Library Chronicles

Well that's different

2010-01-02T23:26:00.003-06:00

Ed Murray drops out of New Orleans mayor's race

The last time I took a stab at handicapping this thing, I did so in a bunch of comments over at WCBF. And that was before Leslie Jacobs dropped out. At the time, we were speculating about what Mitch Landrieu's entry did to the race at that point. You can read the rest of the thread at the link above, but here's the part with the math in it.

Let's just look at the white vote for a second. Here are the top white vote getters from the 2006 primary (Of course, a number of white voters will vote for a black candidate. Perry and, I think surprisingly for some Murray, are banking on it. I'll try and factor for that later. But what I'm breaking down here are votes from 2006 FOR white candidates. It's imperfect terminology I guess. So be it.) :

Landrieu: 31,499

Forman: 18,734

Couhig: 10,287

Boulet: 2,367

Wilson: 772

Let's assume for now that Jacobs is in. If she's really optimistic right now she's looking at [Most of Boulet] + [something like 1/4 or maybe a bit more of Forman] + [a percentage of Mitch which has suddenly slipped from 1/2 to maybe 1/8 optimistically]

Couhig will probably get most of his 2006 vote but will lose some percentage of that to Georges. He will get most or all of Wilson.

Mitch and Georges are basically fighting for what's left which is the part of Forman + Mitch '06 that Jacobs leaves on the table.

Just speculating, since I have no idea what the polling looks like, I'll say that Georges (if he's optimistic) is good for [about 1/2 of Forman] + [1/4 of Mitch '06] (I could have that apportionment exactly backwards. We're talking about a very similar pool of voters here)

This leaves Mitch with [1/4 Forman + 5/8 Mitch '06]

So here I've rounded the above values down to the nearest thousand (or hundred in the case of Wilson) and if we take into account the fact that I am bleary eyed and likely to have made a stupid mistake (not to mention that this whole premise comes directly from my ass) we get this approximate result.

Mitch: 23,875

Georges: 16,750

Jacobs: 10,675

Couhig: 9,700

Last time around, Mitch ran second with 31,499 votes. Don't know if 23,000 is enough to get him in the runoff but it sure as shit screws Georges and Jacobs. Maybe someone should try swearing at their dog. See if that helps.

Now since then, Jacobs has dropped out. We had given her 2000 votes from the Boulet people, 4800 from the Forman people and 3875 from the Mitch '06 people. Let's say Mitch gets all of her Boulet vote and all of her Mitch vote. That's 2000 + 3875 = 5875 voters we had pegged for Jacobs who I think are solidly Mitch. The 4800 people who voted for Forman last time when they could have voted for Landrieu probably still don't want to vote for Mitch if they can help it. John Georges isn't exactly Ron Forman but he's a close enough analog to eat up most of that chunk of folks. I'll give him 4500. So here's the white voter scorecard after Jacobs drops out.

Mitch: 23,875 + 6175 = 30,050

Georges: 16,750 + 4500 = 21,250

Couhig: 9,700

Despite the fact that it looks like I'm pulling this out of thin air, I'm pretty confident that I've got a good bead on what the people who voted for white candidates in the 2006 primary are going to do and that it looks something like what I've got up there.

The model is less certain when we look at what people who voted for black candidates in 2006 might do this time around for a couple of reasons. First of all, in 2006 one of the black candidates was the incumbent who everyone expected to run first no matter what. Secondly, the circumstances resulting from the post-flood population displacement injected race into the election in an urgent and unique way. And while race is still an important factor in 2010, it probably won't affect the results in exactly the same way it did in 2006.

So I'm out on a thinner limb with this but let's do some numbers anyway.

Here were your top black candidates in 2006.

Nagin: 41,489

Tom Watson: 1,264

Kimberly Butler: 793

That is a massive number of people who voted for black candidates last time around who, if they want to vote for a black candidate this year, will have to choose from among three fairly low profile candidates. I think Troy Henry is the best positioned candidate to pick up support here. I've said before I don't think James Perry is a serious candidate. But there are plenty of votes to pass around out of this pie so let's give him 1500. (Perry's actual base is white voters who supported either Boulet or Landrieu in 2006 but they're probably all voting for Mitch now.) Then we'll say some of this stuff will go to Landrieu and Georges; probably about 8-10 percent of it and probably 3/4 of that to Landrieu. I'll do the math for you. That's roughly 3150 for Mitch, 1050 for Georges. So that's 37,846 that I think Henry takes a much larger share of than does Ramsey. But Let's split that 80-20.

Again, this is an extremely flawed model and I've made a ton of arbitrary decisions here. But, remember, I am not a professional poll watcher or analyst or anything. I'm just some dude who likes to guess at stuff. And so given all of this, here's what I've got on my scorecard as of tonight.

