ah, the smell of cranes in the air… August 30, 2007
I can’t wait, September is just around the corner. They must be on their way right now!
shelley midura: she’s freaking me out August 29, 2007
I have Post Traumatic Hatred of Politicians. I expect the worst of them, and they usually deliver. The decent human beings among them never seem to get elected. The system seems designed to perpetuate corruption and dishonest tactics.
So, Shelley Midura comes along and defeats the odious Jay Batt for New Orleans’ City Council. I voted for her, but mainly because she is not Jay Batt. I wasn’t expecting anything, although I liked her personality on TV. I was hoping we could somehow trick her into accidentally committing public service.
Well, what does Shelley do? She pushes through the implementation of ethics reform laws that the citizens of New Orleans voted into existence in 1996. She loudly calls for the resignation of our incompetent District Attorney, even though he is black and this is New Orleans. She puts someone on her staff named Seung Hong who is obviously reading the New Orleans bloggers and reporting back to the councilwoman. She writes a letter to George W. Bush calling him out on the day he comes to New Orleans to suck up all the oxygen. And now she’s blogging on Daily Kos.
Shelley, what are you doing? You’re a New Orleans City Councilwoman. You’re supposed to be paying off “reverends” to make sure they get their flocks behind you. You’re supposed to be meeting with developers and shaking them down. You’re supposed to be selling your influence. You’re supposed to be sending your kids to Tulane for free while New Orleans’ public schools rot to the ground. You’re supposed to pick one of the alphabet soup organizations and blindly support everything they support, no matter how illogical. You’re supposed to be setting up your brother-in-law as a city vendor and giving him government contracts to do a city service he has never heard of. You’re supposed to be ignoring the problems of the city of New Orleans while you raise money from its people for your next election campaign.
I can’t believe I’m saying this about an elected official, but she’s starting to grow on me.
god gave noah the rainbow sign, won’t be water, but the fire next time
I wasn’t in New Orleans on August 29, 2005. I was snuggled down with my one-year-old grandson on the couch in my son’s home in Lafayette, Louisiana, watching TV. I thought we had dodged the bullet yet again, and I was waiting to find out the news from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where the eye of the cyclone had actually passed.
A dark haired, stocky CNN reporter was on the screen, standing outside what looked like the Pere Marquette Building downtown. He was smiling, but I can’t remember what he was saying. CNN coverage moved on to some other location in the vast swath of destruction that was becoming apparent. It seemed like a minute later when they cut back to the stocky reporter in New Orleans. He was standing in about a foot of rapidly rising water, and he wasn’t smiling any more. Shortly after that, Senator David Vitter came on TV to tell us that the city of New Orleans was not filling up like a bowl, while anyone watching the news could plainly see that it was.
Every day after that, the news got worse and worse for New Orleans. The news for me, however, got better. I found out on August 31, by zooming in on a digital satellite photograph, that my house had not been flooded and there were no trees on the roof. I found out when I returned home that not only Don’s car, but my garbage cans were still sitting under the carport where I had left them. That same day, I learned from a neighbor who had stayed that an elderly neighbor had died on August 30 of an apparent heart attack, and neighbors had evacuated another elderly neighbor by boat. Many of my neighbors had suffered four feet of water in their houses, one had died, and my entire existence was undisturbed, not even the cans of rancid garbage that I left behind.
I’m thinking about this particular memory from two years ago because an idiot from Texas (no not this idiot) has this to say about the people of New Orleans:
The people of New Orleans . . . did not have the common sense to attempt to evacuate despite the fact that nearly 4 days before landfall they weather geeks were saying that Katrina was possibly the most powerful and most deadly storm in the past 50 years. I am sorry but your city is on average how many feet under sea level and you have a storm that has a potential to bring 150mph+ winds to your doorstep plus a storm surge that could have been as much or more than the depth below see level your city is? Come on, Most of the reasonable people were long gone from NO before the storm came, it was those expecting the government to take care of them that stayed, and unfortunately for them the government let them down, again.
This man just can’t understand why only 400,000 of us managed to evacuate ahead of the storm. Perhaps he should read this interview with a woman who felt like she had an obligation to stay. It does not take very much compassion or common sense to wrap your head around the reasons why many people could not leave and why many chose to stay. I am very tired of this slander on the people of New Orleans. Those of us who evacuated were running from a cyclone, or the possible inconvenience of a long power outage, we did not expect the levees to break all over town.
