I’ve taken some heat for defending certain aspects of N’awlins politics – like how Nagin got re-elected and the fact that I believe Landreiu would actually have been worse. But I don’t defend the status quo. I actually built a campaign website for another candidate running against Nagin but she didn’t make the runoff. —
Laura on August 27, 2007 at 1:37 PM

Was it Kimberly Williamson Butler?

Most importantly, the firestation on Gen DeGaulle at Shirley still has a blue tarp on it two years after the storm. — highhopes on August 27, 2007 at 2:16 PM

Highhopes, sounds like you live in Algiers. That’s the ONE part of New Orleans proper that is doing well.

You’ve got to be at least pleased with Algiers Charter Schools.

As a Colts fan, I can’t share Jim’s enthusiasm for the Saints either.

We are the ones who have the Ring.

:-)

ColtsFan on August 27, 2007 at 3:46 PM

Got to hand it to you guys, you sure played a PERFECT game in every way on 9/6/07. I was particularly impressed by the tackling. It seemed that the Saints never could get off a long run, or make yards after a catch.

PS Jim in NO/Houston, I am a Chicago Bears fan (hush, Colts fan), and we slapped your boys pretty hard up here in January, if I recall. Better luck next time.

Jaibones on August 27, 2007 at 4:13 PM

I wouldn’t say “pretty hard”, but you did beat us fair and square.

BTW, did you see that N.O. / Phily game the week before? I have never been more proud of the Saints than I was after that game! I even told that to some Bears fans AFTER the Bears beat us.

Too many people ran for mayor (I supported Peggy Wilson, FWIW) and split the vote so much that only Nagin and Landrieu made the runoff. Of the two, boneheaded Nagin was in my opinion the better choice, rather than let another Landrieu into the Mayor’s office.

Laura on August 27, 2007 at 9:22 PM

Amazing. That’s EXACTLY what I would have said, except that I supported Couhig in the primary. However, I am an old-time Peggy Wilson supporter, ever since she got terms limits passed.

Voting for Nagin this time was like voting for Edwards when he ran against Duke. What choice did we have?

My husband knows and likes John Georges, and says he seems like a stand-up guy. His issues statements are good, so I support Jindal but I won’t be disappointed if Georges gets it. — Laura on August 28, 2007 at 2:28 PM

John Georges is a good guy, but he doesn’t have a clue about how politics works. Jindal has been around the block enough to know how to play the game. What’s more, he is honest. I’m voting for Jindal.

Freelancer, you’re comparing apples and oranges. Every single building in St. Bernard parish flooded, many to the rooftops. 80% of New Orleans flooded, and we’re not just talking about a couple of feet where you can cut out the sheet rock and put up wainscoting and go on. Somewhere between $3 – $5 BILLION in Jefferson Parish alone, thanks to this bozo, but knowing who to blame doesn’t lessen the damage. This is not comparable to towns where a few thousand people got five feet or less of water.

And people ARE spending their own money to get their homes fixed, because insurance companies don’t just cut you a check for the full amount. You repair, get reimbursed, repair more, get reimbursed again. A lot of people I know have used their entire savings and taken loans in order to get their homes back in shape, and insurance companies are paying about .60 cents on the dollar by using various chicanery to weasel out of their obligations.

Problem in New Orleans is not flooding—but thieves in political power. The moment the current crop of crooks are eliminated, New Orleans will be on its way to recovery. Until then…

saved on August 28, 2007 at 7:20 AM

Sorry, but no, flooding will still be a problem as it has been for well over two centuries. Good government will not make the sinking New Orleans rise one bit. It will however result in better risk management, contingency planning, and good public policy.

When it comes to recovery, the challenge isn’t rebuilding stuff it is having the vision and courage to make the hard decisions. The courage to tell some people that they can’t rebuild where their homes were before. The courage to stand up to the entrenched status quo and tell them that the old norm is unacceptable. The vision to figure out how to capitalize on New Orleans strengths to make a better community. Sadly, Ray Nagin and the current crop of losers are just working to get the city back to where it was before the storm- complete with a welfare culture, failing schools, rampant crime, and all the other ills that there was a narrow shot at fixing.

