uptown is the new downtown May 31, 2006
Today was Josh’s New Car Day. After thinking about it and obsessing for almost three years, he called me this morning and said, “I am buying an Infinity today.” You might wonder why he felt like he needed to call me with this announcement. It’s because, three years ago, my son Leicester was driving a crummy car in Baton Rouge. Josh told me that he was going to buy a new car and I know that Josh keeps his car scrupulously maintainted. So I said, “I want to buy your car for Leicester and I will give you more than you can get for trading it in.” He said that he wanted to look at several cars before he bought one and he would let me know.
Well, it went on and on. Leicester moved closer to LSU, graduated from college and moved to New York, we had this horrific hurricane and flood, Josh was at first unsure of his job, and the car talk stopped. Then, Don’s car died. The next time I saw Josh, I asked if he was still thinking about buying a new car, because Don might want his old car (which still looks and smells like it did three years ago!). By this time, the car thing became a joke among us and everyone said it was never going to happen. It was like watching a man go through a three-year pregnancy. For some reason, he suddenly made up his mind today. He called me and said, “I know it’s short notice, but do you still want to buy the car? I need to know, uh, in two hours.” So I called Don to check it out with him, Josh came by and picked me up and off we went to the Infinity dealership.
The doubting gang met up with us at the Delachaise and everyone had to see the new car for themselves. We wound up at Taqueria, which was packed. As someone said on the Metroblog, “Uptown is the new Downtown. Believe it.” I made my pitch for spending more time and money in the Quarter. There were objections to the jacked-up prices of drinks in the Quarter, which is certainly true, but worse the closer you get to Bourbon. Perhaps French Quarter proprietors could meet us half-way and have a night for locals or a discount if you show a New Orleans license. There was general agreement, though, that we are going to be bigger Quarter Supporters. Meredith is having her birthday dinner at the Bistro at Maison de Ville, so there you go.
I drove Shannon home and she is a little down because she is being hit with a lot of decisions to make right now. She can be very decisive, but the sheer amount of stuff going on right now in her life is oppressive. She feels like every decision is very important and there are simply not enough hours in the day to devote the right amount of time to each. She has contractors and other people she is dealing with and it’s hard to know who to trust. She didn’t plan to embark on this renovation project. I have felt this decision paralysis a lot more than she has. There is an element of depression to it, which I am familiar with, but Shannon never was never depressed before Katrina ruined her house. I told her something that someone told me that has helped me with every big, hard thing I have had to figure out and didn’t want to. “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
book dorks May 30, 2006
Tonight was book club and Meredith picked Shannon and me up and drove us out to the parish. Katherine phoned wondering where we were going and when I told her she pronounced us “dorks.” This from a girl who, I happen to know, played golf this weekend. Meredith said, “Hmm. I didn’t realize Katherine was such an illiterate.” “Borderline Republican,” said I. Our hostess, Susan, was cooking bar-b-qued shrimp, so I brought a salad, Meredith brought bread for dipping and Shannon, of course, supplied the wine.
Susan and Janet are Meredith’s friends, so Shannon and I didn’t know them. Their friend, Heather, was new to all three of us. I felt so at home with them, it was like we have been friends forever. Shannon got the same good vibe. The dinner was delicious. We have a rule that we have to talk strictly about the book, Madame Bovary for this meeting, for at least 30 minutes. It was hard to stick to the book because we had just met and everything that is going on, how other women are getting through life in this place, is just so interesting right now.
Susan, who chose Madame Bovary, is recently divorced. She is thin and has dark hair and eyes. She looks like Terry Hatcher a little. She is very centered and together, has kids, and is a great cook. She was interested in Emma Bovary’s sense of dissatisfaction and the way she is constantly seeking a “rush” of some kind, whether with men, church or money. It’s stunning how modern Emma is in this way. What person hasn’t felt that dissatisfaction? The way we handle it is a sign of our character. But Emma, of course, has to kill herself because that was the only way it could logically end for her. She didn’t have the modern option of reinventing herself.
Janet is blond and very kinetic. She has a great sense of humor, very down-to-earth and cool. She, her husband and kids are living on the second floor of their half-gutted home in Mid-City. Her son was born with a “club foot” which had to be corrected with numerous surgeries. She was particularly struck by the story of the boy with the club foot in the book. Ambitious Emma pushes Charles to try an experimental operation on the boy and it fails spectacularly. Charles brushes it off because he is used to failure, but it burns in Emma because she realizes that the husband she has bullied into submission is a fool.
Shannon has read the book in French and she is fascinated with the class structure of the period. In her view, the reason Emma is so adrift is because she is “between classes.” She doesn’t know who she is. She’s a woman having a massive identity crisis. It makes me claustrophobic to think of living in a time when a woman, if she was lucky enough to ever find out who she was, couldn’t be who she was. When I think of what Emma was up against, all my attempts at self-realization have been a piece of cake.
