New Orleans -- It's Just Me

New Orleans: Boldly Going Where We've Been Before

2012-01-05T21:12:00.000-06:00

To reduce the murder rate, Police Chief Serpas is going to map crime hotspots, which I could swear he said he was going to do last year. And the year before that. Remember COMSTAT, anyone?

The City Council pitched in today by voting to implement earlier curfews -- because law-abiding murderers and armed robbers will surely respect an 8pm curfew, and it's a no-brainer that crime will decrease if you limit the hours during which kids can commit them. Duh!

And finally, to REALLY increase the quality of life in The Big Easy, the city's Health Department is improving the availability and delivery of mental health care by...drumroll, please...typing lists.

RSD Supt. John White Pledges Schools Dedicated to Students At-Risk of School Failure

2011-11-10T22:29:00.001-06:00

The following quotes are from Recovery School District Superintendent John White from his presentation to the New Orleans City Council on November 3, 2011. BESE Board Member Louella Givens showed up (see minute 12:55) to warmly endorse Supt. White's work heretofore and his plans for the district.

John White:

"We know that we need to do more....We know that students that are in Special Education, students that are over age...experiencing dramatic challenges. We need to provide EQUITY for those members of our community."

Minute 3:40

"We also need to acknowledge that not every student is on that path [to college]." RSD will produce an annual EQUITY report to be released in December. "When a child enters 9th grade, we will deliver on that promise [to keep kids in school] through 12th grade."
Minute 6:30

"We need, as I said, to keep kids in our school system, and that means for kids who are on the verge of dropping out and are at risk, we need to make sure we are providing them every opportunity, including schools that specifically serve kids who are at risk."
Minute 8:20

I guess we'll see, won't we?

The Definition of Class Warfare

2011-10-29T16:06:00.000-05:00

Nungesser Bathroom Graffiti

2011-10-21T13:00:00.004-05:00

This was written on the wall above a urinal at Tracey's on Magazine St., where Nungesser spoke last week:

"Vote Billy Nungesser Lt. Gov. Oct 22. Thank you. [signed by what appears to be "Billy]

Now that's what I call a thorough ground game by Nungesser's campaign.

Dardenne or Nungesser?

2011-10-18T22:52:00.003-05:00

Last week I went to EngageNOLA's Meet the Candidate event featuring Billy Nungesser, candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. Mr. Nungesser's anti-immigration campaign ad "Sleepless in Louisiana" which criticizes his opponent for not protecting Louisianians from having their jobs stolen by illegal immigrants was brought up. A Latina woman born and raised right here in Louisiana explained to Mr. Nungesser that his ad features faces of men who look like her American father and other American relatives. The woman asked Nungesser if he approved that ad. After mentioning the irrelevant fact that a media company hired by his campaign produced the ad, Nungesser responded that, yes, he approved the ad. Nungesser added that running the ad is "just politics."

Mr. Nungesser sees nothing wrong with running an ad filled with ominous images of brown skinned people to convince people to vote for him. He sees nothing wrong with using optics and rhetoric that a hateful person can easily use to support their harassment, or God forbid, violent acts against Americans who look like the stereotypical brown skinned immigrants used in his ad. In fact, commercials and images like these are what make it difficult for us to accept people who look a certain way as "real" Americans.

That is a damn heavy price to pay to just play politics, not to mention very poor judgment on the part of someone who claims he will fight for all Louisianians. Really? Does that include brown Louisianians, Mr. Nungesser?

I truly was undecided going into the event. I left determined to cast my vote for Nungesser's opponent, Jay Dardenne.

Troy Davis and the Simple Truth of State Executions

2011-09-22T20:03:00.003-05:00

I could not have said it any better myself.

2011-08-29T07:33:00.002-05:00

Because That's How Insurance Companies Roll

2011-08-27T00:00:00.003-05:00

I don't know what havoc Ms. Irene will have wreaked by the time this weekend is over, but I do know this: If you live anywhere between South Carolina and Maine, and if they have not already, your insurance company will drastically raise premiums for your wind and hail coverage or altogether drop your coverage regardless of whether your home sustains any damage this weekend or not.

Mark my words.

The Real Story Behind Unpaid Sanitation Fees

2011-08-24T21:40:00.011-05:00

UPDATED 8/28/2011: Through checking my phone bill and a little internet sleuthing (this nola.com story from April 2011), I'm pretty sure the collection agency that hit me up for "unpaid" sanitation fees that I already paid is Alpat Company, Inc. in Slidell.

Fox 8 ran this story tonight about Councilwoman Hedge-Morrell owing more than a couple of thousand dollars in sanitation fees.

Sadly, no one featured in this story -- not the outraged citizen, not Bureau of Governmental Research President Janet Howard, not Councilwoman Head, not the person who crafted the statement from Mayor Landrieu's office, and not even Councilwoman Hedge-Morrell -- seem to have a clue what's going on.

I think I do, and these folks should too. Have you ever directly paid your sanitation fee directly to the Sanitation Dept.? No. You pay it to the Sewerage and Water Board.

At the beginning of this year, I received a notice from a debt collection company hitting me up for about 3 months of unpaid sanitation fees. (Of course, the only thing I've thrown away in 25 years is the piece of paper with this company's name on it, but I do remember the company was in Slidell.) I spoke with a customer service rep at the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board who explained that when you pay your water bill late, they do not forward that month's fee for trash collection to the Sanitation Department. Thus, if you pay your bill even one day after the due date, SWB keeps your $24/month sanitation charge (+ your late fee, of course). You are still on the hook for the sanitation charge even though SWB has never informed us of this payment arrangement they have with the Sanitation Department and even though your next and subsequent bills don't show an unpaid sanitation fee balance.

The customer service rep, who was quite courteous and merely communicating SWB's policy, explained to me that, no, they do not show this on your bill. SWB, however, does keep track in your account file.

So, to sum it all up, because of a clandestine payment agreement between SWB and Sanitation:

So tell me, why don't any of the government officials featured in this story seem to know this? And why did Mayor Landrieu's office say they are working with SWB to improve collection efforts when the problem seems to largely be one of internal policies dictating how SWB applies payments it has already received -- not a problem of receiving the fees?

Vitter's Balanced Budget Amendment and Other Stupid Ideas

2011-07-31T23:03:00.002-05:00

I was pondering this Balanced Budget Amendment idea and kept coming to the conclusion that it would be a horrible way to run the country, and that was before I read The Pelican Institute's post stating: "Despite a balanced budget requirement, Louisiana has still managed to acquire $21 billion more in liabilities than it has assets to offset them."

It was also before I read that Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute said: "It is about the most irresponsible action imaginable. It would virtually ensure that an economic downturn would end up as a deep depression, by erasing any real ability of the government to pursue countercyclical fiscal policies and in fact demanding the opposite, at the worst possible time."

I think good ole Norm was getting at what I was thinking. I was thinking: where will Louisiana get federal disaster help the next time a levee or an oil well explodes? Given the state's Republican leaders' non-stop pleading for help cleaning up the oil and making the fisherman financially whole again, we'd be up shit bayou if we need those funds if while operating under a federal Balanced Budget Amendment we have a disaster at a point in the fiscal year when all federal disaster funds have already been allocated.

I emailed Senator Vitter and posed this very question to him when I learned of his refusal to vote for a debt ceiling bill unless it is tied to a Balanced Budget Amendment, but he didn't respond. Which brings me to the point of this post. Why does Senator Vitter keep wasting his time on stupid legislation that even other conservatives consider stupid? We all champion lost causes now and again, but Vitter seems to have made a career out of being on the wrong side of issues, being ineffective, and even worse, being consistently counterproductive.

"Unlikely" How?

2011-05-25T19:15:00.003-05:00

This quote from an Associated Press article about Obama's European trip got me to thinking.

"His address came midway through a four-country European tour during which he's connected with his unlikely Irish roots..."

The author either meant "unlikely"as in objectionable or unlike: "Wow, Obama doesn't come across as a descendent of these common folks" (as they are portrayed in this NPR article); or "unlikely" as in highly improbable: "Black people don't have Irish ancestors, you silly goose!"

If the author intended the former, it's hard to see how that deserves mention in an article that's not about his ancestry or his personal American Dream narrative of working himself up from hardscrabble roots to greatness. If the author meant the latter, I think it shows our collective hesitation to see even a non-white-looking person who we KNOW is half white as truly American. I mean, how uncommon and unlikely is it really for an American of any race to have Irish ancestors?

Insurance Companies to Alabama Tornado Victims: SCREW YOU

2011-04-28T07:10:00.007-05:00

I sit here this morning left speechless by the scope of destruction left by numerous and massive tornadoes across Alabama and Georgia last night. Watching those scenes naturally triggered thoughts of the long post-Katrina recovery. I'm sure other survivors of that disaster also immediately felt empathy for what the unfortunate folks across the Deep South are about to go through. Once they are able to get past the first waves of shock and grief, the tornado victims will suffer the injustice of having their insurance companies turn their backs on them. For years they paid for a service and a sense of protection that they will not receive.

Like a good con artist, State Farm, Farmers, USAA Insurance, and other insurance companies collected decades' worth of premiums from Gulf Coast residents, and then just 3 months ago, started dropping their windstorm and hail coverage. The timing of those companies' collective decision is eerily prescient in this January 2011 story from Daphne, AL, in which a customer is told her wind and hailstorm coverage would be dropped in March 2011 - a little over a month before many Alabama residents would need that coverage.

WKRG.com News

God help the tornado victims and grant them the strength and resolve to obtain the compensation they are justly owed.

Concept of the Day: DOUBLE STANDARD

2011-04-22T10:38:00.005-05:00

Hey kids! Today's concept is: DOUBLE STANDARD. As in, "The Republicans seem to espouse a double standard when judging private sector and government sector finances."

The piece What's Good Enough for GE is Good Enough for the United States argues the point that S&P's downgrading of the U.S.'s credit rating was widely met with snorts and chuckling. Why?

Still, it’s true that federal debt held by the public has reached 60 percent of GDP, while tax revenues remain around 20 percent of GDP. 60 percent of GDP is a lot! And double, nearly triple, tax revenue! What would we call a company with outstanding debt double or even triple its revenues, and expected to keep the highest bond rating?
We would call it General Electric. As recently as 2007, GE had an S&P rating of AAA with outstanding debt at over three time revenues...
Even Transocean, which operated the Deepwater Horizon rig for BP, managed an A- rating prior to the spill, with a debt-revenue ratio similar to what the federal government has now. [J.W. Mason, New Deal 2.0]

We all know the conservative mantra, spouted ad nauseum from our Gret Stet of Looziana to the congressional halls of the Beltway: "Government should be run like a business!" As it turns out, the government is already run like a business. So thank you, Republicans. Your work here is done. You can all step down from your lives of public service now and go home.

Tracy Morgan Has Obama's Birth Certificate

2011-04-14T07:09:00.002-05:00

See minute 1:00 of the clip.

The Daily Show - Tracy Morgan
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

AND GO SEE THAT BOY, DONALD!

Not Even If It's Charity

2011-02-24T05:53:00.004-06:00

I'm reading a book called Where We Know: New Orleans as Home. It was a gift from three creatively maladjusted friends, who also happen to be three of our great literary citizens: Sam, G Bitch, and MF.

An essay in the book written by Eve Troeh contains what is definitely the quote of the day. Troeh recalls the story told to her by a family rescued from the Superdome and bussed to Arkansas:

"God bless them I know they were trying to be nice, but you do not put hot dogs in gumbo, even if it's just charity."

Sen. Vitter Hopes to Retire Well on Earth Before It Turns Into Venus

2011-01-21T12:55:00.001-06:00

In his Jan. 20, 2011 email update, Sen. David Vitter proudly proclaimed: "In 2009, I was the first member of Congress to challenge the radical environmentalists' attempt to regulate greenhouse gases by introducing a bill declaring that carbon dioxide, methane from agriculture and livestock, and water vapor are not air pollutants."

First of all, calling everyone who disagrees with you "radical" or "leftist" is not toning down political rhetoric. No need to overdo it, Senator. "Environmentalists" alone was enough for your supporters to open their pocketbooks.

Second of all, not wanting to breathe polluted air is not all that radical an agenda to espouse. Neither is the contention that too much of a good thing, even if it is a source of life, can be a bad thing. Just ask the gulf seafood you want us to eat, Senator. (Tip: you should pose your question before you consume them.) According to Dr. Jeff Masters, guru of wunderground.com who did his dissertation on carbon dioxide (CO2): "increased CO2 from burning fossil fuels has already harmed sea life."

Dr. Masters further explains:

the fossil fuel industry's slogan, "Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution, we call it life!" could just as truthfully be phrased, "Carbon dioxide. We call it pollution, and we call it death." One need only look at our sister planet, Venus, to see that too much "life" can be a bad thing. There, an atmosphere of 96% carbon dioxide has created a hellish greenhouse effect. The temperatures of 860 F at the surface are hot enough to melt lead. There's not too much life there! [Is Carbon Dioxide a Pollutant?]

Maybe the Senator's objection to cap-and-trade regulation of CO2 comes from a good place, say, a healthy skepticism of science. I don't know, but I'm going to maintain my own healthy skepticism of his motives. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a.k.a. opensecrets.org, 70% of Senator Vitter's wealth comes from the Energy & Natural Resources sector of the economy. Too much carbon dioxide may be bad for your health, but too much regulation might be even worse for Sen. Vitter's checkbook.

Jim Donelon Can Kiss My Ass on Canal Street!

2011-01-16T10:16:00.003-06:00

State Farm will raise rates for mom-and-pop landlords, drop their wind and hail coverage
While the statewide average rate increase is 18 percent, actual increases in South Louisiana can be much higher.

In Orleans, Jefferson and protected parts of St. Bernard and Plaquemines, the average increase will be 59.2 percent, according to State Farm; in areas outside of levees in Plaquemines it will be 93.8 percent; and in areas outside of levees in St. Bernard, it will be 21.1 percent. In St. Charles Parish, the average increase will be 19.2 percent. In St. James and St. John the Baptist, it will be 22.6 percent... Other coastal parishes will also see increases.
State Farm spokeswoman Molly Quirk said that part of the rate increase calculation is the value of cutting the wind and hail policy. [Times-Picayune, 1-16-2011]

Can someone explain how you can charge more for less coverage? How did that get past the Louisiana insurance commission, and how much is Insurance Commissioner Donelon profiting from this? What is he getting that's worth throwing us under a bus?

The article talks about how State Farm has also raised rates on other policies, which were so numerous they probably ran out of room to list the auto insurance increases I also received from State Farm over the past year. I was wondering how my rates could increase on an 11-year-old vehicle on which I cut my coverage IN HALF because I couldn't even afford the insurance before the rate increase. It seems the answers to my questions are to be found in them new fangled calculators the State Farm home office sent to Baton Rouge.