Landrieu: 33,200

Henry: 30,276

Georges: 22,300

Couhig: 9,700

Ramsey: 7569

Perry: 1500

Do what you want with that. I'll go back to writing about football now.

Housekeeping

2010-01-01T23:59:00.003-06:00

So, as I mentioned previously, the Yellow Blog has been caught up in the great Haloscan scandal of 2009-2010. And, as it turns out, there really isn't a clear-cut way for a person of moderate tech savvy to import six plus years of Haloscan comments into the Blogger comments feature. And simply letting all that stuff die just wasn't an option. As useless as this site is, it would be even uselesser without the feedback it has generated over the years. (Sharing news and hashing things out is kind of the point of the whole interwebs thing in the first place.) And so I went ahead and gave the JS-Kit rent seekers their 10 bucks. If we're all still around next year, maybe I will have figured out a better way to do this.

Anyway nobody gives a shit about that and this post is really just here so I can see if I've still even got comments below newer posts. So, again, we need a topic. Let's see... we'll try... Les Miles: Fire him tomorrow? Or fit him for some of that exploding underwear we hear is so popular as of late?

Today is a series of ones and zeroes

2010-01-01T12:55:00.002-06:00

Just gonna re-run some old crap this morning and then go watch LSU lose.

1) Here's the step-by-step black eyed peas recipe you're looking for.

2) And here's the obligatory New Year's Day You Tubing

Here we go around again.

And the number one thing we will not miss about the 00s

2009-12-31T20:03:00.002-06:00

Those stupid plastic novelty glasses all the cuter-than-thou debs wear to the Gold Mine on New Year's Eve. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones that take advantage of the fact the the 2000s all have the double-zero in the middle to make it possible for assholes to... I don't know... join in on a moment of socially approved canned mischief of something. Well goodbye to all that. I hated that shit the moment I saw it ten years ago and now....

Oh. Oh Goddammit.

Douchebaggery finds a way.

Happy New Year

I don't get it

2009-12-31T13:41:00.002-06:00

"New Orleans Restaurant of the Year" not actually in New Orleans.

Unintentional Twittering

2009-12-31T13:15:00.000-06:00

I was totally behind Bobby McCray until he let his lawyer release this limp crawfish of a statement.

"I regret that my private messages were unintentionally posted on Twitter," he said. "I have respect for the men and women who serve the New Orleans Police Department and I never meant to convey otherwise. My attorneys are now handling the matter and I have faith that the legal process will rectify the situation in my favor."

"Unintentionally posted on Twitter"? How does that even happen, exactly? More importantly, why does it matter? Here's what McCray originally unintentionally posted regarding his arrest on DUI charges*.

Trying to deal with this Bogus charge of DWP.. driving with pizza..

I had cuffs on me in 3 minutes.. This was a short guy with Napoleon complex

He got upset because I asked him why did I need to get out of the car on a routine traffic stop.

He started ranting and raving and saying I think I know it all and threw me in cuffs... my finace was feeding me pizza driving home.

And so he pulled me for doing 80 in a 60... not to mention I was sober... Lawyers mount up, we got some work to do!!!!

Now the image of McCray's mounted lawyer brigade is kind of funny but leaving that aside, what we learn from this is 1) McCray was pulled over for speeding 2) The cop was an asshole about it and didn't think McCray was appropriately deferential to his authority so he slapped him with a more serious charge 3) McCray is pissed. What about this information is, in a sane world, in any way damaging to McCray? Why does he have to apologize and walk it back?

*All we know about the DUI charge, BTW, is that McCray refused a breathalyzer test which is something he is well within his right to do. (Although it means his license is forfeit for a year. I could discuss the many things I find offensive about this law but it's beside the point here.)

Bacon Jam!

2009-12-31T12:20:00.002-06:00

Holy Crap!!

While we're on the subject, anyone who caught the Top Chef finale this season will remember that Kevin tried to pull off the ever-tricky Bacon-Banana combo. I am convinced this is an awesome idea, but, as I could have warned him, a risky one.

Built-in scapegoat

2009-12-31T11:20:00.004-06:00

The reason that red-light cameras aren't that great a political issue is people's anger at the cameras is easily misdirected back upon their fellow drivers. Sure people don't like getting tickets but this is muted by their greater joy at the thought of the universally despised "other" drivers getting what they deserve. Never underestimate the small-minded pettiness of the average citizen.

That's when I reach for my revolver

2009-12-31T09:31:00.004-06:00

Attention policy geeks. If you're at all curious about how the Mayor still intends to move City Hall to the Chevron building after having been shot down by City Council earlier this year, take a look at what Eli and Dambala are speculating about.