Heather and Meredith were also floored by the whole class thing. They are completely different. Meredith never wants to have children and is very self-assured about what she wants in a relationship. She is not someone who will suffer being unhappy for long, something I have always treasured in her. Heather has three children and her husband of 22 years left her after Katrina. She is now having a late-in-life baby with her new boyfriend. They live in a post-Katrina compound of her house and his RV, with several relatives sprinkled around. She was warm, friendly and very funny. I don’t think she cared much for Emma because of the callous disregard Emma shows for her daughter. It is kind of hard for a mother to relate to that.
All the talk of idiotic Charles, Rodolphe and Leon, and Emma’s troubles with men led to talk among the group of the men in their lives. Susan and I, being unattached, didn’t have much to contribute in the way of “guess what he did yesterday,” but it’s fun listening to women joke about the men they love. Heather’s tales of her ex-husband having to learn normal household tasks were worthy of Comedy Central.
At this point, I am the only book club member besides Susan who has a complete working house or is not in the middle of moving or doesn’t have all my relatives living with me. As such, I am hosting the next meeting. That means I choose the next book. Because of everyone’s travel schedules, it’s coming up soon, so I need to quickly choose a short book. Everyone has expressed a taste for classics. I’d like to choose something mind-expanding, but still accessible. I’d also like to choose something I haven’t read. So, ya’ll send me suggestions. Dangerblond needs a short work of literature, with something important to be learned from it, not too much heavy lifting, easily available. After all, it’s summer. You get a headache from all that reading.
Speaking of a headache, I have been familiarizing myself with the city’s blighted property program. I went to the housing office this morning to ask about an application. The young woman behind the desk told me that the city has a backlog of 2,500 adjudicated properties (meaning the title has reverted to the city) which have been abandoned for 5 years before the hurricane. I’ve taken a quick look at some of the properties on the list on the city’s website and they range from vacant lots to very nice houses, good parts of town to gnarly, scary parts. They are currently trying to dispose of (sell) these properties to non-profit and for-profit entities. What they are trying to do is sell as many off in bulk as they can, I think. They are looking to find people who can buy and develop many of these properties at once because I guess it’s faster than parceling them out one by one. They have to follow up with each purchaser to make sure they are complying. These corporate entities have to get their applications in by June 9. There is federal money to finance construction, etc.
She said that once the backlog is disposed of, they will start adding properties to the list of blighted and abandoned properties. There were many more than 2,500 blighted properties in New Orleans before Katrina, and the five-year mark will be coming up for many of them soon. That is the first step toward adjudication and then sale. I asked her if they were accepting applications from individuals (as opposed to companies; this program is also supposed to provide the opportunity for individuals to buy just one property if they commit to rehabilitating it). She said, and this is emblematic of City Hall, “I’m not going to tell you no, and I’m not going to tell you yes.” So, I am just going to submit an application. From her response, I take it that there is a 50-50 chance someone will look at it. It’s just a roll of the dice, and the point is to learn how this process works. Next stop: the Civil Sheriff’s office to learn about the wonderful world of tax sales, a phenomenon that I predict we will be seeing a lot more of.
2-minute video
Editor B has a video on his blog, B.Rox, and it’s unbelievable how much he manages to get across in 2 minutes about the state of New Orleans.
new orleans is a big american city May 29, 2006
There is good and bad news on all the home fronts this weekend. I got into a frenzy of brush-clearing around my ranch-style house. I have had some trouble getting my delicate, sensitive garbage men to pick up such things as yucky palm fronds unless they have been suitably cut up and bagged. When I got finished cutting all the growth from the brick fence in the back, I had quite a pile. I looked at it and thought it would take me a week to cut it all up and bag it nicely enough for the garden-club ladies on the waste management truck. I had also excavated an ancient brick bar-b-que pit. What does the post-Katrina matron do? I grabbed a box of kitchen matches and lit a fire in the bar-b-que, then I started piling on the sticks, careful to slow it down when it got too smokey. Last thing I need is the NOFD breaking down my door. I burnt up half the pile, and can’t wait to burn the rest. Trash-burning is not something we city-folk are familiar with. I have to admit it was a little thrilling and illicit. I was actually thinking of inviting people over for the next stick-burning.