You Can't Do That to a White Man!

2010-12-18T18:36:00.002-06:00

I guess this counts as my inaugural contribution to the Hostilidays.

Merry Christmas! dammit.

From weather.com, 12-14-10: "A bus driver in Champaign-Urbana, IL resigned after officials with the transit agency saw this video of his bus running over a snowman in the middle of a street. Another vehicle steered around the snowman just before the bus hit it."

Proving yet again that the primary purpose of our American systems and institutions is still to ensure the protection and privileges of white men. *ba doom, rimshot*

Landrieu & Vitter Silent on Taxes and Unemployment Benefits

2010-12-03T21:50:00.001-06:00

I couldn't help but notice that LA's Senators are strangely quiet about the two biggest Congressional issues plastered all over the news this week: extending tax cuts for the wealthy and extending unemployment benefits. Neither Sen. Landrieu nor Sen. Vitter have even so much as a one-sentence press release regarding these issues on their websites.

Turns Out Rust Colored Water Probably Not So Good After All

2010-09-20T05:12:00.006-05:00

This always happens when I can't sleep. I lie in bed checking my CrackBerry and come across something that angers or excites me leaving me even more awake. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now, but alas, I am just as human as you are.

This time the culprit was a brand spanking new study showing that exposure to the substance manganese found in groundwater is linked, for perhaps the first time, to IQ deficits in children. "Yawn." I know. Big deal considering exposure to the current sociopolitical climate is making all of us more stupid by the day.

Then I suffered (because insomnia IS suffering) the thought that woke me up. Even though I can't find it anywhere online, I swear I saw a recent news story about rust colored water in St. Tammany Parish homes. I'm almost certain a spokesman in that story said it was probably because of the high levels of manganese in the area and that while the water looks weird, the manganese is harmless. An online document from the St. Tammany Parish government website calls manganese "a nontoxic substance" (see Why Is My Water Discolored on page 2).

Maybe not:

Lead author Maryse Bouchard explains, "We found significant deficits in the intelligence quotient (IQ) of children exposed to higher concentration of manganese in drinking water. Yet, manganese concentrations were well below current guidelines."

The analyses of the association between manganese in tap water and children's IQ took into account various factors such as family income, maternal intelligence, maternal education, and the presence of other metals in the water. For co-author Donna Mergler, "This is a very marked effect; few environmental contaminants have shown such a strong correlation with intellectual ability." The authors state that the amount of manganese present in food showed no relationship to the children's IQ.
-Bouchard et al., Environmental Health Perspectives, September 2010

The difference in IQ was 6 points. To put that in some perspective, the current black-white IQ gap for 12-year-olds in America is approximately 9.5 points. That realization then led me to ponder the strength of the environment-over-genetics argument for the gap in racial achievement in the U.S., and you better believe that thought REALLY had me wide awake! That's going to have to be a whole other series of posts for another day.

There was definitely no sleeping after that because now I had to get up out of bed and...sigh...save the children. So I just emailed Tammany Utilities to alert them to this. In their defense, as indicated in the research article, while airborne exposure to manganese is harmful to adults and children, manganese in the levels present in groundwater in North America has heretofore not been widely known to be a neurotoxin. Lots of other public water systems need to take heed too.

Anyway, the moral of the story is: the next time some snot-nosed, smart aleck kid mouths off at you, smile and offer them a nice glass of water.

Filtered water, people! What kind of an animal do you think I am?!

Olbermann Tired of News, Wants to Star on SNL

2010-08-30T20:06:00.005-05:00

I was so disgusted when I saw this horseshit on a "news" network tonight. Following the clip is the email I had to write to MSNBC just to get this crap off my chest.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Maybe your skit of Keith being the voice speaking to Glenn Beck was supposed to be a lighthearted aside from the news, but it seemed like a new low to me. It's symptomatic of what's wrong with cable news. Correcting the lies on Fox & conservative radio is one thing, but do it like a respectable journalist would. And do it with actual NEWS, not childish skits. MSNBC has become a total joke.

2010-08-29T12:42:00.001-05:00

Like After Katrina, Outside Folks Getting the Disaster Contracts

2010-07-20T18:55:00.005-05:00

The fine folk over at The Lens informed the citizenry today that "Gulf Coast states lag behind other states in getting contracts for oil disaster work." Only 12% of the $53.3 million in federal oil-spill related contracts have gone to Louisiana companies. Most of the rest of that has been contracted to companies in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Colorado -- not to other Gulf Coast states suffering the direct environmental and socioeconomic consequences of this disaster.

People in other states need work too, and it seems quite plausible to me that some of corporations best able to execute the particular terms of some contracts are not Gulf Coast business. Maybe many Gulf Coast businesses were already at full capacity due to having already received state or local contracts or contracts directly from BP to do disaster-related work.

My point is I just don't know enough about the details to know whether we're getting shafted down here in the federal contracting game for this disaster. I do know, based on past experience, that we need to dig deeper into this before it becomes like the Katrina recovery in which local workers were brazenly left out of the citizen driven recovery we were promised. That is, if it's not too late. I blogged about it on 9/16/2006, and I'm going to be quite pissed if this sort of thing is happening again...

The Army Corps, Bechtel and Halliburton are using the very same "contract vehicles" in the Gulf Coast as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are "indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity" open-ended "contingency" contracts that are being abused by the contractors on the Gulf Coast to squeeze out local companies. These are also "cost-plus" contracts that allow them to collect a profit on everything they spend, which is an incentive to overspend. [Corpwatch.org, 8/17/2006]

...and we were supposed to have learned our lesson so that our federal government could protect us from shady contract deals.

I hope that last part didn't make you laugh TOO HARD.

Levine Admits Republicans Don't Know Much About Health Care

2010-07-18T22:57:00.005-05:00

This is from today's Times-Picayune, page A-6:

"The shortest book in the world is, 'Republicans that I've known and met that know a lot about health care,' " Levine said. "And so there's been a lot of candidates for governor or state legislators from various states who reach out and call and ask, 'What are some of the basics? What are some of the real hot issues from a health policy standpoint?' " [T-P, 7-18-2010]

I guess that explains why Congressional Republicans weren't able to come up with sensible remedies to our nation's health care problems, and why the ones they keep insisting on proposing are often...well...shitty.

The T-P article also offered some insight as to why Levine has overseen the decimation of mental health care services in Louisiana. It seems he might not have known what the hell was going on down here because, like his bossman Bobby, he's been too busy traveling the country instead of doing the job we've paid him six figures to do here at home.

"LA Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine...has been busy doling out policy advice to Republican political candidates around the country,"

"In recent weeks he's written a health care "white paper" for the Republican Governors Association, addressed Republican U.S. House members about the effects of the new health care law on the states, and spent a day in California recently with policy advisers to Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO who is running for chief executive of the Golden State." and said he hopes to continue doing so through the 2012 presidential cycle." [T-P, 7-18-2010]

So cut the guy some slack, y'all! He didn't KNOW that our children's psychological well-being was in the terlet. How was he to know? He wasn't even here! So lay off of him, people!

The upshot for Alan is that he has used all of these connections he's been busy cultivating to land a posh private sector job back home in Florida, now that he's done fucking the good people of Louisiana over. Way to go, Al! Best Wishes!

"Top 5 Hurricane Vulnerable & Overdue Cities"

2010-07-16T15:05:00.005-05:00

From the The Weather Channel:

"(New Orleans, Gulfport-Biloxi, Galveston and Houston are examples of locations not on this list because they've recently been severely hit.)

While certainly not an exhaustive list, the following five metropolitan areas have been selected based on a combination of the amount of people and property at high risk, and how long it has been since the area has been directly affected by a very strong hurricane. It is a matter of when, not if, these areas are struck next."

Drumroll, please...

#5 Atlantic City, NJ

#4 Savannah, GA

#3 Tampa Bay

#2 New York City, NY

#1 Miami / Ft. Lauderdale

And just to show that they care about your safety if you live in these areas, The Weather Channel has posted links to evacuation maps for each of these locales.

Why Is Jindal Taking Our Money?

2010-06-26T00:48:00.007-05:00

I just read two news reports that share an interesting common thread. The first story involves the dissolution of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, formed after Katrina to guide the state in its expenditure of federal recovery dollars:

HB1173 would have required legislative approval of proposals and contracts for the use of more than $50,000 in recovery dollars while HB1175 would have allowed parishes to seek alternative uses for allocated recovery funds. Under opposition from the Jindal administration, neither bill won final passage.[Louisiana New Link].

With the dissolution of the LRA, the Jindal administration essentially is allowed to write a blank check on the remaining funds"[2theadvocate.com]

The second story is about how Jindal wants to hold on to the money the state has gotten from BP and prefers that the affected coastal parishes go obtain any money BP owes them on their own.:

Gov. Bobby Jindal unleashed his veto pen late Friday, nixing lawmakers’ attempt to direct $24.9 million to parishes and small towns affected by the oil leak...In his veto message, Jindal said BP should pay the municipalities directly for the impact of the April 20 rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.
Left unnoted in Jindal’s veto message was the fact that the money legislators wanted to give to the municipalities comes from a fund fattened by a grant from BP. The Jindal administration wants state agencies to have use of the money. “If it’s acceptable use for state government, then why isn’t acceptable for local governments?” said state Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin, who co-sponsored the amendment that would have diverted much of the BP money in the state’s Oil Spill Contingency Fund to help 11 coastal parishes and the towns of Lafitte and Grand Isle. [2theadvocate.com]

"Ain't Nobody Gonna Wanna Eat an Oirly Crab"

2010-04-29T22:18:00.002-05:00

Wise commercial fisherman Oliver Rodesil aptly summed up the latest predicament facing south Louisiana (at about the 2:00 mark). Definitely the quote of the day.

Now Learn the Reverse Jindal Two-Step

2010-04-19T09:00:00.004-05:00

In my previous post, I taught y'all how to do the Jindal Two-Step. Now I'm going to show you the Reverse Jindal Two-Step. You may recall that in the simple Jindal Two-Step you do something THEN you claim you're not doing that exact same thing. The Reverse Jindal Two-Step is merely the same thing except backwards:

1) DON'T do something (or say you're not going to do that thing):

Governor Jindal said: Unlike Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, and New Mexico, which all assumed in their budgets that FMAP aid would be extended for their states - this budget does not anticipate federal relief for FMAP, out of an abundance of caution. [nwlanews.com, 2/15/2010]

2) Then do that thing you told the world you would not do:

By relying on a federal bailout to solve the 2010-11 budget deficit, Jindal is courting potential opposition from legislators who might be leery of using that money until Congress has acted. [T-P, 4/17/2010]

As you can see, you'll add flair and pizazz to the first part of this dance move if you also criticize others for doing something that you'll turn right around and do yourself. Try out these moves at your next Fais Do Do. It'll be a hit! Let me know how it works out.

Learn the Jindal Two-Step

2010-03-08T13:36:00.004-06:00

Here's how you do the Jindal Double-Talkin' Two-Step:
1) Do something:

[LA Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek said:] “While the governor’s proposed budget does not dedicate state funding to support teacher stipends... [2theadvocate.com, 3/7/2010]

2) Then claim you're not doing the very thing you're doing:

...our Nationally Board Certified Teachers will receive their annual $5,000 stipend through their local school districts.”[2theadvocate.com, 3/7/2010]

To sum up, Jindal and Pastorek would have us believe that even though the Governor hasn't included money for teachers' stipends in his budget like he did last time, he's not the one cutting teachers' stipends because the local school districts have these surpluses they can use to pay the bonus stipends. Unfortunately, the local school districts beg to disagree:

Local school board officials counter that without the traditional annual cost-of-living bump, Jindal’s proposed standstill MFP saddles them with increases in a variety of costs such as health care and retirement... John Dilworth [Superintendent of the East Baton Rouge Parish School System] wrote a letter to The Advocate’s editor Thursday challenging the validity of Pastorek’s numbers. He says declines in revenues, such as sales taxes from which the public schools receive much of their money, are being offset by the surplus. Dilworth does not commit to paying the stipends. [2theadvocate.com, 3/7/2010]

If this song-and-dance seem familiar to you, it may be because you remember that Gov. Jindal dispatched his minions to try and pass the same okee-doke routine over on us when they closed NOAH and cut inpatient psych services while claiming that they weren't cutting services at all.

A Message to the City of New Orleans

2010-02-28T10:45:00.002-06:00

I found these tips on The Little Rules of Action on Zen Habits.net and have found them personally helpful to me. Thus, I would like to share the goodness, particularly with the incoming administration and the N.O. City Council. They can ignore the tip about not getting bogged down in perfectionism. They've long mastered that one. The following three, however, are relevant:

1. Meetings aren’t action . This is a common mistake in management. They hold meetings to get things done. Meetings, unfortunately, almost always get in the way of actual doing. Stop holding those meetings! [except for the ones required by law, of course].

2. Talking (usually) isn’t action. Well, unless the action you need to take is a presentation or speech or something. Or you’re a television broadcaster. But usually, talking is just talking. Communication is necessary, but don’t mistake it for actual action.

3. Planning isn’t action. Sure, you need to plan. Do it, so you’re clear about what you’re doing. Just do it quickly, and get to the actual action as quickly as you can.

Jindal, OMH Decimating Outpatient Psych Services Too

2010-02-25T18:15:00.008-06:00

Remember back when Gov. Jindal, DHH Secretary Alan Levine, and top OMH officials assured us that by closing New Orleans Adolescent Hospital (NOAH) they were freeing up $14 million to "improve much-needed outpatient services"? I can't help but assume that money never made it down to the outpatient clinics I work at everyday because no one in Baton Rouge wants to even pay for us to have voicemail, and it's not because they're paying to lease clinic space after removing us from the space we had at NOAH. The lease at our cramped new digs is $0 where, incidentally, they have consolidated so many employees that the power goes out 3-5 times a day from the now overloaded circuits. Try faxing in a prescription authorization to pharmacies when the power goes out whenever you hit "Send," or when that telephone/fax line periodically goes dead. When I receive a call, I have to walk down the hall because we can't transfer calls to each other despite being in the same building; and while I'm on the phone, no one else can call. OK, actually that's not true. People can still call us but that call goes immediately to a voicemail system that no one from here to Baton Rouge can tell us how to access. All we can do is hope none of those are urgent, which is a fantasy since we serve very ill, troubled youths. Actual assistance or a simple acknowledgment of these problems from OMH are also fantasies much of the time.

We serve the same number of clients even though we have fewer therapists. They left because they were fed up with this sort of foolishness, but they won't be replaced because of Jindal's hiring freeze even though the state has already budgeted for those positions just like they budgeted for all that money closing NOAH was supposed to free up.