I threw some things in my car, grabbed my dogs and split for the home of a loving son. At the time, I had no idea what a luxury I was enjoying. I had no elderly or sick relatives in New Orleans, I wasn’t sick myself, I don’t have a handicapped child or a household member who has to travel in an ambulance, I hadn’t just given birth, I had a decent automobile and the money to buy gas, I didn’t have to worry about finding lodging that takes pets, I’m not a person who has no family or friends outside of New Orleans, and I am blessed with a normal IQ and the ability to foresee danger to myself. Some people seem to enjoy feeling superior to the people who huddled in the Superdome and who had to be rescued from their attics. I hope they never have to truly understand how a person could get to be in that position.
we didn’t get the memo
Dave Zirin spoke at Rising Tide II. Here are his impressions in The Houston Chronicle.
8.29.05 August 28, 2007
Dear Mr. President:
Thank you for visiting New Orleans for the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the worst federal levee-failure disaster in United States history followed by the worst federal disaster response in United States history. We’re also grateful for the $116 billion federal allocation for the Gulf Coast. That $116 billion has served you well, as your spokesmen often cite it as an indicator of your dedication to our recovery. But, it hasn’t served us as well — it’s not enough, it’s been given grudgingly, and only after our elected officials have had to fight for it. So I feel I must correct the record about you and your administration’s dedication to our recovery and implore you to take action to make things better.
Indeed, you have allocated $116 billion for the Gulf Coast, but that number is misleading. According to the Brookings Institute’s most recent Katrina Index report, at least $75 billion of it was for immediate post-storm relief. Thus only 35% of the total federal dollars allocated is for actual recovery and reconstruction. And of that recovery and reconstruction allocation, only 42% has actually been spent. In fact, while your administration touts “$116 billion” as the amount you have sent to the entire area affected by Katrina and the levee failures, the actual long term recovery dollar amount is only $14.6 billion. This amount is a mere 12% of the entire federal allocation of dollars, billions of which went to corporations such as Halliburton for immediate post-storm cleanup work, instead of to local businesses. Contrast that to the $20.9 billion on infrastructure for Iraq that the Wall Street Journal reported in May 2006 that you have spent, and it’s an astonishing 42% more than you have spent on infrastructure for the post-Katrina Gulf region. The American citizens of the Gulf region do not understand why the federal obligation to rebuilding Iraq is greater than it is for America’s Gulf coast, and more specifically for New Orleans.
New Orleans has more challenges and fewer resources than we’ve ever had in my lifetime in the City of New Orleans. Yet, other than FEMA repair reimbursements, the only direct federal assistance this city has received from you has been two community disaster loans that you are demanding be paid back even though no other city government has had to pay back a these types of loans for as long as our research can determine (at least since the 70’s). These loans are being used to balance the city budget to provide basic services to citizens who need far more than the pre-Katrina basics.
Despite this obvious contradiction, your administration blames local leadership for our continued need for federal assistance. But this argument is disingenuous, Mr. President. There are a host of tasks that only you and your administration can accomplish for our recovery. These are some concrete steps you can take to make good on your 2005 Jackson Square promise:
• Completely fix the federally managed levees
• Fully fund our expertly crafted recovery plan
• Give New Orleans all that you have promised to Baghdad - schools, hospitals, infrastructure, security, and basic services
• Forgive the community disaster loans, as authorized by the new Congress
• Appoint a recovery czar who works inside the White House that reports daily and directly to you and whose sole job is the recovery of New Orleans and the rest of the region
• Restore our coast and wetlands
• Work with Congress to reform the Stafford Act
• Cut the bureaucratic red tape
In turn Mr. President, the people of New Orleans are more than willing to do our part. We have already:
• Consolidated and reformed the state levee board system.
• Consolidated and reformed our property assessment system.
• Passed sweeping ethics reform legislation.
• Created an Ethics Review Board.
• Hired an Inspector General.
• Submitted a parish-wide recovery plan.
Much has changed in New Orleans for the better since the storm, and more progress is coming. Civic activism is at an all time high. For the first time in my lifetime, there is an actual reform movement in New Orleans driven by the people. “Best Practices” has become a City Council mantra. We have a new Ethics Board. Our incoming Inspector General, Robert Cerasoli, is considered one of the elite in the Inspector General world, as is our new Recovery Director Dr. Ed Blakely in that world and our Recovery School Superintendent Paul Vallas in the realm of public education. We are attracting the cream of the crop. Young people from around the country seeking to make a difference in their lives are moving to New Orleans to teach in public schools, provide community healthcare, build housing, work for nonprofits engaged in post-Katrina work, and, in general, do whatever they can for the recovery because they all know what I am not so sure that you know, mainly that what happens in New Orleans over the next few years says something about the very heart of America itself.