The gist of the discussion there is that Nagin is attempting to apply LRA "revolver" funds designed to front cash for FEMA reimbursed projects toward what Dambala and Eli are calling development projects unlikely to be reimbursed. If they're right, it potentially puts the city on the hook for a huge chunk of money it won't be able to repay without a great deal of pain in a few years (conveniently after Nagin is long gone). Go read both of their posts for detailed discussion. I only mention it here because I thought of a killer title I needed to share.

Snubs

2009-12-30T10:29:00.002-06:00

Will Smith and Thomas Morstead are shut out of the Pro Bowl (BTW props to NOLA.com for including Morstead in the reader poll)

And somehow Bernardo doesn't make into the Snake countdown? What gives?

Broken Lens

2009-12-28T16:49:00.002-06:00

(Forgive me I just flew back into to town and boy are my bowels tired)

I was wondering why they'd already smashed their own website over there. But then I thought maybe they were having trouble teaching their new partner Tom Benson how to use the interwebs or something.

One quick and relatively unimportant point

2009-12-28T16:40:00.002-06:00

While I'm generally open to the many arguments for modifying the Senate rules on cloture, I don't think it's the sort of thing that does much good on its own. Shifting the agenda requires, above all else, kicking the bosses out of the room, which is, of course, much more difficult than just changing a rule.

I am one of those people who is kind of glad about the loss

2009-12-22T10:22:00.004-06:00

There's more but I'm getting on a plane this afternoon and I just wanted to throw that out there in case nothing else gets written before the Tampa game.

Meanwhile...

Jeff Duncan asking the wrong question

2009-12-21T11:31:00.002-06:00

How can Drew Brees even be considered for the NFL MVP award when we all know he's not even the most valuable player on the team? Thomas Morstead is. Thought we established that a long time ago.

I never had much HOPE to begin with (2 Updates)

2009-12-20T17:06:00.006-06:00

But sometimes I really wish it didn't have to be so damn predictable

A lot more people are unhappy than otherwise would have been --- the standard liberals, the populist independents and the "hope and change" new voters. That group may overlap some, but I think they are actually distinct. The liberals know that government is a cesspool but believed the public option (and later, the medicare buy-in) gave them an avenue for future change and saw it as a demonstration of progressive power in Obama's Washington. The independents thought that Obama's promises to keep lobbyists out of the White House and operate with transparency and accountability meant that he was going to upend the dominance of special interests. The final group thought that by the sheer force of his personality and talent for persuasion the fighting would stop and everyone would sit down at the table and work together. And I would imagine that all of them counted on him using his public popularity, good relationship with the press and superior rhetorical gifts to push for his agenda.

Instead we have seen teabaggers packing heat at town hall meetings, Democrats arguing with each other on cable news 24/7, the public option used as a bargaining chip, secret deals cut with the medical industry and Obama making his last speech on the subject three months ago. It has not just been an ugly spectacle, it has soured a lot of people on the promise that Obama brought to Washington. His own ratings are tanking right along with healthcare reform.

It's like watching the Saints and Cowboys game without the 4th quarter comeback to make it interesting.

Update: In the (still active) Haloscan comments, David points us to this week's Bill Moyers' Journal where Matt Taibbi and Robert Kuttner discuss this President's utter failure to lead a fight for change from the status quo corporate oligarchy in any significant way. Certainly not on health care, and certainly not on finance reform.

Longish excerpt, but a key one:

BILL MOYERS: I was thinking about both of you Sunday night when President Obama was on 60 MINUTES and he said...

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.

BILL MOYERS: Then on Monday afternoon, he had this photo opportunity in which he scolded the bankers and then they took it politely and graciously, which they could've done because the Hill at that very moment was swarming with banking lobbyists making sure that what the President wants doesn't happen. I mean, what did you think as you watched him on 60 MINUTES or watched that press conference?

MATT TAIBBI: It seemed to me that it was a response to a lot of negative criticism that he's been getting in the media lately, that they are probably looking at the President's poll numbers from the last couple of weeks that have been remarkably low. And a lot of that has to do with some perceptions about his ties to Wall Street. And I think they felt a need to come out and make a strong statement against Wall Street, whether they're actually do anything is, sort of, a different question. But I think that was my impression.

ROBERT KUTTNER: I was appalled. I was just appalled because think of the timing. On Thursday and Friday of last week, the same week when the president finally gives this tough talk on "60 Minutes," a very feeble bill is working its way through the House of Representatives and crucial decisions are being made. And where is the President? I mean, there was an amendment to put some teeth back in the provision on credit default swaps and other kinds of derivatives. And that went down by a handful of votes. And to the extent that the Treasury and the White House was working that bill, at all, they were working the wrong side. There was a there was a provision to exempt foreign exchange derivatives from the teeth in the bill. That--

MATT TAIBBI: Foreign exchange derivatives are what caused the Long Term Capital Management crisis--

ROBERT KUTTNER: Sure.