Working at a place where your co-workers, even some of the ones making close to six figures, openly discuss finding a new job and share job leads with one another can be nerve-racking. That sort of stress will complicate any job but especially when your job is helping others deal with their own constant psychological stress.

A story about continuing cuts to healthcare in Louisiana is, interestingly, posted to a web page titled Accidents & Disasters. I fear we'll being seeing more of those in the near future. Not just the spectacular, front-page headline kind, but also the excruciating, painful type of tragedy that slowly and quietly ruins families' lives. If you need an example, think of the economic and social ruin left in the wake of an Orleans Parish school system starved of basic necessities. Talk to anyone now in the position of trying to provide state-funded services within LA's Office of Mental Health(OMH). Ask them how employee morale is these days. I should know. I am one of them.

LA Legislators Think About Doing Something

2010-02-21T14:04:00.004-06:00

From the Baton Rouge Advocate:

Legislative leaders are expressing concern about the cuts to health-care programs in the governor’s $24.2 billion proposed state operating budget.

However, members of House and Senate budget committees said they do not have an alternative spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Senate President Joel Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, said there still is time for legislators to develop their own agenda. [Advocate, 2-18-2010]

Umm, yeah, y'all might want to get crackin' on that.

Who Dat? U Ain't, Colts!!

2010-02-07T14:38:00.004-06:00

For this gem, I give all credit to our wonderful young people at Lusher Charter School in New Orleans!
GEAUX SAINTS!!!!

Pat M. Peyton for Sheriff of New Orleans, La

2010-02-05T03:49:00.001-06:00

Don't Lie, Jeff Crouere

2010-01-31T23:17:00.002-06:00

This fetish that old school local white people have with blaming Moon Landrieu for the fall of New Orleans continues to fascinate me. It is both amusing and sad, and it lives on as displayed by a recent piece by Jeff Crouere.

"Since the beginning of the Moon Landrieu administration, the population of New Orleans has declined by approximately 300,000 people, going from over 600,000 in the early 70’s to just over 300,000 today."[Jeff Crouere, BayouBuzz.com, 1-22-2010]

A quick Google search yields numerous hits showing Census numbers which placed New Orleans' population at 627,525 in 1960 and 593,471 in 1970. The population began its decline before Moon Landrieu took office in 1970 and was already below 600,000 by then. Also, I wasn't even born yet, but I do know that urban decline was a national phenomenon during that time that can hardly be blamed on Moon Landrieu. In addition to New Orleans, a number of cities' populations peaked between 1950 and 1960 followed by a precipitous loss of people since then, among them: San Francisco, Oakland, Birmingham, Mobile, Hartford, New Haven, D.C., Augusta, Savannah, Chicago, Gary, Des Moines, Sioux City, Louisville, Baltimore, Boston...I think you get the point. Jeff Crouere, however, apparently does not.

Faith in Haiti

2010-01-16T09:57:00.004-06:00

These don't look like the devil-deal making type of folks Pat Robertson made them out to be. Over the course of history, many Protestants have looked askance at the Catholic religion and our "idolatry"; and I wonder if that sort of thinking is also the source of Pat Robertson's ridiculous statements since Haiti is 80% Roman Catholic. But I tell you this, I and most people I know, regardless of our religions, would choose to have the faith displayed in this video by the people of Haiti any day of the week over that of Pat Robertson's.

Also, as a Katrina survivor, I want people to know that then, just as now and despite the media focus on a "breakdown of society," most people pull together and do not descend into chaos. Please don't mistake anguished pleas for help, whether to God or to the cameraman, as a sign of impending chaos -- especially if you've never found yourself in such a situation. Just hush your mouth, show some compassion, and do something to help even if it's just a prayer or sending a check to get relief on the ground.

Just Shut Up, Chief Riley

2010-01-10T17:38:00.005-06:00

"Riley said the recent release of a poll - showing that only 33 percent of citizens are satisfied with the NOPD - was timed to dissuade him from entering politics. The poll was unveiled by business leaders shortly before the political qualifying period. Riley also alleged The Times-Picayune chose that week to release several negative stories about him." [T-P, 1/10/2010]

Chief Riley,
You can bitch and moan all you want, which you're exceptionally good at by the way, but I would like to say to you from one black man to another that you're so missing the boat if you think the timing of that poll and those news stories were to dissuade you from running for office. Besides, we all know you're aware that the local media runs negative stories about you year-round because you're constantly complaining about it year-round.

What should have dissuaded you from entering politics is the fact nobody, including the scores of black citizens who have lost their children to murder and crime and/or who have been harassed, hassled, and unjustifiably arrested by NOPD, wants to vote for your ass. Period.

Here's an Idea for Improving Student Test Scores

2010-01-09T21:46:00.003-06:00

$150 million for improving accountability measures?

If Louisiana is selected by the U.S. Department of Education for the grants, about half the money would be distributed to districts to help with programs aimed at helping the poorest performing schools improve their rankings and student test results. Stronger accountability measures and teacher evaluations would be part of the process. [T-P, 1-9-2010]

I'm all for accountability, but here's an idear: How about spending the money on mental health services and more special education resources like more individualized supports, speech-language therapy, occupational therapy or on-campus health clinics or supports for parents to help their kids do better in school -- you know, all of the things that research has actually shown to help kids perform better in school.

Where is the Stimulus Money for RSD Students?

2010-01-02T00:03:00.000-06:00

A recent T-P article raised questions about the shortage of teachers and services in RSD's schools. RSD maintains it has a sufficient amount of teachers, but I can vouch from my ongoing interaction with RSD on behalf of my clients -- or lack thereof to be more precise -- that not only are there not enough staff available, but that RSD is standing firm its resolve to not provide staffing and services that even Stevie Wonder could see is needed.

In that Dec. 26th article, RSD Superintendent Paul Vallas said:

"We actually have not downsized staff as much as some of our budget and finance people would have liked," he said. The district had a pot of one-time federal recovery money three years ago that is now largely gone. [T-P, 12/26/09]

Funding shouldn't be the main barrier because in July 2009, the state enthusiastically announced the dedication of stimulus funds to servicing at-risk students:

The flow-through funding that will be dispersed to Louisiana through stimulus funds over the next two years almost doubles the funding that districts would have received for at-risk students. This funding represents a significant increase for local districts, and I know we are all eager to see that we take full advantage of this opportunity.”

In addition to the recommendations developed by the Tiger Team, the Department has also developed an Accountability Document, which it will utilize to track the use of ARRA funds in each district. Each district’s Accountability Document will be updated and published by the Department on a quarterly basis.[LA Division of Administration press release, 7/7/2009]

In fact, teams of local school superintendents, called Tiger Teams and tasked with compiling the state’s blueprint for the effective use of stimulus funds, stated at the time:

Our state will receive almost double the regular federal allocations through ARRA. More than 372 million dollars will flow through to districts to help improve student achievement, statewide. [Tiger Team Recommendations]

Those recommendations also said: something, something, "Recruit and retain teachers," something, something, whatever.I'm paraphrasing, of course. Hey, Mr. Vallas, would you mind checking your notes and getting back to us with another excuse? Here, I'll even help. Look in the file labeled: "Meetings, Tiger Team."

Gov. Jindal DOES Care

2009-12-31T05:06:00.003-06:00

I've always been pretty tough on Genius Boy Bobby, but maybe I was wrong about him. I cynically assumed the surprise announcement on Monday that he was giving state employees off on New Year's Eve had something to do with budget cuts (a la Nagin's 4-day work week proposal); however, I see now that his decision was completely driven out of concern for us.

He knew how difficult it would have been to work today anyway after being up all night worried sick about whether we're one of the hundreds who won't have a job by the end of next week.

Interesting Takes on the Jeff Parish Christmas Special

2009-12-28T20:20:00.002-06:00

I thought the following nola.com comments on the gift exchange between Pres. Broussard and his appointees were interesting.

Angela...now that's a person who could blow this wide open !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by FauxU December 28, 2009, 12:53AM

$1352 paid by the tax payer/political contributor and he gets back $4775. He's more reasonable at controlling the cost to the taxpayer when it comes to rewarding himself. At least he doesn't waste $10,000 in tax payer money to get only a $1000 in his pocket. He should get the good government award.It might not be above the IRS limits, but it is above the monetary limits set by the state ethics board for receiving gifts.

Posted by mayormustgo December 27, 2009, 7:38AM

Whatever happened to everyone pitching in and buying a tie as a gift. This stinks. All tax free gifts to their bosses, with money from taxpayer paid salaries. The citizens of Jefferson actually paid for these gifts. This gets worse every day. I wonder if someone did not pay, would they get canned immediately, or have all the rights and the delays given to Whitmer. . Just remember all this as you write your property tax check, or you pay for the short yellow light you got caught at. Jim Letten, please stop this, everyone else in the state just ignores it.

Posted by leveeliar December 27, 2009, 8:32AM

Same thing is happening in Plaquemines, at will employees need some protection from these criminals...

Posted by plaqer December 27, 2009, 8:52AM

Can Aaron Broussard spend campaign money legally for holiday gifts for his employees? I don't think so! The U.S. Attorney should look at the Aaron Broussard President Campaign Committee (run by attorney David Sherman) and the Tim Coulon Campaign Committree (run by Tim Whitmer and Tom Wilkerson). These campaign committees are used to laundry money and avoid taxes.
Posted by crabstew December 27, 2009, 9:02AM

These are the same idiots that had no problem cutting from the budget, tenure pay that hourly employees receive at christmas time. To earn tenure pay you have to be with the parish two years, and from that point you would receive $25 for each year of service. This is given by check where TAXES are deducted. A ten year employee receives less than $200.

Posted by carlielynn December 27, 2009, 9:21AM

These corrupt idiots will force honest, hard working businessmen like me to jump into the political cesspool and straighten up our system. WE THE PEOPLE will have our day.

Posted by jimmylikesnola December 27, 2009, 9:59AM

I hope so, "jimmylikesnola." Just make sure you have friends standing nearby to fish you out when you get tired swimming, and sinking down into the cesspool with the rest of 'em starts to look like an attractive option.

Randy Newman - Louisiana 1927

2009-12-19T23:08:00.001-06:00

Talk about a timeless song.

Physician, Heal Thy Profession

2009-11-07T01:16:00.004-06:00

I just stumbled upon this link: When Doctors Kill Themselves.

The unsettling truth is that doctors have the highest rate of suicide of any profession. Every year, between 300 and 400 physicians take their own lives—roughly one a day. And, in sharp contrast to the general population, where male suicides outnumber female suicides four to one, the suicide rate among male and female doctors is the same. (Newsweek)

Interestingly, it was written in April 2008 and not at all in response to the Ft. Hood incident yesterday. It reminded me of my thoughts from earlier today while listening to WWL talk radio. I guess because the gunman hadn't been deployed yet, it didn't occur to the callers or the host that occupational stress might have played a role -- at least not during the 45 mins. of the show that I heard.

There are obviously other factors involved (so do not go the hell off in my comments section about me being a "liberal/socialist" apologist for terrorists who hate America, or about Muslims, or tea bags, or big government, or whatever), but as a mental health professional, my first reaction was to wonder what stress military psychiatrists and psychologists, as well as civilian ones working for the VA, must be under. It's no secret that the soldiers returning from war have experienced serious psychiatric illnesses, and that the VA system is stretched very thin right now and, by extension, so are the doctors.

I wouldn't be surprised if being a doctor played a significant role in leading this psychiatrist to such a low point in his life. Physician suicide vs. going the hell off and killing others are two different things, but the two scenarios share some of the same causes.

Article on physician suicide:

they worry—not without reason—that if they admit to a mental-health problem they could lose respect, referrals, income and even their licenses...

...physicians are supposed to be the strong ones who care for the sick, not the sick ones who need to be cared for. "I did not want it to go on my medical record that I had been treated for depression," says Dr. Robert Lehmberg, 60, whose moving account of his struggle with the condition—and the stigma it carries.

Article on the Ft. Hood shooting:

The consensus at Walter Reed, Casscells said, was that Hasan was sent to Fort Hood for "a fresh start" after a difficult time at the medical center.
Hasan received a poor performance evaluation there, the Associated Press reported, quoting an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. While he was an intern, Hasan had some "difficulties" that required counseling and extra supervision, according to Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time...
...The military will look at all this closely and decide if there is any mental or physical illness, whether this is just a lonely guy with a remote personality who got a bad officer evaluation report and lost the confidence of his peers...
...Our focus was on the doctors to dig deep and do all they can for these guys (troops) and to have one of our own do this is personally crushing.

Healthcare providers, especially doctors, are supposed to "push through it" and perform perfectly no matter what is going on, an expectation that's hard to argue with since they're responsible for human lives. Still, at a certain point and with enough pressure, something's gotta give.

The Tebo on CNN. Gotta Lurve the TEBO!!

2009-09-08T22:10:00.000-05:00

CNN VideoEmbedded video from <a href="http://www.cnn.com/video">CNN Video</a>

Would a Real Leader Please Report to the Principal's Office?

2009-09-05T23:57:00.006-05:00

At this point, if we could just manage to smuggle a real leader into Louisiana, I'd be satisfied.

First, we've had nearly all of our state and Congressional politicians who themselves make their living off of "big government," say nothing to point out to the paranoid mobs trying to kill healthcare reform that the big scary "socialist" government is entirely run by fellow Americans and is not some strange other-worldly evil force trying to take away our rights. (When you get down to it, the government is run by the same people exerting their democratic right to bad mouth their democratic government. Otherwise, there would be no town hall meetings because what would be the point of trying to influence government policy if we had no control over it?)

Now we have school officials wasting their time -- and our money and our children's education -- trying to figure out how to accommodate parents who don't want the President to tell their children to stay in school and work hard. These are the very same parents, mind you, who send their children to school precisely so they can get an education and in doing so hopefully learn the value of hard work.

My 17-year-old son shared with me Thursday a letter distributed in school from Gayle Sloan, superintendent of St. Tammany Parish Schools. The letter explains that President Barack Obama will address schoolchildren nationwide next week, and that "he will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning."

The letter also adds the following: "If you prefer for your child not to participate, please contact the school principal so that an alternate assignment can be provided outside the classroom." (Times Picayune Letter to the Editor, 9-4-2009)

From Sen. Mary Landrieu, seemingly the last "Democrat" remaining in public office, to St. Tammany Parish Schools Superintendent Gayle Sloan, it seems like no one we've put in charge of looking after our best interests has the leadership ability to do so. They'd rather take the easy way out and kowtow to the ignorant screams of those hellbent on screwing themselves out of what is in their and in their children's own best interests.

When did REAL leadership stop including the very basic role of taking an unpopular stand every now and then? If our public officials aren't willing to point out foolishness, or at the very least, the holes in their constituents' logic, then there is no reason to believe that they possess the desire or even moral conviction to lead us in the right direction at all on any issue. These are not even hard stances to take. Saying there already are people (i.e., the insurances companies) standing between us and our doctors and that Republican presidents have given similar back-to-school addresses have nothing to do with whether you support the Democrats' and the President's policy agenda.