The smoke signals caught the attention of my back-door neighbor and he brought some bad news. He is tearing down the brick fence between our two yards, and he is not replacing it with another brick fence because he can’t afford it. I said I wished he could put another brick fence, or not tear it down at all. He pointed out that the fence is collapsing, as though that was due to the hurricane. Yes, it’s collapsing, but I and my friend, Woody, put up iron bars bolstered by concrete rubble in 2000 to keep it from falling into my yard, and it’s still there. I kind of like it. It matches the Pompeiian-ruin look of my house. There was a dead tree in his yard that fell during Katrina and I guess this is how he is financing the replacement of the fence. It’s hard to argue with that kind of American ingenuity just because you prefer a collapsing brick wall to a brand new wooden fence. It’s hard to argue about silly things like that at all when they are still finding bodies in Mid-City.
When people from far away hear that another body was found nine months after the hurricane in Mid-City, I wonder if they realize that Mid-City is the heart of New Orleans? Canal Street runs through Mid-City. Mandina’s, Liuzza’s, Rock-n-Bowl, all that is in Mid-City. Mid-City is a neighborhood that is in no danger of being abandoned. It’s a thoroughly mixed neighborhood within all the meanings that multiculturalism, historic preservationism, political corectness and demography can devise. Many people have returned and are repairing their houses there. Yet, a Katrina-victim’s body was found there just the other day. I have no idea what this means in the larger picture. Should I be outraged that this poor person was not found sooner? Why didn’t anyone go to that house and look for this person before now? In my darkest days of depression I have never thought that my dead body would go nine months without someone wondering about me and looking for me. And looking hard.
I suppose it is a failure on the part of the authorities, with their cadaver-sniffing dogs and other awful things that had to be brought and used here. They did not find this person before now. I wish they had, for the sake of the hopeful people who are rebuilding in Mid-City and who now have to look at the many still-uninhabited houses with newly-wrought fear. But, on the other hand, this means something different to me. On August 29, 2005, New Orleans was a big city with everything that goes with it. It was quite possible to lose yourself here and be free from anyone who might be trying to find you. That is one of the needs that America’s big cities serve. Big cities on other continents serve the same purpose, but New Orleans was part of the American plan, one of its earliest members. It’s sad to think that a person might move to a big city, such as New Orleans, and want to cut themselves off from family, past, small town, bad relationship or any and all of it, but they could, and they did. New Orleans was not just another small town.
I suppose this lonely dead person on Banks Street stays on my mind because it points out the difference between a devastating flood in a big city like New Orleans and a city like Davenport, Iowa, which also suffered flooding, but from the Mississippi River. I could be wrong, but I imagine that in Davenport the police would be called if someone missed one too many hair appointments without checking in. That’s just not how it is in a big city. If you are not the kind of person who likes county fairs, no one cares. If there is a church in your neighborhood, but you don’t attend it, people don’t question it. If your neighbor never talks to you, you assume they have a reason and you leave them alone. Sometimes pressing the issue can make you wish you hadn’t. If you don’t like chatting with the clerks in the check-out line, then the big city is the place for you.
The fact that a person’s body could go for nine months without someone tearing that house apart looking for any clue as to where they might have gone, all this time, means to me that this is a big American city. There were and still are a half-million stories here, and most of them will never be told. That’s the thing that I don’t think people really get. The desire to categorize people and put labels on them is some kind of a societal instinct. That’s what people move to cities to get away from. That’s why it’s never a good idea to trust your instincts about people when you are in a big city. All bets are off. New Orleans is a big city. That’s why so many people lived here, stayed here, died here. That’s why you don’t know what will happen next here. That’s why no one can make us go away.
As though Mid-City was proving that it will not go away, the Bayou Bougaloo was held on Saturday beside Bayou St. John. The Mid-City Art Market was incorporated as well. I picked up a few things at the art market and ran into some great die-hard Mid-City folks, including Rachel Lyons, the Jazz Fest archivist, who lost everything in Gentilly and moved to Mid-City. I also talked with Tracy Hamlin, an old friend from Greenville, who has lived in Mid-City for a long time. I first reconnected with Tracy last summer after many years. She was trying to sell a wonderful old camel-back double a block off Canal Street and I was trying to buy it. She had restored it beautifully with all original cypress doors, transoms and working hardware. I can’t describe what a great piece of restoration it was. We talked and talked and I couldn’t make it work financially but I fell in love with the house. When I saw on television that Mid-City was flooded, I thought of all my friends who lived there, Tracy and her family, and the beautiful camel-back double. I drove by there when I got back from Houston and I could see that the house had gotten only about a foot of water, but that was enough to destroy much of the work Tracy had done.
When I saw her this weekend, she was very happy that she hadn’t yet found a buyer before the flood. She repaired the double and is now taking advantage of the much higher rents than before the flood. Additionally, she bought an apartment complex a few blocks from her Mid-City house and she is renovating it. She always thought it was bad for the neighborhood and she wants to change that. She told me where it is and I drove by there on my way home. It is just the kind of thing you DO NOT want in your neighborhood. Ugly, cheap, bricks, low ceilings, tiny, cheesy windows, looks like a prison. There was work in progress on a Saturday, and it looked like they were literally raising the roof. I have to give a big shout-out to this Greenville, Mississippi girl who is putting her money where her mouth is to make her neighborhood a better place. You may say that she is a real estate speculator, but she will get what she gets. That’s what speculating means.