MATT TAIBBI: A tremendous problem.

BILL MOYERS: Ten or 12 years ago, right?

MATT TAIBBI: Right.

ROBERT KUTTNER: Yeah. And, Treasury was lobbying in favor of that. There was a provision in the bill to exempt small corporations, not so small, I believe at $75 million and under, from a lot of the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requiring honest accounting. Rahm Emanuel personally was lobbying in favor of that.

BILL MOYERS: So you had the Treasury and the White House chief of staff arguing on behalf of the banking industry?

ROBERT KUTTNER: Right. Right. And so here's the president two days later giving a tough speech. Why wasn't he working the phones to toughen up that bill and, you know, walk the talk?

Well because it's Obama's job to talk a pleasing talk while Wall Street walks all over the rest of us. That's been the key difference between Democrats and Republicans for most of a generation now. One party specializes in selling the oligarchy's agenda with a feel-good ad campaign while the other specializes in a more visceral, aggressive approach. The ad changes according to fluctuations in the public taste, but the product the establishment pols of either flavor are selling is largely the same turd sandwich.

At the end of the Moyers interview, Kuttner says something interesting.

One way or another, there is going to be a social movement. Because so many people are hurting, and so many people are feeling correctly that Wall Street is getting too much and Main Street is getting too little. And if it's not a progressive social movement that articulates the frustration and the reform program, you know that the right wing is going to do it. And that, I think, is what ought to be scaring us silly.

I'm not so sure we should be scared of the teabaggers anymore, though. If liberals aren't going to offer any serious opposition to the perverse co-opting of the American political system by the rich and powerful to the ever-expanding detriment of the rest of us, then by God somebody's got to. And this is why I'm glad to see people like Jane Hamsher start to draw the same conclusion I've been on for some time now.

There is an enormous, rising tide of populism that crosses party lines in objection to the Senate bill. We opposed the bank bailouts, the AIG bonuses, the lack of transparency about the Federal Reserve, "bailout" Ben Bernanke, and the way the Democrats have used their power to sell the country's resources to secure their own personal advantage, just as the libertarians have. In fact, we've worked together with them to oppose these things. What we agree on: both parties are working against the interests of the public, the only difference is in the messaging.

Liberals who want to have an effective voice in affecting real progressive change during the coming political upheaval had better start thinking more about the substantive things they have in common with people in the teabag movement and less about the superficial things they admire about their phony President.

Upperdate: More from the comments. (I'm going to fix the comments form once Haloscan dies, don't worry.)

H.I. McDonaugh says,

Stop voting for either of the two main parties then. All you and other bloggers did during the election was make fun of any outsider type movements and defend the major parties, or at least one of them. Now you're saying they are both the same?

Wise up when it matters.

But, in my interpretation of events, the 2008 landslide result was less an endorsement of Obama as a person and more a desperate popular mandate for change. Shoving Obama into office was, at that point, the absolute best thing an angry public could do to express its dissatisfaction.

That's what national elections allow us to do. They don't allow us to fill out a detailed survey of all of our minute likes and dislikes. There are electoral reforms I might suggest that can help refine how the electorate communicates via the vote but that's another discussion. Suffice to say, during the four year event, we get an opportunity to scream incoherently but loudly at established power.

The problem then becomes what to do next. Too many people who call themselves liberals these days get so caught up in the cult of personality they build around the winners they create (Clinton and now Obama) that they cease screaming once election time is over and just turn over the initiative to the cult leader.

Democracy is (or should be) much messier than that. Just installing an ambitious turd who is slick enough to capitalize on your anger isn't enough. You have to keep screaming at them if you want to get anything done. You make the turds you elect work for you by never letting up on them. Because the second you stop screaming is the second they go right back to listening to whoever is paying them the most.

And that's something that the teabaggers (at least rhetorically) get right which most establishment liberals do not.

The single most outrageous thing about last night's game

2009-12-20T16:14:00.002-06:00

From Alejandro de los Rios' crawfish-and-beer-themed game wrap-up:

DeMarcus Ware - Aside from the fact that he completely killed the Saints’ perfect season, here’s another reason to hate the Dallas linebacker: he’s a piss-poor tipper. A very reliable source informed me yesterday that Ware left a $50 tip on a $500 check at one of New Orleans’ best, and most expensive, restaurants. That’s a 10% tip from a guy who makes over $10 million a year. Class act, this one

I really hope we see them in the playoffs when somebody... like say Poochie... who isn't afraid to cheap shot somebody is in the game.

After the Deluge or A tale of two Souls of the City

2009-12-19T09:49:00.001-06:00

Last Friday night we celebrated r's birthday at Acme Oyster house in the French Quarter as we have done each of these past four years. It's not the worst way to watch your mid-thirties fly by, I guess. One advantage of aging at Acme is that the event comes with a built in mechanism for measuring one's annual physical deterioration.