If our leaders cannot, or worse, are unwilling to bring reason and calm to chaos, why do we need them at all?

But What Do the Parents Think?

2009-08-27T11:40:00.003-05:00

I was heartened to read the headline "New Poll Shows N.O. Voters Like Changes in City's School System" this morning. I was even more pleased to read in the article:

The group says 74 percent of those polled said they hope leaders continue with the changes they've made in the school system.(T-P 8/27/09)

I really do hate to piss in anyone's cornflakes, especially since hope and satisfaction are rare in this town, and the opinion of voters DO reflect some truth, but this was not a survey of parents with children in these schools. So really, this is nice to know, but it's hardly solid evidence of how good our schools are.

That's when I wondered whether a survey of parents of schoolchildren would produce similar numbers. I went to the LA Dept. of Education website which has a plethora of performance data, but it's all test scores, and technology surveys, and every "accountability" measure you could think of -- except parent and student satisfaction surveys. At least not that I could find. Just to be sure, I called the Division of Standards, Assessments, and Accountability in Baton Rouge and asked the nice lady who answered if she knew of any state evaluations of parent and student satisfaction with their schools. She said not that she knew of.

That was by no means a thorough investigation (I do have a day job, people), but enough to indicate to me that this very important piece of information -- what the parents and students experiencing the changes in our schools think of them -- either doesn't exist or is nowhere as easy to find as LEAP scores and graduation rates.

I'm hoping someone tells me that I'm wrong and points me in the right direction.

The First Step to Recovery is Still...

2009-08-16T20:54:00.003-05:00

[you guessed it!]
...Admitting You Have a Problem

As expected, I received some pushback from the previous post and would like to respond to the questions and criticism received. Most importantly, I mis-cited the report from which I drew the history of previous hurricane flooding in N.O. That info came from the Independent Levee Investigation Team (not IPET). I greatly appreciate Editilla of New Orleans Ladder for pointing out this huge error! Like the Corps engineers, I am also human and thus fallible.

Let me address the most significant criticisms.

There is no evidence, beyond unverified verbal accounts by Army Corps spokespersons, that local citizens "limited the scope of the first round of levees which failed so catastrophically" during Katrina.

I didn't speak to Army Corps spokespersons. This information, which is the extent of my evidence, was lifted directly from the ILIT report:

In 1960...the Corps plan opted to solve the drainage canal freeboard problem by installing tidal gates and pumps at the drainage canal outfalls along Lake Pontchartrain. This obviated the need for condemning all the homes built along the canal levees. The Corps soon found itself embroiled in a clash of cultures and goals with the levee districts, the S&WB, and the local citizenry, who flatly opposed the Corps' proposal.

...the Corps focus shifted to heightening the drainage canal levees using concrete walls, which was what the opposing groups desired. These walls were to be designed to withstand a Category 3 storm surge with 12 ft tides and 130 mph winds. (ILIT report, pp. 4-22 to 4-23)

We [Levees.org] stand by our assertion that allegations in a 3-page sworn affidavit by NOLA.com Founder Jon Donley thoroughly validate our suspicions of a deception campaign being waged by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps shouldn't be posing as individuals spouting off deceiving and incorrect information in online comment forums, but individual Corps employees should be able to spout off their personal views via any forum they choose. In my opinion, the way this issue about the Nola.com comments is playing out makes Levees.org look like it doesn't know how to handle criticism.

We hope to see both our supporters and critics at Rising Tide IV where we will sponsor the Early Riser Breakfast.

I do support Levees.org, which is why I care if some of the things they say is questionable. Often, the most helpful criticism comes from those who want to support and stand behind you.

[note: comment courtesy of Editilla~]This ILIT study lays a lot of blame in many places, but the cause of 80% of the flooding of New Orleans 8/29/05 is still indisputably the Corps of Engineers failure to get it right the first time --NOT Katrina storm surge. The ILIT study pretty much devastates that misnomer.

Umm, have ya read the ILIT report? The hurricane, of which a defining element is storm surge, is the FIRST in ILIT's list of what caused our levees to fail:

In the end, it is concluded that many things went wrong with the New Orleans flood protection system during Hurricane Katrina, and the resulting catastrophe had its roots in three main causes: (1) a major natural disaster (the Hurricane itself), (2) the poor performance of the flood protection system, due to localized engineering failures, questionable judgments, errors, etc. involved in the detailed design, construction, operation and maintenance of the system, and (3) more global "organizational" and institutional problems associated with the governmental and local organizations responsible for the design, construction, operation, maintenance and funding of the overall flood protection system. (ILIT, p. xix)

There is a reason hurricane storm surges are measured, recorded, studied, and feared: because they matter. If storm surge were not a factor, then levees and floodwalls would not be built according to how much storm surge and wave overtopping they could handle. Just because our floodwalls failed with 7ft as opposed to 14ft of storm surge does not mean surge was not a factor.

I mean, really, where exactly do people think all that fucking water that the levees did not hold back came from?

[by Editilla~] Other perimeters of influence do not factor into the basic successful engineering of those flood walls and levees.

Basic successful engineering includes selection of types of structures as well as placement and maintenance of structures, both of which local government and citizens had some degree of control over:

The three drainage canals should not have been accessible to the storm surge. The USACE had tried for many years to obtain authorization to install floodgates at the north ends of the three drainage canals that could be closed to prevent storm surges from raising the water levels within the canals. That would have been the superior technical solution. Dysfunctional interaction between the local Levee Board (who were responsible for levees and floodwalls, etc.) and the local Water and Sewerage Board (who were responsible for pumping water from the city via the drainage canals) prevented the installation of these gates, however, and as a result many miles of the sides of these three canals had instead to be lined with levees and floodwalls. (ILIT, p. xxiii)

New Orleans officials were the ones who funded and built the outfall drainage canals despite being warned in the 1870's that they would direct storm surge right into the heart of the city, much like MRGO did. Until the 1950s, before the Corps became involved, it was the Orleans Levee Board who opted to raise these outfall canal levees again and again following each of the many overtoppings and breaches (listed in my previous post) that occurred during hurricanes. It was New Orleans officials who allowed homes to be built so close to those drainage canals, and once that occurred, do you really think the Corps faced any chance of constructing the wide, sturdy levees like the ones that have protected us from the Mississippi river since the 1850s? I understand that people don't want to have their homes torn down and forced to move. Hell, I wouldn't, but I also understand that we need to understand how we got to where we are today.

I'm not trying to reopen old wounds or rehash something that's been put to bed, like one person [i.e., Editilla~] insinuated about my motivations for writing my last post. This has been on my mind precisely because of the decisions we as New Orleanians are being asked to make once again and the coverage every Corps public meeting receives in the press. Also, my original post was not just about the Corps and floodwalls, it was about questioning the reluctance of our City Council to adopt higher elevations for rebuilding in a city that has been flooded 38 times -- THIRTY FRICKIN' EIGHT, people!! -- by Lake Pontchartrain. It was also about some people wanting to place pumps in City Park because they'd look too ugly by their lakefront houses, to hell with physical science and gravity and history which keep trying to tell us that that's just not a good idea no matter how you slice it. It was also about the continued lack of leadership in this City willing to face the hard truths and shepherd its citizens toward facing some tough truths when we need to. How can we expect the Corps and the feds to address their faults when we are insulted whenever asked to address our own community's faults?

By reading some of the dissenting comments, one would think I laid 100% of the blame at the foot of New Orleanians. I clearly said the Corps was to blame for the unacceptable design and failure of our flood protection, and I most certainly don't have a reputation of being a Corps sympathizer. What I would like to think I have a reputation for is pointing out facts, even the ugly ones; and the fact (unless the revered engineer and known Corps critic Robert Bea & his colleagues got it wrong in their ILIT report) is that many local officials and citizens prior to Katrina preferred the very system of outfall canals and floodwalls now in place. This does not mean we're stupid for living here. This does not mean the Corps did an excellent job of overseeing their design, maintenance, and construction because they didn't. It does not mean those walls didn't fail at half their design specifications. They did. It most certainly does not mean that people opting for the floodwalls should have seen the future and fully understood the implications of their decisions at that time. It just means what those words placed in that particular order are supposed to mean: that many people here preferred the Corps to build floodwalls instead of closing or reconfiguring the outfall canals, instead of the tidal gates and pumps at the mouth of the lake, and instead of giving up their homes.

So why even bring all this up? It's not an attempt to retell the Flood story in a manner that benefits the Corps, as one commenter [a.k.a. Editilla~] insinuated. It's an attempt to tell MORE of the story, beginning from the 1800s instead of starting halfway through (or even near the end of) the story at August 29, 2005. Sometimes life gives us the gift of past experience and hindsight, and we'd be doing ourselves and everyone who has to live with our decisions a giant disservice to not use that wisdom when we can. Those who do not understand history, or flat out deny it, are destined to repeat it...or at the very least act surprised when it occurs again.

The First Step to Recovery...

2009-08-09T22:00:00.005-05:00

...Is Admitting You Have a Problem.

[I've been planning this one for a while, so set on down, grab a cup of coffee (or the vodka if you prefer to swing that way) 'cuz I gots a lot to say.]

When it comes to flood protection, too many of us haven't admitted this. Everyone in the world knows we have a bit of a drainage & elevation problem, but I'm asking how many of us in the N.O. area have been honest enough to outwardly admit that we have in fact exacerbated and even caused -- Oh yes I did say it -- our own flood protection problems. At the very least we ignore the obvious, even to the point of denial, and you only need to have watched one after-school special to know that people who are in denial are nowhere near to achieving recovery (no matter how blonde and popular you are, nor whether you're prom queen).

Ironically, it's the citizen group working to improve our flood protection system, Levees.org, that has added a lot of the fuel to this fire, first with what I saw on their FAQ and Factsheet pages and then by their founder's allegations that the Corps has been unfairly attacking her and all citizens by saying that we are partly to blame for the 2005 federal flood.

Well, we are. And it's high time we stop running from that sad, uncomfortable truth. I don't believe we are to blame for the shoddy workmanship done on the levees. However, we are not idle, innocent bystanders in all of this.

Let's start with Fact #1 on the levees.org Factsheet: "The flooding of New Orleans and nearby St. Bernard Parish was an engineering disaster, not a natural disaster." Yes, the structures were poorly constructed, but the levee and canal wall failures did not happen on a clear, sunny day. They were overwhelmed by hurricane storm surge -- a.k.a. a natural disaster. Hurricane Katrina was a strong Category 3 storm as it passed New Orleans, true. We were led to believe that our flood protection structures should have withstood such a storm (or roughly, a 100 year storm), true. However, thanks to Katrina, we now know that the five-category Saffir-Simpson scale is an inadequate classification system. While New Orleans received Category 2 winds, perhaps stronger gusts, Katrina brought with her storm surge well beyond that even seen during Camille, the strongest Cat 5 we have ever seen in the U.S. with winds approaching 200 miles per hour.

Fact #2 on levees.org: "Responsibility for the design and construction of the flood protection in metro New Orleans belongs solely to the US Army Corps of Engineers..." Solely? Really? Then why the required public commenting wherein they are pressured to spare volleyball courts at the cost of weakening the better designed plans presented by the Corps? What about when people insisted on putting pumps even further south of the lake (i.e., in City Park) when it is clearly in our best interests to block lake surge from intruding that far into the city?

How are WE at fault? We must shoulder part of the blame because many people here keep failing to acknowledge two key facts of life: 1) we have always been and will continue to be vulnerable to the destruction wrought by hurricanes; and 2) man can never, and I mean NEVER, guarantee that anything he builds can withstand whatever Mother Nature may send our way. Yet, just this summer the news featured coverage of people relying on updated flood maps, which are already outdated by the way, to decide whether or not to raise their homes. Let's review. Many people whose homes flooded had no flood insurance before Katrina not because they couldn't afford it but because based on the presence of a flood protection system federal maps zoned their homes as being outside of a 100 year floodplain (i.e., insurance guy told you you don't need flood insurance). OK, fine, many people didn't really understand the statistics behind 100- and 500-year storms and the variables involved, but you should now. However, many people understood back then that their neighborhoods existed only because the levee system was extended to incorporate that area of the city. Levees.org even acknowledges this fact:

("...the water table was drastically lowered by the city’s drainage system and some areas settled several feet due to the consolidation of the underlying organic soils. After 1965, the US Army Corps built a system around a much larger geographic footprint that included previous marshland and swamp.")

In the weeks after the storm, I remember pissed off residents blaming "the feds" who told us we were safe behind levees. Yet here we are, going right back to where we started, with the City Council (not the Corps) not approving flood maps because doing so would require people to elevate their homes several feet...Unless they wait a couple years for the levee system to be rebuilt and the next round of flood maps putting them outside 100-year floodplains once again so they can build their houses at or very near ground level.

For some, particularly in neighborhoods such as Lakeview, the maps show their risk has abated and if the city would adopt the FEMA maps, huge savings on flood-insurance premiums would follow. But those residents will have to wait. The City Council didn't want to adopt the maps and force others in areas where flood risk has increased, like the Lower 9th Ward and parts of Gentilly, to elevate now when adequate protection should be in place in a couple of years. (T-P, 6-18-09)

Levees.org FAQ: Haven't N.O. residents known for years that this could happen? "No, because the Corps assured the city’s residents that they were safe from a Standard Project Hurricane (roughly equivalent to a Cat 3 Storm). New Orleans residents did not know that the flood walls could rupture 4 feet below design specs or that the floodwalls were designed to collapse if water briefly overtopped them."

[The initial post incorrectly cited IPET as the reference document from which the following info was drawn. It was actually drawn from the ILIT report. Associated hyperlinks have also been corrected.]

