First citizen:

1) One role for us would be to make sure we ask all the actors what the assumptions are in their model. If they say they are "neutral" process or tech folks, run for the hills and watch your wallets and purses.

2) In every venue, ask the accountability questions: Who benefits ultimately .... Who ultimately do we have to go to get an answer? Who decides? For whom? How did you arrive at that decision? What is the impact of that decision on my neighborhood? Why should we trust you?

3) Many of the decisions that are being made or not made have incredible implications on race and class here. They also have the potential for racial and class conflict the likes of which we have not known since the last century. We need to continue discussions about how that can be confronted for the peace of the city. My question is always: what are the impacts in terms of race and class issues of that decision? I just believe that raising the issue, though sometimes difficult to talk about, needs to be on the front burner. Some believe we can simply draw maps and red dot ourselves to bliss, while ignoring the real Katrina questions. I think it takes hard work inside -- me more than most -- and outside.

4) I hope that the report on the day to day grind of planning of UNOP ... is made available the very day it is finished. That should be a really interesting story. Indeed, what do planners do? It can be the script for a reality show?

Second citizen:

Perhaps what we were discussing without actually saying it was an oversight commitee.

Who is doing oversight? I would like to see the contracts and sub contractors. The issue of COI came up with Acorn. I believe that it exists with other entities as well. Any and all decisions, contracts,mou's or entities involved in this process should be clearly revealed and it should be sooner than later.

There will be backlash and we would do well to mitigate it by demanding as much information as possible as soon as possible.

But then again, what do I know?

First citizen response:

My take is that the political leadership from Washington on down just punted into a fake democracy circus, where we are all the clowns doing back flips in the center ring while the consultants sell popcorn to the crowds.

Rather than an oversight committee ... I would just keep asking the questions of accountability which we all talked about last night. Sure the LRA is the lead actor. But what is the city's role, the council and mayor's roles, the planning commission role? Also, how do we say and bluntly state that incompetence of the planners is one of the key issues we would like to discuss?

And that the time parameters involved in this process are so drawn out, that it is so clumsily constructed, that a decision has been made already that the Diaspora is gone, out of it, history. Every day they wait to repopulate, more of the Diaspora lose hope. It is simply not fair, it wrenches my gut to know it. As one of us pointed out, it may indeed happen that as adults, people, knowing their options, make a choice to not come back. Sadly, the don't know their options; some would say their options are deliberately being muddled. But many in the communities I listen to DO ascribe the clumsiness of the process to racism and classism. That may not be paranoia or conspiracy theorists on a kool-aid high. It may be one of the core truths of this process.

If this dialog has you confused, please refer to this helpful diagram.

Community Gumbo recently featured views of the planning process from the last Community Support Organization advisory board meeting, and from a Mid-City neighborhood activist.

10/23/06 update:

The Unified New Orleans Plan Web site recently posted the Concordia Powerpoint presentation delivered to the Community Support Organization advisory board meeting on October 14th (the Web site is down right now -- they must be busy uploading that schnazzy new "Recovery Data Atlas" full of "windshield data" and "grassroots data points" they intend to load into their "action-oriented menu of key projects").

Watch for the Recovery Data Atlas, scheduled to be completed before this Saturday's Community Congress. There would be little point in holding the Community Congress without it, since citizens are supposed to use the atlas to make decisions at the Congress. I'll be interested in seeing what all these fancy planning words mean when translated into practical ideas that tangibly help people get back into their homes, and rebuild their neighborhoods.

The next CSO advisory board meeting is this Thursday, in the City Council chamber, at 5:30 p.m. Note that ticket Nazis were out in force last time. I got ticketed at a metered spot where the meter was broken (i.e., it had absolutely nothing mechanical inside the meter) and the new electronic credit card machine was totally covered. So you're screwed either way. This is, after all, the "New" New Orleans operating under the logic of "our mayor". Another attendee who got a ticket suggested we send them to UNOP or Concordia. I think I will, since they try so hard to convince everyone that their process is open and democratic.

PGR -- What is the narrative of New Orleans?

b.rox -- Deaf

Becky Houtman -- District 2 Planning - Needs and Goals Day

VatulBlog -- Day 417: Bill Moyers On The Internet

Emily Metzgar -- The currency of democracy

Photos: Big Easy Rollergirls, 10/21/06

2006-10-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

New Orleans needs stronger dikes.

Trixie La Femme.

Ruthie the Duck Lady

More.

Good Neighbor, bad cop

2006-10-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

This is one of the houses posted under the City of New Orleans "Good Neighbor" program. The city will confiscate posted properties if owners don't gut the houses and clean the lots. Some owners don't care about their properties, and let them fall into blight (demolition by neglect). In those cases, the city might be praised for applying a strict standard. There are a significant number of New Orleans homeowners, however, who can't afford housegutting, who aren't physically capable of doing it themselves, and who are still displaced far outside Louisiana (Ms. Regina, for example) -- I'd guess tens of thousands of homes fall into this category. Owners can show that they are acting in good faith if they get their home on a volunteer housegutting list, but those waiting lists are months long due to lack of volunteers.

The city's Web site makes it sound like it's offering this program as a gift to help homeowners.

City Offers New "Good Neighbor Program"
In order to provide all of the citizens of New Orleans the opportunity to rebuild their homes and reclaim their lives, The City of New Orleans Good Neighbor Plan has been developed to provide guidelines for the restoration and maintenance of homes in New Orleans. By strategically safeguarding citizen’s property while providing a framework for reinvestment that protects the financial investments of returning citizens against the spread of blight through inaction, the Good Neighbor Plan provides a better sense of security for all citizens.

The city is offering no help at all. Yes, do something about blighted properties, but do it in a pro-active manner. Instead, the city is leaving the rebuilding of New Orleans to volunteers and college students.

For or against the program, my sense is that the city's been talking about homeowners who don't gut their houses as though they're criminals, not victims, and that's what pisses me off. There might not be much that the city could do from a fiscal perspective (with an absent mayor), but it could be a little kinder in its rhetoric.

People interested in volunteering might refer to the city's pdf listing of volunteer housegutting organizations. You can also contact the Arabi Wrecking Krewe.

Sunday music:

Anouar Brahem, Le Voyage De Sahar, ECM, 2005

BERG battles again

2006-10-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

It's already too late for tonight's bout -- it's sold out (unless you can get some scalped tickets on the street), so you better get your tickets for the next bout as soon as you can.

Monkey boy's conversations with "the Almighty"

2006-10-20T16:04:00.000-07:00

Probably because his statements are are so factual (bwah ha ha ha haaa) ... er ... at least they're fun-filled -- Fox News commentator Bill "falafel" O'Reilly got to interview the preznit this week.

Monkey boy is once again claiming to have direct communication with (capital 'A') "the Almighty" in such matters committing the United States to an un-Constitutional war against Iraq, which is now a quagmire worse than Vietnam, while risking the lives of thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Oh, but the rest of us who have a more nuanced appreciation of spirituality, and who seek guidance for life and death decisions in more appropriate ways -- like using honest intelligence information and international consensus -- are pitiful heathens:

O'REILLY: The secular progressives don't like you because you're a man of faith.

BUSH: Yes.

O'REILLY: You know that.

BUSH: Yes. That causes me to be sad for people who don't like somebody because he happens to believe in the Almighty.

O'REILLY: But you know that's in play.

BUSH: Absolutely. They think you are some kind of evangelical. God tells you what to do and you go out and do it. And they hate that.

BUSH: I guess that I have pity for people who believe that. They don't understand the relationship between man and the Almighty, then.

Crescent City Connection

2006-10-20T06:28:00.000-07:00

The Crescent City Connection traverses the Mississippi River, connecting Algiers and the West Bank of Jefferson Parish with downtown New Orleans. It sometimes offers spectacular views of the city.

Why they fight

2006-10-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

Who said:

The stakes couldn't be any higher, as I said earlier, in the world in which we live. There are extreme elements that use religion to achieve objectives. And they want us to leave, and they want us to -- and they want to topple government. They want to extend an ideological caliphate that is -- has no concept of liberty inherent in their beliefs. They want to control oil resources, and they want to plot and plan and attack us again. That's their objectives.

Osama bin Laden? Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki? King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia? Hugo Chavez?

Guess again.

Tags: Bush is a moron | Impeach Bush | George W Bush | Bush | Worst President Ever

End the imperial presidency

2006-10-19T05:59:00.000-07:00

Gary Younge, in The Nation:

"Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793," wrote Albert Camus, referring to Louis XVI's execution. "But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever."

Remove the throne installed in the Oval Office. The end of the monkey king's reign of error starts on November 7th.

Tags: Bush is a moron | Impeach Bush | George W Bush | Bush | Worst President Ever

Nagin hittin' the ganja pipe again?

2006-10-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

Ray Nagin, at a speech on Tuesday (HT: Da Po Boy):

“Anybody got a Road Home check in here?’’ he asked sarcastically, but no one in the audience of nearly 150 people raised a hand. “I’m searching for one, just one.’’

You know, that's funny -- Ray Nagin criticizing a program he never got involved with pro-actively -- Governor Blanco's Road Home program to issue home rebuilding grants.

Actually, it's not that funny.

Where the hell is Ray Nagin in the negotiations with Entergy? Where's his advocacy for hundreds of thousands of homeowners being screwed by their insurance companies? Where's his plan to rebuild New Orleans? The NOPD is bleeding manpower -- what's the plan? What the hell does the budget situation look like?

I can criticize Nagin because I'm just a blogger. He wanted the job, and the power, and the salary, and the associated responsibilities. Okay, maybe he didn't want the responsibilities. If he's going to criticize other people for not doing their jobs, he damn straight better make sure he's doing his own job!

Since he hasn't had a damn thing to do with the LRA, when Nagin says he's tried everything under the sun, I'm thinking he's hittin' the ganja, man, back in Jamaica again:

“I’ve tried everything under the sun to accelerate the LRA money. We’ve done everything."

What does Nagin know about Kobe, or Oklahoma City, or New York?

The mayor said when people complain that the city’s recovery and rebuilding should be moving more quickly, he simply responds, “Quicker compared to what?’’ Kobe, Japan, Oklahoma City and New York City were not case studies in quick recovery.

This isn't Kobe, or Oklahoma City, or New York. Nagin ought to do his job, here in New Orleans -- at a minimum, to manage the things in his area of control, like the budget, and to establish a vision for the future. He hasn't produced either. Just one example -- rather than address the schools problem before and after Katrina, he let the state and charters take over. Whether that was the right outcome or not, whether Nagin wanted that to happen or not, he never had a clearly-defined schools plan that he elaborated for the public. He doesn't have a plan for anything that happens in New Orleans. He governs from crisis to crisis, just like Mitch Landrieu said he does, never anticipating what this city and its residents need.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | America's Wetland | Bush is a moron | Impeach Bush | George W Bush | Bush | Worst President Ever | Ray Nagin | Worst Mayor Ever | Recall Ray Nagin | Rebuild New Orleans | We Are Not OK | Katrina Dissidents | Failure Is Not An Option | Katrina One Year Anniversary

Recall Ray Nagin

2006-10-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

Harry Anderson, frustrated by the shakedown citizens are getting by Entergy, insurance companies, and the city, is leaving New Orleans:

"New Orleans is like a woman you never stop loving, but you can't live with her either. I have never been less sure of anything I've ever done. I always feel like I could live in the French Quarter forever. And if it weren't in New Orleans, I would."

Chris Rose targeted Ray Nagin for much of the blame. As I've said elsewhere, we need a leader to champion our cause. We haven't heard much from our miserable mayor lately. Someone must be telling him to keep his fat trap shut so he doesn't inadvertently cause harm to the true interests he represents. Who are these interests? Let's just say they're the people who have the luxury of waiting until residents who become frustrated decide to give up. Then they'll buy up the properties that look most profitable.

There are things we can do to fight back, and yes, it takes all of our time and energy to do them. One of the things we can do is demand Ray Nagin's recall. We could also camp out on City Hall grounds demanding his plan to address a long list of issues.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | America's Wetland | Bush is a moron | Impeach Bush | George W Bush | Bush | Worst President Ever | Ray Nagin | Worst Mayor Ever | Recall Ray Nagin | Rebuild New Orleans | We Are Not OK | Katrina Dissidents | Failure Is Not An Option | Katrina One Year Anniversary

Come see New Orleans

2006-10-18T06:24:00.000-07:00

Jim Chen visited New Orleans this past weekend for a Tulane symposium:

Hurricane Katrina, the largest natural catastrophe in American history, wrecked 90,000 square miles. The land mass approximates that of Great Britain. Destruction on that scale can scarcely be imagined.