That's an oyster shooter. It's one freshly shucked bivalve at the bottom of a horrid mixture of cocktail sauce and vodka. As you can see by the clarity here, we're dealing with a high vodka-to-sauce ratio, but, believe me, when you down this thing, you are acutely aware of the horseradish.

Because ingesting these demands a certain set of athletic skills, an annual oyster shooter is an excellent metric for determining one's retention of these skills. The textural quality of the oyster combines with the pepper of the horseradish sauce to delay the subject's normal tendency to swallow the vodka quickly. Instead, one tends to hold the mixture in one's mouth for just a second longer. Long enough to make the exercise a significant challenge to one's command of one's gag reflex. But even if the challenger succeeds here, next comes the pressure to repeat that performance, once... perhaps twice, before moving on to ostensibly gentler beverages. The catch is, after the oyster shooter hurdle has been cleared, the ostensibly gentler beverages tend to come in greater numbers and at shorter intervals than they otherwise would. And so what was a test of skill becomes a matter of endurance.

The final and toughest leg of the annual oyster shooter assessment comes the next morning when we measure the competitors' recovery time. Me, well I'm in my mid-thirties, a fact that was all too much in evidence on Saturday morning.

I'll just gloss over the part where I describe my hangover to you this time. I know you've read enough of those. There was some gagging and dizziness. And, of course, there was the crushing headache that renders one barely capable of the most rudimentary interpersonal communication. Sure I could listen to people talking to me to a point. But most of my concentration would be taken up by sorely wishing they would just stop talking. Naturally, I had to work Saturday.

I've learned, over the years, how to make a go of it while functioning at less that 100 percent. Saturday, as has been noted elsewhere, was kind of cold and wet. Wet and cold everywhere went and all over everything; on your clothes, in your shoes, under your skin. When quitting time came around all I wanted to do was find someplace warm to hide until the rest of the cold wet hangover went away. But nothing is so easy.

I'm fortunate enough to live 1.6 miles from my job at present. According to Google, my commute should take about 5 minutes. I always end up stopping for coffee on the way in and groceries on the way home so I've never really verified this. I tried to Saturday afternoon but got caught up in the massive flooding. Unable to cross Louisiana Avenue at St. Charles, I turned on to Foucher Street, which I soon discovered was itself a sort peninsula dead-ending at Lake Carondelet. (No, not the Carondelet Canal) There I was. Trapped by the rising waters with only a Toyota Tercel for shelter and an increasingly hysterical Twittersphere to keep me company. Cold. Wet. Hungover. Miserable.

After a thankfully uneventful hurricane season, this has been an uncharacteristically stormy Autumn in New Orleans beginning with the very first football game of the season. About braving the monsoon in progress during that event, I wrote,

Luckily, I remembered that the Louisiana Superdome has, on occasion, been put to use as a storm shelter.

I thought about this as I sat trapped in my car by another flood and wondered if I should start swimming to the Superdome then. After all, the Saints themselves had already evacuated to Atlanta.

Saints Vs Falcons

Sibling Rivalry The Saints and the Falcons arrived in the NFL at roughly the same time int the mid-sixties and the teams, like the Southern cities they represent, became fast rivals. Like a lot of sports rivalries, the Saints and Falcons always play each other close, tend to be in each others' way at exactly the right times, and unusual things happen when they play each other. But unlike a lot of typical rivalries, it would be inaccurate to say that the teams and their fan bases hate each other. In fact, Saints-Falcons is best described as sibling rivalry.

Historically, the South's two best known cities have often compared themselves with one another each proud of the ways in which it isn't like the other. Atlanta is more prosperous. New Orleans is more fun. But also each is a little jealous of the things its rival has that it doesn't. But where there is jealousy there isn't much hostility. Saints fans don't really hate the Falcons, they just really really want to beat them.

Furthermore, a lot of New Orleanians have family who live in Atlanta. That was true before the Federal Flood, but after that event lot of New Orleanians ended up in Atlanta. Many are still there now. This commerce between the two cities only strengthens the familial relationship. For a time during the early 2000s, the teams' respective starting quarterbacks were cousins. Most fans thought this only natural.

The two annual games between these teams typically carry the strongest numbers of fans traveling with the team to each of the cities. Saints fans and Falcons fans know each other. Visiting Falcons fans hanging out in and around the Superdome are typically good humored, and fun to tease and tailgate with. Saints fans visiting the Georgia Dome, well, they know how to put on a show too.

