Oh alright... what was your favorite part?

Celcus liked the part where the Mayor said (about getting the crime cameras working) "Don't clap. We haven't done it yet"

BSJD liked the part where "Mayor Bozo was bragging about the number of vacant buildings"

Oyster liked all the "optimism"

For me, it's hard to say. Nagin's clowning last night was aimed mostly at selling three dubious projects. One of those projects is the "Reinventing the Crescent" riverfront development scheme that has sometime Nagin crony and New Orleans Building Corp. head Sean Cummings under so much scrutiny. The second is the transfer of the airport to state control in exchange for expedited state funding of... Cummings's riverfront development scheme, mostly. The third is a little-remarked-upon transfer of LRA money originally designated to restore rental properties to a mortgage program for first time home buyers. While the home lending program isn't a bad way to invest money, the transfer represents only the latest hostile act by the city toward those of us not quite ready to make the "lifestyle choice" (Stacy Head's words) toward home ownership.

So there's a lot of bullshit to pick from here. But I guess my favorite part had to be the introductions. The paranoid Nagin administration not only declined to provide the press with an advance copy of the Mayor's speech but also did not publish a program for the ceremony. Thus WWL radio was forced to broadcast much of the inane reciprocal backslapping of VIPs and Councilpersons introducing and congratulating one another that preceded the actual address.

I had tuned out for a few minutes during Irvin Mayfield's interminable elaborated performance of Amazing Grace so I didn't quite catch the name of the woman who actually introduced the Mayor. But when she... after another unnecessarily long speech... got around to making the introduction, she did so with the words, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of all ages...." as though the circus were coming. And come it did. I think that was my favorite part.

Update: More favorite moments from WCBF