And that is precisely the problem. ...

Go see New Orleans. It has staggered to its feet, and the city's unique spirit truly is returning, bit by bit. But take the time too to see the ruined parts of the Gulf South. Reducing the many individual tragedies of Hurricane Katrina to statistics, and thereby numbing our ability to empathize with the storm's victims, would represent a new tragedy in its own right.

As New Orleans goes ...

2006-10-17T15:20:00.000-07:00

270,000 people without power after almost two feet of snow fell in New York? Why would anyone want to live there? Maybe they should abandon that place.

Living with the threat of volcanoes and earthquakes around the clock in Hawaii? Why would anyone want to live there? Maybe they should abandon that place.

When the authorities say evacuate, people should evacuate, right?

Except that some cities don't have plans to accomodate people who don't have cars. Except that Hurricane Katrina altered its course some 300 miles west just about 48 hours before landfall -- and still, 80 percent of the city's residents did evacuate.

So which cities have a worse evacuation capacity than New Orleans? Denver, Houston, Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and many more. Sounds like mainstream America to me. Only 11 of 37 cities have better evacuation scores than New Orleans.

Dangerblond is a little more kind. That's appropriate.

My point is that we're all in this together, as a nation. As Buffalo goes, so goes the nation. As Honolulu goes, so goes the nation. As Denver, Houston, Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles go, so goes the nation.

You in other parts of the country, ask yourselves which four-fifths of your city could you decimate? Which half of your population could you scatter and force to live out of temporary accomodations for more than a year without major unrest?

Yes, New Orleans is down, and people here still need help picking up the pieces. The help is coming from some great people around the country who still "get it." But the message we're getting from the White House is, "From where we stand, it looks like everything's just fine. We'll call you the next time we need your campaign donations."

As New Orleans goes, so goes the rest of the nation.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | America's Wetland | Bush is a moron | Impeach Bush | George W Bush | Bush | Worst President Ever | Ray Nagin | Worst Mayor Ever | Recall Ray Nagin | Rebuild New Orleans | We Are Not OK | Katrina Dissidents | Failure Is Not An Option | Katrina One Year Anniversary

Dollar Bill's war chest

2006-10-17T05:42:00.000-07:00

Dollar Bill Jefferson has raised $778,000 for his re-election campaign. $332,754 is still in the bank. That leaves about $445,246 in his freezer.

The WWL "toilent tank"

2006-10-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

So I'm beginning to think that the reason WWL doesn't archive all of its audio is because it would be embarrassingly revealing about how incompetent "the official emergency management station" really is. Incompetent is inviting two guests who both agree that it's okay to harvest cypress forests for mulch. Incompetent is letting them spew their erroneous views in an almost redneck anti-science attitude that cypress forests are healthier after they're clearcut, because, they argued, seedlings need sunshine, and in areas that were clearcut (e.g., before about 1920), cypress forests had returned -- conveniently ignoring the fact that south Louisiana's hydrology has changed dramatically since then. They also argued that the government (i.e., the public) has no right to tell private owners what to do on their property -- happily ignoring the cost borne by the larger community. I doubt that WWL could have found another two people with a more extreme ideological bent to represent one side of an issue.

The two guests were Louisiana Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, and a representative from the forestry business. They were interviewed by Garland Robinette, who introduced the topic of cypress mulching activity in south Louisiana by referring to the Steve Fleischli "Mulch Madness" opinion printed in the October 12th New York Times.

Admittedly, someone on the NY Times editorial staff should have asked Fleischli to clarify who he was referring to when he wrote that "mulch companies are moving into Louisiana with shady operators among them grinding up entire cypress forests." That's where Robinette's guests jumped in to ask, which operators, calling into question the very need for the conversation. Of course, Robinette couldn't answer. Either he didn't do his homework, or WWL doesn't have a staff dedicated to researching the details of issues so hosts don't sound like complete idiots on air.

It would certainly have been more sensible, in the very least, to invite someone from the Sierra Club or the Gulf Restoration Network to balance the discussion (since Robinette was clearly incapable).

Robinette later closed the interview by asking his guests to return because he regretted that the real debate on the issue didn't really get started until the end of the hour -- that's when Robinette finally allowed two callers with opposing reactions to get on the air, including Ivor van Heerden.

The first caller sounded as redneck as Odom and the forester, but he had a decidedly different perspective. He said he lives in the Maurepas basin (as I recall), claiming that a neighbor sold the timber on his land to one of those unknown entities which cut down every cypress tree. He didn't say whether the cypress was turned into board lumber or mulch, but he said cypress trees never grew back. He said that because of subsidence and saltwater intrusion, cypress seedlings can't survive. Now, there's nothing but trash brush covering the lot.

Van Heerden pointed out the same problem with hydrology hurting the chances for seedlings, and noted that a number of areas harvested of cypress trees still have "drag line" scars where logs were hauled out in barges. He also made the argument that what one person calls a "taking" of private property by the government deserving compensation, can also be applied to whole communities whose private well-being is harmed by private owners who destroy the habitat which provides a significant surge barrier from hurricanes.

When I called in, I was placed on hold until the show was over, but I was going to make much the same arguments. First of all, Governor Blanco's Science Working Group provided convincing evidence in 2005 that cypress forests won't recover if they're harvested because of subsidence and saltwater intrusion. What needs to be understood is that cypress seeds don't germinate in water. Cypress swamps are dry for part of the year. That's when seedlings emerge and take root, but they can't survive if they're soon covered with brackish water.

The takings issue is one that drives me crazy. Some people don't have a reasonable interpretation of what is meant by the concept of "private" property. Nobody has the right to do whatever they want to on their land. We live in a society that protects a person's right to own property as long as they don't harm other people in their use of that property. "Private" property is always subject to review by society. I can't open a landfill on my property just because I want to, or set fire to a pile of tires just because it's my land. Some activities are so detrimental to the well-being of society that we, as a democracy, decide to prescribe those activities. Regulating the survival of cypress forests on private land should be one of those areas where public interests are more important than private interests, and in such a case, the owner has no right to taxpayer compensation. Suing the government (i.e, taxpayers) for private "damages" caused by regulation is just a way to gut regulations (usurping the will of the people) by bankrupting the treasury. Think you can do whatever you want to on your private property? Try not paying your taxes, and see what the government thinks about defending your right to private property. See if any of your fellow taxpaying citizens show up to defend your "right" to freeload government protection and services.

Finally, there may be an answer for Robinette's guests, who demanded that he name one of those "shady operators." Corbitt, for one, should be looked at as a company that may be hiring third parties to extract cypress. Were I a reporter at WWL, I might do a little asking around in Krotz Springs on the particulars of a mulch plant that was financed in part by the Louisiana Department of Economic Development. That fact was revealed in a footnote to a press release (98 kb pdf) issued by a consortium of environmental groups in May of last year. C.B. Forgotston once posted a 2002 letter written by Doug Brandon, a water resources scientist, which claimed that Louisiana's secretary of the Louisiana Department of Economic Development, Don Hutchinson, secured a $500,000 grant to finance the Krotz Springs plant.

Are some loggers now shamelessly turning whole cypress trees into mulch? Yes, they are, according to Cyn Sarthou, Executive Director of the Gulf Restoration Network (see above press release):

“While companies that make cypress boards and flooring have often sold mulch as a by-product, there are now operators who are strictly mulch producers. This kind of logging has the potential to affect large areas of coastal forests.”

Of course, these details should be verified, but the outline for some good background research is there for WWL to pursue -- if it were truly deserving of its Edward R. Murrow award.

Sometimes I think what Robinette so vainly calls the "think tank" ought instead be called the "toilet tank", and its contents flushed into the sewer every once in a while to clear the air. Oh, sure -- some folks at WWL will say that isn't fair. Too bad. You can't rest on your past achievements. You have to continually prove your worth. Too bad the FCC doesn't see it that way. Maybe we could get some group like the Gulf Restoration Network to get a hold of WWL's license. In fairness to WWL, there are an awful lot of other stations that ought to be getting their licenses challenged right now. It could be pretty easily argued that they aren't serving the needs of their listeners right now by playing crappy music in rotation ad nauseum rather than opening up intelligent discussion on the most pressing issues of our time.

Related:

Map: 217 square miles of coastal land loss

Map: 217 square miles of coastal land loss

2006-10-16T06:21:00.000-07:00

It's later than we thought in coastal Louisiana:

"We had a 50-year projection for wetlands loss as part of the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration plan," said USGS scientist Jimmy Johnston., referring to the proposed $1.2 billion collection of restoration projects still awaiting congressional approval. "Guess what? That's outdated. We went through 40 percent of that loss with these storm events."

More maps at the USGS.

More recently in the TP:

Even as the timber industry pushes into the swamps to eke another round of logging from forests last harvested a century ago, the tree-killing waters of the Gulf of Mexico are seeping ever deeper into areas such as the Maurepas Swamp, a sprawling wetlands that encircles Lake Maurepas in St. John the Baptist, Tangipahoa, Livingston and Ascension parishes. Traveling inland through canals cut for shipping and oil and gas exploration, the invading spike of salt water has turned tens of thousands of acres of cypress stands into an ecological wasteland of dead and dying trees. ...

State forestry officials estimate south Louisiana's cypress forests are cut at the rate of 8,000 to 10,000 acres a year.

The oil industry appears to be succeeding in exonerating itself from blame for wetland loss:

I looked foward to the release of "Hurricane on the Bayou" in the hope that it would help the country better understand the situation that has left us so vulnerable to hurricanes and storm surge. I assumed the film would cover the impact of canal dredging that supported the extraction of oil from our coast. That is the major contributor to the wetlands loss that has left us so vulnerable.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers left that out completely and attributed wetlands loss entirely to the building of levees along the Mississippi River.

The movie's funding, in large part, was provided by Louisiana, whose "America's Wetlands" campaign was funded by the oil industry. It looks like the oil industry has bought silence from the state and from the filmmakers.

S.M.G., New Orleans (from the print edition of the Lagniappe, 10/13/06)

Meanwhile, DO NOT BUY CYPRESS MULCH! And tell your gardening supplies store that if it keeps selling cypress mulch, it'll be in the Gulf of Mexico one of these days.

Related:

President Bush: Category 5 storm protection and coastal restoration now!

Curious George's Jackson Square speech redux

Craig Romero isn't right for Louisiana

Save cypress forests

Let's hire the Dutch!

Update on Vitter provision that will endanger the ivory-billed woodpecker's habitat

Independent, objective science

Good riddance

2006-10-16T06:20:00.000-07:00

Charles Elloie is the weakest link in Criminal Court.

TP editorial:

Brian Expose. A convicted felon, Mr. Expose was booked in March with drug and gun charges after police caught him with six ounces of cocaine, two assault rifles -- one with a bayonet and one with a 60-round clip -- a Tec-9 with a silencer, four pistols and $189,000 in cash. Yet within hours of his arrest and before Mr. Expose faced a magistrate for a bail hearing, Judge Elloie released him on a free bond. By his own admission, the judge made his decision without knowing the facts of the case.

"That's a shocking amount of money. . . . And if I knew an AK-47 was involved, I wouldn't have touched it," Judge Elloie said of Mr. Expose's case when a reporter informed him of the details. The judge, of course, would have known those details had he bothered to contact the police or read the arrest report before acting.

What is the narrative of New Orleans?

2006-10-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

What is the narrative of New Orleans? That's what was on my mind as I left the Community Support Organization advisory board meeting in the City Council chamber last Thursday. I was thinking about how much the narrative of my life has changed since Katrina. As I drove past block after block, mile after mile, of darkened streets and abandoned homes, I thought about how incomprehensibly and dramatically the narrative of New Orleans has changed since Katrina. What were we before? What has changed? Where are we going from here?

We can answer the first two questions, but a significant part of the ongoing process of grieving, distress, and depression that plagues New Orleans residents, is that as much as we are all trying to do on a daily basis to bring our city back, nobody at any level of leadership or representation has a narrative to tell about the future of this city. Nobody is even offering the poetry we need to hear to fortify us for the daily battles we have to fight to carry us, our city -- and indeed, our nation -- forward. I say our nation, because, as I've said elsewhere, as New Orleans goes, so goes the rest of the nation.