This weekend, I also met some of the New Orleans bloggers who have been nothing but words on a monitor to me until now. That was a lot of fun, and I hope to meet more of them. The mainstream media’s coverage of the recent elections and the congressional panty-twist involving William Jefferson have left me more convinced than ever that if you want to know what is going on in New Orleans, one of America’ greatest and most newsworthy cities, you need to read the blogs. People just don’t get it unless they live here. This is a big American city. Everything that has happened here can also happen in your city. Everything that has happened here is important to you. In our fate, it is possible to see your future. If you want to know what the results of your compact with the American government will be, take a look at the loneliest, most anonymous and over-looked person in New Orleans. But for your lucky circumstances, your family and friends, your need to join a church, your friends at work, your great neighborhood boosters, that’s you.
first, they came for the congressmen… May 27, 2006
I want to draw your attention to this Top Ten List, which I saw on 2-millionth. It’s written in a flip, almost funny way, but everything on this list bears paying attention to. I am not a conspiracy theorist, because I don’t think most of the egomaniacs in the government can get it together enough to find their asses with both hands. I do think, however, that societies often blunder their way straight to hell with the best of intentions, sheeple totally preoccupied with other stupid things, following along. There is nothing that says it won’t happen to the good old USA.
By way of commenting on this list, I disagree that The Long War is a public relations ploy that is on its way out. The War on Drugs is still claiming its casualties, which are American citizens jailed at the highest rates ever. The War on Terror us still going on and Americans think it justifies giving the government broad powers to suspend civil liberties because, after all, if you aren’t doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about. Right? We’ll see what you think after the cops toss your apartment looking for cold medicine.
I would also add two things to the list. One is the boneheaded president’s insistence on a military solution to everything. For example, Bush wants to address illegal immigration by building a fortified wall across the Mexican border. This will be his ozymandian monument in the desert. It is a symbol of hubris and refusal to face reality, and it is doomed to fail. Bush apparently has never read a book. In this way, he is very much like the hero of a Greek tragedy. He sees signs everywhere of his divine destiny and pays no mind to the past or to warnings about the future. He thinks God is on his side, so he will not fail, and neither will his army. There is a chorus of people warning him that pride goeth before a fall, but he carries on heedless of his tragic flaw.
The other thing I would add is rampant governmental corruption. Since I am from Louisiana, I know a thing or two about this. I can assure you that the current ridiculous spectacle, and the one before that, and the one before that, are doing nothing but fostering disrespect for the political class. The congress looks like a bunch of looters, making off with everything they can grab before it all comes falling down. Way to keep the Republic, assholes. Hastert, Pelosi and Bush are obviously and blatantly pointing out the line that separates them from the unwashed, strip-searched us, and it is an ugly, elitist move. I would like to point out the contrasting actions of Bill Clinton, who allowed his blood to be DNA sampled and compared to dried splooge on Monica Lewinsky’s dress rather than provoke this kind of constitutional crisis. What our leaders are doing now, announcing that they are above the law, is a classic harbinger of the end of a civilization. If any of them had ever read a book, they might know that.
you can’t take it with you May 25, 2006
William Jefferson could stop all of this foolishness on Friday morning. At the very latest, Tuesday morning, since Monday is a holiday. The worst constitutional crisis in over 200 years, the need for the congress to fight tooth and nail with the FBI, the president taking the extraordinary step of sealing documents in a federal case, and New Orleans having to be stuck with Jefferson as our congressional representative for one more day - all of it is in Bill Jefferson’s hands. Once again, when New Orleans needs action, we get drama. Political theater that we are not creating and that we didn’t ask for.
In case you haven’t heard, our klepto-congressman has precipitated a manufactured crisis that has every pair of knickers on Capitol Hill in a twist. The House of Representatives is ALL UPSET because the FBI had the nerve to show up at a congressman’s office, A CONGRESSMAN’S OFFICE, with a search warrant. Well, goodness gracious, that’s what happens to regular people who don’t comply with subpoenas. Do they KNOW who they are fooling with?
One of my lawyer friends, a fucking Republican, said, “well, Kim, you know they didn’t have to go busting up in his congressional office. There are other ways to do this.”
Well, yeah. You serve the person with a subpoena requesting specific things, and if they don’t hand them over, you go and get them. At least that is what happens to regular people. Apparently, with a congressman, you serve a subpoena, as was served on Jefferson, and you wait for him to turn over the material he is hiding in his congressional office. If he doesn’t turn it over, you wait some more. Then you wait until either you die or he dies. If he dies after you, future people can go research the evidence that was never turned over at the William Jefferson Library and Center for Congressional Ethics. Am I missing something here?