What’s wrong with Jindal?

Laura on August 27, 2007 at 9:22 PM

I like Bobby Jindal. He seems like a really smart guy with a good looking family and is something new and different. Where I have problems with Jindal is the fact that he never has really come out and said where he stands on the issues (beyond the normal vague platitudes and promises). Granted, he would be insane to do otherwise so long as he polls so much better than the other clowns in the race but caveat emptor.

BTW, the LA “rats” really blew it by going out after Jindal’s faith. The genius that launched that attack should be fired.

Obama was trying to encourage the “Eternal Victims of Katrina(TM)” by suggesting that since they (some of them) are still standing, they must be the house built on a solid foundation. He isn’t making a comparison that the government is built on sand, while the “people” are built on a rock. He is just grabbing at a well-known parable and attempting to make it fit the circumstance in a way that will make him look both presidential and compassionate. Of course he fails both logically and spiritually, as Bryan so clearly conveys.

No “house” was ever built on a less sure foundation than the city of New Orleans. That statement applies both physically and metaphorically. The politics of influence and greed are the only constants which drive any government activity at all in southern LA, while the victim mentality has been solidly sold and re-sold to the citizens.

When the Missouri or Ohio rivers flood, whole Midwest towns are ravaged. They are often completely restored within a year, because the people there know that if they want it done, they had best do it themselves. N’awlins is still far from repaired two years later, because nobody wants to spend their own money fixing things that hopefully somebody else can be shamed or guilted into spending. That holds true at both the personal and governmental levels, and is as disgraceful in each case. But when patronage is the order of the day, expecting better is mostly wishful thinking.

Jefferson got re-elected in large part to Harry Lee. Jefferson got far fewer votes in Orleans, but the whites in Jeff. Parish more than made up to it – because Lee was still ticked off about what Carter said on Spike Lee’s propaganda piece. So yes, in both cases some die-hard “vote my skin color” folks got their way, but in both cases it was not the determining factor. Study the election results by polling location and demographics; you’ll be surprised.

To write off the results of these elections as “politics as usual” is really not accurate. What’s wrong with Jindal?

SDT is owned by Sidney Torres IV. No relation at all to Oliver Thomas. The amounts of the contracts have been publicly available since January. There is no corruption or even a hint of it in this situation.
Laura on August 27, 2007 at 8:25 PM

My bad. I was thinking Torres while Thomas was still running around on the brain. As to the “no hint of corruption” thing. They would have said that about Oliver Thomas three weeks ago too and they generally (even in New Orleans) put the kickback rates in public documents. Those parking contracts and math software looked aboveboard too. It could all be honest and good governance but, if so, C. Ray Nagin will be the first mayor in some time not to have been caught stealing…… just stating the facts for the record.

That being said, I don’t see this “major poltical upheaval.” Ray Nagin got reelected despite the fact he let those busses go under water as people were trying to get out of the Superdome and Convention Center. William Jefferson got reelected despite 90K of FBI marked bills in Boca Burger boxes in his freezer and some really questionable misuse of the National Guard in the aftermath of the flooding. Blanco would probably be running for reelection too if “her” Road Home Program weren’t such a complete disaster. Even the candidates that are running for governor are the same old faces saying the same old things (I include Jindal in this condemnation).

we still don’t know how much the city is paying the Thomas family

SDT is owned by Sidney Torres IV. No relation at all to Oliver Thomas. The amounts of the contracts have been publicly available since January. There is no corruption or even a hint of it in this situation.

Yes, I do think it’s an excellent sign that one of the Cajun Kennedys was rejected. I’m rooting for his sister to get the boot too.

The schools had nowhere to go but up. The levee boards had nowhere to go but up, and the spotlight is now on the patronage system – the last time someone was appointed, people raised h3ll until a qualified person got the appointment. There’s a lot less looking the other way than there used to be. I’m sorry that you have so little optimism in the face of these improvements.

And no, no one but me has used the term “suckiest city evar.” I was being sarcastic. It has been only two years since 80% of the city was catastrophically flooded. In that time some major political upheaval has taken place, and is continuing.