Most people accross the country don't know it but Saints-Falcons is one of the NFL's best rivalries. Not because of the win-loss records of the mostly mediocre teams involved, but because the fans know how to make it fun. Simply put, Saints and Falcons fans do things right. Don't get me wrong, though. We always want to beat those people. But we don't hate them like we do, say, Bucs fans. And Atlanta, for all its faults, still isn't Dallas (more on that in a bit).

Saints: So very tired It's difficult to pick out in the fog of war so I'm not sure if the burden of going undefeated is getting to them or the Saints are just reeling from their numerous injuries after 13 games. Either way, they've looked increasingly tired and beat up over past few weeks. I know that this happens to every team but the Saints had 19 people on the injured list last week, fer Chrissakes. It's nice that they've clinched a bye because they'll need it but I'm starting to agree with the commentators urging them to rest people in the closing weeks should they clinch homefield. Going undefeated is kind of gay anyway. Do you really want to wake up in 20 years to see Jeremey Shockey and Reggie Bush popping the champagne in a room with the ashes of Mercury Morris sitting on the bar? Didn't think so.

Even Coach Soupy has developed a bad case of headphone-neck at this point. The punchline is, the NFL is seriously considering expanding the regular season in the future.

Out of gas and out of ideas too It could be a function of how tired and beat up they are, or it could be the overcaution of playing an opponent for the second time, but the Saints seemed out of ideas on offense. Unwilling, or unable, to run the ball as effectively as they had earlier, the Saints' offense has become badly unbalanced toward the pass. Against Atlanta the Saints attempted 40 passes vs on 26 runs. Of those 26 runs, one was a reverse and two were scrambles by the quarterback. Of those 40 passes, something like fifty million were screen passes. The Saints looked like a cut boxer just trying to duck and jab his way to the end of the round.

It's like the playing the whole game on your back foot

Atlanta out of ideas too While the Saints displayed a lack of confidence in their regular offense through over reliance on the screen pass, the Falcons were arguably even worse having to resort to bullshit high school plays. In the first quarter, they send Eric Weems on an end around play for 31 yards. The Saints' defense should be ashamed of themselves for giving up such a big play on high school bullshit this late in the season. But the Falcons should be even more ashamed for trying more high school bullshit late in the game. When Weems was stuffed for -12 yards on a "Wildcat" play in the fourth quarter, the game was very nearly clinched for New Orleans.

Mike Smith is pissed! The dude could have used an oyster shooter

Goddammit Couhig Garrett Hartley missed a crucial extra point attempt. As we explained last week, we blame Mayoral candidate Rob Couhig for this. Related note: Menckles has assigned Hartley the nickname, "Scooter." I'm not sure why. But I like it anyway.

Hold on to your grandmas So Coach Soupy Les-ed out on us for a minute there in the 4th quarter. We know he's prone to to doing this. Sean Payton has hurt the Saints in the past with his bizarre affinity for unnecessary trick plays in clutch situations where simplicity would suffice. Most famously, Payton "tried to kill (one fan's) grandma!" by running an ill-advised reverse late in a pivotal game against Tampa in 2007 (see here for full story). On Sunday, Payton was out for granny blood again. The Saints lined up for a very makeable field goal which would have extended their 3 point lead to 6 with only a few minutes left to play. Instead Payton went for the fake. Mark Brunell rolled out and threw an incomplete pass giving the Falcons one more chance at life. We have no idea what could have been going through Soupy's head at the time, although we imagine it's something very like what Wang has illustrated for us here. Go click that link now. Really, you'll like it. I'll wait.

Here's the thing, though. I should be pissed about that but, I just... it doesn't seem important. At some point this year (I think is was during the Dolphins game) I just stopped worrying. I know I wasn't worried when the Saints were down to Carolina at halftime. The Washington game, I thought was probably lost at one point but so did everybody and I still don't think I can say it worried me. This season has just been too ridiculous to get upset about anymore. Maybe the Saints can go undefeated, maybe they'll win the Superbowl. Maybe they'll get blown out by Minnesota in the playoffs. That last scenario has historical precedent and would certainly make the most sense. But regardless, we'll all remember this fondly no matter how it works out. So I'm not worried. But that doesn't mean I don't care. There's plenty reason to stay fired up which I'll try to explain in the next item.

This week's media complaint: Okay this actually comes to us from Oyster who is uncomfortable with aspects of that Wright Thompson ESPN piece we linked to a few days ago. You should read the YRHT post because 1) Oyster is a better writer than I am and 2) It's partially about me which is nice. But, in the meantime, allow me to summarize and respond to his points.