Why is the president making a ridiculous spectacle out of himself by sealing records seized in a raid on the office of a probable criminal? Is he afraid that Dick Cheney will be next? This has got to be the only time William Jefferson and Dick Cheney have wound up on the same short list. This is my take: Bush, Hastert, Pelosi and the whole political class are closing ranks around a criminal because they are afraid that more criminality will be exposed in congress.
OK, let’s not be cynical. Let’s assume there are less than a dozen congresspeople who are so crooked, and so stupid, that the FBI has enough probable cause to get a judge to sign a warrant authorizing them to RAID the CONGRESSIONAL OFFICES of these hypothetical dozen crooked congresspersons. Let me assure that this would take a lot more evidence than your cousin heard it from his girlfriend, whose mother works at the phone company and knows Jefferson’s former downstairs maid. There are only 435 U.S. congresspeople. You better have some nerve to go busting your ass up into one of their 435 offices without a damned good reason.
So, are those twelve hypothetical congressional crooks worth all this drama? Right now? I know I’m just a fucking blond, but what is wrong with William Jefferson and all of the other people in congress who are under investigation for one or another form of bribery simply turning over to the federal investigators the evidence that is being requested? They wouldn’t have to look like pussies when they are doing it. They could puff themselves all up and say something really corny, like, “in recognition of the rare privilege that I have been given to have served as a United States Congressperson, I have decided to put the rule of law and the interest of justice above my own personal interest, even though the president thinks I shouldn’t. In order to avoid a constitutional crisis at a time when our country is at war and many of our people still suffer at home, I will turn over the documents that have been lawfully requested from me. I have no control over how history may look upon me, but I hope I will be remembered well for this one act.”
This could be followed by a pledge to cooperate fully in the investigation, and the announcement that Jefferson will resign his seat in congress so that his district will not be crippled by his dishonor at a time when we are already crippled by disaster. This is just a suggestion. I’m just tossing them off the top of my head here.
Knowing that this will inevitably end badly for him, and knowing what is at stake here in New Orleans, what is it that makes Jefferson hang on and keep dragging us and now the whole country through this unnecessary drama with him? This situation kind of reminds me of the hostage crisis in Iran in 1979. Those student/kidnappers wanted the Shah of Iran in exchange for the hostages. As I recall, they wanted to kill him in some barbaric way. The Shah of Iran was dying of cancer, and eventually died before the hostages were released. How did he spend his last weeks? Flying around the world in futile attempts to prolong his own life. When people think of the last Shah of Iran, they think of a greedy, stupid near-eastern potentate who could not even keep the throne that was handed to him on a silver platter as a baby gift from the United States.
But what would you think of the Shah if he had flown back to Iran and sacrificed himself for the freedom of those hostages? So what if he already had cancer. So what if they were going to let them go anyway. We would think of him as, if not a hero, at least a person of some integrity, even if he only found it at the end. This is the kind of legacy-changing opportunity that is open to Bill Jefferson. He can be remembered as just another crooked Louisiana politician, notable only for the fact that he caused a constitutional crisis, or he can remembered as one of the many people who gave something to New Orleans in her hour of need. We are not even asking him to walk willingly to the guillotine. We are just asking him to think of something outside of himself at a time when it can really make a difference.
special rights for special people May 24, 2006
I am beginning to think the Louisiana State Legislature should be renamed The Louisiana State Home for Control Freaks. Katrina must have made people like Alex Heaton and Ben Nevers feel impotent and powerless, so they are fighting back by trying to pass completely irrelevant laws that would have the legislature micromanaging everything from reproduction to pawnshops. Nevers is the compassionate conservative who proposed the latest draconian ban on abortion. He believes that a girl who is the victim of rape or incest shouldn’t be allowed to kill the poor little embryo that might result, because that would just make things worse. Um, no it wouldn’t, Ben. It would make things a whole lot better, but thanks for all the compassion. With all the women and children in Louisiana who need decent homes, it’s great that Ben is right on top of the womb watch.
New Orleans’ Alex Heaton has been inordinately preoccupied with retirement pay for judges’ widows for the past year. What’s up with that, Alex? Got your eye on a judge’s widow or something? Lately, he has been trying to get a bill passed that would allow the legislature to micromanage the state’s pawnbrokers. I’m glad to see Alex is all over this pawnbroker crisis, but I agree with Republican state representative Diane Winston, who said, “we’re becoming a nanny state when it comes to protecting consumers.” Indeed. And if Ben Nevers has his way, we will become a patriarchy state when it comes to controlling women.