Our collective sin is our repeated failure to learn from the sins of our fathers and from our own disaster ridden history. The Independent Levee Investigation Team (ILIT) issued a report on July 31, 2006, did a very good job of retelling this history as part of a nearly 700-page report on the failure of our flood protection system:

Floods Inundating "Backatown" via Lake Pontchartrain
(the following lifted directly from the ILIT report [except for my commentary in brackets; bold emphases are mine]

Hurricanes strike the Louisiana Coast with a mean frequency of two every three years (Kolb and Saucier, 1982). Since 1759, 172 hurricanes have struck southern Louisiana (Shallat, 2000). Of these, 38 have caused flooding in New Orleans, usually via Lake Pontchartrain. Some of the more notable events have included: 1812, 1831, 1860, 1893, 1915, 1940, 1947, 1965, 1969, and 2005. [ILIT report, pp. 4-9 to 4-11]
"The Great Louisiana Hurricane" of August 9, 1812. It rolled over the barrier islands and drowned Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes and the area around Barataria Bay [pay attention too, Westbankers] under 15 feet of water. The parade ground at Fort St. Phillip was inundated by 8 feet of water and the shoreline along Lake Pontchartrain was similarly inundated, though this was far enough below the French Quarter to spare any flooding of the City.
In June 1821 easterly winds surged off Lake Pontchartrain and pushed up Bayou St. John, flooding fishing villages and spilling into North Rampart Street until the winds abated and allowed the water to drain back into the lake. It was an ominous portent of things to come.
On August 16, 1831 "The Great Barbados Hurricane" careened across the Caribbean, striking the Louisiana coast west of New Orleans. The area south of town was again inundated by storm surge, while a three foot surge entered the city from Lake Pontchartrain.
Southeastern Louisiana suffered through three hurricanes during the summer and fall of 1860. On August 8th a fast moving hurricane swept 20 feet of water into Plaquemines Parish. The third hurricane struck on October 2nd making landfall west of New Orleans. It inundated Plaquemines, St. Bernard, and Barataria, causing a significant storm surge in Lake Pontchartrain which destroyed 20 lakeside settlements, washing out a portion of the New Orleans and Jackson Great Northern Railroad. Surge from this storm overtopped the banks along the Old and New Basin drainage canals and a levee along Bayou St. John gave way, allowing the onrushing water to flood a broad area extending across the back side of New Orleans.
In 1871 three hurricanes caused localized flooding, which proved difficult to drain. Flooding emanating from storm surges on Lake Pontchartrain during these storms overtopped the Hagen Avenue drainage canal between Bayou St. John and New Basin Canal [present day Lafitte Avenue] spilling flood waters into the Mid-City area. City Engineer W. H. Bell warned the city officials about the potential dangers posed by the drainage canals leading to Lake Pontchartrain, because the Mid-City area lay slightly below sea level.
The record hurricane of October 2, 1893 passed south of New Orleans and generated winds of 100 mph and a storm surge of 13 feet, which drowned more than 2,000 people in Jefferson Parish, completely destroying the settlements on the barrier island of Cheniere Caminada. This represented the greatest loss of life ascribable to any natural disaster in the United States up until that time.
In August 1900, a hurricane passed directly over Galveston, TX, demolishing that city and killing between 6,000 and 8,000 people, which remains the deadliest natural disaster in American history. Prior to impacting Galveston, that hurricane tracked westerly parallel to the Gulf Coast about 150 miles south of New Orleans. Its flood surges were noted along the Gulf Coast, including Lake Pontchartrain's south shore (Cline, 1926) [sounds kinda like Rita and Ike, don't it? We're vulnerable even if a storm just passes south of us on the way to Texas! Still hard for me to wrap my mind around this phenomenon.]
Prior to Katrina's landfall in 2005, the most damaging hurricane to impact New Orleans was the Grand Isle Hurricane of September 29, 1915, a Category 4 event which produced winds as great as 140 miles per hour at Grand Isle. It slowed as it made landfall and eventually passed over Audubon Park, seriously damaging structures across New Orleans. Electrical power was knocked out, preventing the City's new pumps from functioning [sound familiar?]. The wave crest height on Lake Pontchartrain rose to 13 ft, easily overtopping 6-foot high shoreline levee, destroying the lakefront villages of Bucktown (at the end of 17th Street Canal), West End, Spanish Fort, and Lakeview (these lakeside settlements were swallowed up by the infilling of the Lake Pontchartrain shoreline in 1928-31). The drainage canals were also overtopped, flooding the city behind Claiborne, leaving Mid-City and Canal Street under several feet of water. This storm overwhelmed the City's defenses so quickly that 275 people were killed, mostly in the Lake Pontchartrain shoreline zone.
On September 19, 1947 an unnamed hurricane made landfall near the Chandeleur Islands [remember those?]
A storm surge of 9.8ft reached Shell Beach on Lake Borgne. The runways at Moisant Airport were covered by 2 ft of water while Jefferson Parish was flooded to depths of 3+ ft. Sewage from an overwhelmed S&WB treatment plant stagnated in some of the drainage canals, producing sulfuric acid fumes that caused staining of lead-based paint on some of the homes in the Lakeview area, leaving them with unsightly black blotches [I've never heard this before]. 51 people drowned and New Orleans suffered more than $100 million in damages. City officials were unable to clear floodwaters through the drainage canals in the Lakeview, Gentilly, and Metairie neighborhoods for nearly two weeks. [hmm, I have this strange feeling of deja vu, like this has happened before]. This was the first significant hurricane to strike New Orleans which generated a large body of reliable storm surge data, which was subsequently used in design of flood protection works by the Corps of Engineers. The New Orleans Times-Picayune prepared a map that showed reported depths and locations of flooding in the 1947 hurricane.

A couple more important nuggets of history which some of us seem hellbent on repeating:

[In the 1870s!] New Orleans City Surveyor W.H. Bell warned of the potential dangers posed by the big outfall drainage canals. He told city officials to place pumping stations on the lakeshore, otherwise “heavy storms would result in water backup within the canals, culminating in overflow into the city.” This prophetic warning was ignored with catastrophic results during Hurricane Katrina. (p. 4-16)

By the time the Corps got involved [between 1955 & 1960], a dense network of single family residences abutted the drainage canals along their entire courses (the canals are 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 miles long). The encroachment of these homes adjacent to the canal embankments circumvented any possibility of using conventional methods to heighten the levees, which is usually accomplished by adding compacted earth on the land-side of the levees (Figure 4.23, which would require the condemnation and removal of hundreds of residences, which would be costly and time-consuming (not to mention unprecedented). (p. 4-22)

As far as I'm concerned, the previous point merits the most reflection. The feds and Corps did not build our homes right alongside outfall drainage canals. Those drained marshland pioneers may not have comprehended fully the implication of building their homes where they did. But now, we do. And we have to really think about what it means, not just to us personally but to the rest of the citizens who will be flooded from a breach of the floodwall in our backyards, when we object to the Corps appropriating 6 feet of our backyards to widen levee foundations or secure them from tree roots and whatnots that compromise the levees. WE are the ones with the power to tell the Corps how much land we are willing to cede to protect this great City, just like WE were the ones who limited the scope of the first round of levees which failed so catastrophically -- under the force of the Category 5 storm surge of a naturally occurring hurricane.

Let the hate mail begin!!

Mr. Transparency

2009-07-28T21:18:00.001-05:00

Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin said the governor's office encouraged lawmakers to reject the session by returning their ballots, mailed out July 17, but did not say what form that effort took or how involved Jindal was in the process.

That's our Governor...Mr. Transparency!

Cruel Irony

2009-07-24T11:59:00.002-05:00

The letterhead on which the state Civil Services Department crafts letters to department heads notifying them of which positions they must eliminate contains the motto -- in big, bold letters at the top:

Recruiting Tomorrow's Leaders -- TODAY

...followed by a detailed list of whose heads are going to roll.

The second line of the motto then reads: "We're making a difference for Louisiana." Well, ain't that the truth?

Louisiana To Cure Severe Psychological Disorders

2009-07-17T13:35:00.002-05:00

Dr. Richard Dalton, medical director for the state Office of Mental Health, cited planned expansion of the clinical staffs of the outpatient clinics and new treatment programs. "Our goal is to get our community services to the point so we can in the next two years discontinue the hospitalization of children, " he said. "That's not a fiscal goal. That's a clinical goal."

A clinical goal I bet the American Psychiatric Association would be tickled pink to hear and probably jealous they didn't think of that first!

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. After all, if state officials can keep repeating the same senseless shit, then surely the rest of us can keep responding with some good old common horse sense. I too wish we didn't need hospitals for either physical or psychiatric illness. Really, who WANTS to be hospitalized? (OK, there are a few people who like being hospitalized but that is, ironically, a psychiatric disorder.) Hell, I've been trying this new "optimism" thing lately, so I'm even willing to believe that we can discontinue psychiatric hospitalizations in two years. Still, wouldn't it be prudent to have the hospital as a backup option until we have more success with the all-outpatient, all-the-time thing?

Employees who provide NOAH outpatient services will transfer to two new clinics expected to open in August: one in Mid-City at 3801 Canal St., the other in Algiers at a location the state has yet to secure.

Or at least have the outpatient services in place before closing the hospital?

In Reality, which is apparently nowhere near Baton Rouge geographically nor metaphorically, some human illnesses simply cannot be treated on an outpatient basis; but Dr. Dalton would have us believe that in 2 years, we will be able to drag a suicidal teenager down from the Crescent City Connection, give him or her a ride home and one of those nice, pretty business cards with an appointment date/time on the back, and sleep comfortably for the next night or two until we get a chance to see them in the clinic -- or whenever their parents are able to bring them by.

La dee dah...whenever is fine!

While we're at it, let's just go back to having all women deliver their babies at home and scheduling surgeries between haircuts at the barbershop! Who the fuck needs hospitals anymore? They're so antiquated.

UPDATED - Republican White Men Pretending Being White Doesn't Matter: Irony or Hypocrisy?

2009-07-13T20:45:00.008-05:00

When I'm feeling generous, I like to think of this whole brouhaha about Sonia Sotomayor's "wise Latina" quote as ironic, given that it's mostly White conservatives pretending to be shocked that someone's background or ethnicity influences the way s/he thinks. As if their collective objection to affirmative action has absolutely nothing to do with their being White.

On the days I'm feeling less generous and, quite frankly, just plain over the bullshit (most days), I think it nothing less than hypocritical for people like Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to chastise Judge Sotomayor for being prejudiced.

See minute 1:20 for a little background about Sen. Sessions.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

What Exactly Are Levine & Jindal Up To?

2009-06-27T17:12:00.003-05:00

Everybody and his mama from New Orleans has made it abundantly clear to Baton Rouge that the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital NEEDS to remain open IN NEW ORLEANS, and the legislature even put money back into the budget to keep NOAH open. Then, right after the legislature adjourned, nola.com posts a story that ends with this little tidbit:

The health care restorations include 67 positions at the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, the Uptown mental hospital that Jindal had proposed to close in a cost-saving measure. But Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine said he will ask Jindal to veto that language, as the money for NOAH would be taken from dollars that are targeted for outpatient mental-health services in the New Orleans area.

True to Times-Picayune form, they run a story that leaves more questions than it answers. How much money is being taken from which programs to keep NOAH open? If Jindal vetoes the language, does the legislation still call for transferring NOAH's beds to Mandeville or is there now no such provision, which would mean we're losing 35 psych beds -- period -- to hell with just relocating them?

Then again, maybe it really doesn't matter because Levine and Jindal have insisted on closing NOAH for months, New Orleans and her citizens and our pleas and evidence to support our need to maintain NOAH's services be damned. Our money is better spent on rescuing private golf courses.

Wrap It Up, People!

2009-06-22T23:03:00.003-05:00

I realize it's been a busy news day, but I would hope news this important is picked up by the local media SOON.

The HIV/AIDS Atlas found that 80 percent of U.S. cases are clustered in 20 percent of counties...

A random sampling of the 20 percent of counties with the highest HIV rates include: Marin and San Francisco counties, Calif; Miami-Dade county, Fla; Bronx, Queens and New York (Manhattan) counties, New York City; Richland (Columbia), S.C.; Orleans (New Orleans), La; Butts, Clayton and Dekalb counties (Atlanta), Ga; New Haven and Hartford counties, Conn; Multnomah (Portland) Ore; and Denver (Denver) Colo.

Stacy Head's Emails: An Analysis

2009-05-15T17:13:00.000-05:00

Garland Robinette is put off, and rightfully so, by the public's focus on a few distasteful emails to the detriment of the bigger problems facing the City. Still, Stacy Head's ongoing issues with how she approaches things and people are relevant to how well she is performing in the very important job of councilwoman. So, I really can't help but weigh in on what the T-P published today. I often agree with what Ms. Head tries to accomplish on the Council, but her presentation sucks.

My analysis of her electronic communications:

"Pisses me off 100 percent of the time. I have been shopping carefully, looking at the per serving cost of all items. This chick in front of me is buying pre made croissant and egg, canned soups, solft driinks, pre made beef pattie (who eats that???), pre made RICE KRISPYs!!! Precut sweet potatos (didn't know those existed) and is payong with a food stamp card. I am voting for the freak mccain and his trash bag vp. I am sick of it."

First of all, this rant was written 6 days post-Gustav. Citizens evacuated via public transportation were still trying to get home, electricity was still lacking in a good number of areas, curfew was still in effect. She was stressed out I'm sure, but THIS set her off? And at the same time most public officials were trying to extend emergency food stamp benefits to practically everyone?
Ms. Head assumes the food stamp user is not cost conscious. Does she know the woman's monthly food budget or how much money she had on her food stamp card?
Apparently, food stamp users should be forced to buy the cheapest food in the store while simultaneously meeting Ms. Head's personal culinary standards of no pre-packaged foods.
It seems Ms. Head would compromise her political philosophy in a second to either end food stamps or make food stamp recipients cook everything from scratch. (I guess I missed this particular pledge of the McCain-Palin platform.)
Why is she so angry about this?

Putting this together with the other emails, and from much of what I have heard come straight out of Stacy Head's mouth, this is not someone inclined to understand, let alone respect, others' points of view or life circumstances. Does it ever cross her mind that she could be wrong or that she doesn't know everything. Even her failure to check her spelling and grammar suggests that she expects people to know what she is talking about, and it shows a lack of consideration for bothering with whether others grasp what she's trying to say or accomplish.

Does she ever talk TO people or just about them?

She comes across as a spoiled bully. She wants things the way SHE wants them, and more and more it seems like being confrontational is the only way she knows how to accomplish anything.

This Is So Kickass!

2009-04-21T23:16:00.001-05:00

Welllll, welcome to da struggle, Louisiana

One state official believes the case the first of its kind in Louisiana

A gay New Orleans couple has filed a lawsuit claiming their constitutional rights were violated when they were denied a marriage license

Spin, Lie, or Fraud?

2009-04-19T14:57:00.005-05:00

With Jindal's administration continuing to distort reality and turn truth on its head to convince us to support its misplaced priorities, the latest directives from the governor's office can be aptly described by all of the words in the above title. Their latest attempt to convince us that closing N.O. Adolescent Hospital (NOAH) does not amount to a reduction in services took the form of an editorial yesterday in the Times-Picayune written by DHH Secretary Alan Levine.

It is one of the most dishonest opinion pieces I have ever read.

Levine tries to convince us that because the state spent millions expanding community health care services in N.O. that there is no longer as much of a need for inpatient psychiatric hospitalization (which strikes me as a point DHH wouldn't have to keep pushing if they really felt they were not REDUCING services in the N.O. area -- but that's just my crazy, bizarre opinion). True, assertive mental health services were expanded last year under Nicola's Law, according to this T-P article which also points out that there are little data to support the supposition that such services reduce the need for psychiatric hospitalization.