Oyster, quite rightly, points out that Thompson spends the bulk of his time on this assignment seeing New Orleans through the eyes of its social and economic elite. Thompson follows Rita Leblanc around as she attends parties at the homes of Uptown swells, introduces him to John Besh and James Carville, and hands him the owner's perspective on things. In fact, outside of a trip to Besh's restaurant and to Galatoire's, Thompson doesn't appear to get out of Uptown until he stops in Manchac on the way out of town. (There is a visit to Carver High School which looks more like a gratuitous prop given the context of the article.) In a comment below Oyster's post, Mominem says, "It sounded to me like he had a date with Rita LeBlanc" and that's the impression that I had as well. I assumed that Thompson's assignment was to follow Rita around town and soak up the atmosphere from her side. Given this, it's unsurprising that the article would reflect this.

I watched the Redskins game over at r's place in Faubourg St. John. My parents are renting an apartment on Cambronne street in North Carrollton. After the Saints won that game, we could hear people shouting all up and down Maurepas street. Dad called and told me that where they were, the whole neighborhood came out onto their porches and broke into spontaneous Who Datting. Thompson could have spent time in any of the city's more working class neighborhoods and come away with the same sense of the "Soul of the City" that he writes about. But he didn't. He hung around with Rita LeBlanc and her friends. That can't be helped.

I would suggest that Oyster's strongest beef with the piece is in fact more with Rita than it is with Thompson who merely transmits her perspective. It must be said, then, that Rita gets two things horribly wrong here.

Rita's worst offense is her unsurprisingly sunny characterization of her grandfather's attempt to move the team out of New Orleans both before and during the crisis event. Oyster rips Rita's lie to shreds below.

Fact check: it wasn't just in the "confusing months after Katrina" that people were loathing Benson. They "felt that he wanted to move the team" for most of 2005, and with good reason. In 2004, Benson was talking about some sort of far-flung (and immensely generous) "permanent solution" between the team and the state. Then, over the next year, Gov. Kathleen Blanco (rightfully) played hardball with him as he enjoyed "perhaps the sweetest lease deal in all of football".

To gain leverage for his profitable team during these negotiations, Tom Benson broke off talks with the state during the spring of 2005. That summer Saints chatter was dominated by speculation about whether (or when) the Saints would move to another city.

The main point is that Saints fans were disgusted with Benson's conduct throughout the year prior to the storm/ff, not just during the "confusing" months after it. He has always viewed this team from a business perspective. It was an asset he owned that accrued value because of loyal Saints fans, subsidies from the state of Louisiana, and growth in the NFL brand, among other things. Then, after the storm, Benson's assholery intensified.

I snipped some of Oyster's corroborating quotations from that. You'll want to read his whole post anyway.

Rita's next error is in attributing the deep bond which exists between the Saints and the city to the Federal Flood experience. Here's Oyster:
Not saying that the past few years haven't been special, but do longtime Saints fans agree with the claim that the team wasn't woven into the "fabric of the town" until Benson "decided" (read: was pressured by the NFL) to stay? Really? Pity that Buddy D wasn't around when the Saints finally "transcended" into something larger than just a popular home sports team.
Earlier this season, I called out the Boston Globe's Bob Ryan for a similar attribution of Saints fans' excitement to the fact that the Patriots were in town. It's difficult for the rest of the country to relate to the way Saints football is one with the culture in New Orleans. Attributing the phenomenon to the flood does nothing to demystify it for them.

Oyster also make some minor but nonetheless valid points about Thompson's decision to highlight newcommers like Reggie Bush, Sean Payton, and Carville as exemplars of the rebuilding "soul of the city" and the further pimping of Chris Rose's embarrassing work. But I think the real damning bit about the article comes from Rita LeBlanc's lies.

Still, despite all of the above, I think this article does more good than harm and I'll tell you why. Next week, I'm going to Baltimore to visit the in-laws for Christmas. I expect to be asked about the Saints while I'm there and if I can point to Wright Thompson's article to help explain how much this stuff means to us then I'm going to do it.

I know that Thompson is telling his story through the eyes of the elites but the folks I'm going to be visiting with don't know that. Besides, if Americans can't understand our football, who are they to understand our politics anyway? We know who these Uptown assholes are. We know where they live. We'll deal with that later. We've got a whole Mayoral election coming up with which to fight that shit out. We'll do that ourselves. Sinn Fein, you know.

Of course, I don't really expect the in-laws to "get it" the way we get it. All I need them to understand is that New Orleans' relationship with its football team is unique. That we have something they don't have and can't have. That we are New Orleans and that most other places are Dallas. And I think that Thompson communicates this better than any nationally based writer has so far.

I think about all I've seen -- in the past week, in the years before -- and about the next game in the Dome. The Cowboys are coming to town. Some marketing guy decided in the '70s that they should be America's Team. It stuck, because they were good and because Dallas represented everything America thought about itself: big, consuming, flashy, bragging, unbeatable.