There are people who are paid to advocate for individuals, and to gain the best advantage for those individuals or companies. Those people are called lawyers, and those individuals and companies are called clients. People who are called “state representatives” are supposed to have a wider view of the public whom they serve. They serve a body called “constituents.” That’s us. They work for all of us. Many in the Louisiana Legislature do not seem to realize this, and why would they? For many years, frustration at the blatant corruption and entrenchment of the legislature has made us apathetic. We have been faced with two bad choices in almost every election. Louisiana does not have low voter turn-out because people don’t care. It has low voter turn-out because experience has taught that it doesn’t make any difference.
Our state legislature has done very little that has made any sense since Katrina. The reasons for it are numerous, but the catastrophe put the whole thing into sharp relief. It’s possible that we have elected so many corrupt and incompetent people that when you say, “major flooding, worst disaster in the U.S.,” they actually do think, “Oh, my god. We have to tighten up on pawnshops and stop abortion!” It’s pathetic. We have no control over Ben Nevers, he is from outside New Orleans, but Alex Heaton is our problem. I don’t know why this guy is popular enough to be in the legislature, but he is not helping. Someone who really wanted to work on behalf of New Orleans would be much appreciated in this valuable legislative seat.
I was reminded of another stupid state legislature trick when I went to Rite-Aid this morning to pick up my prescription. There was a “sign-up” sheet for people to fill out when they purchase cold medicine containing pseudoepinephrine. The pharmacist told me that when you purchase sudafed or any of the typical antihistamines, you have to sign this sheet AND have your drivers’ license swiped. This is thanks to the Louisiana Legislature. Because there are a few people who make illegal drugs out of pseudoepinephren, anyone who buys cold medicine has to allow their privacy to be invaded. Again, with the micromanaging. This big, hairy monster out there called “DRUGS” makes people think they have to put up with this crap. There is an even bigger, hairier monster out there called “TERRORISM,” and that one makes people think it’s OK for the government to listen to phone calls without a warrant. What’s it going to take? House-to-house searches? The big, hairy monster is going to turn out to be the Louisiana State Legislature if we have to sign up with them for every damned thing we do.
These routine intrusions into the lives and bodies of regular Louisiana citizens are, of course, in direct contrast to the treatment given to those lucky enough to be in the political class. William Jefferson, whose illegal behavior has been reprehensible even if only half of it is true, is getting help from no less than the Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. Hastert says that the FBI raid on Jefferson’s congressional office is unconstitutional because of the separation of powers. So, if a congressman kills someone and stuffs their body in the freezer in his Capitol Hill office, the cops can’t go in there and get it? Jefferson could have avoided the search and seizure by complying with a lawful subpoena. If the judicial branch can make Bill Clinton sit for a videotaped deposition in a civil suit while he is serving as president, then the executive branch can damn well raid the office of a congressman who is withholding evidence of a federal crime when they have a warrant. It’s absurd enough to read in the paper that Republicans are asserting Jefferson’s constitutional right to hide evidence. Seeing that huge stack of pages where Louisiana citizens are having to tell the government when they buy cold medicine just pushed me right through the looking-glass. Do any of these people have any idea who the Constitution was written to protect?
neighborhood watch May 23, 2006
Don is in Pennsylvania for the week and he called tonight to tell me how beautiful it is up there. I’ve got the girls and he wanted detailed reports on each. Daisy has regained her ability to jump up on the bed, so I have both of them sleeping with me. Daisy occasionally turns her body in such a way that she starts snoring like a train. Jackie has to be smashed up right next to me so that I worry all night about rolling over on her. Today, Daisy made an escape attempt and was returned by a uniformed cadet of some kind. Everyone in this neighborhood knows where my crazy dogs live.
Since the semester ended, I’ve been out in the yard more and walking around here a lot for the first time since the storm. Almost every house on my street is occupied, but some are occupied by different people, so I am guessing they are renters. The proverbial worst house on the street has been gutted to the studs and is undergoing a transformation. Lots of new blooming plants being watered. I walked over to Bellaire, which is lower than my street and took on a lot of water, and almost every house down at the end by the railroad tracks has a “for sale” sign up. As I walked toward Metairie Road, I could see that many of the houses on the cemetery side of Bellaire are still unoccupied. Many had workers inside. There is one house that always had a solid wall of shrubbery hiding it from the street. The shrubs are very thinned out now. It’s a little fairy-tale cottage back there.
Our neighborhood is very atypical of New Orleans. It’s not one of the “named” areas that are always talked about. It was developed in the 1950s. It’s actually called Country Club Gardens, because it’s down the road from the New Orleans Country Club, but Don’s family never liked that name, so we don’t call it that. It does sound pretentious. I have never even played golf, much less joined a country club. It’s pretty funny that I live here, really. I guess Cemetery Gardens didn’t make the naming committee, but it’s actually closer to the cemetery.