Such services are partly granted through various "waivers" which provide services like home health care aides who help families care for developmentally delayed individuals and those with severe behavioral and emotional problems. Something Levine conspicuously failed to mention, as he touted the hundreds of children and adults now served by last year's increase in mental health funding, is that there are many more on the waiting lists for these services. One family in our clinic has been waiting 5 years for their waiver (a VERY common wait time), yet DHH is cutting the meager funding for the waivers they provide (see page 14 of linked-to document) while simultaneously rejecting stimulus money to save healthcare from budget cuts. Another thing he left out, when saying "fewer than 15% of the referrals from the mental health Emergency Room at University Hospital are referred to NOAH," was the number of referrals that actually refers to. Also, that percentage has probably plummeted since the state already quietly closed an adult psychiatric unit housed at NOAH 2 months ago.

But back to the issue at hand: NOAH. Secretary Levine's reasoning that NOAH can be safely "moved" (DHH's euphemism) because there are more outpatient services now defies not only logic but also common sense for the same reason that having a primary physician in no way means one will never need hospitalization. Family physicians can no more treat heart attacks, strokes, and traumatic brain injury in their offices than can mental health providers treat psychiatric emergencies on comfortable office couches.

Levine insists: "Our proposal does not reduce the number of mental health beds." He forgot to add in New Orleans at the end of that sentence because when you add those 3 words to this new DHH mantra, it translates into: There will be ZERO publicly funded inpatient psychiatric hospital beds for children and adolescents by the time we get through screwing New Orleans, who by the way did not vote for Gov. Jindal...not that our decisions have anything to do with that fact. If you're a master of subtlety and reading between the lines, you might have picked up the slightly different meaning those 3 little words add.

Yup, I can spin with the best of 'em!

As for fraud, I am sad to say that Secretary Levine has intentionally tried to deceive us when he said: "less than 35 percent of the children treated at NOAH are even from New Orleans." There really is no excuse for trying to slide this piece of misleading info into the mix when just a few weeks ago Arnie Fielkow and Shelly Midura exposed DHH Deputy Secretary Sybil Richard for attempting the same act of deceipt at a city council Subcommittee on Mental Health meeting on March 27. Yes, 35% come from Orleans Parish, followed by another 40% or so from Jefferson Parish. I'm willing to bet the ones that also come from St. Bernard, Plaquemines, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, Terrebonne, and Lafourche also would not appreciate an even longer drive than they already have to see their hospitalized children.

Honestly, I do not know why the state is putting the entire southshore in such dire straits. I'd ask them, but I doubt they'd tell me the truth anyway.

Are Jindal and Levine Lying About NOAH?

2009-03-31T23:22:00.002-05:00

According to a March 24, 2008, LA Department of Health & Hospitals press release, precisely one year ago, Governor Jindal acknowledged a dire mental health crisis in New Orleans:

Jindal said, "The broken pieces in our mental healthcare system affect every Louisianian, but the problem is especially acute in New Orleans. New Orleans officials estimate that the annual suicide rate has more than tripled since Hurricane Katrina...and the World Health Organization estimates that tens of thousands of people in the storm-affect region today have a serious mental illness. We must take a comprehensive approach to address this crisis -- one that incorporates the needs of patients, law enforcement, and the community as a whole."

Said DHH Secretary Levine in the same March 24, 2008 press release:

"The combined impact of these bills and the Governor’s budget represents a sweeping transformation of our mental health system," said Levine. "The mental health system has been neglected, and while it won’t be fixed overnight, this is the kind of commitment one would expect of a reform-minded Governor."

A February 15, 2008, DHH press release announced: "NOAH key to easing mental health crisis in New Orleans," and included this tidbit: “The occupancy rate at NOAH was 96 percent in 2007. These beds are almost always full. Opening up 20 new beds is critical to providing mental health services in the city because it will help to reduce waiting time for patients who require hospitalization.” Yet, just last week, Dr. Levine insisted that there is no dire need for psychiatric beds in New Orleans:

"I keep hearing, 'Where are we going to take these people?' " Levine said. "But the numbers we're seeing, the demand doesn't appear."

And in DHH's own words: "NOAH was the first public mental health inpatient facility to re-open after Katrina within New Orleans and remains at the forefront of providing these vital services to a population in great need. Prior to NOAH’s re-opening, people with mental illnesses were either not treated, were seen and discharged from hospital emergency rooms or were transferred to hospitals elsewhere in the state."

Yet, at the N.O. City Council Mental Health Subcommittee meeting on March 27, 2009, DHH Deputy Secretary Sybil Richard had the audacity to tell us that the proposal to move NOAH across the lake was something that would have been done anyway in the interest of patient care and was a decision not borne of Jindal's desire to rid the budget of anything non-revenue producing (i.e., services for a parish of Democrats who never have and never will donate to his campaign coffers.)

Unfounded Racism Not the Same as Unfounded Concern

2009-02-23T11:47:00.010-06:00

Let me get this out the way now: Good transparent government is good transparent government regardless of race, and Mayor Nagin is a terrific asshole as well as an out-of-touch, incompetant mayor.

That said, it bothers me that some white people don't take some of these racial issues seriously. Although some white people don't see how race plays into some issues, when white politicians just dismiss the race issue as "unfounded," that adds fuel to the city's race problem as much as the black politicians who cry racism when there is none. It's akin to a doctor telling you that there's no physical cause of the back pain you've suffered for years and that it's really all in your head; but he's not the one experiencing the pain. I don't think the white councilmembers' actions were racially motivated, but that doesn't mean they get to ignore black citizens' suspicions. If I remember correctly, what Hedge-Morrell said was that some of her constituents viewed the issue as a racial one. Good politicians take their constituents' concerns seriously and don't just ignore them (something Mayor Nagin does all the time), which is an extremely patronizing and thing to do and infuriating to the person with the concerns.

Black politicians like Nagin are playing the same games that white politicians have long played in this state. White people in New Orleans have gotten rich off of back room deals for centuries, so you can't just chalk it up to paranoia when black citizens ask why is that white people want to create transparency now that black people have the power to enrich a few other black people -- along with alot of white people who still benefit from being politically connected (e.g., the Business Council of N.O.). Like Oyster said, these are tricky issues and you can't just blow them off without addressing them. As much as it sucks, white politicians have to tell us why their vote isn't racially motivated and they have to be convincing -- as convincing as I have to be that I'm not a thief when pulled over by the police or when I'm followed around the store by white salesclerks. This shit sucks, but you have to deal with it.

You Know What I Could Use?

2009-02-20T15:58:00.001-06:00

I really wish I had some of this after yesterday's City Council meeting. Instead, I had to settle for a scotch...or 3.

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Can You Explain This Cartoon?

2009-02-18T07:38:00.003-06:00

According to the National Action Network this cartoon ran in today's New York Post newspaper.

MAYOR NAGIN, PLEASE RESIGN

2009-02-03T22:53:00.002-06:00

Who Said Hope Isn't A Solution?

2009-01-25T22:10:00.004-06:00

Actually, I've said it and quite often. Don't get me wrong. It's necessary to get anything of significance done; it's just not a plan of action. Or maybe it is:

One intriguing hint of what researchers led by Ray Friedman of the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management calls the “Obama Effect” suggests that maybe, just maybe, Obama will do more for the scholastic achievement of African-Americans than anything since Brown v. Board of Education.

Apparently, a mere four days into Obama's term, the recalcitrant Black-White test score gap may have all but disappeared:

The results varied according to when the students took the test. Before the convention and in early October, the performance gap was as wide as ever: white students got a median score of 12.1 compared to blacks’ 8.8 before the convention; the scores were 12.9 and 8.4, respectively, in early October. But just after Obama’s convention speech, and just after election day, “when Obama’s stereotype-defying accomplishments garnered national attention,” as the researchers put it, there was a remarkable effect. Among students who watched Obama’s speech, blacks’ and whites’ scores were statistically equal (10.3 vs. 12.1) after the acceptance speech and 9.8 vs. 11.1 after election day. The difference is considered statistically insignificant--that is, likely due to chance.

If I didn't know any better, I'd immediately write off this study as containing a fatal flaw. But I do know better. I know that there is an extensive body of research experiments that supports the theory that a significant portion of the Black-White test score gap has to do with stereotype threat, as explained in this article.

As a scientist, I'm still not ready to gleefully embrace the results of this study. In fact, I can't wait to read it so I can pore over it for flaws and limitations (as we are brainwashed to do in grad school).

But dammit, living in this city and through this current turd of an economy, I'm takin' a li'l Hope wherevers I can find it.

Dear Gov. Jindal, Do The Right Thing

2009-01-04T12:49:00.006-06:00

Dear Governor Jindal,

I was so pleased to hear that you understand and are concerned about the link between dropping out of school and ending up in prison, and that you would like to address these problems.

Every year 14,000 high school students drop out of school. Every year we lock up about 14,000 people in our prisons. I don't think that's a coincidence. -Gov. Bobby Jindal on his initiatives to reduce Louisiana's dropout and recidivism rates. [Times Picayune, 1/4/09, p. A-13]

I was not so pleased to read on the very same newspaper page your plans to stave off a projected $341 million budget shortfall by delaying the opening of a mental health crisis center in New Orleans and by canceling plans to add 6 inpatient beds to the N.O. Adolescent Hospital. You should be aware that a recent study shows that children in LA impacted by Hurricane Katrina currently suffer from physical and mental health problems at rates double that of homeless children in New York City.

NY Times 12/5/08:
...41 percent under age 4 had iron-deficiency anemia -- twice the rate for children in New York City's homeless shelters. Anemia, often attributable to poor nutrition, is associated with developmental problems and academic underachievement.

More than half of those ages 6 to 11 had a behavior or learning problem, yet in the East Baton Rouge School District children can wait for as long as two years to be tested for learning disabilities.

...many of the children of Hurricane Katrina are behind in school, acting out and suffering from extraordinarily high rates of illness and mental health problems. Their parents, many still anxious or depressed themselves, are struggling to keep the lights on and the refrigerator stocked.

Governor, these are the children most likely to not finish high school and then end up in jail, and these are the very children that your budget cuts will hurt most. I think that the Obama administration and Congress would be hard-pressed to hand over $450 million for a new Charity hospital to a state that won't even spend $4.25 million to address the dire needs of its own citizens, needs which should have been addressed 3 years ago now.

Show us that you care about your citizens. Let us know whether a man of God would choose $385,040 in pay raises for 6 Cabinet members already making six figures a year over thousands of families who have nowhere else but you to turn to for survival. Six psychiatric inpatient beds at NOAH will cost $250,000.

Governor Jindal, do the right thing this time.

JoAnn Taylor, Poster Child for Misdirected Outrage

2009-01-02T14:12:00.002-06:00

Instead of being outraged about people being murdered in front of her own home, JoAnn Taylor is mad about her neighbor's memorial to her slain son. Other neighbors like it. Her artwork has even opened the door for youngsters in the neighborhood to deal with their grief over their own murdered loved ones.

It's easy to get ticked off by the absurd aspects of Ms. Taylor's stupid vendetta: the fact that she moved there years after the sidewalk and home were already creatively painted (or so said the grieving mother today on WWL) or that Ms. Taylor's real problem is her own issues with her neighbor's "lifestyle." The Times Picayune website already has tons of comments about this story, most of which I actually agree with for once; but this one best articulated to where Ms. Taylor and all of us should really be directing our outrage [a little background: the city is threatening to fine the woman $100 per day until she paints the sidewalk gray]:

How about we fine Ray Nagin and Warren Riley $100 a day until they can get the murders under control?

Why not fine the Public Works Department $100 for all the damage done to our vehicles by some of the worst roads in the Western Hemisphere?

Driving around town, a visitor could easily mistake our infrastructure for that of Port-au-Prince.

This woman has filled the vacuum of lawlessness in this city with something of her own creation. Those complaining about the liberties she has taken with public property are under the delusion that this is still a place of law.

Amen, Hallelujah, and Thank You Jesus to that.

Idiots!

2009-01-02T01:37:00.002-06:00

2 doctors weigh in on health reform

From a T-P article on the two new physician congressmen from Louisiana:

Both hope to hear from the president-elect, or his top health aides, so they can advocate for measures that put more emphasis on patient responsibility and free market solutions to Obama's campaign promise to provide coverage to more than 40 million uninsured Americans.

Because that has been working so well for the American people? Honestly, do you know ANYONE who is pleased with the cost and quality of their health insurance or who isn't hassled by her health insurance provider when it really counts (i.e., other than a quick well visit to the doctor)? Do we really need to advocate for more emphasis on free market solutions? Isn't that what we already have? It sounds a lot like Nagin's repopulation plan.

Oh wait. That wasn't a plan at all. Just like this isn't a fucking plan either!!

As for patient responsibility, last I heard, the patients' responsibility to pay for medical treatments not covered by their expensive health insurance is a main cause of personal bankruptcy filings. But Congressmen, you're right. The American people need more bills. It's not like there's a mortgage crisis or rising unemployment or a financial market meltdown or anything!

Now for the piece de resistance:

But Cassidy also spoke about working across party lines to get affordable homeowners insurance to south Louisiana residents ...
"If our workers can't afford to live near the refineries, pipelines and shipyards that serve the entire nation, then our whole national economy suffers, " Cassidy said.

So, healthcare insurance...leave to the market forces. Homeowners insurance...too important to leave to the market forces? Huh? People not being able to afford healthcare insurance...no threat to the economy, but people not being able to afford homeowners insurance in Louisiana...threat to the whole national economy?

What the...?

Idiots, I tell you. Fucking idiots.

We're watching you, Congressmen. We're watching.

Tim Wise: On White Privilege in Chalmette

2008-12-27T18:30:00.001-06:00

The whole thing is good, but starting at about minute 6...WOW!!

2008-11-15T21:06:00.001-06:00

I am now done with my Christmas shopping, shattering all of my personal previous records! Here is your gift.

Louisiana: Where Progress Comes to Die

2008-11-11T23:17:00.000-06:00

This is a map from the NY Times showing the shift in voting between 2004 & 2008. The redder the county, the greater the gain in Republican votes between 2004 & 2008. As usual, we here in LA insist on being 5 minutes and 500 years behind the rest of the nation. Here, things like progressive thought and a greater concern for making sure one's own kids graduate high school as opposed to worrying about whether Joe the Plumber and Joe Six Pack should be allowed to marry are viewed as tools of the liberal elites and Hollywood to destroy America. Funny, I was under the belief that it was the Republicans who slashed levee funding and who rendered FEMA ineffective by placing it within the bureaucratic black hole of the Department of Homeland Security who literally destroyed this part of America. And isn't it still the case that nearly a billion dollars of your Road Home money is going to the Bush administration buddies over at IFC, whilst you remain relegated to a life of toxic trailer trash? And isn't it true that the people most disgusted by "the gays" probably spend the most time thinking about disgusting gay sex? (Tip: If you don't think about it, it won't disgust you! Why ARE you thinking about it so much anyway?)