Mr. President, we are in fact doing our part locally in New Orleans despite contrary comments by your administration. Our intense civic activity and government reform initiatives are serious indicators of our local commitment to do our part for the recovery. But we are drowning in federal red tape. We are being nickel and dimed to death by your Federal Emergency Management Agency. We are resource-starved at the city level. The mission here is not accomplished. What we need is Presidential leadership, not just another speech filled with empty promises. Our recovery’s success, struggle, or failure will be intimately woven into your legacy, for better or worse. What Americans think about America is deeply affected by how this country rises to national challenges, none more significant than post-Katrina New Orleans. Fully restoring New Orleans to its formerly unique and permanent place in American culture is this nation’s greatest domestic challenge. Your leadership of our country through this difficult time will serve as an American character lesson for future generations.
Sincerely,
Shelley Midura
New Orleans City Councilmember, District A
over-exposed
As I was descending in the elevator after class tonight, a girl said, “hey, Kim! I saw you on TV the other night!”
“Oh, my god.”
“You were great. You looked like you really knew what you were talking about!”
“Wow. Did I look fat?”
“No, you looked really good. I was like, that’s Kim?”
Huh. I was forewarned that there might be cameras there, so I put on a ton of make-up and did my hair. None of the other students have seen me like that unless they were in my Moot Court group.
She was talking about Friday night, when ABC affiliate channel 26 set up live coverage of the Rising Tide 2 kick-off party at Buffa’s. The reporter had called earlier and I set him up with Oyster, who ended up being filmed at his house in front of his computer. It was very last-minute and Oyster said he felt like he was cast in the role of “The Geek.” I knew they were going to cover the party, but I didn’t realize until I arrived that they were going to set up a camera throughout the whole thing, with a huge antenna outside on Burgundy Street.
I’m not the most sophisticated person when it comes to dealing with the media, so the camera and lights ended up almost in front of the wall where the videos were being projected. By the time I realized what was happening, the two guys in the crew had done all kinds of work hauling the stuff in and setting it up and I didn’t want to make them take it down. I still didn’t realize at that point that they were going to stay for the whole evening.
I knew I was going to be interviewed, but it only slowly dawned on me that it was going to be live. Back when I was doing a lot of acting, I cultivated the ability to turn stage fright into performance energy, so off I went. Or, I should say “on” I went. When the camera light went on and the reporter started talking to me, I stood up straight, looked at the camera, smiled like a mad woman, and did my best approximation of Peggy Scott Laborde. I babbled something about the Rising Tide that really described what we did last year, rather than what we had planned for this year. He asked how people could find out more and I rattled off the website. Whew!
Since it was live, I haven’t seen it. If you have, please don’t feel like you have to be brutally honest in your criticism.
We had another ABC camera crew from Santa Barbara, California, at the conference on Saturday, and they interviewed people other than me, but I’m not sure who. The same guys came to A.P. Tureaud School on Sunday and filmed us painting the third floor hallway, as did Ride Hamilton. The Santa Barbara guy was fascinated by the “X” or rescue marks that are still on houses all over town. Across the street from the school, someone had decorated their house with Christmas lights, and outlined the rescue mark with the lights.
He asked me why so many people still had the mark on the house, even though they have been living there. I said that I thought some people had spent all their money working on the inside of the house and didn’t have any left over for an exterior paint job, and a painted-over mark is just as strange-looking if the paint doesn’t match perfectly. I think some may see it as a mark of what they went through and survived, the way some people deal with scars. Others might see it as a mark of solidarity with other New Orleanians and a symbol of the uniqueness of living here through all this. It’s certainly distinctive. How many other cities have had a mark like this placed on each and every house? It’s a fairly exclusive club, considering.
Of course, there are a lot of houses that remain empty, and no one has ever come back to remove the mark. He was specifically asking, though, about the houses that are obviously occupied, but still have the mark. I told him that I don’t know if I will live to see the day when you drive through the streets of New Orleans and you don’t see any more rescue marks. These marks have entered the popular culture now, just like the old NOPSI manhole covers.
dangerblond restroom rule: no happy feet August 27, 2007
What is it with guys, particularly Republican elected officials, trying to pick up undercover cops in public restrooms? This is just so wrong on so many levels. Leave alone the fact that it is fucking gross to be blowing some guy in a dirty public restroom, I don’t care how much your wife doesn’t understand you. Grow up and get a room, for god’s sake.
