Not Sticking Around

The weather in New Orleans today is stunning. This morning, I had to check around to make sure I hadn't slept for three months and skipped straight on into autumn. Not that that isn't a bad idea around here. In fact, this small taste of heaven promises to make the remainder of the summer all that more unbearable once things return to normal. Needless to say, I don't plan to be indoors much today. I don't work on Friday and I figure to spend much of the afternoon the same way I did this morning poking around town on the bicycle. In the meantime, here's the news.

• Chavez is confident going in to this Sunday's recall election. If he can hang on, it will mean a great thumbing of the nose to Bush et al who according to this Greg Palast piece are spending your anti-terrorism dollars to spy on their political enemies in Latin America.



• The New Orleans Public Schools (motto: Preparing today's youth for tomorrow's prison system) seem to be operating at par one week out from opening day.

  Only a week before students return to campuses, New Orleans public schools still need about 150 certified teachers, and at least 35 public schools still need intensive cleaning before they are fit for students, according to a report on school readiness presented to the Orleans Parish School Board on Thursday.



• Tonight begins yet another year of nerve wracking, absurdly unnecessary, please don't anybody get hurt, pre-season Saints football. The Saints are quite sensibly holding literacy advocate Aaron Brooks out of tonight's lineup in order to rest his strained quadriceps.



• Good luck, Florida. We certainly know what that feels like around here.



• Julia Child is dead at 91. I suddenly have a taste for Coq au vin.

And with that, I'm back out to enjoy the unreality of the weather. Y'all have a good one.