But I doth digresseth.

A few days ago, some local bloggers were bouncing around idears for turning LA more blue. Not to piss in anyone's cornflakes, but Louisianians haven't been progressive and open to change, even change that benefits us, since France ran this show. An educated populace would help, but that's not a short-term strategy unless you absolutely blitz them with media about particular issues in any given election (e.g., None of your broke asses will ever make $250,000 so chill out with the Obama will raise my taxes hysteria...[or something to that effect]). Judging from the map, it's not just LA. Most of the south, Appalachia, and the midwest are dying to remain about 20 years behind "big city coastal elites." The us-versus-them schema has been so drilled into people's psyche that cultural issues and fear tactics will drive regional politics for several years to come. Democrat strategists yearning for change would be trying to change the minds of people that still will not vote for a Landrieu because Moon hired blacks to work in N.O. City Hall in the 1970s and who have voted Republican (except for Clinton & Carter - two Southern white men) since LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act and forced them to integrate. Umm...yah, good luck with that one.

I've Got Your Prop 8 Right Here

2008-11-10T08:08:00.000-06:00

And now for a post by guest blogger Jill of the Bay Area

This perspective calmed me down just a little bit today: http://news.google.com/news?btcid=3470a2c45010e263.

Rev. Andrus's comments are poignant and true in my opinion. Yes, we will continue to work toward a transformed consciousness. Yes, we will persevere. In the meantime, however, we will be disappointed. Very disappointed.

Particularly disappointed am I in some of my black people.

That's right - I said it.

I saw some black folks enthusiastically reporting of their vote for YES on Prop 8 yesterday, and it made me sick. How is it possible that any black people -- my people -- could enthusiastically sanction constitutionally mandated bigotry? How could any of my people -- who, a few short generations ago were not even 'people' ourselves (at least not in an enfranchised, constitutional sense) -- cover another body with that scarred, stinking, bigoted cloth? How could any of us deprive another human being of coverage by the full fabric of personhood? We don't even have to think "There, but for the Grace of God, go I..." We've been there! And, we've been working like hell to lance the boils left by that infected place ever since.

I was ready to turn over tables when I saw a face that looked like mine grinning and cooning in front of a news camera, parroting some foolishness about "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve..." What the hell? Could we really vote for a constitutional amendment that would put its boot on the neck of an entire segment of the human population ... based on a hot steamy pile of ideology invoking GOD's purported oversight in her creation of Adam and Steve? Could we really do this, all the while proclaiming our support for the first black candidate to ever ascend to the U.S. presidency, because it's "Time for Change?" That's not irony. That's nonsense!

I have been distracted all day questioning how this is possible -- how this is even a question in the minds of a repressed and marginalized people.

I am and will always be a fan of the democratic process. There are few things I value more than a dissenter's voice. That said, this is a stunning disappointment. Something broke loose in my faith in the bondedness of the human condition today. Humanity is going to have to purify itself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka before I will get over it. (If you're not a Purple Rain fan, then you didn't get that and shame on you for it!).

That is to say, we've got a lot of work to do.

Graduate Level Seminar on Hurricanes

2008-11-07T23:20:00.000-06:00

[disclaimer: I didn't write this]

Funny because it is—sadly—true.

Hurricane Education: What I've learned during our last hurricane.

1. Coffee and frozen pizzas can be made on a BBQ grill.

2. No matter how many times you flick the switch, lights don't work without electricity.

3. My car gets 23.21675 miles per gallon, EXACTLY (you can ask the people in line who helped me push it).

4. Kids can survive 4 days or longer without a video game controller in their hand.

5. Cats are even more irritating without power.

6. He who has the biggest generator wins.

7. Women can actually survive without doing their hair- you just wish they weren't around you.

8. A new method of non-lethal torture- showers without hot water.

9. There are a lot more stars in the sky than most people thought.

10. TV is an addiction and the withdrawal symptoms are painful.

11. A 7 lb bag of ice will chill 6-12 oz Budweiser's to a drinkable temperature in 11 minutes, and still keep a 14 lb. turkey frozen for 8 more hours.

12. There are a lot of dang trees around here.

13. Flood plane drawings on some mortgage documents were seriously wrong..

14. Aluminum siding, while aesthetically pleasing, is definitely not required.

15. Crickets can increase their volume to overcome the sound of 14 generators.

16. People will get into a line that has already formed without having any idea what the line is for.

17. When required, a Lincoln Continental will float, doesn't steer well but floats just the same.

18. Tele-marketers function no matter what the weather is doing.

19. Cell phones work when land lines are down, but only as long as the battery remains charged.

20. 27 of your neighbors are fed from a different transformer than you, and they are quick to point that out!

21. Hampers were not made to contain such a volume.

22. If my store sold only ice, chainsaws, gas and generators... I'd be rich.

23. Price of a can of soup rises 200% in a storm.

24. Your water front property can quickly become someone else's fishing hole.

25. Tree service companies are under appreciated.

26. I learned what happens when you make fun of another states' blackout.

27. MATH 101: 30 days in month, minus 6 days without power equals 30% higher electric bill ?????

28. Drywall is a compound word, take away the 'dry' part and it's worthless.

29. I can walk a lot farther than I thought.

30. Your loved ones become a living nightmare.

The Best of the Boob

2008-11-06T06:59:00.001-06:00

Or the "breast" of the boob, as the boob would say. We sure will miss this guy.

OK, I'm done missing him now.

This One's For You

2008-11-04T13:23:00.002-06:00

I cannot imagine how difficult it must be for Barack Obama to have lost his rock, his Grandma "Toot" hours before possibly becoming President. It was comforting, however, to hear that she was able to cast her vote for him before passing away. I really cannot fathom how even the most ardent Republican supporter could begrudge him his need to suspend his campaign to go see her, or how any human could turn this enormously personal, painful trial into an ugly political talking point. But they have [see minute 0:00 to 1:00 of this video].

And it didn't stop with this heartless bastard. Friday, I heard Rush Limbaugh, who suspected something sinister and secretive lay underneath Obama's emergency flight to Hawaii from the very beginning, say the following [Go to minute 4:45], basically that the ill grandmother story was all a ruse, concocted so that he could go back and have his birth records sealed. (You see, he's stuck on this debunked myth that Obama is not an American citizen.)

Let me tell Mr. Limbaugh something about real American grandparents and how much they mean to so many of us real Americans. I am fortunate to have 3 of my grandparents still on this Earth with me, not just because they are the most loving and amazing humans I know, but because I am blessed to see them witness this day. Born in rural Louisiana before electricity, TV, indoor plumbing, and having the right to vote, today they all cast a ballot in favor of another black person for President of the United States.

My father's mother, who turned 85 two days ago, after not being allowed to go to the front of the early voting line in her wheelchair, simply went back today to cast her vote. My mother's 83 and 89 year-old parents arrived at their polling place at 5:55AM to patiently wait, a cane and a walker between the two of them, for an hour to cast their votes. I also never heard my grandfather utter one syllable of regret about having to fight in World War II only to return to a country where he had to stand in the back of the bus and drink from dirty water fountains. His wife, who could have passed for white, did not hesitate to correct white people who told her she didn't have to wait in the colored waiting rooms. She was black she would tell them. My other grandmother never complained about working as a housekeeper for white families until the age of 75, well after she began suffering the pain of osteoarthritis. And during all this, these great Americans nurtured and supported and helped raised their grandchildren and great-grandchildren after raising 19 children (between the four of them) and sending those children on to college and law school and graduate school even though they themselves had little money and not a one attended school beyond the 8th grade.

Because of them, I have never been so happy to stand in line to vote. Without them, I would never have been so happy -- period. So today is for you Toot. Today is for you Ernest (rest in peace) and Audrey. Today is no one's but yours, Eddie and Marina.

Extra, Extra!! White Lady Plays Race Card!

2008-10-25T12:50:00.001-05:00

I'll tell you what; white folks is mad!! The Republican ones are, that is. Monday morning, the day after Gen. Colin Powell endorsed Obama for President, I was listening to Castner & Walensky on "Rush Radio" 99.5fm when Walensky went off. She emphatically insisted that there is NO WAY that Powell's endorsement had nothing to do with race, because both men are black. They then went on to bash Powell as never having been a "real" Republican anyway, despite his putting his own reputation on the line with his United Nations speech about Iraq having WMDs. Even after conceeding that yes, Powell was the odd man out in this Bush administration and pushed to the side, Walensky insisted race played a major part in his decision.

AS IF race has nothing to do with her support of McCain-Palin, or that of the other white people who constitute perhaps 80% of their supporters -- and that's a conservative estimate (no pun intended). As if they are above being influenced by the dynamics of race. As if SHE wasn't playing "the race card."

Liebermann broke ranks to endorse McCain, but apparently only white people can do that without race coming into play. Nobody questioned whether Liebermann's decision had to do with race. I'd be curious to know if Walensky and those who think like her have questioned whether the slew of Obama endorsements from white Republicans has to do with race. After all, Obama is as white as he is black.

Now, honestly tell me whites and blacks are not judged by different standards, so I can tell you to go sit your ass down somewhere.

Wassup 2008

2008-10-24T23:36:00.002-05:00

OMG! Obama Said "Spread the Wealth"!

2008-10-17T23:28:00.001-05:00

Yes, at first I cringed too when Obama told Joe the Plumber he intends to "spread the wealth." However, by using my brain [dammit, I already lost 1/3 of the Republicans reading this], I realized that my reaction was nothing more than the knee-jerk response Americans have been indoctrinated to have towards anything remotely socialist-sounding. After a few more minutes of thinking, and without the help of Limbaugh or Hannity, I realized that spreading the wealth is as American as...well, as Obama.

In case you missed the last couple of weeks trying to decipher the transcript of Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric, you may have heard tidbits about some sort of $700 billion bail out for Wall Street. You see, that's where the American people's wealth was spread to billion-dollar corporations who fell short of their original goal of spreading our personal wealth to themselves using bad mortgages as their drive-thru-bank-cannister-vacuum-chute-like-thingy vehicle of choice. My fellow Americans, you may have also noticed that you've been spreading a bit more of your wealth to oil companies and then to credit card companies in the form of higher interest rates & late charges when you couldn't afford to pay them on account of having spent your bill money on gas for your automobile.

If you live along the coast, you'll definitely recall spreading pretty much all of your wealth to insurance companies that were already quite wealthy:

When insurers sharply boost premiums on the coasts, increase deductibles, refuse to renew policies or otherwise cut back coverage, policymakers often accept these steps as necessary to help the property/casualty insurance business meet the huge challenges it faces in a risky world filled with dangers that it cannot adequately measure...

...The financial reality of the property/casualty insurance industry couldn’t be more different than the carefully cultivated perception fostered by insurers. Insurers are paying out lower claims, charging higher premiums, reaping greater profits, and are more financially solid than at almost any time in history.
[p. 3, Property/Casualty Insurance in 2007: Overpriced Insurance, Underpaid Claims, Declining Losses and Unjustified Profits]

And remember when you made the decision to allocate your wealth for the worthy, moral cause of helping your countrymen and countrywomen rebuild their hurricane shattered lives? Well, our Republican leaders faithfully doled your wealth out in a heartily fashion -- to their already superwealthy pals.

So you see, America is all about spreading the wealth! I mean we love us some fuckin' wealth distribution!! Politicians love to talk about "sharing in the American dream." Remember to remind them -- and most importantly, remind yourselves -- that sharing in that dream requires sharing some of your own damn wealth back to you.

You Say Tomato; I Say Fuck You

2008-10-16T14:44:00.000-05:00

That's it. That's all I needed to say.

UPDATED -- Yes, Rev. Wright Was (Mostly) Right Too

2008-10-04T13:59:00.006-05:00

Minute 4:00 is where you should start if you're short on time. I can't embed it but you can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al_y3g77ZsA

Big Man over at Raving Black Lunatic wrote about a related racial aspect to McCain's VP pick. I highly recommend reading it.

All of America is questioning Palin's suitability to perform as Vice President. For White Americans, such criticism probably has nothing to do with them personally. Black Americans, however, are taking the fact that she made it this far a bit personally. Call it playing the race card if you must. I just call it like I see it.

As does my friend, and today's co-blogger, Tamiya:

I have to agree. So often we are taught to "code switch," speak one way with your friends and family, but another way in business and more formal settings. When did it become appropriate to relax that, ESPECIALLY in a Vice Presidential Debate?

This weekend on CNN some panel members made an excellent point: since when did we want the "common man" running the government? We have always expected the President and VP to be better than the common man, smarter than the common man. I mean really, if I'm smarter than those two (which currently I am), why the heck would I look to them for leadership? I can just run myself. Who needs government?

The more I watch her, the more disgusted I become. She is such a farce, and to think that White people are willing to vote for this man and his idiotic running mate because of their skin color. OOOOOH it burns me up!

2008-09-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

I just had to get the following out of my head. I hope I'm just panicking, but all observable evidence suggests that I have good reason.

It's 10pm in south Louisiana. Hurricane Ike made landfall at 3:20AM this morning at Galveston/Houston, some 500 miles away. Ike is now somewhere in north Texas & Oklahoma if not further.

Yet somehow, Ike's storm surge CONTINUES TO RISE slightly in parts of coastal Louisiana this evening, or at best have held steady since early AM yesterday. It's not just the coast either; water is inching towards homes in non-coastal parishes. I don't ever remember this happening before and everyone from Cameron Parish on the west end of LA to Plaquemines Parish on the east end of LA is saying the flooding this time is worse than Rita's surge in 2005. There's no more time for restoration studies or planning. We are literally washing away down here.