This is why I continue to flag George W. Bush and C. Ray Nagin as boneless chickens. Would either one of them wish to bring this city back whole, in a rebuilding process that is fast, efficient, transparent, and equitable, it would be done. That they don't -- that they don't speak to these issues for longer than is necessary for a photo op -- speaks the truth about their intentions.

We see that hypocrisy on the ground here in New Orleans, but do other people around the country see it? Do other people recognize the fact that New Orleans is today the most fiery hotbed of civic activism and neighborhood organization anywhere in the country? There's nothing we couldn't accomplish as citizens and neighbors if we didn't have to go through the layers of "Bunglering" bureaucracy to get the money that's needed to finance the rebuilding of the city. Maybe every city should have to suffer ~~a natural disaster~~ the worst engineering disaster in history every once in a while! It forces us to discover strengths we didn't know we had.

Back to the planning process, the last time I saw Concordia in action, it was such a fiasco I don't know why Steven "Bungler" Bingler wasn't fired on the spot. My better nature tried to withhold judgment, but I found myself growing increasingly contemptuous of Bingler's frequent apologies and appeals for patience. Bingler likes to say that "chaos" is part of the democratic process (HT: Alan). Really? I wonder if Bingler would have gotten the contract to plan the citywide recovery, or would have been able to keep the contract, if democracy were part of the process. And democracy can't be orderly? In fact, democracy is an extremly orderly process for determining the will of people with widely differing views, following strict rules for how problems will be resolved, with open and public participation the essential ingredient for its success. When it became painfully apparent that Bingler couldn't even plan a meeting in an appropriate space, I grew extremely suspicious that he'd be able to combine dozens of neighborhood rebuilding plans into one citywide plan. More importantly, the planning process has to be an expression of what residents want to see happen in their neighborhoods. Instead, inclusion of people in the decision-making process seems to be an afterthought.

Inclusion of the hundreds of thousands of still-diplaced residents in the planning process is still a thorny issue which Bingler hasn't grasped, and I wonder if that isn't part of his planning strategy. In response to a question about what the future footprint of the city will be, Bingler said:

I think that the process is going to define itself. There's a lot of input that's gonna come from surveys. Troy mentioned earlier about the outreach to all the residents about who's coming back, where they're coming back to, and that data is gonna be collected, and what we're gonna be doing is actually developing a map -- a series of maps -- that are defining in real time how New Orleans is coming back, and we'll be planning to those criteria -- the real criteria.

The big question, then, is which snapshot in time will be used to plan the city's future? As time goes by, as Bingler and Nagin and Bush and Blanco continue to fail this city's residents, well sure, of course residents are inclined to become frustrated. If they're rational people, who aren't willing to risk their future well-being on a bad crop of "Bunglering" politicians, they'll accept their destinies elsewhere. And then -- because New Orleans will always exist in one form or another -- who will be left to take advantage of the development opportunities made available by the vast terrain of abandoned homes?

Is that what Nagin was thinking about when he became a partner in a real estate development company with his campaign finance director, David White?

One of the most egregious examples of failure in the administration of New Orleans' recovery, will be the loss of tens, or hundreds, of millions of dollars in Gulf Opportunity Zone tax credits. Jeff Thomas has been championing this issue, but no one seems to be hearing him. Private developers who wish to compete for GO Zone tax credits to build affordable housing face an October 20th deadline to submit their plans. Parishes other than Orleans which are farther along in their planning process offer a more competitive opportunity for those developers to win credits. New Orleans may not be able to utilize the $700 million in GO Zone funds if the October 20th deadline passes. Meanwhile, the city still has no citywide plan, or neighborhood consensus, for affordable housing, other than bulldozing the existing housing developments. That the City Council doesn't "get it", that Concordia doesn't "get it", that the Unified New Orleans Plan organization doesn't "get it", was most painfully apparent in a round of discussions at the CSO advisory board meeting. Nobody expressed clarity on the issue. Nobody put forward a reigning philosophy about affordable housing.

Meanwhile, affordable housing is becoming a major scarcity in New Orleans (TP map/chart). Think about what that could do to the universities and businesses (Tulane is the number one employer in the city), let alone what it is already doing to residents who weren't homeowners.

At yesterday's round of citywide planning district meetings, the very fact that all of the meetings were scheduled to take place in a single day, and each meeting was strictly limited to just two hours, continues to raise questions about the fundamental ability of Concordia to, at a most basic planning level, simply organize meetings. Everyone complained -- residents who have interests in more than one neighborhood, and the planners working with more than one neighborhood association -- about the fact that they couldn't be in two places at one time.

Then, there's the basic element of proofreading that ought to be visited. Did UNOP/Community Support Foundation/Concordia really intend to plan meetings at 1:00 in the morning?

Of course they didn't. For those who use the internet (a minority among the population of displaced New Orleanians I suspect), the meeting times were listed correctly in the first meeting announcement, but it was offered in a downloadable Microsoft Word document -- a nice way to pick up a virus. The PDF document posted later had the wrong times listed. And what about all the people who didn't go to the UNOP Web site before the Saturday meeting? How did they find out about those critical meetings? As resident Pamela Bingham said at the CSO advisory board meeting on Thursday, the communications part of the UNOP process is pitiful.

I'm looking again at that peculiar UNOP logo. It's occurred to me before -- are people holding up the planning process, or is it falling down on them?

That's just about all I can squeeze into this Sunday morning post -- except one last item. I often compose these posts over several days. This one started on Friday, while listening to WWL. A caller on his cell phone fire off rounds at squirrels which were broadcast over the air on Bob Delgiorno and Monica Pierre's show. How quaint! Remind me again: Is this really the "official" news station in the event of an emergency? The gold standard of information about the recovery of a city at its lowest point in history? What a pathetic excuse for an FCC license! I don't know why I torture myself for the few crumbs of useful information I get from the station. It's definitely a case of least objectionable programming sometimes.

I'm off to the New Orleans Film Festival to watch Katrina shorts.

Sunday morning music:

Homenatge al Misteri d'Elx
La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Montserrat Figueras, Jordi Savall

Media democracy now (again)!

2006-10-13T05:55:00.000-07:00

Since I have little fear they'll ever read this, I'd like to take a moment to rail against WWL again. Yesterday, Spud McConnell, talked about the Louisiana Board of Ethics' agenda item to consider whether political speech on Weblogs should be regulated.

McConnell suggested that if you're an anonymous blogger, you ought to "act like a man" and say who you are. He failed to mention, of course, that nobody is asked to provide their real identity when they call in to his radio show. He never considered the fact that some anonymous bloggers might have something to say of value to the community, but can't say it without feeling threatened in their jobs. He never thought about the fact that a person's name, per se, doesn't make what that person says trustworthy -- experience does. It goes without saying that he never suggested that his listeners should fact-check everything that comes out of his own ignorant piehole.

McConnell, or callers, referred to The Dead Pelican, The Drudge Report, and Wikipedia (which aren't blogs), never mentioning a single local blog. From the likes of the sites he mentioned, I'd guess he couldn't define what a local blog is if he wanted to. If McConnell had done just a little research, or asked someone else to prep him for the hour, he might have come across the astute analysis on the blog ethics debate by Shreveport Between the Lines blogger, Jeffrey Sadow, or The Katrinacrat arguing for the need to criticize the mainstream media which laid out a red carpet for George Bush to get American soldiers killed in Iraq, and which generally is pro-administration, or Emily Metzgar's argument that "the public might be better informed as a result of alternative media sources."

It certainly doesn't help that this major local talk show host not only didn't know anything about local blogs, but -- as McConnell himself admitted -- he only reads newspaper headlines.

How can he intelligently engage newsmakers, and educate his listeners, if he himself doesn't have a mastery of the issues of the day. The answer, of course, is that he doesn't.

What's even more astounding to me is not that Spud McConnell, or Bob Delgiorno, or the irregular Garland Robinette, have such a weak grasp on the essential issues of the day in post-Katrina New Orleans, but that they have such prime spots in WWL's schedule.

Then there's the lineup of regular guests they invite on air, like Walter Leger, to say how the distribution of Road Home money is getting better every day. How about asking anyone who's been waiting over a year to get back into their own homes how the program is serving them?

Or the endless Saints worshipping and their pointing to garbage being cleaned up in their drives from Metairie or the North Shore, bypassing flooded neighborhoods, as signs that the recovery is well on its way.

Since I've become fed up with WWL for not posting all of its programs online where people who can't tune in during the day can listen at their convenience to get information -- at least the side that WWL presents -- I'll go ahead and post the program which I recorded for those who feel like torturing themselves (mp3, ~ 3.7 mb, ~ 31 minutes ... after all the ads and other junk were taken out). Refresh the page if you don't get prompted to play or save the file the first time. (Removed, 10/15/06. Ask if you'd like it.)

I imagine I'll have to take the link down eventually, so get it while you can.

The Dead Pelican reported that it was Bogalusa City Councilman Thomas Kates who asked the Louisiana Board of Ethics to consider the blog matter.

Other than the investigative research coming out of The Times-Picayune, there are NO OTHER MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS in New Orleans which report news in a comprehensive manner. It wasn't always this way, but the current trend should be considered a dangerous foundation upon which to sustain a democracy, let alone rebuild the most devastated city in American history.

Related:

Media democracy now!

Demand more from WWL

The revolution will not be televised

Library Chronicles -- Alert the authorities

10/13/06 update:

On Saturday, I'll be sitting on a MEISA panel discussion on media in New Orleans alongside a WWOZ representative, and a Clear Channel representative. Loyola University Music/Communications Complex, 1-2 p.m.

Go to these planning meetings

2006-10-12T05:32:00.000-07:00

Unified New Orleans Plan Community Support Organization meeting

Thursday, October 12
5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
City Council Chamber

Unified New Orleans Plan District Planning Meetings

Sat. October 14
The meeting locations and times are listed over at Community Gumbo (pdf flyer, 550 kb).

Craig Romero isn't right for Louisiana

2006-10-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

I just saw a Craig Romero television ad where he said he'd work with David Vitter and Bobby Jindal to pass the OCS oil revenue-sharing bill so Louisiana can restore her coastal wetlands.

I wonder why he chose not to include Mary Landrieu in his ad?

Maybe because she's a Democrat, and Romero, like Vitter and Jindal, are partisan Republicans?

We here in Louisiana understand what that partisanship has gotten us: Nothing!

Sure, Bobby Jindal's revenue-sharing bill would have generated a lot of money to restore Louisiana's coast, but it didn't stand a chance of passing as long as he continued to insist on ending the federal moratorium on offshore drilling in other states. Jindal put the blinders on and insisted, despite evidence to the contrary, that other coastal states wouldn't kill his bill. Instead of accepting the fact that people in other states really do care about their beaches, Jindal refused to cooperate with fellow Democrats in the state delegation to write a more sensible compromise. And now, we have nothing.

Jindal's obstinance is akin to the great blunder of another partisan hack -- Plaquemines Parish political boss Leander Perez, whose refusal to negotiate with Harry Truman is the reason Louisiana has been getting a pittance in offshore revenues for a half century.

There were other options Jindal could have fought for -- and could have won, as City Business argued -- like some variation on Mary Landrieu's bill, if he hadn't insisted on usurping the rights of states to protect their coastlines as they see fit.

I really, really don't understand why Romero thinks his appeal to partisanship will win over Republican voters in Louisiana. They should know better. It's not about partisanship. It's about getting things done for Louisiana, for America, and for our children.

Across the nation, people have got to understand that it's time for a change. We need to sweep the Republicans out of Congress, and out of the White House. It's not Republicans, per se, that are the problem. It's the arrogance of power which leads them to make the wrong choices for America -- whether it's getting us bogged down in a quagmire occupation of Iraq while Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea go to hell in a handbasket, or shamefully covering up the indiscretions and corruption of their party associates -- Republicans talk the talk, but don't walk the walk.

Craig Romero isn't right for Louisiana. Craig Romero isn't right for America.

Louisiana should send Charlie Melancon back to Congress!

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | America's Wetland | We Are Not OK | Rebuild New Orleans | Katrina Dissidents | Failure Is Not An Option | Hurricane Katrina One Year Anniversary

Todos somos Americanos

2006-10-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

Be they documented immigrants, the influx of as many as 100,000 Spanish-speaking migrant workers is a positive for the New Orleans area. Nevertheless, there are a number of ignorant voices in the community criticizing The Times-Picayune for printing a Sunday story in both English and Spanish, arguing that people should learn English when they come to the United States.

