(k)now what nola November 23, 2009
A new NOLA blog by James Wicht.
district a November 22, 2009
I will be paying close attention to the race for City Council District A. I’m the chair of OPDEC for District A, and I will be working to elect Susan Guidry, the only announced Democrat, to the city council.
Guidry is a lawyer, a community and neighborhood activist, a former teacher, a reformer, a resident of Parkview, and Captain of the Krewe of KAOS in Krewe du Vieux.
I’ve met with her and I am satisfied that she is in this race for the right reasons. I also think she is running a very professional campaign that can beat Jay Batt.
If anyone would like to know more about Susan’s campaign or her positions on things, please contact me. If you live in District A and would like to work on the campaign, it would be very appreciated. Please leave a comment here for me. It won’t show up on the blog, but I will get it.
unnecessary celebrities
I refuse to read anything with the name “Palin” in it. I’m just waiting for it to subside. Either Palin or her son-out-law seem to be everywhere. How long does a person’s 15 minutes last now? I wish they would take their hard-earned money and go away.
the lens November 14, 2009
Have you discovered The Lens? It’s Karen Gadbois’ newest online venture. She’s working with Pulitzer Prize winner Jed Horne, Ariella Cohen, Eli Ackerman, Ethan Brown and Brentin Mock. These talented writers will be investigating New Orleans and the Gulf South. I’ve got it on my feed reader and I plan to read it every day. Anything Karen Gadbois does is worth a look.
adrastos: i knew him when November 10, 2009
Local blogger Adrastos has hit the big time. He is now posting at First Draft, a very popular group blog that has been supportive of New Orleans and our alternative media since day one. If you don’t read First Draft, you should. I’ve been reading it so long their writers feel like old friends.
Here is Adrastos’ assessment of Congressman Cao’s improbable career.
patrick, read this: November 9, 2009
What the Stupak amendment does.
stormy weather?
Not really. Not yet, anyway. It’s been overcast and chilly all day. I have heard that the canals and river are high, but here Dangerblond Gardens there is not a leaf shaking on a tree.
UPDATE: I went to Rite Aid at about 8:30 and there was wind. It blew my hair around.
mama! he’s looking at me funny!
Ray Nagin has an interview in the Times-Picayune today wherein he says that we hurt Ed Blakely’s feelings. We didn’t make him feel welcome enough.
I don’t know, dude. I showed up for his bike-ride around the Carrollton area, along with city council member Shelley Midura and a whole bunch of other people. Everyone was extremely nice to him as we listened to his poorly thought-out ideas. For instance, he said that someone should open up a movie theater on a residential street, in a building that would hold about 50 people. That would be a great business venture for someone who has tons of money and doesn’t care if they lose every penny of it. Unless I’m missing something, there aren’t a whole lot of people like that in New Orleans nowadays.
Also, the whole “You know what someone ought to do with this fabulous building? Someone oughta…” is a conversation I have had with about 20 different people who already live and feel welcome in New Orleans, any one of whom has better ideas for New Orleans than Ed Blakely.
Nagin should have hired someone who knows New Orleans, and you can’t know it unless you have lived here at least as long as I have. There are a good handful of New Orleanians who would have made better recovery leaders than this flim-flam artist from California.
I have yet to hear of one solid thing that Blakely did for us, yet he whines to Nagin that no one likes him enough, and Nagin takes up for him. He probably thinks he didn’t get paid enough, either.
versatile ladies of style November 8, 2009
I was lucky enough to go Sunday second-lining with Lisa Palumbo today. Damn, that woman is a pro second liner. She somehow manages to stay right by the band, where you can hear the music and nothing else. We alternated marching with the Free Agents and Rebirth.
Each band had a dancing group marching in front of them. One was a group of decked-out women called the Versatile Ladies of Style. The other was a group of decked-out men called Sudan. All I could think of while watching these groups, who had members of all ages, was that these are the people who are keeping New Orleans culture alive.
Lisa and I hung out with Deborah Cotton, who was filming the whole thing.
I had to leave early so I could see the Saints game (30-20, Saints). I cut out when the parade stopped at the Zulu club on Broad and started walking up St. Ann to get to my car. A few blocks in I ran into three girls who stopped me and asked how to pronounce the name of the cross street.
“DUR-jhen-wah.”
A few blocks later, I passed a house with three older black women on the porch. One of them called out to me, “hey lady! Are you just out for your afternoon walk?” They were obviously worried that I was lost.
I explained that I had been to the second line parade, but now I was going to get my car and go watch the Saints. They laughed, made sure I knew where I was going, and wished me a good day.
I had a great time and a fun walk back to the car, but I must say something about the sidewalks in that neighborhood. I had to walk in the street because the sidewalks are a mess, and not because they are being repaired. Why, four years out from the flood, are the sidewalks in that neighborhood in such deplorable condition? The neighborhood is one of the most historic in the city, and there are children and elderly all over the place. It’s dangerous and inexcusable to have their sidewalks in such bad shape, and in some places non-existent.
health insurance reform bill passes in the house
The historic health insurance reform bill that Democrats have been trying to enact for 60 years has passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. New Orleans’ representative Joseph Cao was the only Republican to vote for the bill. You would think that would be the top story on nola.com this morning. It’s not, as of 8:15 a.m.. Instead there is a story about the widening of the Huey Long bridge.
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