Delivering deluxe information

It's touching that Dambala cites his Creative Commons license in this post. Quaint notions like that are going the way of the dodo in the era of robust reporting.

If it is the policy of Newhouse or any other local MSM entity not to cite blogs or acknowledge the information we uncover....then I fully expect them not to use the information we uncover.

If Newhouse is convinced the future of journalism is online, they should probably take note of the common courtesy online entities show for one another and if that doesn't ring a bell for them perhaps they should read the stipulations of the creative commons license attached to this blog and many others their employees may choose to data mine.

But it isn't the failure to cite that people like Dambala should be worried about.  That's really only the beginning. Once the professionals are all delivering content online their next step is to kick you off altogether. Which is what the end of net neutrality and the dominance of mobile technology via the app model of content delivery is going to facilitate.

That's the motivation behind copyright disputes like this one for example that people like David Simon are championing.

It's also the subtext of the whole Perricone affair. They're letting one commenter on NOLA.com define every non-professional user of the internet in order to discredit anyone who isn't in the club.

And, of course, also there's this.

In a blog post, Google senior policy analyst Dorothy Chou characterizes requests to limit political speech as troubling. "We noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services," said Chou. "We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it's not."

According to Chou, some of these information removal requests come not from authoritarian regimes but from Western democracies. She points to Spanish regulators, who asked Google to remove 270 search results linking to blog posts and newspaper articles referencing public figures, specifically government officials. She also notes that an unnamed public institution in Poland asked Google to remove links to a website that criticized it. 

The Arab Spring is over, literally and figuratively.  The internet is going to change from a tool of democratic insurgency to a tool of autocratic institutional control. And it's going to happen very quickly.

Update:  This CJR reaction to Ricky Matthews' front page column this week addresses Advance's strategy.

Edmonds estimates that the Times-Pic’s print reduction will actually lose the paper money, at least initially: slicing revenue by 22 percent and costs by just 17.5 percent.

So why are they doing it? Because gutting the news budget by an estimate half, would save up to 7.5 percent of overall costs, making the idea slightly profitable. And when I say “slightly” I’m talking about two or three million dollars a year, based on Edmonds’s fairly generous assumptions.

It is easy to see why Advance, so far, is nearly alone among news organizations in taking this plunge.

Again, the primary problem here is not the reduction in print, but the decimation of the Times-Picayune’s newsroom. In other words, disinvesting in journalism behind a digital smokescreen, as I wrote last week.

Advance's plan isn't about finding new revenue streams through a robust digital business model. It's about leveraging its monopoly brand along with the "print is dead" meme to massively cut costs by putting people out of work. By electing to jump to digital they run the risk of incurring new kinds of competition from other kinds of small new media companies or from independent actors like AZ, for example. But I think they're betting they'll be able to impose a new kind of monopoly position as the infrastructure of the internet becomes more and more favorable to actors with money and influence.

Big lizard in my back yard

Bobby Jindal, the biology major who doesn't believe in evolution, presents your 21st Century Louisiana educational curriculum.

One of the schools cleared to receive substantial new funding through LA governor Bobby Jindal’s voucher program is Eternity Christian Academy, in Westlake, LA, which according to Independent Weekly writer Walter Pierce,

…has been approved to accept 135 new students. That’s a considerable uptick in enrollment, which at the end of this school year stood at 38 — a more than 300 percent increase. Talk about buttressing the budget; $1 million in tax dollars will be diverted from the public school system to Eternity Christian, a school that, according to its mission statement, offers “a quality faith-based curriculum that is soley [sic] based on principles from the Bible …

According to the Eternity Christian Academy website, the school uses the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum. So, what’s in the ACE curriculum?

An August 29, 2009 story in the Times Educational Supplement, a British publication for teachers, provides an excerpt from an Accelerated Christian Education science textbook:

Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence.

Have you heard of the `Loch Ness Monster’ in Scotland? `Nessie,’ for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.

Could a fish have developed into a dinosaur? As astonishing as it may seem, many evolutionists theorize that fish evolved into amphibians and amphibians into reptiles. This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis. No transitional fossils have been or ever will be discovered because God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all.”