In the latest case, we have a United States senator handing the guy his card and asking, “what do you think about that?” I think if you want to have anonymous sex, giving the guy your card kind of defeats the purpose.
Here is another detail that I have questions about:
” . . . Sgt. Dave Karsnia made the arrest after an encounter in which he was seated in a stall next to a stall occupied by [Senator Larry] Craig. Karsnia described Craig tapping his foot, which Karsnia said he ‘recognized as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct.’”
Is that true? I don’t often get the chance to hang around in men’s rooms, so I don’t know. Do you just tap your foot in your own stall, or do you stick your foot over into the other guy’s stall and tap it? I have to say, if I was just a regular guy trying to do my business in the men’s room, I would not appreciate having some jackass sticking his foot in my stall, tapping it, and trying to hand me his business card. What is the matter with people?
Anyway, I think the lesson to be learned here, and not just by Republicans, is to mind your own damned business in the men’s room. Keep your hands, eyes, feet and business cards to yourself. And wash your hands thoroughly, soaping them up for a full ten seconds before rinsing to kill maximum germs. And don’t touch the door handle on the way out if you can avoid it.
last year it was peggy wilson, this year it was the communists August 26, 2007
To our amazement and gratification, we managed to pull off Rising Tide 2. It got a little bit bigger and, according to the attendees, better this year, but the conference retained the feeling of a conversation among intelligent friends.
I thought Tim Ruppert’s comprehensive report on the current and projected state of our levees was invaluable. He explained what the Corps of Engineers is doing between now and 2011 in clear terms, with Power Point illustrations, and then answered questions from the audience. Tim was born and raised in New Orleans and he lives in Gentilly. He’s not leaving, and he’s building his new house above the height of the waterline on his ruined previous home. His presentation was videotaped and it will be online somewhere soon. That will be mandatory viewing.
Dave Zirin, author of Welcome to the Terrordome, was my kind of guy. He asks questions about what we used to call sports and the megabazillion-dollar sports entertainment industry that we are confronted with today. I think Zirin might be on the cutting edge of criticism about the business end of sports. I was thinking it would be a good idea to buy several dozen copies of his book and distribute them to the next group of people who will be negotiating with Tom Benson when he again threatens to move the Saints.
I led a discussion on Louisiana politics, and we managed to get in a few good ones, but there was not a lot of disagreement on the panel because we are all pretty unhappy with the choices we have before us in the biggest races. Personally, I think that’s why there is so much voter apathy. It always seems to come down to two candidates who have a strident coterie of loyal supporters, but who are hated by the average person. So, a lot of average people aren’t going to out and voting when they hate all the choices. I think we’d have 90% voter participation in every race if there was a place on the ballot for “None of the Above.” If None of the Above wins, we get a do-over with the top two previous candidates disqualified to run.
Although there were no fireworks during the Politics panel, I did manage to create some controversy later on in the afternoon when I threw Jay Arena out. Arena is a very committed activist for housing and social justice. On Martin Luther King Day, I, Bart Everson, Karen Gadbois, Alan Gutierriez, Brian Denzer and a few other bloggers attended Arena’s demonstration at the St. Bernard Housing Project, entered the complex with the residents to do what I thought was going to involve cleaning their former apartments. I realized once we were in there that the gesture was ineffective and wasn’t going to accomplish anything except tossing more ruined household goods into more sidewalks.
I saw Arena that day for the first time and I was told that he had criticized Bart Everson’s speech at the crime march on January 11 because Bart called for more effort from law enforcement to investigate and prosecute crime.
I hadn’t seen him since then, but he showed up today at the New Orleans Yacht Club for Dave Zirin’s speech. When Dave threw it open for questions, Arena made a statement in which he called New Orleans bloggers “hysterical” for writing about crime and calling for Eddie Jordan’s resignation and accused us of doing it because we want to see more black men to go jail.
That really pissed me off for a number of reasons. For one thing, I know which bloggers he is talking about because they are my friends. I know that their priorities to inform citizens of personal crimes and homicides in their neighborhoods so that they can be vigilant and know what to look for, to plot out where crimes are concentrated as a resource to law enforcement and citizens, and to honor the victims, who just seem to slip away into distant memory as though they never existed. In the future, bloggers would like to get more informed and involved in the justice system, and yes, most of us would like to see violent killers, batterers and rapists put in jail for a long time.