Ignoramuses like Gerard Gaudin -- who lives in white-flight Metairie -- must believe that God ordained that all people in the United States speak English:

I do not read or speak Spanish because I live in the United States.

What Gaudin seems to forget is that there remain in Louisiana a significant number of people of French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Native American heritage (among possible others) who still respect and use the language of their ancestors. Granted, they don't need to see The Times-Picayune printed in the language of their ancestors, it is nonetheless true that the very strength of New Orleans has always been its unique multi-cultural character.

I wonder if Gaudin still speaks the language of his ancestors. I wonder if he wished he could. Maybe he should change his French name to an English name like Gordon. Then again, English itself is a bastardization of so many other languages, it is itself the product of the mixing of cultures --which is why it might be the most dynamic language, and one of the most difficult to learn.

I don't disagree that Spanish-speaking immigrants should learn to speak English. In fact, I think they should learn Spanish too!

The fact that immigrants don't speak English is more likely the result of a poor education than it is lack of willingness. They want to learn English. A significant number of Spanish-speaking immigrants, however, are illiterate in their native language, unable to read or write Spanish at the most basic level. Try teaching fully grown adults English when they can't even read or write in their own language!

To go a step further, while I agree that immigrants should learn English -- and that their level of education be brought up to a respectable U.S. standard so they can fully participate in the economy -- I think every single native-born United States citizen should have to learn another language so that the United States can succeed as a multi-cultural participant in the international economy of ~~tomorrow~~ today! An argument could easily be made that those who fail to learn another language are lazy, and diminish the competitive potential of the United States.

Critics might spend their time more wisely criticizing the influx of people who speak English!

What about the scumbag English-speaking contract workers and English-speaking prostitutes frequenting the French Quarter?

What about the gangbangers dealing drugs and shooting at each other, and at innocent bystanders, on a daily basis again, like this hit at Washington and Annunciation.

Michael DeMocker/Times-Picayune

And where is the outcry against fly-by-night English-speaking contractors who hire both legal and illegal immigrants for back-breaking, dangerous work, abusing them and then disappearing without paying them?!

Mr. Gaudin ought to take his French foot out of his English-speaking piehole and use it instead to help people learn English. The Hispanic Apostolate of New Orleans, among other agencies, has for years actively sought to teach immigrants of all nationalities English-speaking skills (464-5478, hispanicapostolate@archdiocese-no.org).

If we were to let Metairians tell us how to do things in New Orleans, we'd be left with nothing but truck parades during Mardi Gras, and franchise shops and restaurants in strip malls, instead of local boutique shops and restaurants on Magazine Street!

No thanks Mr. Gaudin. Start your own narrow-minded newspaper in Metairie if you choose to remain ignorant and sheltered!

The rest of us (here, here, and here) appreciate the exposure to other cultures.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | America's Wetland | We Are Not OK | Rebuild New Orleans | Katrina Dissidents | Failure Is Not An Option | Hurricane Katrina One Year Anniversary

Parental consent for abortion is inhumane

2006-10-11T05:41:00.000-07:00

Larry Fortune, 44, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole Monday:

Fortune admitted to having sex with his underage teen stepdaughter 70 times. ...

His victim had given birth to a child and the DNA evidence showed him to be the father.

Louisiana minors can't get an abortion in Louisiana without parental consent, even in cases of rape or incest. Their only recourse is to present their case before a judge. How likely is that?

A minor who is old enough to be raped by her stepfather ought to be respected enough to make her own choices about what her reproductive options are. Equally important, young sexual abuse victims need lots of counseling to make sure that they develop healthy attitudes about sexuality and parenting.

Related:

Criminalize bad parenting

Tags: Louisiana | Abortion | Reproductive Rights | Pro-Choice | Pro-life

Peace takes courage

2006-10-11T05:40:00.000-07:00

YouTube (HT: anonymous).

The army has plans to keep 15 brigades in Iraq for four more years.

Peace Takes Courage.

Related:

The gruesome cost of the Iraq occupation continues to escalate

Who's winning the "wah on terrah"?

The great tragedy of war

John Negroponte's betrayal of American principles

It's time to wish for an army without Rumsfeld

Your cat is more qualified to run the White House

2006-10-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

You might think that, after managing to create the biggest blundering failure of leadership in United States history during an emergency (not to mention his other colossal failures), Preznit Bush might wish to re-examine some of his mistakes, like tapping the horse's ass head of the International Arabian Horse Association, Michael Brown, to lead the federal government's emergency response in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack.

Naaah!

Not only is Bush not willing to re-examine his mistakes, in yet another so-called "signing order," he is once again being allowed to usurp the Constitution of the United States, willfully defying a law passed by Congress, this one establishing minimum standards for any future FEMA director.

Bush said establishing minimum standards for the director of FEMA could rule out a "large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge" to run the agency. The president, he added, has the constitutional authority to supervise the executive branch and recommendations to Congress should be subject to "appropriate executive branch review and approval before submission."

10/10/06 update:
In his continuing application of "signing orders" to advance the cause of an imperial "unitary executive" presidency, it appears that monkey boy continues to be (willfully) confused about what his role is in the separation of powers, just as he was in 2000:

I feel the court overstepped its bounds, just like I said in my statement. I think it was a reach. And as I said, the legislature's job is to write law. It's the executive branch job to interpret law.

Media democracy now!

2006-10-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

For people waiting for their Louisiana Recovery Authority Road Home grants to rebuild their flood-damaged homes, the process is excruciatingly long, and the wait is intolerable. A co-worker's son was in the pilot group used to work out the kinks. His interview with an LRA representative to determine need was 3 1/2 hours. I can't understand why that's necessary. Any high-schooler could probably do the math: The difference between the assessed property damage and the insurance claim award up to the value of the best market appraisal. Whether someone uses tile or linoleum in their kitchen shouldn't be in the purview of bureaucrats. Notwithstanding the delay, it should be conceded that the program is probably ramping up about as fast as it can. There is room for improvement, and Micheal Byrne of ICF, the contractor administering the program, said that ICF will be handling a thousand applications a day by next week. It remains to be seen whether that target will be met.

If there's one person who ought to know how the program is going, it's "our (Dollar Bill Jefferson-endorsing) mayor" C. Ray Nagin. When told by Garland Robinette on WWL last Thursday that the LRA would be handling a thousand applications a week, however, Ray Ray's Mr. Cool response was, "That's news to me. I didn't know that." I'd like to confirm Ray Ray's statement, but -- although it has in the last couple of weeks shifted more attention to New Orleans recovery topics than Saints topics -- WWL is still inconsistent in posting archived audio. True to form, that Thursday interview with (arguably) the most important leader in New Orleans isn't available in the WWL archive.

Again, WWL might argue that it isn't required to post archived audio, to which I'd respond that as an FCC license recipient, WWL, like every broadcaster, is obliged to serve the community first, or risk having its license taken away to give another licensee a chance to do a better job. Furthermore, if WWL is going to advertise itself as the news leader and the official outlet for information in the event of an emergency, it should be required to live up to the standard it set for itself.

I'd go a step further and argue that all stations should be required to have a news staff and to broadcast news and community affairs programs. I'd argue that "our" local broadcasters should be required to have neighborhood meetings to make sure that the concerns of residents are being addressed in the local media. Think about it -- it's a win-win situation. Broadcasters would be delivering exactly what it knows the community wants to see and hear.

Imagine a gaggle of reporters from every media outlet in the city waiting outside the mayor's office for answers to vital recovery questions. I think we'd either know what's going on by now, or we'd have a different mayor.

The point is, there is far too little information getting to residents. Whether this recovery is going well or not, only residents trying to get back into their flooded homes more than a year after the worst government disaster in history could say. I hold our elected public servants responsible for the void of information as much as I do the media.

Why can't "our mayor" have a daily press briefing, for example, explaining the progress being made in the recovery process? The answer, I suspect, is that he wouldn't be able to report much that answers the concerns of residents trying to get a planning process jump-started with only seven planners in City Hall. The answer, I suspect, is that Ray Nagin would have little to say that would appease the approximately 300,000 residents whose homes probably haven't gone past the gutting phase -- if that far at all.

I pulled up behind a car with a bumper sticker yesterday that had one of those "Our Mayor" bumper stickers on it. Next to the image of Ray Nagin smiling smugly was the line "Let's keep New Orleans moving forward," to which I would ask, "Forward? Compared to what?" From my perspective, very little that's happening has anything to do with leadership in City Hall.

Related:

Demand more from WWL radio

Here on Gilligan's Island

Do you believe in the tooth fairy?

City profiting by gutpunching displaced New Orleans homeowners?

2006-10-06T20:30:00.000-07:00

Who in their right mind would enter this flood-destroyed building? Who, in particular in in the Lower Ninth Ward, could afford to have it gutted by a private contractor?

Demolition Process And Notification
Exhibit B - Home/Property #63
Seven (7) Day Notification Properties
Description: 1800 Block of Forstall St.
City Lat/Long: N 29.97018; W 90.0187
PHRF Lat/Long: N 29.97017; W 90.01873
PHRF UTM: 15R 0787688 3319221

The City of New Orleans gives official notification that it intends to demolish or haul away the home/property located at 1800 Block of Forstall St., between the streets of N. Roman St. and N. Prieur St.. The City of New Orleans has determined that this home/property is in the right of way and must be removed. A legal owner who disputes the proposed demolition must present their objections in writing to the Department of Safety and Permits of the City of New Orleans before the seven (7) working days are up. The City of New Orleans makes no legal representation that relief will or will not be granted.

But wait -- what's this? The city is going to use CDBG money to help nonprofits, and to pay contractors for housegutting, but it's going to punish homeowners who don't do it themselves, and demand that they reimburse the city?

Bruce Eggler, "N.O. begins second phase of gutting law," The Times Picayune:

City to offer aid

Faciane and Brenda Breaux, a chief deputy city attorney in charge of housing programs, said the city recognizes the problem and will soon offer to help such nonprofits by providing them with supplies, equipment and meals for their volunteer workers.

They said the city will issue a request for proposals to such groups next week, asking them to demonstrate their capacity to take advantage of such assistance and to keep the sorts of records required of groups getting government aid.

In addition, the city eventually will hire certified contractors to take care of properties whose owners cannot be found or who are unable or unwilling to remediate them. The contractors will be chosen by competitive bid after all the administrative hearings are held and the city knows how many properties it must take care of itself, Faciane and Breaux said.

The contractors will be paid with federal Community Development Block Grant money, and liens will be placed against the properties, they said.

Wouldn't it make more sense to offer assistance to homeowners up front? Moreover, isn't the city double-dipping by taking CDBG money, and then fining homeowners for the work the city was already compensated to do?

Not necessarily related ... ahem ... this might be an appropriate time to further investigate -- as Dambala has been writing -- what Ray Nagin's role and personal benefit is in AFO Investments, the real estate development firm he entered into with his former campaign finance director, David White.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | America's Wetland | We Are Not OK | Rebuild New Orleans | Katrina Dissidents | Failure Is Not An Option | Ray Nagin | Recall Ray Nagin | Hurricane Katrina One Year Anniversary

How many people are back in New Orleans?

2006-10-05T22:26:00.000-07:00

You know what bothers me about Ray Nagin's protestations over the lower population estimate released by Louisiana Recovery Authority?

It isn't the fact that there may actually be 230,000 people living in New Orleans right now as Ray Ray likes to advertise.

It isn't the fact that Ray Ray's "demographer," Greg Rigamer, does a lot of business selling any numbers his clients will pay for to flatter themselves.

It's the fact that whether the real number is 187,525, or 230,000, "our" boneless chicken mayor never seems very upset that whatever the actual number is, it's nowhere near the pre-Katrina population of more than 450,000 people who called themselves New Orleanians!

Where is the fury he once (just once, and never repeated) displayed in an interview on WWL radio a little over a year ago, which made the man sitting in the most powerful office in the world (until he stole it) look like he couldn't organize a Girl Scout cookie fundraiser. Where is the charismatic character who once or twice fooled some of us into believing he could inspire people to rise to the occasion of doing whatever might be required to rebuild this city for the future.

I happen to think Nagin is highballing the population estimate. The LRA figure, calculated by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and the Louisiana Public Health Institute, more closely resembles the 171,000 population figure calculated by The Times-Picayune in August using US Postal Service change of addresses.