And I haven’t been in the Warehouse District since well before Katrina. We lost our church and many friends and family members lost their homes. A good deal of the city isn’t ever going to come back and that’s fine – big chunks of Gentilly should not have been developed in the first place, for example. North of the lake is booming, as it should be. I know what the challenges in rebuilding are and yes, it can be slow and depressing to deal with. But at this point I’d rather dig and and work to improve things because griping about it accomplishes nothing.

No more levee boards is a step in the right direction, as are charter schools. The recent uprising against Jordan was also a good sign. There are a lot of signs that things are getting better, from the fact that Landreiu was rejected to the guy I saw on Common St. who picked up some litter that wasn’t his and threw it in the trash. (And no, he wasn’t an SDT employee.) Things may yet turn around – there is a lot of hope.

Face it – you people are the same way about New Orleans that Democrats are about Iraq. No matter what I say or show you, New Orleans will always be the suckiest city EVAR.

In the interest of fairness, let’s discuss the other side of your signs of hope.

Levee Boards: Too early to tell if the political compromise of two instead of multiple boards will do any good. Already there is a huge fight over the assets of the Orleans Levee Board.

Charter Schools: Again, too early to tell anything about results. I’d agree that there is some real promise here but I have little optimism that the initial enthusiasm will be maintained- especially in light of the school board scandal.

Landrieu was “rejected” in favor of Ray Nagin. You really think that was a promising sign? I have more hope that his idiot sister will go down in flames in 2008 because she has done a terrible job post-storm in doing anything but whine about the lack of resources (plus she’s part of the immediate defeat crowd when it comes to Iraq).

For every guy on Common Street you can dig up I can point you to a trashed house and/or some other site that shows most people don’t care about these things. SDT has done an excellent job with the Quarter but we still don’t know how much the city is paying the Thomas family for the service. Just something to consider in light of the Morial corruption and the Oliver Thomas kickbacks.

Finally, I don’t think anybody but you has used the term suckiest city ever. New Orleans still has lots to offer in the same way that manure produces the prettiest flowers. If you overlook the cars STILL parked in the airport garage, the trip in from MSY to downtown looks pretty much like it always has, there are signs of construction and improvement. It is only when you dig deeper do you see what is happening in areas away from the media/tourist glare. I challenge you to leave your Warehouse District view and drive around the real neighborhoods.

However, I am NOT delusional, and things ARE getting better. No more levee boards is a step in the right direction, as are charter schools. The recent uprising against Jordan was also a good sign. There are a lot of signs that things are getting better, from the fact that Landreiu was rejected to the guy I saw on Common St. who picked up some litter that wasn’t his and threw it in the trash. (And no, he wasn’t an SDT employee.) Things may yet turn around – there is a lot of hope.

Face it – you people are the same way about New Orleans that Democrats are about Iraq. No matter what I say or show you, New Orleans will always be the suckiest city EVAR.

So, WHERE IS THE IRS warning this “church” about sticking their foot into politics???

NRA4Freedom on August 27, 2007 at 2:46 PM

I’m sorry, Obama is a Democrat… so it doesn’t count. But let Bush or some other Republican try that and you would have the IRS flying in with a SWAT team.

Laura on August 27, 2007 at 3:11 PM

No offense, Laura, really…but you’re free to stay and try to improve, and highhopes is equally free to stay and complain.

It’s that free country thing you mentioned, yeah?

Since that’s simply not going to happen because of our value as a port, the oil industry, and other things, why not instead work to make it better?

Laura on August 27, 2007 at 1:53 PM

I also read your defense of NO as being not necessarily more corrupt than some of the east coast cities you lived in, Laura, and I’ll take your word on that. I don’t live there.

But I have long claimed that NO (by reputation) was the only thing keeping Chicago from being laughed at around the world for our pathetic Democrat corruption.

The church I belong to here is sending something like $230,000 to a church in the lower 9th ward to rebuild. They currently have something like 25 members of their pre-Katrina congregation living within an hour, and the rest strewn about the country. I am pretty comfortable in my opinion that the $230,000 is being flushed down the toilet, and God probably has a rule against that. Oh, well.