Arena must think he is talking to a bunch of people who are too uninformed to know that the outrageous numbers of young black men in jail are mostly doing statutorily-mandated time for drugs. I don’t know a single blogger who thinks it’s a good idea to use police officer time and jail space on non-violent drug offenders. I’m sure Arena would agree with us that these people need treatment, and a prison term will just give them time to earn a PhD. in drug sales and antisocial behavior.
So, no Jay, the New Orleans bloggers don’t want to see anyone going to jail, much less a young black man, unless they are involved in a violent crime. What we want is to keep our neighborhoods as safe as possible so that we don’t have to live behind bars.
After Zirin finished speaking, I asked Lisa if Arena had paid the $20 registration fee for the conference, as all the other participants had done. “No.”
“Why not?”
“He said he was a friend of Dave Zirin’s.”
I went back inside and Arena was handing out fliers. So I went up to him, introduced myself and told him that I needed to get a $20 registration fee from him.
“Oh. I’m not staying.”
I told him that he was going around giving out his fliers and all the other participants had paid $20.
He said, “well, I don’t have a lot of money.”
“None of the other people in here have a lot of money. They all paid the registration fee, and you don’t get to come in here and insult all of us without paying your fee.”
“Are you throwing me out?”
“I want you to give me $20 or leave.”
So he left. Not too much later, two guys in black shirts arrived and started handing out some kind of newsletter. I didn’t have my glasses on but someone told me it was a Marxist newsletter or something like that. They weren’t trying to go into the conference and they weren’t making any trouble, so I didn’t throw them out.
I think these communists need to realize that they are in the south. Even when a bunch of dirty hippy left wing bloggers have a conference, it’s a southern conference, and it’s best to give a polite call or e-mail and let us know that you are planning to come over and insult us and hand out literature advocating the dictatorship of the proletariat. Your message might have received a polite listen had you not sneaked in tried to put yourself on the agenda without paying the minimal conference fee that was paid by every other person.
Arena has a valid point, one that probably 99% of the NOLA bloggers agree with. We understand his issue better than he thinks, but he doesn’t know that because he obviously doesn’t read the blogs. There is time for us to incorporate someone into next year’s conference who can speak to us about the inequity of the Orleans Parish criminal justice system. We know it’s a major part of the web that tightens around every young black man, and any time one escapes it’s a minor miracle.
UPDATE: Bitch on a Mission - Clay has pictures of me ejecting the communist tight-wad, Jay Arena.
when sexpots meet August 24, 2007
Well, it’s not every morning that I get a phone call from the Canal Street Madam, Jeanette Maier! Yeah, she was looking to pick my brain for sex tips on how to please a man in bed. Just kidding, she’s interested in coming to Rising Tide 2. I would love for her to come, I have a few questions I’d like to ask!
the law walkers August 22, 2007
Loyola Law School has a feature called “Law Walkers.” These are volunteer law students, usually guys, who walk other law students, all women, to their cars after late evening classes. They work in pairs, wearing orange vests and carrying flashlights. One of the pair carries a radio that calls directly to the police, in case of anything happening.
This is the first time in a while that I’ve taken such a late evening class. The last time, before the flood, I didn’t get them to walk me to my car, but this time I am. We have to park in the residential neighborhood between Audubon Park and Riverbend, and it’s not very well lit up around there. I think I’m a little skittish about the Pal’s murder, because I found myself thinking, “crap. Why don’t these people cut their bushes back. There could be a psychotic ‘construction worker’ hiding in there.”
I’ve also been paying more attention to crime reports than I did back in the day. Last year, there were way too many crimes against women in that Uptown area to suit me. I have to admit that colleges are a magnet for that kind of thing. Some freak could be hunting around for a beautiful young co-ed and accidentally grab me.
As I walked with the Law Walkers and their other charges, I found out what BOLO means when they send it in an e-mail - “Be On the Look-Out.” It’s police slang. Who knew? Apparently, there was a BOLO that I missed advising that a convicted rapist had moved into the area, so that’s just peachy, too.
Yesterday, there were three false fire alarms at the law school, including one that had us all on the street at 8:00 last night for 20 minutes. It was annoying, but it was a beautiful night for it.
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