The bottom line is that the residents who have made it back into New Orleans -- they're the easy ones. Getting the rest back is going to be a bit more complicated, and will require real leadership. Sadly, Ray Nagin can't lead if he's never around, and if he can't stay on script with a message that inspires confidence.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | America's Wetland | We Are Not OK | Rebuild New Orleans | Katrina Dissidents | Failure Is Not An Option | Ray Nagin | Recall Ray Nagin | Hurricane Katrina One Year Anniversary

The gruesome cost of the Iraq occupation continues to escalate

2006-10-05T05:10:00.000-07:00

I rose halfway, leaned to the right, and cupped the object. I might as well have plucked volcanic lava from a crater. I could feel the flesh of my palm liquefying. Pain bolted up my arm like an electric current. In one fluid motion, I raised my right arm and started to throw the mass over the side of the vehicle, a short backhand toss. Then everything went dark.

"How I Lost My Hand But Found Myself"

Among my unposted drafts of the last couple of weeks was a passing remembrance of the human toll of the Iraq occupation: More than 2700 American soldiers killed; more than 20,000 wounded.

The bill for future U.S. taxpayers -- our children -- for the Iraq war and the "stay the course" occupation has now reached $379 billion. $97 billion has been approved thus far for Afghanistan operations.

Who's profiting from the war? Take a look at the Center for Public Integrity's database of federal contractors.

A lot of the names in this top-ten list also got no-bid Katrina cleanup contracts worth billions:

Kellogg, Brown & Root (Halliburton)..........$11,431,000,000
Parsons Corp. ..........$5,286,136,252
Fluor Corp. ..........$3,754,964,295
Washington Group International..........$3,133,078,193
Shaw Group/Shaw E & I..........$3,050,749,910
Bechtel Group Inc. ..........$2,829,833,859
Perini Corporation..........$2,525,000,000
Contrack International Inc. ..........$2,325,000,000
Tetra Tech Inc. ..........$1,541,947,671
USA Environmental Inc. ..........$1,541,947,671

If George W. Bush were to do any more to fulfill Osama bin Laden's strategy to cripple the United States financially, he'd be a member of al Qaeda himself. Maybe he should be waterboarded to see what else he plans to do to help Osama bin Laden.

I have a suggestion for Congress. Before they allocate any more funds for the Iraq occupation, require every senior member of the Bush administration -- especially George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condaleeza Rice -- to spend a day in a military hospital in Baghdad.

As for the fight for freedom and civilization which Bush so often uses to justify his criminally incompetent war strategery, he must have something else in mind. It is evidently now a criminal offense in the minds of the Bush SS to use the word "reprehensible" when speaking to Dick Cheney about the Iraq occupation.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | America's Wetland | Bush is a moron | Impeach Bush | George W Bush | Bush | Worst President Ever | Iraq | Al Qaeda | Osama bin Laden | Terrorism | Rebuild New Orleans | We Are Not OK | Katrina Dissidents | Failure Is Not An Option | Katrina One Year Anniversary

The Nine

2006-10-04T22:15:00.001-07:00

I don't know who came up with the idea, or who the writers are, but my first impression is that it's the most important primetime television show to hit the airwaves.

Why? November 4th, 1995.

There are very few people who will understand what I'm about to say. Trust me when I say it: Whoever is writing that script knows what it feels like to witness senseless violence firsthand.

Whoever is writing that script knows what it feels like to feel like no one else understands.

Whoever is writing the script appreciates the fact that our sick culture has for far too long tolerated violence in media without presenting the consequences.

The reality is that violence is far more insidious than anyone in sheltered Hollywood can imagine. There's nothing glamorous about violence as entertainment.

I don't know who let the writers of The Nine get their show on air, but I celebrate the result. I'm not celebrating the culture of television. I'm merely saying that the first episode had to be inspired by a heartfelt understanding of reality.

I obviously can't vouch for future episodes, but I can say from my own first-hand experience that the first episode took me by surprise. Although the characters are actors, their portrayals of the meaninglessness and sense of isolation from anyone who hasn't experienced violence firsthand is right on the money. Nevertheless, I credit the writers more than the actors. They know things about the feelings of isolation that no one should ever have to experience.

Thank God!

I don't have much hope for television, but I'm glad that, at last, instead of glamorizing violence, a program is finally taking as its point of departure the consequences of violence. Maybe ... maybe ... our juvenile popular culture is taking its first steps into adulthood.

10/2/2005

2006-10-01T23:27:00.000-07:00

There were few marks spray-painted on homes into October. They appear to have been return visits where there might have been an effort to check back on pets or people who hadn't been evacuated earlier. I was back in New Orleans living temporarily in my former in-law's house in Algiers by the time the 10/2 was painted on this house. The floodwater must have been originally about four feet deep in this Mid City block. On the first pass, houses were spray-painted higher up -- in this case, as with every other house in the neighborhood, on the porch overhang.

The chairs on the porch were placed there more recently by what I think are squatters. Neither side of the house has been gutted, but the door to the right side was forced open -- the door lying on the floor in two halves -- and there was a pile of recently=worn clothing lying next to a mattress just inside the doorway. There are a lot of questionable occupants in the neighborhood. I'd say that most of them are hispanic contract workers.

In this Hollygrove neighborhood, there are a lot of beat up American flags. I wonder if it's just lack of care. Something about it, though, conjures in my imagination the thought of whole neighborhoods taken over by a foreign power, and the occupants scattered to safe havens. Would our government tolerate citizens being chased off of their land by a foreign power? Why should a flood be any different?

The people in this neighborhood are still far from hope. Why? Why should they have to wait any longer? Who's overseeing the welfare of Katrina victims? Where's the leadership of the conservatively compassionate man in Washington who couldn't proclaim himself a "compassionate conservative" enough when he wanted to get elected?

Money's been allocated, but where is it? It won't be near enough in the end.

Getting New Orleans rebuilt ought to be the number one priority of the mush mouth in the White House!

It ought to be the number one priority of Clarence Ray Nagin as well. Anyone seen "our" mush mouth lately?

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | America's Wetland | Bush is a moron | Impeach Bush | George W Bush | Bush | Worst President Ever | Ray Nagin | Worst Mayor Ever | Recall Ray Nagin | Rebuild New Orleans | We Are Not OK | Katrina Dissidents | Failure Is Not An Option | Katrina One Year Anniversary

Bones

2006-09-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

"The decider" adds "the thinker" to his chore list

2006-09-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

Is George W. Bush's very sanity even intact anymore:

In four simple words last Friday, the President brought into sharp focus what has been only vaguely clear these past five-and-a-half years - the way the terrain at night is perceptible only during an angry flash of lightning, and then, a second later, all again is dark.

“It's unacceptable to think," he said.

It is never unacceptable to think.

And when a President says thinking is unacceptable, even on one topic, even in the heat of the moment, even in the turning of a phrase extracted from its context, he takes us toward a new and fearful path -- one heretofore the realm of science fiction authors and apocalyptic visionaries.

That flash of lightning freezes at the distant horizon, and we can just make out a world in which authority can actually suggest it has become unacceptable to think.

When rationale minds inspired the founding of, thus far, the most resilient and enduring democratic republic in history, an entirely different vision was conjured of the necessity for dissent to preserve that democracy:

"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”

Demand more from WWL radio

2006-09-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

The first topic of the day on WWL radio today?

"Rabbit Ears, HD or Satellite-How are you gonna watch the game?"

It's only when I'm driving to work in the morning, or taking a lunch break, that I can listen to WWL radio news. Unfortunately, most of the time, it seems that the only news WWL thinks we residents of this destroyed city need to hear is Saints news.

With some 200,000 flooded homes in New Orleans (120,000 severely flooded) -- and most of them still not repaired, with over 300,000 residents still not back in their homes, with a foundering neighborhood planning process, with an invisible mayor, with insurance companies ripping off their policyholders, with Entergy claiming it will have to raise rates 120 percent while its parent company is making billions in profit for its shareholders ... with so many more issues on the table in post-Katrina New Orleans, its seems logical that citizens need more information from newsmakers explaining what the hell is going on.

But WWL is more optimistic. It's Saints season! And the Saints are going to be on Monday night football. Who cares about all that other depressing, tedious crap. News? Phewy! You wanna rebuild New Orleans? It's all about the Saints!

While driving to the doctor's office from work yesterday, I tuned in for a few minutes of a now rare newsmaker interview with Steven Bingler -- you know, that's Steven "Bungler," the guy whose inept Concordia planning firm got the no-bid contract to oversee the most important planning process in history.

The fact that nobody understands what his firm is doing, that there's no transparency to the process, that this was a rare opportunity for citizens to actually hear what Bungler has to say in the hope that he might clarify what's happening ... well, you might believe that WWL agrees, and that it would post the audio from that interview on the internet for residents to hear on demand -- but you'd be mistaken.

WWL could argue that it doesn't have an obligation to archive its audio on the internet, sure. But it's the prominence and frequency with which WWL advertises itself as the "official" news station in an emergency that ought to produce a more enlightened appreciation of its mission to the community.

In fact, WWL advertises on its Web site that it's looking for reporters who want to cover "The Story of the Century." Applicants might want to consider how much they like covering the Saints before sending in a resume, because it seems WWL thinks "the story of the century" is not the rebuilding of New Orleans, but the Saints.

I think there ought to be a larger discussion about what the responsibility is of both broadcast and cable outlets to the community. I won't go into it here, but just for the sake of stimulating thought, I'd direct readers to consider the number of radio stations out there that have returned right back into what they were doing pre-Katrina, playing the niche format-ratings game, spitting out mediocre music as a vehicle for advertising, rather than addressing the needs of the local community.

Does anyone remember how broadcasters are supposed to prove to the FCC that they're fulfilling a mission to serve the community when they reapply for a broadcasting license?

I think it could pretty easily be demonstrated that with a few questionable exceptions, none are. Which could make the next round of FCC application reviews interesting if anyone wanted to challenge a broadcaster's license.

Back to WWL, I never used to listen to WWL before Katrina, because it was full of obnoxious talk show hosts. The only reason I started to listen to WWL after Katrina, was because I could hear it all the way over there in Pensacola, and with virtually no information at all coming out of the mayor's office, other than The Times-Picayune online, WWL was the best place to go for information.

Now, a year later, I find fewer and fewer reasons to tune in.

I'm still waiting to get a response from the General Manager about requests I've made to have recovery-related interviews posted on the internet archive.

Consider the following tabulation of programs archived on the WWL site for the month of September through 9/21. Hurricane recovery ranks as only the third most important issue:

41 programs about Saints football (56 percent)
14 programs about Vince Marinello (19 percent)
11 programs about hurricane recovery issues (15 percent)
4 programs about LSU football (5 percent)
3 programs about crime (4 percent)

I know that WWL covers hurricane recovery issues more in its live broadcasts, but you'd have a hard time finding those programs in the list of archived programs:

Saints WR Joe Horn press conference 9/21
Saints Head Coach Sean Payton press conference 9/21
Saints RB Deuce McAllister press conference 9/21
Saints QB, Drew Brees explains the keys to the Flacons defense 9/21
Tommy Tucker and Monica Pierre talk about ethics City Councilmain at Large Arnie Fielkow 9/21
Harrahs GM Jim Hoskins talks to WWL's Dave Cohen about opening the new Harrahs Hotel this week 9/21
Saints LB Scott Fujita press conference 9/20
Saints Head Coach Sean Payton press conference 9/20
Falcons RB Warrick Dunn press conference 9/20
Saints QB Drew Brees press conference 9/20
Saints RB Reggie Bush press conference 9/20
Falcons Coach Jim Mora press conference 9/19
Bobby Hebert and Kenny Wilkerson visit with Falcons kicker, Morten Andersen 9/20
Garland Robinette visits with Saints Owner, Tom Benson 9/20
Tommy Tucker and Monica Pierre interview Superdome spokesperson Bill Curle 9/20
Kenny Wilkerson visits with Saints Wide Receiver Joe Horn 9/19
Saints Fans Buying Season Tickets tell WWL's Dave Cohen they are excited 9/19
Saints Head Coach Sean Payton on Green Bay game and preparing for Atlanta 9/18
Tommy Tucker and Monica Pierre go one on one with Saints QB, Drew Brees 9/18
Former President Bill Clinton speaks to WWLs Garland Robinette 9/16
LSU versus Auburn Audio Preview for Site 9/15
U2 and Green Day among the musical acts booked for Saints' Monday Night Football, WWL's Kenny Wilkerson tells Chris Miller 9/14
Saints RB, Deuce McAllister Post Practice Press Conference 9/13
Saints RB, Aaron Stecker Post Practice Press Conference 9/13
Saints Head Coach Sean Payton on preperation for Greenbay 9/13
Green Bay Head Coach Mike McCarthy 9/13
Saints QB, Drew Brees Post Practice Press Conference 9/13
Saints RB, Reggie Bush Post Practice Press Conference 9/13
Garland Robinette interviews Walter Leger of the LRA 9/13
WWL's Dave Cohen talks to Superdome Commission Chairman Tim Coulon about phase 1 construction completion at the Dome 9/13
Bobby Hebert and Kenny Wilkerson visit with LSU Head Coach, Les Miles 9/12
Bobby Hebert and Kenny Wilkerson visit with Saints DT, Brian Young 9/12
Spud McConnell Talks Superdome restoration with Bill Curl of SMG and Tim Coulon chairman of the Superdome Commission 9/12
Garland Robinette visits with Mayor Nagin 9/12
Mayor Ray Nagin and his One New Orleans Committee on 100 days progress report 9/12
Bob DelGiorno and Monica Pierre go one on one Viginia Boulet - Mayor Nagin's Advisor on Entergy 9/12
Garland Robinette visits with Virgina Boulet 9/11
LSU Football Coach Les Miles talks about getting ready for the Auburn Game 9/11
Saints Coach Sean Payton Monday news conference after Saints beat Browns 9/11
Bob DelGiorno and Monica Pierre go one on one with Saints QB, Drew Brees 9/11
Don Dubuc and Monica Pierre interview Mary Elizabeth Marinello's mother Bertha Norman 9/8
WWL's Bob Mitchel expresses his feelings about the arrest of Vince Marinello 9/7
WWL's Hokie Gajan comments on a dear friend and Colleagues (Vince Marinello) arrest 9/7
WWL's Bobby Hebert comments on a Colleagues (Vince Marinello ) arrest 9/7
Attorney Jack Martzell provides analysis on the Vince Marinello case 9/7
Sheriff Harry Lee Explains what took place on the day of the murder of Mary Elizabeth Marinello 9/7
Sheriff Harry Lee explains why Vince Marinello has been placed on sucide watch 9/7
WWL's Kenny Wilkerson goes one on one with Harry Lee on the decision to charge Vince Marinello with Second Degree Murder 9/7
WWL's Kenny Wilkerson comments on a Colleague (Vince Marinello) thats in trouble 9/7
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee announces the arrest of Vince Marinello part 2 9/7
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee announces the arrest of Vince Marinello part 1 9/7
UNO Criminologist Dr Peter Scharf speaks to WWLs Mike Conti about a spike in violent crime 9/7
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee says Marinello murder was a hit 9/7
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee on search of Marinello trailer and home 9/7
Garland Robinette interviews Dan Packard of Entergy 9/6
Garland Robinette interviews Walter Leger of the LRA 9/6
Garland Robinette interviews Mayor Ray Nagin 9/6
Garland Robinette grills the mayor about complaints he's been invisible and negative press 9/6
Garland Robinette asks the mayor about racism in New Orleans 9/6
Saints WR, Reggie Bush Press Conference 9/6
Saints QB, Drew Brees Press Conference 9/6
Saints Head Coach, Sean Payton Press Conference 9/6
New Orleans Saints Owner Tom Benson says community has stepped up 9/5
Bob DelGiorno and Monica Pierre interview Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee 9/5
Spud McConnell chats with NOPD Chief Warren Riley 9/5
Bobby Hebert discusses the Saints acquisitions this week 9/4
Saints Head Coach Sean Payton press conference 9/4
Saints S Roman Harper press conference 9/4
Saints WR Marques Colston press conference 9/4
Saints WR Joe Horn press conference 9/4
Saints Jamaal Branch press conference 9/4
Saints G Jahri Evans press conference 9/4
Bob DelGiorno and Monica Pierre go one on one with Jim Hawthorne the Voice of the LSU Tigers Radio Network 9/4
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee comments on the Mary Elizabeth Marinello murder 9/1
Hurricane Expert Dr. William Gray speaks to WWL's Mike Conti about his revised forecast for 2006 9/1

Here on Gilligan's Island

2006-09-20T05:54:00.000-07:00

It'd be nice if The Times-Picayune acknowledged that they were about two months behind Dambala in floating the Meffert yacht story. Even so, they're still skirting around the more important question. Sure, Meffert has an expensive yacht, but the harm done by using it to entertain is probably minimal compared to the greater harm that may have been done by doling out all of the city's technology projects to his friends.

Don't get me wrong -- I salute The Times-Picayune for (finally) picking a fight with the Nagin administration. I just hope it's a serious fight, not a face-saving stunt. A new Gordon Russell article quoting former Imagine employee, Paul Bible, suggests that maybe the TP is turning the corner:

“All the campaigning begs the question of how much time was spent working on these campaigns,” Bible said. “How much money is the city spending for them to work on these kinds of projects?”

Meffert's a good Samaritan? Possibly. So it shouldn't be difficult for him to justify his actions then, should it?

Why is Meffert so coy about revealing why he passed so much business onto his friends? How much money did his friends actually make? Was it reasonable compensation? Could other competing firms have done as much or more for the money, or produced better ideas and solutions?

I'm okay with maverick behavior -- like stealing the assessors' records to post them for the public to see -- as long as it can be demonstrated that the public good was served.

Let me just go ahead and reveal that I once worked as a subcontractor to a prime contractor for an office in City Hall. After months of being told that I would be able to continue in the project for months more to come, I was shocked when I was told just before Christmas that the job was finished -- which it wasn't (and since then, never has been finished). I may have cut my own throat by going around the prime contractor, directly to the city official overseeing the work, to provide what I thought was a more productive approach to managing the project. Just a few weeks ago, I noticed that the same project manager for the prime contractor who "fired" me -- who's been doing a pretty lousy job for years -- donated $5000 to Nagin's re-election campaign.

Now, I don't know about the rest of yous, but I definitely don't have $5000 burning a hole in my pocket that has Ray Nagin's name on it.

Is it any wonder why good ideas never seem to come out of City Hall when only people who pay kickbacks get recognized? Meffert may be an exception to the rule, but it might only appear so because he wasn't doing anything truly innovative, other than bringing City Hall into the 1990's from 1970's technology. Meffert did nothing more than reach for the low-hanging fruit.

How much more might have been accomplished if Meffert had revamped the civil service rules which continue to force talented people, who have expensive educations and families to raise, to work in job descriptions and pay scales that are over thirty years old? Or if he had actually altered the contracting rules to make them more competitive and rational, instead of rewarding himself and his friends?

I guess it's just bidness as usual, whether it's Sydney Bartholomew, Marc Morial, or C. Ray Nagin!

I've been holding back to see if anyone else would relate a story which reveals not just Nagin's contempt for people who are busting their asses to rebuild this city, but how contemptuous he is of his own office. I wasn't there, so I'll tell the story as best I can and modify later as required for accuracy:

A couple of weeks ago, Nagin made his first appearance, in longer than anyone could remember, at a community meeting. Councilwoman Stacy Head was introducing him, and joked that everyone should be nice to him so he'd come back. K shouted out from the audience, "He's the mayor. We pay him to come back!" Nagin replied, "Yeah, my big government salary." To which K held up a hand forming a big zero and said, "You know how much I get paid to clean up debris in my neighborhood?"

If it isn't apparent, let me spell it out. Here we are, citizens living in a city more than 80 percent destroyed. We are fighting, all of us, doing our civic duty along with volunteers from around the country, to rebuild this city block by block, house by house, for no other reward than to help restore our neighborhoods and help our fellow citizens return to their homes. And Nagin acknowledges that effort by whining about a $150,000 salary he's never once earned!

Oh yeah ... don't forget to recall Ray Nagin!

In other media matters, 14 out of the last 20 interviews archived by WWL 870 AM are about the Saints or LSU. Going back further than a week, and it's all Saints, all Vince Marinello, all the time. It's becoming far more difficult these days to hear anything of substance about the recovery of New Orleans. Then, whenever WWL hosts interview prominent guests -- like Ray Nagin last week -- they ask trifling questions. And when a caller happens to introduce controversy into a conversation, WWL hosts quickly get the caller off the air so not to offend their esteemed guests.

I make this observation because I was hoping to hear again, and post some comments about, the extremely insightful remarks on Garland Robinette's show Tuesday afternoon by the former Director of City Planning, Kristina Ford (no thanks due Robinette who likes to do most of the talking for his guests).

She stated her preference not to criticize, but instead to offer constructive advice for citizens engaged in the planning process flavor of the day. In its most distilled essence, Ford's message was to ask planning teams questions. Ask, ask, ask. Without naming names, it was clear she was referring to Steven "Bungler" Bingler's bungling of the Unified New Orleans Plan process when she said that even she didn't know what was being said sometimes, despite her having earned a Ph.D. in planning. When planners say they're going to simply "weave" or "knit" 72 neighborhood plans into one cohesive unified plan, ask what those words mean -- what do they mean, precisely, by "weave" and "knit"?

Ford also recommended having a city planner present at any meetings with private planning teams like Concordia. She expressed her utmost confidence in the people who work in the City Planning department -- who have been notably absent from many of the planning discussions to date.

9/21/06 update:

I forgot to comment on the caption to the yacht picture printed in the TP. I wonder if the words "to celebrate ... his decision to give up the drudgery of his job as the city's chief technology officer" were Meffert's, or the TP's. Drudgery? If that was Meffert's choice of words, well ... we don't need people like him in public office, so good riddance (and I'm being polite).

Maybe the Army should allow once AWOL presidents to serve

2006-09-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

One of these days, I'm going to write a post including all of the interesting searches that led people to PGR.

Here's a troubling recent search: How do they determine who gets called up with inactive ready reserve.

And coincidentally, this Reuters story on the Yahoo home page: U.S. general sees no Iraq troop cut before mid-2007.

Army Gen. John Abizaid, who as head of U.S. Central Command oversees the war, said the United States might even increase the size of its force from the current 147,000, the highest since January. He also did not rule out holding in place U.S. units scheduled to leave Iraq in coming months.

His comments, the most pessimistic to date on a U.S. drawdown, come amid unabated sectarian violence in Baghdad between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims that has elevated concerns over civil war 3-1/2 years after a U.S.-led invasion.

Sunken treasure -- gutting another house

2006-09-19T06:22:00.000-07:00

After the exciting first Big Easy Roller Girls bout, a bunch of us bloggers headed over to the Kingpin to celebrate Loki's big 4-0. Lisa and Renard showed up -- Lisa toting some unusual treats -- including a tin of amazing butter cookies for Loki and me (I having celebrated a nice birthday earlier this month). The cookies instantly dissolved on the tongue in an essence of butter and powdered sugar. Lisa also brought along some other fond treats from her childhood she's been finding are still available, like Adam's Sour Apple gum, and (help me here, Lisa) that striped fruit gum.

So it was late to bed, and early to rise for both New Orleans blogger and Arabi Wrecking Krewe volunteers who set out Sunday morning to help gut another house. I'm learning that every house is different -- some go quickly; others take more time. Some people lived more obviously organized lives before their possessions were claimed by floodwaters. Others lived more cluttered lives where possessions left out in the open drifted around in that murky soup for weeks, turning into a soggy, decaying detritus expressing former lives in detailed minutia.

Wanna know what it feels like? You can't really, until you see all of your possessions covered in mud and mold. But let's just say you're sitting at a desk in your home reading this post. Think of filthy water rising to a level just above your head. Now, everything from from your head on down is ruined and lost forever. What do you have hanging on your walls? What's in your drawers? What's on your bookshelves? What of irreplaceable sentimental value will you have to throw on a debris pile in the street -- lost forever?

Some houses were flooded all the way into the attics.

I had to leave at noon, but I suspect that there will be another weekend of work before Morwen's house is completely gutted.

The Times-Picayune reported yesterday that with 200,000 flooded houses in New Orleans, and a downtrend in the numbers of volunteers, non-profit groups are really struggling to meet the need.

Please find a weekend or two that you can volunteer ... and please spread the word that the work here is far from complete.