Below is a sample photo of "Nessie" taken from one of Jindal's approved and state funded science textbooks.



Ooops! Wait, no, sorry that image is actually from a completely different Bobby Jindal academic publication.

No apology necessary

I have no idea why anyone should have taken this as an insult to US service members. It's actually an apt critique of our professional media's chronic slowness to question authority. But I guess it's tough when you feel like you have to apologize for anything that comes out your mouth which doesn't happen to be a paid product placement.

If anything Brees should be commended for breaking the sponsored monotony of his Twitter feed which, despite its overwhelming popularity, continues to receive bad reviews from the intelligentsia. 

On Brees’ twitter account

---

JUGE: “His sponsored tweets are out of control and he does that stuff WAYYY more than any other pro athlete. In a way it insults my intelligence because part of me wonders if he counts on his fans being stupid enough not to ‘get it’.”

AWD: “The twitter account is terrible. TERRIBLE. But it does work. It does sell stuff to the ‘Drew Brees can’t do wrong, and if you disagree you’re less of a fan’ crowd.”

WANG: “I haven’t seen any of the sponsored tweets because I don’t follow Drew (or any celebrity) on Twitter, but I agree that sponsored tweets are obnoxious. Especially for a guy who has as much money as Drew already has, not to mention the giant novelty check for upwards of $50MM he’s about to get. It comes off like he’s dumpster diving for chump change, which is obnoxious, and that he doesn’t give a shit that it annoys his Twitter followers, which is also obnoxious. Then again, lots of people take Twitter way too seriously. If it’s annoying, unfollow his ass. Meantime, I’ve got a shiny nickel that says all that #spon money probably gets thrown on the pile that’s destined for charity anyway. And if so, I respect him for deciding that trumps annoying a few people on Twitter.”

Hazzards of taking football coachspeak too seriously

Robert Pollard in a 2005 interview with Magnet

My good friend Billy Dixon was my center in football from 7th grade through 12th grade. One day during practice, our head coach yelled, “If anybody sees anybody standing around with his thumb up his ass doing nothing, run over and knock him on his ass.” Five minutes later, Coach was standing on the sidelines drinking a cup of coffee. Billy ran over and knocked him on his ass. I learned that day that, for the most part, we’re all just standing around with our thumbs up our asses.

On a similar note, Peter Ginsberg, who is my new spirit animal, laid into Roger Goodell today.

“You have taken words that Gregg Williams used, colorful words like cart-offs and wax and [kill the head] and have chosen publicly to distort the meaning of those words notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Williams and others ha told you that those terms in no way relate to illegal hits or any bounty program that you have decided, sir, to misrepresent what those words, in fact, mean,” Ginsberg said.

Whatever Williams' meaning, Goodell has certainly managed to have him "carted off."  And so it's nice to see Goodell momentarily "knocked on his ass" so to speak.

Multiple sources tell PFT that Ginsberg’s remarks were “heated,” and one source present at the session perceived that Goodell’s face turned red during Ginsberg’s rant.

You're welp-come

Among the many news bits to come from today's Bountygate suspension hearings is this slideshow the NFL has produced mostly from crap Gregg Williams distributed during team meetings.  Surely there will be much to say about the implications of these documents as far as the league's case is concerned.  But that's not what's important right now.

What is important is that the slides are hilarious.  Reading them gives one the feeling of having friended Williams on Facebook only to discover that all he does all day is post insanely stupid GIFs and memes that talk shit on a 7th grade level.  Pure gold. 

We're all out of old Times-Picayunes. What will we use to build the flood protection we really need?

The New York Times  this week takes a look at the just (well, just about) completed flood protection system (in practice as well as name?) surrounding New Orleans.

When Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, the city’s hurricane protection system became a symbol of America’s haphazard approach to critical infrastructure. The patchwork of walls and levees built over the course of 40 years was still far from complete when the storm came, and even the Army Corps of Engineers admitted that this was “a system in name only.” Flood walls collapsed, and earthen levees built from sandy, dredged soils melted away. 

