"I'm not going to try to lay down in words the lure of this place. Every great writer in the land, from Faulkner to Twain to Rice to Ford, has tried to do it, and fallen short. It is impossible to capture the essence, tolerance and spirit of south Louisiana in words...IT JUST IS WHAT IT IS."
-Chris Rose, N.O. Times-Picayune, 8/29/06
And by Remember, I mean remembering the sociopolitical circumstances that led to so much tragedy and loss...and not repeating them. People didn't suffer and die for us to forget, declare everything "OK," and merely move on and recreate the same conditions. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Mayor Landrieu.)
Louisiana insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon explained last week on Angela Hill's radio show (at about minute 13:00) why our auto insurance is so high. Auto insurance rates in Jefferson, Orleans, and a couple of other parishes are 40% higher than rates in the rest of the state because of a prolific "soft tissue" market, Mr. Donelon said. That is, the proclivity of locals, aided by lawyers and doctors, towards seeking compensation for injuries resulting from auto accidents. It pains me to agree with that characterization of the local citizenry. It also leaves alot unexplained, in my opinion. Seven years ago I paid about $74/mo. for a policy in Nashville with $100,000/$300,000 (100/300) limits and about $80/mo. for the same coverage in Chicago. When I moved back to New Orleans, I had to slash my coverage limits to 50/100 just to barely afford auto insurance here. Turns out I couldn't even barely afford it. I just plain could not afford it, not even if I doubled my deductible. With each passing year, I tacked on 365 more days to my flawless driving record *knock on wood*. Still, my premiums continued to rise despite my car and me both being six years older and my having aged into an (allegedly) cheaper rating class; and five years into my move back home, I had to drop my coverage to the 25/50 state minimum.
Commissioner Donelon's explanation does not even come close to explaining why I and every Louisianian shell out 50% more money for about 1/5th of the coverage that we would get in other major cities. The WDSU report that ran last evening seems to confirm my hunch that the prevalent "soft tissue" industry is not to blame for much of this disparity in auto insurance rates because it only accounts for approximately 10% of the increased premium. That news story also makes very fuzzy links between a national rise in auto insurance fraud and cell-phone caused driver distraction, but Louisiana's ridiculously high insurance rates long pre-date either of those phenomena.
Even if auto insurance fraud accounts for 40% of our premiums in metro N.O., that does not satisfactorily explain why it's 40% more for WAY less coverage. I am, in fact, now paying 40% more than I paid in Chicago and Nashville, but shouldn't I be paying 40% more for 100/300 coverage instead of 40% more for shitty 25/50 coverage? Maybe there is an actuarial table somewhere that that backs up Mr. Donelon's explanation, but until I see it, I ain't buying it.
I was going to do a comparison/retrospective pre-storm post cleverly titled "Isaac Meet Gustav. Gustav, Isaac" -- a flashback-flashforward piece, if you will, involving this post. However, my detailed prep routine highlighted in that Gustav post prevented that.
Folks getting their extra 2 inches of parking elevation pre-Isaac
Isaac, as irritating as he was, provided positive experiences I would not have otherwise had. I learned that I have some very interesting neighbors. Despite New Orleans' reputation for close-knit communities, I had never gotten to know these folks. A lot of bonding can happen on a neighbor's front porch on the pitch black, windy, wet second night of a 'cane. The cool Tulane college students who live next door and I finally had the opportunity to really hang out. They even came over and made a delicious meal in my candlelit kitchen, complete with enthralling conversation that made me feel like a dope compared to their brilliance. I, in return, provided some "radio action" during which Margaret Orr wowed them and, consequently, gained a new fan or two. I experienced the kindness of my neighbor, about 7 or 8 years old, who swept the leaves off of my side of the porch in the heat of the morning without even being asked to.
I learned that if you have older candles you haven't used in a while, you should make sure before the power goes out that the wicks aren't buried in the wax. I learned that my cat BoBo gets car sick. I learned that given the choice, I would pick air conditioning over cable TV, telephone service, and yes -- even Internet. The bluish (some see more green, others more purple) glow given off by transformers in the pitch black darkness of a windstorm is eerily cool!
Tree down on Leake Av. - Wed., Aug. 29th, 2012
I learned that my what-to-cook-in-the-order-it-will-spoil-without-electricity strategy needs a great deal more refinement. I learned that if it involves using the oven in an already sweltering house that I will most likely not cook it. To hell with it spoiling!
The title of this CBS piece, "New Orleans Mayor Fights to End Culture of Violence," is the exact opposite of what I heard Mayor Landrieu say in this interview, which was that no one IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE COUNTRY knows how to stem the epidemic of young black males killing each other here in New Orleans.
Based upon my grasp of the English language, population statistics, Venn diagrams, and if not A then not B logic, "Nobody in the Country" includes Landrieu's Police Chief Ronal Serpas. So why did he hire this guy?
Other cities have brought down their black-on-black murder rates, so SOMEBODY SOMEwhere must know SOMEthing about how to do this. Right?
Gov. Jindal's current budget depends on the sale of New Orleans Adolescent Hospital (NOAH).
In the spending plan for the LSU public hospitals, $35 million is tied
to the sale of the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, which hasn't yet
been sold. [Alexandria Town Talk, 3/12/2012]
The state acquired the property through a Dec. 16, 1981 transfer
agreement from the federal government. That deal specified that the
property would used for "general health care" services for 30 years, a
period that expires in December 2011. [Times-Picayune, 4/7/2010]
You remember NOAH.
That's the safe place we used to have for our suicidal and homicidal kids before we routinely shipped them off to Shreveport.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
"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.
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 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."
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.
[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).
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 thelevees.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:
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.
[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.
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?
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
"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.