Related:

VatulBlog -- Day 385: Dog Day Afternoon

Maitri's photos

Ray in New Orleans -- Blogger wrecking

Community Gumbo -- The Arabi Wrecking Krewe (audio)

Photos: Big Easy Roller Girls first bout

2006-09-18T06:31:00.000-07:00

They sold out. Good job girls!

Being one familiar with how failure can plague volunteer organizations, I was crossing my fingers that they'd get through whatever difficulty might come up -- while they were trying to compete and provide entertainment. On top of that, I have no desire to fall on a cement floor -- even with protective gear. That's just too hard a fall.

I admire that fighting attitude (wrapped around big hearts), but I worry about them getting hurt. Despite my worries, the first Big Easy Roller Girl bout was pulled off without a single glitch ... oh ... okay, I suppose they could have had another bar setup, but that's a good sign.

The excitement opened up with the girls doing warm-up laps around the rink to "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult. It seemed an odd choice at first, but sounded fresh on the powerful sound system, and induced flashbacks to another era -- exactly what was called for. The crowd roared for either The 'Aints, or the Hor-Nots, depending upon who they knew. I was truly excited to see those jammers speed, nudge, and shove their way through the pack. Yeah, Cherry Pi was put in the penalty box, but when she did, it was for delivering a really gratifying good hit. And I did have the privilege of seeing a couple of the girls change their panties.

IMHO, it was one of the best things to happen in New Orleans to raise people's spirits since Mardi Gras for locals happened earlier this year. I fell in love with a couple dozen roller derby queens on Saturday night.

Roller derby is even more exciting than Reggie Bush defending the fleur de lis from The Pack.

Photo: Susan Poag/Times-Picayune.

Related:

Sherri - How 'BOUT that! (first-hand BERG account)

the_velvet_rut -- Sophie Nuke 'Em (video)

Ghost photos

Maitri photos

Michael Homan photos

Michael Homan -- The Decline of Fema Trailer Sewage Pipes

b.rox -- Roller Girls

Another housegutting operation

2006-09-15T23:15:00.000-07:00

Ray is leading a housegutting for Gentilly blogger, Morwen.

We will start on Morwen's house this Sunday, 9/17, at 9:00am. The address is 2918 Annette St:

This is the crew for this week:

Morwen Madrigal Ray Shea Oyster Maitri Maitri's friend, Julie Karen Coffeebeans Cade Roux Rick Schroeder maybe a few AWK folks

I went over there this afternoon to look around inside. It's a 1 story house, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, wall to wall carpet, with a separate 2-story apartment which is very small. The house is on piers, about 3 steps up from the ground.

The good news:

* It is sparsely furnished compared to the last few houses we've done.

* The floor seems structurally sound.

* There is very little furniture at all in the back apartment.

* It's an open layout with French doors in the front, so it will be very easy to nagivate around and bring stuff out.

The more challenging news:

* The folks that Morwen bought the house from were very paranoid and so all the windows are sealed with bulletproof plexiglass under bars, so it will require power tools with special square bits to be able to remove the bars and plexiglass to get some air in there. I might try to go over there tomorrow some time to try to get a jump on that if anybody wants to join me.

* The kitchen ceiling has collapsed due to water so we will need to clear out the soggy ceiling boards and insulation to be able to get to the appliances.

* There is a FEMA trailer between the front door and the place where we most likely want to build our debris pile, so we will have to go the long way around with the wheelbarrows.

Arabi Wrecking Krewe has agreed to loan us their equipment and even possibly a few volunteers, but if you signed up to bring anything, please bring it anyway just in case.

Curious George's Jackson Square speech redux

2006-09-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

One year ago today, the boneless chickenhawk monkey boy preznit had his handlers clean up Jackson Square, and light St. Louis Cathedral using generators, for a face-saving photo op (my remarks highlighted).

We will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. ...

How much longer is it going to take to provide hope to the more than 250,000 New Orleanians who need to get back into their homes. If your excuse is that local authorities need to come up with a plan, then why aren't you proactively engaged in shepherding that process to get it moving along? And by the way, who was that guy you appointed to be the Gulf Coast recovery czar?

In the task of recovery and rebuilding, some of the hardest work is still ahead, and it will require the creative skill and generosity of a united country. ...

So why aren't you more actively defending the character of New Orleanians who continue to be hounded by your right-wing moralist gestapo.

As all of us saw on television, there's also some deep, persistent poverty in this region, as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality. ...

Uh ... and where's your plan? Could it be that there wasn't any money left over after you finished doling out debris contracts to gigantic private corporations like your Halliburton and Shaw patrons who take all the money and pay unscrupulous wages to immigrants? Is it even conceivable in your monkey brain that you could have run a lower-cost, WPA-style administration to oversee contracts bid out to capable local firms, thus providing jobs to desperate locals? Have you come up with a plan to make sure the same mistakes aren't made in the future? Of course, I know you haven't, because frankly, you like the fact that your friends profit from your incompetent leadership.

And to help lower-income citizens in the hurricane region build new and better lives, I also propose that Congress pass an Urban Homesteading Act. Under this approach, we will identify property in the region owned by the federal government, and provide building sites to low-income citizens free of charge, through a lottery. In return, they would pledge to build on the lot, with either a mortgage or help from a charitable organization like Habitat for Humanity. Home ownership is one of the great strengths of any community, and it must be a central part of our vision for the revival of this region.

All I have to say is, you damn sure ain't no Roosevelt, monkey man!

In the life of this nation, we have often been reminded that nature is an awesome force, and that all life is fragile. We're the heirs of men and women who lived through those first terrible winters at Jamestown and Plymouth, who rebuilt Chicago after a great fire, and San Francisco after a great earthquake, who reclaimed the prairie from the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Every time, the people of this land have come back from fire, flood, and storm to build anew -- and to build better than what we had before. Americans have never left our destiny to the whims of nature -- and we will not start now.

So, where's your commitment to Category 5 storm protection and coastal restoration -- NOW! Or how about getting a little more assertively behind the offshore royalties bill, now in danger of failure as it goes through a contentious House-Senate reconciliation battle, to make sure Louisiana gets the best deal possible so it can defend herself.

These trials have also reminded us that we are often stronger than we know -- with the help of grace and one another.

Translation: Go eff yourselves! The Gulf Coast recovery is strictly going to be left to the vagaries of speculators and profiteers of the glorious laissez faire (taxpayer-subsidized) marketplace. A year after the storm, are you waiting for your insurance company to settle while they've doubled your premiums? Tough shit! A year after the storm, you still don't have a place to live but you still have to pay your mortgage? Tough shit! A year after the storm, businesses and non-profits aren't investing in your neighborhood because they're waiting to see what's going to happen with the levees and pumping stations? Tough shit! If you can't pull yourself up by your own damn bootstraps (by getting a plum government contract), we don't need you in our country club America!

There's absolutely nothing on the White House home page about New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, or hurricane recovery. I guess the preznit must think his job is done.

For the rest of you outside of New Orleans wondering what the legacy of the Bush administration is, take a look at what's happening here. As New Orleans goes, so goes the rest of the nation. There will be more disasters like this in the future. If you don't like what you see, then it's time to join the Katrina dissident movement, where we don't accept excuses, we see through the lies, we demand responsive, effective services for our tax dollars, and our rallying cry is, failure is not an option!

A good place to get your feet ~~wet~~ muddy is by signing up with a non-profit organization (like The Arabi Wrecking Krewe) to help gut and rebuild houses.

ThinkNOLA has a sign-up to help a fellow blogger, Morwen, get her Gentilly house gutted.

Incompetence and negligence aren't exclusively White House phenomena. We don't have to look far to find politicians ripping off taxpayers, as Dambala recently discovered. Thanks to his diligent research through public records, he uncovered a deal Ray Nagin is trying to make to cut himself in on the profit from the hurricane recovery:

"See-Ray-Rape-Nawlins" launches a real estate company with developer David White (owner of McDonalds' franchise, Table One on Magazine, and appointed to the BNOB committee by Nagin) 2005 pre-K. Here, we have a Mayor who is in the real estate business in the city he's governing...conflict of interest? One would think.

It's clear evidence of the duplicitous rationale for Ray Nagin's market-based approach to "governing" the city's recovery, and offers just one more justification for why Ray Nagin needs to be recalled.

Nagin must see another guy when he looks in the mirror. Take a look at some of the things he says about himself on the city Web site:

... progressive policies ... unleashed unprecedented economic development ... 37,000 people were removed from the poverty rolls during the first three years ... led and managed the largest mass evacuation and largest natural disaster in the nation's history

In other matters, the September 18th edition of The Nation hit the newsstands this week. Inside is a story by Michael Tisserand about the New Orleans blog movement, and the online edition of The Nation features links to a (very small) handful of celebrated blogs.

Speaking of the media and democracy, Stop Big Media is reporting that the former shill for corporate media giants, FCC Chairman Michael Powell, buried a report he commissioned in 2004 because it showed that locally-owned broadcasters produce more local news than stations owned by big corporations. The result of the study was the opposite of what Powell hoped to find. Since the report was commissioned by a government entity, and was paid for by taxpayers, it should have been made publicly available.

In other media news, ThinkProgress is reporting that Air America Radio (heard on 1350 AM in New Orleans) is restructuring, and may be headed for bankruptcy. I'm an avid listener, although I admit I can't stand the dull logic and pedantic rhythm of Jerry Springer's voice, and Ed Schultz's screaming rants drive me as crazy as do Rush Limbaugh's (technically, Schultz isn't an Air America personality). There are, however, some extraordinary talents on that Air America network. I'm especially fond of Al Franken, who's low-key humor and intelligent conversation with engaging guests is refreshing and stimulating. I also like (and hope AAR will retain) Rachel Maddow, Laura Flanders of The Nation, State of Belief, and Ring of Fire. There are other programs in the AAR lineup that aren't heard in the New Orleans market. Frankly, I think WWL (which owns 1350 AM) ought to run some of those other programs rather than the other banter they offer at odd hours.

One way Air America fans can support the network is by joining as a member.

Hey, the Saints might have Reggie Bush, but the Big Easy Roller Girls have Sophie Nuke 'Em!

I wouldn't miss the first roller derby bout in New Orleans tomorrow for anything -- not even to see the Saints crushed by the Green Bay Packers! Actually, I'd be tickled to see the Saints win, but my favorite team has always been the Pack.

Tune in to WTUL's Community Gumbo, 91.5 FM (or online at WTUL.FM), Saturday morning at 9 a.m., to hear interviews with the Big Easy Roller Girls.

Finally, (fellow GB fan) Maitri and I are at last disposing of our recycle collections. You can too, at the Green Project.

And it was thanks to Maitri that an impromptu 3rd Geek Dinner was organized around a visit by Earthlink blogger Dave Coustan. I may have more to say about this in the future, but let me just point out for the record -- as one who hates BellSouth and Cox -- that the prospect of Earthlink's high-speed wireless network throughout New Orleans is not just a source of personal joy, it represents a desperately-needed positive sign for New Orleans. I hope Earthlink recognizes that this isn't just a good business opportunity, but is in fact a highly-marketable and prestigious gesture of good will. We are fortunate that EarthLink has given us this gift, to help us raise our outlooks a little, and I'm sure it will be rewarded for its investment when people in New Orleans and around the country come to understand and appreciate EarthLink's good gesture.

Related:

New Orleans, 1 A.K.

C. Ray Nagin: Katrina Boneless Chicken

Louisiana blog revolt spotlighted in The Nation

5.625% mortgage interest in New Orleans

2006-09-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

Stacy Head sent out an email reporting that The Finance Authority of New Orleans is offering:

... mortgage interest rates as low as 5.625%. Our home mortgage loan program is designed to help you renovate your home, purchase a new home, or purchase and renovate an existing home in Orleans Parish. This mortgage loan program is not limited to the first-time homebuyer and is available for all income groups. All of our loans are 30 year fixed rate mortgages.

C. Ray Nagin: Katrina Boneless Chicken

2006-09-13T15:33:00.000-07:00

100 day report? What? Too little, too late, Mr. Mayor!

I thought the BNOB process was dead. So what's this? You're celebrating something that failed? And now you're claiming that you "stated [a] commitment to protect ... citizen's rights to return and rebuild"? How? How exactly are you going to do this when you keep saying that the market should decide which neighborhoods will rebuild? That's the equivalent of Roosevelt saying after Pearl Harbor that "the market" should decide what to do about Hirohito.