I had to run some errands Uptown and as I was driving up Carrollton I think I actually saw some guys working on the streetcar tracks. The lines seemed to be up, too. Could this be true? Has anyone else Uptown noticed work being done on the streetcar line or tracks? I also saw what looked like a freshly-laid track bed on St. Charles, but it was less than a block and there didn’t seem to be anyone working on it. On Carrollton, I also saw some things that looked like they were going to become concrete pilings. Anyone know what that’s about? I know I’m obsessing on it, but I REALLY want those streetcars back. I want to take a streetcar. I want to take a streetcar named “Desire.” Get off and walk six blocks to . . . Elysian Fields. Hello. I’m looking for my sister, Stella DuBois. Stella Kowalski.
Being in New Orleans these days, it’s possible to see things that you never saw before because there used to be a big fat oak tree in front of it. Or the view was obscured by someone’s now-obliterated house. Driving down St. Charles Avenue, I noticed that many of the grand old houses are empty, but without “for sale” signs. One huge old house that stood empty for a long time is now being renovated and enlarged to what looks like twice the size. The oaks on St. Charles have definitely taken a beating, but the missing limbs are allowing sunlight to get in, so new trees can be planted. Parts of Uptown look better than ever because of all the painting and landscaping.
I walked around in the Quarter a little and it was not very busy, which is not unusual for a late Tuesday afternoon. I haven’t been to the Quarter at night since Jazz Fest, but I have heard it’s not very crowded at night either. This might be the best opportunity locals have ever had to enjoy the French Quarter. Most of us have had to do our drinking and puking at home all these years because the Quarter was too crowded with tourists. Tomorrow afternoon I am taking an excursion to my favorite swimming pool down there because I was told that the bar would be open. I read on Library Chronicles that there are 30,000 librarians coming to town for a convention in June. Now might be the best time for all of us to go to the Quarter, before all those horny, drunken librarians get in town.
I spent a little time reading what other folks have had to say about New Orleans since the election. There are some people, popular bloggers who get on TV a lot, who have been saying some simple-minded and racist things. I’ve always thought that other people don’t get New Orleans, and now I am sure of it. For some really angry people, we have somehow become a scapegoat for everything they hate - blacks, gays, the French, people having fun, you name it. They are just dying to find a reason to say that New Orleans deserves what she got. It makes them feel safe, because then they DON’T deserve it, right? Haney was asking on his blog why Dirty Coast’s t-shirts are so popular in California. I think it’s because people in California are looking at this and thinking, “damn. If the big one hits us, we can expect the same kind of hatred.” And why wouldn’t they? California has more gays than we do. They’re much worse godless heathens then we are. And it’s full of Mexicans.
Also, the ignorance about New Orleans has made many people think Ray Nagin is another in the line of corrupt mayors we have had in New Orleans before him. Why? Because they were black, and he’s black. People are also comparing Ray Nagin to Marion Barry, a mayor who was videotaped smoking crack with some whore in a hotel room. Why? Because Barry’s black, and Nagin’s black. Now, fuckin’ Bill Jefferson gets caught taking a bagful of money out of Linda Tripp’s trunk. This is going to cause no end of trouble for Sugar Ray, because he is just as black as Jefferson. Maybe more. Listen, everyone knows I was ready to drop Ray Nagin like a hot rock. But he is not corrupt and people who are putting that out onto the world wide web are not just too lazy or too stupid to do research, they are racists.
Me defending Sugar Ray is a typical New Orleans thing to do, especially since he was quoted saying some other dumb-ass remark today. However, I’m not really that sentimental. I’m really not that crazy about Ray Nagin, but he has been re-elected. I don’t want to spend the next four years criticizing him when there are more important things to be done. And, hell, there are a lot of unimportant things to do, too. I’m tired of everything being so important.
dangergranny
So, yeah, my grandson is not quite two years old, but he has a blog. It’s the 21st century, babe. He just posted some pictures of himself and his parents. We grandmas don’t have brag-books any more, we just brag on our blogs.
the jefferson daughters: high-maintenance May 22, 2006
What goes on inside an elected official’s head when they contemplate committing crimes and unethical acts for personal gain? Do they tell themselves, “it’s OK, I’ve worked hard and I deserve this?” Do they convince themselves that it’s like it never happened because no one will find out? Do they just tell themselves that everyone does it, so they would be a fool not to? Do other people tell them that? William Jefferson seems to have been telling himself it’s OK because he was doing it for his daughters. He was making deals for his daughters when he demanded stocks and cash, don’t you see? When he grabbed that National Guard vehicle to take him to his Uptown house while New Orleanians were still stranded on overpasses, he said he needed to get his daughters their laptops. Good thing the city of New Orleans isn’t as high-maintenance as those Jefferson girls.