When I drive into Dallas, I see a place sprawling and bland, loops and rings of interstate and, somewhere over the horizon, a stadium representing a just-gone era of bloat and decay … scoreboard so big it interferes with the game … $60 pizzas. It looks new but is dead inside. In contrast, there is the drive out of New Orleans, through a city still battered, past the exits for the Vieux Carre and Uptown, past the Huey Long, which runs narrow and high out to the leaning oyster and chicken shack. All told, this is a city with the opposite calculus of Dallas: It is decayed on the outside, but inside there is life. Here is a citizenry that believes in the power of the underdog. New Orleanians fell first and see something the rest of America is blind to right now: a way back into the light.

Question

2009-12-18T11:53:00.004-06:00

If you've gone through all the trouble of producing a moderately amusing satirical attack on one of your opponents, why would you feel like you need to hide from that? If the Georges campaign really is responsible for the "fake Mitch site" (and it seems at this point like they probably are), shouldn't they just slap a "PAID FOR BY GEORGES FOR MAYOR" caption on it and just let it ride? It's certainly more creative than the stupid dog ad anyway.

Why be slimy and sneaky when it isn't even necessary?

Keeping the brand out there

2009-12-18T10:55:00.002-06:00

Jarvis DeBerry comments on this week's T-P series on NOPD conduct after the flood

There was an absence of information and an inability to communicate, and people feared the worst. There was also a police chief irresponsibly spreading rumors that his officers were being targeted for attack, making the worst all but inevitable.

Then-Superintendent Eddie Compass told a Connecticut newspaper a fanciful tale of a late-night firefight at the Convention Center. His SWAT team was being attacked, he said, and guided only by the light of the criminals' muzzles flashing, his officers got close enough to wrestle 30 weapons out of their hands. It was a story that Winn, the SWAT commander, rebutted. They saw muzzle flashes and heard gunshots only once, he said. They didn't recover a single weapon.

Mayor Ray Nagin, apparently getting erroneous information from Compass, repeated the chief's story that babies in New Orleans were being raped, telling Oprah Winfrey that those who remained in the city had become "almost animalistic."

If you tell a police force that officers are being warred against, that babies are being sexually assaulted and that city residents have essentially gone rabid, you have given them license to shoot without thinking. You have helped foment mayhem.

The brand is very powerful after all.

Technical adjustments

2009-12-18T09:20:00.008-06:00

I'm playing with the idea of activating Blogger's in-house commenting feature since Haloscan now wants to charge me for letting you people yell at me. Trouble is I'm not sure how it's going to work since, because I am like the oldest blogger ever, my template actually pre-dates Blogger comments. Which is why this site uses Haloscan in the first place.

Anyway so I'm messing with stuff. If you see a Blogger comment form beneath this post then 1) it's more than I thought would happen and 2) go ahead and try it out.

Here, I'll give you something to discuss. Despite the fact that all of the mayoral candidates list "crime" as their number one issue, only four of them bothered to show up at a forum specifically dedicated to criminal justice yesterday. Did anyone attend?

Update: Okay so it already isn't working. Not sure how I'm gonna handle this yet.

More roster changes

2009-12-17T17:40:00.001-06:00

Moving Sammy Knight to the inactive list for the Dallas game. Going with Morstead this week.

One small thing here

2009-12-17T16:44:00.006-06:00

Closing city buildings on Fridays doesn't actually mean a shorter work week for city workers. It just rearranges the same 35 hours they're working now in a less convenient way for both the workers and the public. Doesn't actually save money but does attract attention which is, of course, the point.

And yes there's a punchline

He (Nagin) said the budget "is too serious to play games with."

Update: It occurs to me that I could be completely wrong about this. They seem to be touting the utility savings derived from closing buildings for one day. Of course there are a lot of city buildings which still operate on the weekends so we're probably talking about marginal savings here. On the other hand, I have read about other cities with budget problems implementing this kind of thing so maybe there's something to it I'm not seeing.

Come to think of it, so would I

2009-12-17T16:55:00.000-06:00

Joe Horn Says He'd Love To Retire As Saint

The non-Norman forum

2009-12-17T15:31:00.003-06:00

Yesterday, some of the Mayoral candidates participated in a forum hosted by the conservative "Pelican Institute" where the main topic of discussion was the IG's office. The T-P account is here but the NOLAStat blog directs us to actual video of the event.

I know I know... make with the football, funny boy

2009-12-17T13:25:00.002-06:00

Look, get off my back for now and go check out this ESPN.com article by Wright Thompson.

These are strange and beautiful days in New Orleans, and they must be seen to be believed. I've visited the city dozens of times since I was a boy, lived and worked there for a spell and last week, when I went down to experience the mania over the Saints' undefeated season firsthand, I found myself not sure whether every street was a dream. Some moments made me laugh, and others were so full of a desperate love that I had tears in my eyes.

More crying. Maybe we should all admit Tim Tebow was right after all.