Are you now taking credit for the whole ball of wax -- from one failure to the next, leading from the BNOB process, to independent neighborhood plans, to the UNOP process? Wow! You are such a visionary to have guided us through your blundering failures to finally accomplish what you wanted to achieve from the very beginning! Oh mysterious planning guru, how else might we be enlightened to your wisdom? What miracles might now unfold to save our dear city?

What's this? Now that we've waited 100 days to find out what your plans were, we have to wait for another 100 days for implementation? Shit man -- it'll be another year before you actually accomplish anything that might make a difference to hundreds of thousands of citizens still looking for hope that the city is turning the corner!

Your comment that things are better now than they were 100 days ago is about as inspiring a pronouncement as a flounder hitting a flat-bottom boat.

No, Mr. Mayor, what citizens of New Orleans should really be asking is, "Is what the mayor is doing good enough?"

This has been a long time coming! Ray Nagin -- you are now awarded the People Get Ready Katrina Boneless Chicken award for astoundingly low levels of leadership and achievement as the Mayor of New Orleans. As a leader before Hurricane Katrina, I wouldn't have given you more than a C- grade. As a leader since Hurricane Katrina, I'd give a clear F for failing to do your homework, failing to turn in your reports to citizens in a timely manner, and for taking credit for other people's work.

Good riddance! I'll be actively collecting signatures for your recall on election day later this month.

Related:

PGR -- Do you believe in the tooth fairy?

G Bitch -- One Year and 15 Days Later

VatulBlog -- A Few Words With Ray Nagin (should be titled "A Few Words From Ray Nagin")

Wet Bank Guide -- Perdido Street and Agincourt

Adrastos -- Spin City Version 2.1

Moldy City -- Kudos to the Mayor

TP Editorial -- Nagin's 100 days

Who's winning the "wah on terrah"?

2006-09-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

Preznit Boneless Chickenhawk on the fifth September 11th observance since 2001:

The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad.

Really?

It's an impossible task. The American people were told that the United States was going to war against Iraq to seize Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons, which never existed in the first place, and to be greeted as liberators, which lasted for about five minutes as a staged act for the cameras, in which American troops pulled down a statue of Saddam for cheering Iraqis waving suspiciously outdated Iraqi flags.

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden is howling with laughter in a cave somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan, because Boneless Chickenhawk got our soldiers bogged down in a religious civil war instead of paying attention to the real threats to our transportation network and our people.

Bush forgot. Recall what he had to say about the deaths of over 3000 Americans, and his progress in pursuing their murderer, Osama bin Laden, just six months after September 11th, at a White House Press Conference in 2002:

I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him.

New York Times conservative columnist John Tierney:

As an act of war, the attack on Sept. 11 was a blunder by Al Qaeda, and not merely because of the counterattack that destroyed Al Qaeda’s training camps and ousted the Taliban. It also alienated former jihadist allies in the Arab world, and caused a rift within Al Qaeda. ...

Instead of declaring victory against terrorists after routing the Taliban and sending bin Laden into hiding, [the Bush administration] invaded Iraq, reinvigorating Al Qaeda with a new tool for recruiting. Instead of putting the terrorist risk in perspective, Bush (with the full cooperation of Democrats and the press) set an impossible standard for making America safe. ...

When you treat one attack from a disorganized band of fanatics as a menace to civilization, you’ve doomed yourself to defeat and caused more damage than they could. You can’t completely stop terrorism, but you can scare people into giving up liberties, wasting huge sums of money and sacrificing more lives than would be lost in a terrorist attack.

Take it from bin Laden, who bragged in 2004 that it was “easy to provoke and bait this administration.”

“All that we have to do,” he said, “is to send two mujahedeen to the farthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written Al Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses.”

I thought the slightly out-of-context Gandhi quote I posted yesterday might elicit more comment. I was reminded, however, of another Gandhi quote:

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good.

I don't believe that a commitment to non-violence, and non-cooperation with evil, are irreconciliable. Murderers must be removed from the world, and murdering organizations must be dismantled. Killing more innocent people only makes more murderers, especially when done not in the name of fighting terrorists, but for empire. Bush has only created more terrorists -- which, of course, serves the interests of his patrons who seek perpetual war for perpetual profit.

Everyone should recall the outpouring of international support the United States received after September 11th, and how it was squandered by Bush when he stridently told the world he didn't need anyone's help in Afghanistan, and when he later rushed to war in Iraq on false pretenses to gain access to the oil fields for his friends in the business. Instead of turning the September 11th attacks into an opening for the United States to destroy terrorism by seeking international cooperation, Bush alienated the world by pre-emptively striking another nation to seize her resources, terrorizing and slaying tens of thousands of her citizens in the process, as well as thousands of Americans.

Who now has more blood on his hands? Bin Laden, or Bush? Hiding (as he always has) behind the American military bureaucracy doesn't exonerate Bush from his culpability for murder.

Besides squandering lives and treasure in Iraq, Bush still isn't addressing more pressing needs here in the United States. Sounds pretty much like a repeat of Vietnam.

Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
Till you spend half your life just covering up
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
To go and kill the yellow man
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.

Right back atchya Dubya!

Photos: Ms. Regina yard clearing

2006-09-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

You know the "old" expression about finding new muscles? I'm afraid it applies to me, after spending the day clearing Ms. Regina's yard with Big Easy Roller Girls, Arabi Wrecking Krewe volunteer Jon Kardon, and New Orleans bloggers G Bitch, Alan, Karen and Ashley. But they're good muscles, and I hope to keep them in shape, because helping others is good for the heart muscle, and good for that smaller muscle I have inside my head.

The Big Easy Roller Girls get a big hug. They simply showed up and quietly went to work without asking for instruction, thanks, or recognition. They didn't ask, but I'll plug them anyway -- they're having their first roller derby bout this coming Saturday at Mardi Gras World. I'll definitely be there to support them.

I'm humbled by the dedication of everyone who showed up to work, sweat, and (sorry Karen and Smasher) fend off stinging wasps! So is Ms. Regina, who called me yesterday to express her profound appreciation for having her prayers answered.

I want to single out Jason Goodman for the hero-of-the-day award. Had Jason not shown up with his landscaping business power tools, I doubt we could have made much progress hacking our way through that jungle of Katrina overgrowth with our dull machetes. And then, after everyone else was ready to call it quits, Jason went off and finished 5 -- yes, 5 -- other jobs he had scheduled for the day. Jason -- I still owe you pizza and beer. Jason has been playing guitar around town for years, and more recently, can be found onstage with The Bruisers, and A Clockwork Elvis.

Before:

After:

After:

After:

After -- Jason (a true professional) puts the creative touch on the job by cleaning up the ornamental bush next to the house:

More photos.

Related:

New Orleans, 1 A.K.

9/09/2006 Community Gumbo -- The Arabi Wrecking Krewe

7/29/2006 Community Gumbo -- The Big Easy Roller Girls: Through Hell and High Water

9-11-1906: Remember

2006-09-11T00:18:00.000-07:00

"Violence will prevail over violence, only when someone can prove to me that darkness can be dispelled by darkness." - Mahatma Gandhi

9-11 is the 100-year anniversary of the founding of Gandhi's Satyagraha movement for truth, justice, and peaceful change.

So much different could have been the response of our government after 9-11-2001, and after 8-29-2005, if we had elected different people to lead our nation.

Arun Gandhi, interviewed on Democracy Now:

And people were wondering, how can we resist with the state so powerful, and we don't have any weapons, you know, because every time, even today, when somebody talks about resistance, everybody thinks in terms of weapons and war and fighting. And that's when grandfather explained to them that we don't need any weapons of mass destruction. We have the ability to respond to this nonviolently and with self-suffering. And that's what he encouraged the people to do. And they came out into the streets with love for the enemy. You know, grandfather didn't tolerate any hate for the enemy or any anger for the enemy. He said nonviolence has to be complete nonviolence. We have to have love and respect for the enemy, and that is the only way we can overcome them. And that's what he showed in his work.

Help clear displaced musicians' yard Saturday

2006-09-06T16:13:00.000-07:00

Contact: schroeder915 at yahoo dot com, or comment below, if you can attend so we can get a head count, and please mention tools, if any, you can bring.

When: Saturday, 9/09/06, Noon - 4 p.m.

Where: 3219 Livingston (turns into Monticello at JP line above Earhart Blvd., map)

What to bring: Tools -- heavy-duty lawn bags, hard and soft rakes, *machetes*, *weedwackers*, *chainsaws*,lawn mowers, hedgers, pruners, work gloves, eye protection, bug spray, a hat, sunscreen. I'm looking for people or organizations that will loan tools for the day. I'll probably purchase some machetes and donate them to a tool library when we're finished. I may also rent a chainsaw and weedwacker if these can't be borrowed.

Who this is for:

Cora Foster is a pianist, organist and choir teacher. She was raised in a family, and in a neighborhood, that fostered musical training. Some of her uncles were Sam Dutrey (Preservation Hall clarinet player),Honore Dutrey (played with Louis Armstrong in the seminal King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band), Buddy Bolden(who's playing inspired King Oliver and Louis Armstrong), and Jelly Roll Morton (who contributed significantly to the dissemination of jazz to other cities). Preserving the heritage and cohesion of this neighborhood is essential.

She and her daughters were evacuated to Michigan. Her daughters Regina and Sandra only recently returned after renting a car and driving 1300 miles, despite Regina's back problems. They came back specifically to address the city order to gut and clean lots by the Aug. 29 deadline. The Arabi Wrecking Krewe, which has been helping musicians' families with their homes, organized a salvage operation, but the yard still needs to be cleared.

Note that the time, Sat., Noon - 4, was set to accomodate the schedules of people who were only available later on Saturday. There's no reason not togo earlier. Nobody's at the house now -- in fact, nobody's in living in that block at all. But bring someone with you, because there may not be anybody there until Noon.

More background here.

Craig's List post here.

Are NOPD commanders talking to homicide detectives?

2006-09-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

Did anyone hear the Warren Riley interview with John "Sputter" McConnell on WWL this morning (mp3)? The interview took place following another bloody weekend in New Orleans.

I called in a question to ask Riley how he's maintaining open lines of communication between district commanders and homicide detectives. Riley took homicide detectives out of district bureaus, and instead placed them into a centralized unit in headquarters.

Removing detectives from the districts, arguably, takes away an important resource that district commanders need in order to make them accountable for every type of crime in their assigned areas. You can't ask someone to do a job if you don't give them control over the resources they need to do the job -- it's a maxim of management of every kind, and one that's been in place at the NOPD since the COMSTAT process was implemented in New Orleans.

I wasn't able to remain tuned in to the WWL interview, so I'm wondering if Riley responded. I doubt he would have answered satisfactorily, however, since he, like many of his predecessors and affiliates in law enforcement, tend to get defensive rather than explain the logic and performance of their policies.

The problem of a centralized homicide unit was made apparent a few months ago when I asked a district commander to provide an update on an unsolved homicide investigation. The commander explained that he couldn't provide any information because homicide detectives weren't talking to him.

I did tune in again at the end of the hour to hear Riley arguing with a listener who wanted Riley to answer if he had enough manpower relative to the current post-Katrina population. Rather than use a best estimate of manpower to population, Riley got into it saying that nobody knows how many people are living in New Orleans right now.

I'm starting to question Riley's forthrightness -- if not his competence.

Related (via Adrastos):

DISTRICT B COORDINATING COUNCIL (DBCC) SPONSORS A FORUM TO HEAR PRESENTATIONS ON THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AND JUVENILE COURT REFORMS AND RECOVERY

Overview of issues in the Criminal Justice System:
Mr. Robert Stellingworth, President and CEO of the New Orleans Police
and Justice Foundation (NOPJF), and
Dr. Heidi Unter, VP of Research & Development for NOPJF
Update on Juvenile Court Reforms and Recovery:
Chief Judge David J. Bell, Orleans Parish Juvenile Court (OPJC),
Ms. Ilona Picou, Recovery Coordinator, OPJC and
Mr. Derwin Bunton, Associate Director, Juvenile Justice Program of Louisiana (JJPL)
A question and answer opportunity will follow each presentation.

The goal for this event is to give attendees some ideas on how to help support the upcoming City Sponsored Crime Summit on September 16th, and its recommendations.

WHEN: Thursday, September 7, 2006 6:30 PM

WHERE: Ashé Cultural Arts Center, 1712 Oretha Castle-Haley Blvd.