PS Jim in NO/Houston, I am a Chicago Bears fan (hush, Colts fan), and we slapped your boys pretty hard up here in January, if I recall. Better luck next time.

All the problems you list exist elsewhere. I’ve seen them personally.

Laura on August 27, 2007 at 3:11 PM

Not true Laura. Yes, NOLA isn’t the only place with crappy schools, crime, corruption, and idiot mayors. I lived and worked in DC during the Marion Berry years (post jail term) so I know what I’m talking about. The difference is the sheer magnitude of the problems and each and every one is systemic to decades of bad leadership and not due to a single catastrophic event. Katrina offered a chance to do something about the worst of these problems and too many public officials in New Orleans are intent on restoring the status quo instead of making things better. Just look at the way Nagin’s crowd is focused on getting the “chocolate” demographic to wield the same political clout it had before despite the fact that it has been two years since that demographic has even lived in the city!

The difference between DC then and NOLA now is the ability/commitment to change things for the better. Too many here are not looking to change what was bad before.

There is a glimmer of hope with the charter schools but even that is being tamped down by the status quo administration that loses power. The key to real recovery is development of an educated workforce and relatively all the billions that have been spent on NOLA have gone to anything but to re-establish the centers of ignorance that were and are the NO Public School System. It hasn’t helped their credibility to find out that board members were taking kickbacks either.

The NOPD is incapable of doing its job and there is no sense that this condition will change. What other American city has troops patrolling over half the jurisdiction. Let’s have the National Guard pull out and see just how capable the NOPD is to maintain law and order! I can understand this need in the immediate aftermath of the storm but not now. I hope you saw the story in today’s Times-Picayune where a 911 call about an attempted rape went unanswered even though the caller followed the criminal for blocks while getting somebody from the NOPD to respond.

Don’t get me started about “justice” under Eddie Jordan’s watch. Regardless of his legal problems arising from being a racist, he simply hasn’t done his job and killers are walking as a result.

I’m glad that there are still delusional people like you out there who think that things can be improved. I know several couples who had your attitude until the crime and all the rationalizations they were using finally crumbled in the light of the reality of the situation. The city needs people like you if it is to have any chance of being more than a tourist destination but I fear that your pioneering will just end up delaying some inevitable bitter truths. A city that can overwhelmingly reeelect Nagin and Jefferson is not a city serious about making kinds of improvements that are necessary to create a better New Orleans. At least the better New Orleans I envision.

As for your “love it or leave it” comment, life sometimes isn’t that simple. I will be leaving as soon as I can but personal responsibilities with the wife’s family make that more complicated than simply loading up a moving van to greener pastures. My choice is to support my spouse as she does what she needs to do for her parents- particularly post storm. Please don’t think that we all need to have your pollyanna attitude about New Orleans or face being painted as “miserable.”

Can you feel the rage I have for those idiots and panderers?

As a Cowboy fan I can’t share Jim’s enthusiasm for the Saints.

As a Colts fan, I can’t share Jim’s enthusiasm for the Saints either.

We are the ones who have the Ring.

:-)

What struck me though, was how the French Quarter and the SuperDome were immaculate, and the surrounding burbs were still a mess. What kind of priorities has Mayor Ray Nagin set for his Chocolate City? I can understand wanting to get the tourist hub up and running to bring in the tourist dollars, but it looked like they spent billions on the French Quarter and the SuperDome, and the surrounding area’s where people actually HABITATE got about a buck fifty.

The Obamassiah plays the blame game just as well as anyone, but he reserves the pompous ardor for those who live in squalor still, and they want to blame the Bush cabal for every damn thing, when it’s really the inept local government who did nothing and still does nothing.

He played that audience for chumps, and they drank that kool-aid with a straw.

If that’s how you feel, why are you here? Seriously, get out. You’ll be happier, and life is just to short to be as miserable as you sound.

I’m from New Orleans but I’ve lived all up and down the east coast. I’ve never lived in a city that was free from corruption, and I’ve lived in some that I found equally as bad as New Orleans. They just made more of an effort to hide it. All the problems you list exist elsewhere. I’ve seen them personally. As for me, I’m choosing to stay and work to improve things. That’s my choice. You can make yours – that’s the beauty of living in a free country.