Maybe a year ago, in another universe, we might be accepting the inevitability of the trademark Green/Jefferson family dog-fight with people who have the nerve to interfere with them. Jefferson would proclaim his innocence, blame all the charges on racism, mobilize his huge machine, and take his time deciding who should succeed him. Those of us who aren’t buying, and will never buy, Jefferson’s defense, would just sit on the sidelines and wait to see what happens. The elephant in the living room here is that New Orleans’ congressional district is majority black. It’s set up that way. Jefferson has been in office for 16 years, which is 8 elections, with no serious challengers. He has had the Democratic Party behind him because he has controlled a lot of black votes. If anyone doubted his power, they could just wait for the next congressional elections and sit back and watch. Many people in this district, and I venture to say most whites, have always viewed Jefferson as crooked. But there is has been a tacit acceptance for the past 16 years that Jefferson isn’t going anywhere until a majority of people in this majority black district get ready for him to go.
There is a theory of evolution called “punctuated equilibrium.” Simplistically, it means that some major changes in plant and animal species seem to have happened in a very quick period of time, rather than slow evolution over eons. The explanation seems to be that these periods of speeded-up evolution coincide with cataclysmic geological events which changed the land and waterscapes forced species to adapt quickly or die. Those which could not adapt quickly ended their period of existence on this planet. That’s why there were no dinosaurs elected to our city council this weekend. They couldn’t adapt to the cataclysmic changes and they are now extinct.
Sugar Ray Nagin and Mitch Landrieu both survived this period of punctuation, this cataclysm in the civic life of New Orleans, because they both adapted quickly to the changes going on around them. That’s why, no matter what people may say or think, we had two very good choices for mayor in this election. Both Nagin and Landrieu have a basic level of integrity, and there is no reason now for either of them to let it go any lower. Nagin does not have to be reelected, so he needs to get back to being real. Landrieu came out of this without getting filthy, and I’m just Anne Frank enough to think it might serve him well later.
So, what does this have to do with Jefferson? First, I think we all need to take a good look at what a corrupt, law-breaking, unethical, self-dealing politician looks like. Let Jefferson and Edwin Edwards serve as the prime examples of this … uh … species. It’s very convenient that one is black and one is white, but they don’t have to be. These are just the Louisiana variety. Before the yankees start honking, let me point out Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney. These guys are all major league. The bush league includes David Duke, Tom DeLay, Clio Fields and apparently a lot of people from Arkansas. I’m bringing all these people up because New Orleans was not the only place where corruption has been tolerated. But tolerate it we did until nature came along last summer and punctuated our little equilibrium for us. I believe the ousting of most of the city council signals a few things, one of them being that corruption is not going to be given such a VIP pass any more. Nagin did not face such a steep challenge because people thought he was corrupt. There were probably a lot of people who voted for Nagin because they DON’T think he’s corrupt.
It is perfectly clear, unless Lori Mody is a raving lunatic and the FBI hired a complete doppelganger of William Jefferson to pose for the video and talk into the corsage, that Jefferson has done something wrong. If he thinks he wasn’t doing anything wrong, then he must have a brain tumor or something. And it’s not just a little wrong thing. It’s big and awful and extremely immoral. He demanded bribes from a woman who wanted to educate children in Africa. He colluded with Mrs. Vice President of Nigeria to use a phony AIDS charity to launder money. These are bad bad things.
So, Jefferson is corrupt. Just as a heads-up, I am also not going to buy it when he meets with Jesse Jackson and announces his renewed faith in Christ through adversity. If you are tempted to feel sorry for Jefferson because he was just doing it for those five daughters of his, I urge you to give equal time in your thoughts to all the thousands of young, helpless daughters of New Orleans who have been under-eduated, unmotivated and impregnated during the 16 years he has been in office. They could have used a Harvard education and an international telecom deal. And don’t buy the lie that he wasn’t using the power of his congressional office for these cash deals. That is absurd on its face. Did this district elect him to negotiate deals between African countries and companies in other states? I might be tempted to lighten up on Jefferson just a smidge if he had at least tried to make a crooked foreign deal that benefitted a Louisiana company. Louisiana companies are probably used to being shaken down. We probably have insurance policies for it here.
I always try to find the humor in everything, and maybe one day I will think this is funny. In fact, I have thought of some jokes, but not yet. We are still in a period of punctuation and we have yet to regain our equilibrium. There was a cataclysm, and we are all still trying to speed up our processes of adaptation so we can survive. Those who cannot adapt are going to be left behind. William Jefferson is a dinosaur. We can’t drag him along with us, and we can’t let him drag us down with him. All of the people in this district, black and white, Democrat, Republican, Green and Independent, need to call on Jefferson to resign.
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