What has emerged since could come to symbolize the opposite: a vast civil works project that gives every appearance of strength and permanence. No other American city has anything like it. “This is the best system the greater New Orleans area has ever had,” said Col. Edward R. Fleming, the commander of the New Orleans district of the corps.

 "No other American city has anything like it," perhaps, but is what we have anything like what we actually need?  The article, to its credit, admits that it isn't.

The new system was designed and constructed to provide what is informally known as 100-year protection, which means it was built to prevent the kind of flooding that has a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year. That standard is used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to determine whether homeowners and businesses must buy flood insurance to qualify for federally regulated or insured mortgages.

But New Orleans has seen storms far more damaging than the 100-year standard. Katrina is generally considered to have been a 400-year storm, and rising seas and more numerous hurricanes predicted in many climate-change models suggest harsher conditions to come.

“It’s what the country will pay for; it’s what FEMA insures for,” Mr. Doody said. “But our thought and belief is that we all need to be behind protection that’s greater than that.”

New Orleanians who have spent nearly seven years following the contentious process which gave rise to the new defenses are well aware that their inadequacy is baked in to the design limits imposed by Congress.  No doubt the national audience for the NYT piece will be confused about that by the breathless description of the $14.5 billion project "too vast to take in at once, except perhaps from space."  As impressive as those figures are, the truth is they may end up being a massive investment in failure if further action isn't taken.

Furthermore any standard of protection is an elusive moving target as long Louisiana's decaying wetlands continue to erode.  Last month, the legislature approved the state's  50 year master plan for coastal restoration.  The plan is estimated to cost around $50 billion although, given the optimistic pricing of some of its component projects, we can probably expect that figure to rise along with the sea level over the coming half century.

As... um.. luck isn't the word... fate, perhaps, would have it, the state is expecting to tap a significant source of seed money for this fund

Baton Rouge -- Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed legislation that will direct money Louisiana receives from the Deepwater-Horizon-BP oil spill to coastal protection and restoration programs. Jindal's office said late Thursday that he signed House Bill 838 by Rep. Simone Champagne, R-Jeanerette, one of the last bills passed in the waning hours of the legislative session that ended June 4. The bill became effective when Jindal signed it.

Champagne's bill calls for any money the state receives from the federal government as a result of fines imposed under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, associated with the April 20, 2010 spill, to be placed in the state treasury and used for "integrated coastal protection efforts, including coastal restoration; hurricane protection and improving the resiliency of the ... coastal area affected" by the spill.

The new state law anticipates passage of the so-called "RESTORE Act" as part of a federal transportation bill creeping its way through Congress.

Both House and Senate bills include language that would return 80 percent of the fines BP will ultimately be required to pay for violating oil spill provisions of the Clean Water Act to the Gulf Coast states for coastal restoration purposes. Fines could potentially run as high as $20 billion, meaning after the first $2.7 billion is taken off the top and returned to the oil spill liability trust fund to replenish funds withdrawn during the initial cleanup, almost $14 billion would be set aside for the Gulf Coast.

Coincidentally, $14 billion is precisely the amount of annual losses the Gulf Coast faces today as a result of extreme weather events, according to a report from America’s Wetland Foundation and the energy company Entergy.

For Louisianans who have argued for years that, as the parties most responsible for eviscerating our coastal wetlands, energy companies like BP should be made to pay to cost of repairing them, this bill represents only a late and modest nudge in that direction.  Just how modest is yet to be determined, by the way, as BP continues to fight to minimize the size of the amount in damages they'll ultimately have to pay the feds.

BP hopes the U.S. Justice Department will accept less than $15 billion to settle the government's civil and criminal claims for the 2010 Gulf oil spill, the Financial Times reports. Citing an unnamed source "familiar with the discussions" between the oil giant and government negotiators, the London-based newspaper said "negotiations were accelerating" but the amount BP is seeking is far shy of the $25 billion in fines and environmental damage claims the Justice Department wants.