On The Road Again

2008-09-09T17:24:00.007-05:00

Like nearly 2 million fellow Louisianians, I participated our new age tradition of getting the hell out of dodge before Gustav before completing a few minor rituals that accompany getting ready for storms:

Hitting at least 5 stores to stock up on beer, liquor, food, water, batteries, cat food, cat litter, paper towels, styrofoam ice chests, medicine, beer, liquor, heavy duty gloves for post-storm clean up, flashlights, beer, liquor, transmission fluid, motor oil, beer, and liquor
Spending about 4 hours on the Internet and phone with 3 relatives and 4 rental car companies and 1 bank executive figuring out how my non-driving, non-credit-card-owning grandparents could rent a car for them and a relative willing to drive them in a day and age when apparently good ole American cash is no longer good enough for conducting good ole American lifesaving business
2 hours on the phone and Internet trying to find a hotel that takes pets
Washing 4 loads of laundry and packing some of it (hey, I was without a dryer for a few weeks so I was a bit behind, OK?!)
Trying not to get too stressed out
Helping a friend board up windows and move stuff out of her basement
2 trips to the gas station
Checking the weather forecasts 40-50 times a day
Securing a few outdoor items to keep them from flying away
Planning my contraflow evacuation route and devising alternate routes to avoid that pesky problem of ending up in Florida instead of Texas
Accepting that I'd be driving to Texas without that much needed front end alignment after pulling up to Firestone and not even being able to find a parking spot
Gathering up papers needed to work on a manuscript due August 30th (LOL-- yeah like THAT happened)
Backing up important computer files on my flash drive
Checking in with relatives and friends to find out if, when they were leaving and devising alternate plans of communication for when cell phones would inevitably become useless
Washing the dishes in the sink so they wouldn't mold and smell up the place
Taking out all the trash in the house
Throwing away all food in the fridge that would spoil after losing electricity
Packing the car at 4:30AM with part of my stockpile detailed in bullet #1, important briefcase of important papers already packed and ready to go at moment's notice, shrimp boots I believe are given to every male born in south Louisiana at birth, first aid kit, CDs for the drive (even though I know I'm going to listen to news radio damn near the whole way), family photos that post-Katrina wisdom dictates are no longer safe left at home on top of an 8-foot high bookshelf, strategically placed cat food, water, litter, & cat toys (before realizing my cats were planning a hunger-drinking-pooping-playing strike to protest the interruption of their livelihoods);
Helping the friend I tailed to Shreveport pack her car at 6AM; aaaaaand...
Playing that fun game with my employer of Do I Have to Go to Work? When Do I Need to be Back? How will I know I need to be back? Hell, I Just Hope to Have a Damn Job a Week from Today

You know, it's quite amazing there aren't more tragedies on the road when 2 million sleep deprived people are driving for their lives. Then again, who had the energy for road rage?

Once I settled into my comfortable, spacious hotel room in Dallas (ever thankful and knowledgeable of the fact that many of us were living without that luxury and reminiscing on my own lack of such accommodations during Katrina), I realized that I needed this vacation. Gee, I wonder why.

One thing about disasters is that they do bring us together. Especially when Louisianians outnumber Texans on Texas highways and essentially commandeer their hotels for a week or 4. I imagine the same applied in every state below the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Rockies. Prompted by my formidable friend who runs New Orleans: A Labor of Love (still bringing folks here to rebuild from Katrina, by the way) to get off my ass and do something while in exile, here are a few pics of fellow citizens I got to know while away. I don't even know the last names of these families, yet I'm still thinking of them and hoping & praying that things work out for the best for them.

Algiers, Avondale, & Harvey, Louisiana

Cut Off, Louisiana (a.k.a. down da bah-yoh)

Church Point, Louisiana (outside of Lafayette)

Beau-Barack & Bella-Michelle hanging out in Dallas, TX during Gustav

Cats don't much care for evacuating either

John McCain - Lost in Space

2008-09-09T17:19:00.002-05:00

WHAT THE FAYk? (Part I)

2008-08-21T05:30:00.003-05:00

So, as they have done pretty much everyday since Fay existed, the prediction-powers-that-be have again inched Fay's track ever so slightly southward (as of the 5AM advisory). Which is not surprising given that track forecast errors for Fay have averaged about 350-450 miles 4 to 5 days out. I like to read NHC's official discussion for "the real scoop"; here's what they scooped up for me this morning:

A MID-LEVEL RIDGE TO
THE NORTH OF FAY...WHICH IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CYCLONE'S CURRENT
STALL...IS FORECAST BY THE GLOBAL MODELS TO STRENGTHEN AND BUILD
WESTWARD AS A MID- TO UPPER-LEVEL TROUGH IN THE SOUTHERN PLAINS
LIFTS OUT OVER THE NEXT TWO TO THREE DAYS.  THIS PATTERN IS
EXPECTED TO TURN FAY SLOWLY TO THE WEST-NORTHWEST ALONG THE
SOUTHERN PERIPHERY OF THE BUILDING RIDGE.  THERE HAS NOT BEEN A
GREAT DEAL OF CHANGE IN THE MODEL GUIDANCE DURING THIS FORECAST
CYCLE...ALTHOUGH THE GFS HAS SHIFTED SOUTHWARD AND NOW SHOWS A
TRACK VERY CLOSE TO THE GULF COAST OF NORTHERN FLORIDA.  THE
OFFICIAL FORECAST IS IN BEST AGREEMENT WITH THE GFS AND UKMET
GUIDANCE AND IS JUST A LITTLE BIT SOUTH OF THE PREVIOUS ADVISORY
TRACK.

THE UPPER-LEVEL
ENVIRONMENT IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN FAVORABLE FOR REDEVELOPMENT...
HOWEVER...SHOULD FAY GO SOUTH OF THE FORECAST TRACK INTO THE GULF
OF MEXICO.

Followed by the 11am scoop:

FAY SHOULD
BEGIN TO WEAKEN BUT A TRACK FATHER SOUTH THAN INDICATED COULD BRING
THE CENTER OVER THE NORTHEAST GULF OF MEXICO. IN THIS CASE...FAY
SHOULD NOT WEAKEN AS MUCH AS FORECAST...AND DO NOT RULE OUT THE
POSSIBILITY OF SLIGHT STRENGTHENING IF THE CENTER OF FAY REMAINS
OVER WATER LONGER THAN ANTICIPATED.

STEERING CURRENTS HAVE REMAINED VERY LIGHT...CONSEQUENTLY FAY HAS
BARELY MOVED SINCE YESTERDAY. GLOBAL MODELS INSIST ON THE
DEVELOPMENT OF A HIGH PRESSURE SYSTEM NORTH OF FAY. THIS PATTERN
SHOULD FORCE THE CYCLONE TO MOVE SLOWLY TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST
OR WEST...A MOTION WE HAVE BEEN FORECASTING BUT HAS NOT MATERIALIZED
YET. NEVERTHELESS...THE DEVELOPING STEERING PATTERN GIVES ME NO
OPTION BUT TO FORECAST A TURN TO THE LEFT WHICH SHOULD BEGIN SOON.
THIS IS CONSISTENT WITH ALL GLOBAL MODELS AND TRACK GUIDANCE.

Perhaps it's insomnia, or the weird collective indescribable, slightly off-kilter way many of us seem to feel and behave as "you know what day" approaches; but despite the slowly shifting cone southward, I'm still not all freaked out...

...about Ms. What the FAYk, that is. I am, however, perturbed by the Corps insistence on freaking us the hell out every August since 2005.

(Remember 2006? "Oh we didn't test the temporary pumps in water and so we just realized this vibration thing we gotta fix but the pumps will work. We are ready." 'Member 2007? "Umm, yeah, funniest thing, y'all; them temporary pumps might have not worked but it's all good cuz we didn't have to use them anyway!")

This year, in a broadway revue-like tribute to the feds' performance during Katrina ("there was only overtopping, not any breaching"), today they introduce the clear (TO THEM) distinction between protecting us from surge as opposed to from rainwater. Because apparently rainfall is not a key element of hurricane protection. I have a crazy hunch that a former insurance executive is now sewing his engineering oats in a new job over on Leake Ave. at CORPS HQ.

But life goes on, and I must get back to mine until I have time to tell you why I must give props to the new local levee authority for wasting no time telling the Corps that they are full of B.S. Stay tuned for the next episode of WHAT THE FAYk?!...

My All-Time Favorite "You Know You're a New Orleanian If..."

2008-08-12T14:07:00.000-05:00

YOU CAN CROSS 2 LANES OF HEAVY TRAFFIC AND U-TURN...

THROUGH A NEUTRAL GROUND...

WHILE AVOIDING 2 JOGGERS...

AND A STREETCAR,

THEN FIT INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC...

WITHOUT EVEN TOUCHING THE BRAKE

Too Disgusted to Even Think of a Title

2008-08-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

See, this is the kind of shit that leads me to spend my days contemplating whether I should move to another state before I suffer a stroke secondary to the most bomb-ass conniption fit ever recorded in human history.

Posted: Friday, 01 August 2008 1:40PM

Poll: Kennedy leads Landrieu
Dave Cohen Reporting

A Zogby poll shows Republican John Kennedy has taken the lead in the U.S. Senate race against Democrat Mary Landrieu.

According to the Zogby International website, "Republican John Kennedy is among the GOP's best hopes to oust a Democratic incumbent. He leads Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu, 47%-41%." The poll's margin of error is less than 5%.

I know it's still a bit early and only a poll, but I mean really, people. Do you know that getting rid of Landrieu would mean getting rid of our most senior Congressperson? Besides Charlie Melancon in the House, who has been a better, more effective advocate for us? Not to mention, if you (cuz it sure as hell won't be me) elect Kennedy, we'd have him and Vitter for Senators -- two Republicans in a Democrat controlled Congress, and possibly a Democrat president too. What the FUCK do you think a newbie and a man more concerned with trying to use his campaign money (i.e., the money you sent him) to pay off legal debts stemming from personal behavior he himself called wrong and sinful can accomplish for us?

And no, I'm not a Democrat. I'm a registered Independent, which is what Kennedy should run as, since he can't make up his damn mind. I used to like the straight-talking, sensible sounding Kennedy; but has anyone else noticed he's been damn quiet and useless since this talk of running for the Senate started.

And if you're part of the old New Orleans establishment who refuses to vote for ANY Landrieu because you think Moon "betrayed" you by being the first mayor to allow black people to work in City Hall, get over it or fucking DROP DEAD ALREADY! You're NOT helping!!!

I Shall Get Upon the Cross for Nagin

2008-07-31T14:51:00.000-05:00

I like to think that I'm mostly right about the views I post on here. Still, the irrepressible guilt I took on during my 13 consecutive years of Catholic school keeps me humble enough to know that I've done SOMETHING wrong, even if it occasionally takes someone or something else to point that out. Allow me to confess that in less than 24 hours, I've been proven wrong on two essential tenets of my life, that: 1) Louisiana gators don't attack us like Florida's gators attack them; and 2) We might be sinking slowly into the ocean, but at least we don't have sinkholes that suddenly swallow entire houses and shit -- like in Florida. Why Florida is involved in both of these is purely coincidental, or still buried in my subconscious.

Mayor Nagin's cavalier responses to this NOAH mess, and to pretty much everything important that has occurred after his re-election, suggests that his religion teachers had methods of crowd control other than guilt induction. Lucky him.

Yet, I feel just awful about this whole NOAH snafu. So this is what I will do: Just as Jesus sacrificed himself to redeem us, I present myself as another black man whom the public can criticize for spreading falsities throughout this community. Gators and sinkholes are as threatening to our recovery as stealing federal aid. Thusly, I come forth as a sacrifice; I humbly offer my wrongs to Lee Zurik and this community, so that Nagin may have political life, and public funds abundantly. Please, take me instead.

Oh, and before you call Cecile Tebo to my house because you think I've had a psychotic break, I am still in touch with reality. I can't guarantee Nagin eternal life, and he's still on his own for the crime, crime cameras, the lying, the credit card charges, endorsing Jefferson, fostering a closer relationship with his brother-in-law or at least keeping abreast of what he does for a living, for his avoidant coping style, and for his passionate relationship with Lee Zurik (I mean when was the last time you've seen chemistry like that on film?).

Interesting Piece of History

2008-07-28T15:41:00.004-05:00

While perusing the web just now looking for a place to play racquetball, I came across this interesting tidbit of local history on the NY Times website. (Still looking for racquetball courts if anyone knows of any).

New Orleans Athletic Club Votes 109-33 to Admit Blacks

AP

Published: November 4, 1986

The New Orleans Athletic Club voted last week to admit blacks for the first time in its 110-year history.

Don Williams, the club president, said the vote was 109 to 33 to remove the ''whites only'' wording from the club's constitution.

The vote was Oct. 28.

''Already I've received three new applications for membership, one or two of which I know are from blacks,'' Mr. Williams said Wednesday.

Reciprocal privileges with athletic clubs across the country will be re-established, he said. They were canceled in 1976, after the New Orleans club refused to admit Thomas Perkins, a black member of the Harvard Club who was here on a visit.

Mr. Perkins sued the club, and Federal District Judge Alvin B. Rubin awarded him $1,000 in damages. The club then canceled its agreements with other clubs for fear of more lawsuits, Mr. Williams said.

St. Bernard Redevelopment Rumored To Be Halted

2008-07-09T00:26:00.001-05:00

Sources tell me that the redevelopment of the St. Bernard public housing complex has come to a screeching halt due to the Louisiana Housing Finance Authority's (LHFA) inability to secure investors to purchase the tax credits allocated to finance the project. I'm hoping this is not the case even as I write this because if true, we have been misled in the most egregious manner by our city officials. As I recall it, the riotous city council meeting at which the council voted to unanimously approve demolition, they and Mayor Nagin assured us that demolition could not proceed until all stipulations of the provisos attached to the order allowing demolition were met; and I believe one of the provisos was that the developers had to first prove that financing had been secured.

The Times-Picayune reported that enough funding was in place to "launch" the 1st phase of construction.

"the Bayou District Foundation has secured $62 million through low-income tax credits and $27 million from federal block grant money. That's enough to launch the first phase of 465 apartments next year."

Then again, it's the T-P. These are the same people who fervently endorsed Jindal for governor. However, to their credit, the same article reports that many had doubts about the reality of getting people to invest in tax credits for such an ambitious project -- twice the scope of the Atlanta East Lake project after which the St. Bernard plans are modeled.

Another few key points:
The redevelopers of the St. Bernard, Columbia Residential, are closely tied to the allegations of corruption that directly led to HUD Secretary Alphonso's firing or resignation or whatever the feds called it. This was reported by the OB Rag Blog on December 27, 2007, mere days after the council's vote to demolish the projects:

A report today in the online publication Government Executive details mounting evidence from federal investigations linking HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson to scandals in New Orleans-including the demoliton contract for the St. Bernard public housing complex.

"the feds are going after Scott Keller, described as Jackson’s “right arm,” for his role in steering the St. Bernard demo contract towrds Colombia Residential, a company Jackson once worked for, and which still owes him hundreds of thousands of dollars."

In June 2006, Sec. Jackson put Keller in charge of HUD. “Keller was smack in the middle of the HANO decision to award the $127 million redevelopment to the team that included Columbia Residential to restore [sic] the St. Bernard public housing projects”

“Internal HANO records show that the Columbia Residential team barely won the evaluation, 68 points to 67.”

One more thing. I'm also told that Columbia has already been paid $9 million dollars for demolition (also reported on the OB Rag Blog) compared to the $4 million dollars the developers of the other 3 housing projects were paid for demolition.