It's beyond shameful that it takes a megadisaster like the 2010 Macondo oil gusher to spur the Louisiana legislature, the US Congress, and BP to make even this slight movement toward ensuring the future of our coastal population. In this regard, we see a direct echo of the events that brought about the flood countermeasures profiled in the New York Times as the article linked at the top of this post observed.

More important, Congress voted the $14.5 billion —nearly three times the annual civil works budget for the agency — up front instead of the usual incremental dribbling out of appropriations. “Full funding of the program gave us lots of flexibility,” said Michael F. Park, the chief of Task Force Hope, the special corps entity created to oversee the projects. 

Mr. Wagner, who lost his home as did other family members in Katrina, said with chagrin, “It feels terrible to say, but it takes a disaster to get that kind of funding.”

And so the question now becomes, what kind of disaster will it take to get the funding we actually need?


Afterthought: Another aspect of the Corps' work the Times completely skips over involves the status of the city's outfall canals and the "temporary" pumps installed at their mouths. The pumps are well beyond their intended term of use as it is and the quality of their installation has been an ongoing source of controversy.

Matt McBride at Fix The Pumps has been reviewing the work along the outfall canals in a series of posts.  The latest looks at the Orleans Avenue floodwalls including complications presented by debris found inside or beneath the remediated sections of berm including tree stumps and concrete chunks and other junk (but no newspaper this time, apparently).

These only represent what was found at the sections into which they dug. Are we seriously supposed to believe that the sections of levee untouched by this project are pristine after reading this stuff? 10'x12' stumps and concrete light pole foundations do not make for reliable levees.

In the event of a major storm, even with the giant surge gates closed and all the new expensive hatches battened down, the city will still depend on the temporary pumps to clear the outfall canals of rainwater and on the floodwalls to hold it back until they do.

Counting the days until Roger Goodell's resignation Day 2

PFT's Mike Florio on what we're beginning to call Un-Bountygate.

If Vilma truly offered to pay $10,000 to anyone for injuries to be inflicted on Favre, Warner, or any other opponent, someone presumably heard Vilma say it.  If the NFL doesn’t produce that person to testify at Monday’s hearing, how can Vilma ever obtain anything remotely resembling a fair opportunity to prove his innocence?  Coupled with the league’s likely refusal to make available coaches who would have been in the room when Vilma said what he said — coaches who possibly would say “I never heard Vilma said that” — the process becomes a sham.

Instead of giving the players a chance to get to the truth, the league seems to be relying on the same “take our word for it” approach that has characterized its entire handling of the pay-for-performance/bounty scandal.  It’s an approach that was launched the moment the league duped the media on March 2 into thinking there had to be conclusive proof of a bounty system, and that has lasted through each subsequent effort not to share evidence but to characterize and/or summarize it in a way that was skewed toward the league’s desire to hammer the Saints for using bounties, presumably to serve as the ultimate warning for any other players or coaches who may be tempted to use bounties in the future.

Meanwhile, the good folks at NOLA.com are looking to hire a digitally focused, SEO expert, to help cover their newly robust Saints beat. 

If you think you've got what it takes, please submit your application (including... I shit you not.. "Your most searchable keywords") according to the format provided here. 

Counting the days to Roger Goodell's resignation Day 1

The NFL is bringing jack and shit as far as "evidence" is concerned to its player suspension hearings on Monday.  There's a report up at the robustest website in New Orleans on this topic which reads in part.

Thus far, the review of the evidence has turned up nothing to support the scandal's most trumpeted charge - that Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma offered $10,000 to any teammate who took out an opposing quarterback in the 2009 playoffs.

It also does not appear to include any documents showing a 'bounty ledger,' the existence of which had been reported by Yahoo! Sports, nothing backing up the league's contention former Saints defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove lied to league investigators, and none of the complete set of 2010 defensive meeting videotapes the NFLPA asked for in a Friday letter to Goodell.

Curiously, the packet did contain two items that could not possibly have been used as evidence by Goodell when he imposed the unprecedented discipline because at the time Goodell did so the documents did not exist. Those are a May 31 on-line screed published by documentary filmmaker Sean Pamphilon and a column by The Times-Picayune's Mike Triplett based on an interview with Saints linebacker Scott Fujita. That article was published on June 6.

Furthermore, according to a source cited by the T-P's James Varney, the NFL has no document or recording that refers to a ledger full of "cart-offs" and "knock-outs" or that money was exchanged for any such thing.

And then there's this from Jonathan Vilma's attorney Peter Ginsburg.

Ginsberg: "Unfortunately, what it says to me is Commissioner Goodell has made a dreadful mistake."
— James Varney (@jvarneyTP) June 15, 2012

Ive made a huge mistake by alexis711

How about.. The New Orleans Gulf Walruses

With Tom Benson officially taking control of the team this week, read this Atlantic Cities article about the Hornets naming exercise we all know will end in disaster.

"I am fascinated and madly in love with several of the options," says Chris Trew, who is the Hornets’ unofficial team comedian (which is to say he is both a Hornets season-ticket holder and a full-time comedian who tends to show up at team events to film basketball-related sketch comedy). "And I’m terrified," he adds, "of some of the options as well."
It’s tough to cram any city’s identity into something that fits on the back of a basketball jersey. But this challenge is all the more awesome in New Orleans because… well, how to put this?
New Orleans "loathes those things that aren’t authentic," says writer Brett Michael Dykes, who's better known locally as the Cajun Boy. "That’s one of the things that so many people love about New Orleans, it’s one of the most real places you will ever visit."
And so we submit to Tom Benson that it is quite possible to screw this up in New Orleans in a way that’s not possible when you’re branding a sports franchise in, say, Reno or Kansas City. These people are absolutely not going to accept anything that’s boring, camp, or imperfect.

Update: I was thumbing through the comment thread under that article where some of the contributors suggested that "Hornets" fits better in Utah (the "Beehive State") than in Charlotte. This is dumb for a number of reasons but primarily because Hornets (much like "Fighting Tigers") has a historical origin not many people know about.

Originally, the new team was going to be called the Charlotte Spirit, but a name-the-team contest yielded "Hornets" as the winning choice. The name was derived from the city's fierce resistance to British occupation during the Revolutionary War,[2] which prompted the British commander, Lord Cornwallis, to refer to it as "a veritable nest of hornets." The name had been used for Charlotte sports teams before, including a minor league baseball team that was located in the city from 1901 to 1972, as well as a World Football League team that played there from 1974 to 1975. In addition, the Charlotte 49ers and Davidson Wildcats of the NCAA play annually for the Hornets' Nest Trophy.

Also, interestingly enough, Benson may very well tag the team with the once-rejected "Spirit" after all.

Ethics gold standard

One of Jindal's BESE reformers doesn't quite pass.

The proposed opinion, which the ethics board will consider in July, says (Kira) Jones isn’t allowed to work as local director of Teach for America and serve as a state board member. That’s because the state education board approved a near $1 million contract with Teach For America last year – and they’re likely to approve a similar one this fall.

This might qualify as a "whoopsie" if Jones hadn't been promoted by Team Jindal specifically because she represented TFA.

Update: Meanwhile Jindal has another legislative critic stripped of committee assignments.

Crawpad

So the Levee is going ahead with this joke.  Which is good but everyone's done it by now.  I was hoping they'd talk about the Corps trying to stuff floodwalls with iPads but this is fine.





Anyway the story seems to write its own excuse for being late with the joke.

As the digital world has evolved, so too will we, finally. Beginning in the fall, the newspaper that so many of you rely upon will start publishing on a reduced schedule of Jan. 15, Aug. 1, and Black Friday. Our marketing department tells us these are the easiest dates to sell ads on, which should indicate our priorities going forward pretty clearly.

In many ways, these three annual papers will be enhanced and more robust than each of your monthly newspapers is now. For example, since they will come out so long after anything important has actually happened, they should have a “timeless” quality. Instead of chasing the headlines, our writers will sit down, focus, take a long nap, get a second job, and then write about something that they thought was funny when they were in college. Or from their childhoods. Also: puzzles and comics, which our marketing department assures us is all you actually read.

 Look for enhancements to our award-courting ListWatch and Gogo Geaux coverage. In this case, “enhancements:” means “they will come out much less frequently.”

Bad timing, or just bad taste?

The video below was just posted on NOLA.com this afternoon.  It's the latest in a series of endearing episodes in which Times-Picayune food columnist Judy Walker teaches Times-Picayune crime reporter Danny Monteverde how to cook something.

Yesterday Monteverde was among the staff fired by Advance while Walker was retained.  NOLA.com went ahead and posted this video anyway because... well.. what the hell.  Kind of takes on a dark meaning, though, watching Monteverde try to learn a new skill like this.

And now the argument in favor of killing newspapers

David Brooks

Looks like we picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue

Or maybe it's the wrong week to start doing anything. Anyway, good to know they're being thorough over there.

Those who were invited to stay with the newly christened NOLA Media Group, which will oversee NOLA.com and the thrice-weekly Times-Picayune, now have two weeks to decide whether to accept the "conditional offer" (which includes a background check and drug testing) or opt for severance. Several of those who spoke to Gambit tonight said the offer didn't include even the most basic details of the new jobs, down to whom they would be reporting or what their specific duties would be under the NOLA Media Group.

Decisions

What sucks about the NBA Finals is that none of this stuff is Kevin Durant's (who I like to watch play) or James Harden's (whose beard I like to watch play) fault. And yet it's all true and plenty reason to root against OKC.

For non-NBA fans, as recently as 2008 the OKC Thunder were the Seattle Supersonics, a team of great tradition, flare, and fan support. They were Slick Watts’s headband, Jack Sikma’s perm, and Gary Payton’s scowl. They were a beloved team in a basketball town. Then the people of Seattle committed an unpardonable offense in the eyes of David Stern. They loved their team but refused to pay for a new taxpayer funded 300 million dollar arena. Seattle's citizens voted down referendums, organized meetings, and held rallies with the goal of keeping the team housed in a perfectly good building called the Key Arena. Despite a whirlwind of threats, the people of Seattle wouldn’t budge so Stern made an example of them. Along with Supersonics team owner and Starbucks founder Howard Schultz – who could have paid for his own new arena with latte profits alone - Stern recruited two Oklahoma City based billionaires, Clay Bennett and Aubrey McClendon, to buy the team and manipulate their forcible extraction from Seattle to OKC.

Stern is a political liberal who has sat on the board of the NAACP. Bennett and McLendon are big Republican moneymen who hobby is funding anti-Gay referendums. Yet these three men are united in their addiction to our tax dollars. In Oklahoma City, where rivers of corporate welfare awaited an NBA franchise, Stern, Bennett, and McClendon had found their Shangri-La.

Meanwhile LeBron James is vilified for playing in the city of his choice.   In principle, I am fine with that.  But I still think the ridiculous spectacle he made of THE DECISION was disgusting.  So while I agree that LeBron is in the right and David Stern and the owners of the Thunder are assholes, I still don't like LeBron very much.  Is it ok if I'm not rooting for him?

See also: America's sports talk radio personnel hate LeBron for taking advantage of free agency.  And yet, franchise free-agency, in which billionaire owners play municipal tax bases against one another, is alive and well in pro sports.

Killing journalism

In a timely op-ed published at The Lens, Stepehn Ostertag looks at the decades-long practice of media consolidation and deregulation that culminated in the firing of 200 plus people by Advance/Newhouse at the Times-Picayune today.

The decline of newspapers is rooted decades earlier in FCC changes in media ownership policies and the economic models that seek to generate maximum profit from news.  In the name of deregulation and under the guise of greater competition, changes in media ownership policies allowed one company to own more and more media outlets and control a greater share of regional markets across the U.S.  In the continued search for profit, they increase their income by acquiring more and more media outlets and reducing their expenses by producing cheaper, less costly content (e.g., a news story that reports merely what was said at a press briefing rather than one that investigates the truth of those claims), reducing production frequency, laying off journalists and closing entire papers.

Perhaps the most animating cause behind the rise of the "blogosphere" over the past decade has been the reaction of the readership to this dumbing down of the news by conglomerates like Newhouse.  The internet has afforded individual consumers of the news an opportunity to vent their frustrations with clearly identifiable gaps in coverage left by the Newhouse model.  The "news story that reports merely what was said at a press briefing rather than one that investigates the truth of those claims" has never been good enough. But only recently have readers had access to the tools with which to, at the very least, complain, and often work together to fill in the gaps themselves. Sometimes professional journalists have seen this phenomenon as a threat but in truth what they're looking at is an audience that values the core mission of their profession. 

But now that the Newhouses of the world have "the internet" as a convenient scapegoat which they are quite content to use as they fire everyone en masse and pretend like the whole thing was some cosmic inevitability.  Meanwhile some of the specific people the Newhouses are screwing in this process, (David Simon, Jed Horne, numerous others) will  continue to shout downward at the "incivility" or the "freeloading" of their supposed social and intellectual inferiors.

And that is the sad but, of course, completely predictable way this is going to end; with the guys who managed to make it just a little bit blaming the people they were supposed to be defending rather than the people responsible for blowing up the whole thing. 

Sometimes what goes robust comes robust

From Gambit December, 2004

It's a scene that's as far removed from New Orleans -- geographically, physically, socially -- as they come. But the two cities currently share a connection, at least in the newsrooms of their papers of record. The non-union Times-Picayune is reportedly leading the charge among a handful of newspapers owned by media conglomerate Newhouse News Service that are coming to the aid of Vindicator management by recruiting newspaper employees as temporary replacements for striking Vindicator staffers.

A T-P employee, who agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity, says staff members were promised generous incentives to go up to Youngstown and cross the picket line. '[You would get] your pay here, plus at least the pay of the person you're replacing in Youngstown, plus travel and living expenses in Ohio,' says the employee. 'It's only rumor, but there's talk going around that a bonus would be paid as well. Certainly, doing a favor for Ashton (Phelps Jr., publisher of The Times-Picayune) is an intangible benefit.' Four T-P staffers have gone to Youngstown, the employee says; three of those have returned, and two more are scheduled to leave.

Not sure how many strikebreaking T-P staffers were fired by the Newhouses today out of gratitude. The only employee identified by name in that Gambit article was Dan Shea.

Newhouse's New Orleans newspaper apparently has been the most supportive of the Vindy. Times-Picayune managing editor Dan Shea has been in Youngstown for several days, according to sources in Youngstown, as well as the anonymous T-P employee. 'Four people went up: Dan Shea, two managers and one non-manager,' the employee says. 'All are now back, except for Shea. Two more are scheduled to go up there; at least one of them is management.'

 Last week, a call to the T-P newsroom produced only the information that Shea was out of town for a couple of weeks. Contacted by email, Shea declined comment for this article.

And today .. welp,

Managing editors Peter Kovacs and Dan Shea also were not given offers to work for the new company.  

202 people fired

Not thrilled about linking you over to Robust Kingdom for this but that's where the numbers are posted.

Managers at The Times-Picayune are informing more than 200 members of the newspaper staff today that their last day at the company will be Sept. 30. The Times-Picayune, according to documents given to employees, is shrinking its overrall staff -- including news, advertising, circulation and other departments -- by 32 percent, or 202 employees.

Also nearly 50% newsroom staff fired.  According to Gambit the heaviest hits came in news and business while lifestyle staff fared better.  I'm curious about the sports department but haven't seen any news yet. Maybe it was sold to Tom Benson.

Meanwhile Dambala has already started the larger discussion about what it all means and what comes next here and here. As for efforts to "save the T-P" through locally organized action, I basically agree with this.

This descent to the The Some-Times-Picayune is certainly an economic decision but at its core I believe it's really a legal maneuver to eliminate liability.  Newhouse doesn't care as much about the damage they're doing to the Times-Picayune brand as they do eliminating contracts and potential legal threats.  They are willing to throw the legitimate baby out with the bathwater while keeping the bastard, ADHD child hoping they can just pump it full of Adderall and everyone will love it just the same.

It's called capitalism.  No local, socialist movement is going to stop it.  No local advertisers are going to stop it because they don't have enough financial prowess to make a difference to Newhouse on a national level.  I hate to sound fatalistic but this situation really is fatal. 

The only remote possibility here is a completely new locally owned company set up to compete with what's left of the T-P but I doubt such a thing is possible or if possible wouldn't be "locally owned" by anyone I'd trust to run it the right way.

Digitially focused news gathering organization blocks digital news content

Mighty robust of them

Nola.com has so far been mum today on news about what is happening across town at the TP, perhaps auguring what kind of reporting is not to come. I've heard (but not confirmed) that newsroom employees have been blocked from accessing bestofneworleans.com, the online site for Gambit, which has been rigorously covering the TP situation.

Update: Rumor not confirmed, of course.

Newsroom employee says that despite rumor, Gambit website isn't blocked at his/her computer.
— Gambit (@The_Gambit) June 12, 2012

I could have guessed that.  I spend enough time all day watching people freak out because "THE INTERNETS ARE BLOCKED!" when in fact they are trying to view the internet via Microsoft Word or they don't know how to double click or whatever. 

Firing our way to robustness

From Newhouse/Advance's announcement of its new "digitally focused media company"

Mathews said the changes coming in the fall were necessitated by revolutionary upheaval in the newspaper industry. These changes made it essential for the news-gathering operation to evolve and become digitally focused, while continuing to maintain a strong team of professional journalists who have a command of the New Orleans metro area.

And of course phase 1 in the maintaining "a strong team of professional journalists who have a command of the New Orleans metro area" program happens to be firing them.

By 10:30 a.m., Friends of the Times-Picayune Facebook page had a list of several of those leaving the paper, including James Beard Award-winning food critic Brett Anderson and news reporter Danny Monteverde. Others leaving the T-P are Cathy Hughes, Patricia Gonzalez, Barri Bronston and Katy Rechdahl along with Dennis Persica.

According to Times-Picayune newsroom employees, meet with supervisors for one-on-one, 15-minute sessions were staggered throughout the morning.

Shame

This morning Newhouse/Advance is putting a lot of people out of work.

After 20 years America's question still unanswered

That question: WTF Laettner?

Robust website of the day

Rickygohome.com is a protest site set up in support of efforts to keep the Times-Picayune in print. It compares the "paper"'s new publisher Ricky Mathews to other infamous villains familiar to New Orleanians.

Its opening page features a slideshow of new publisher Mathews along with a rogues' gallery of New Orleans' enemies (former FEMA director Michael Brown, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, the Atlanta Falcons, a mosquito and Edward Pakenham, the director of British forces during the Battle of New Orleans)

It's likely the humor and quite possibly the references are all lost on the Newhouse family.

As for Matthews, who knows what he does and doesn't get?  In this robust Al.com post, he tells us what "we have every reason to believe" about Gulf seafood in the years to come following the Macondo oil disaster. 

We already knew that Gulf seafood is the best-tasting in the world. And now we have every reason to believe that it is the most safety tested and monitored. That should only enhance the Gulf brand. People will someday soon seek out Wild Caught Gulf of Mexico Seafood, and they will pay more for it.

Before we write off Matthews as overly credulous, let us consider that maybe we're not giving him enough credit. Maybe he understands there is a difference between "the most safety tested and monitored" seafood and "the safest" seafood.  The key difference there being whether you care to mention the results of that testing.

Choosing the right words there is certainly one way to "enhance the Gulf brand" anyway.  We look forward to Matthews' work enhancing the T-P brand along similar lines.

"One of the 'Jewel Boxes of America"?

That there is quite a robust phrase.

Major advertiser Ray Brandt, CEO of Ray Brandt Automotive Group, said, “New Orleans is a unique city, one of the ‘Jewel Boxes’ of America. To deprive its citizens of the daily publication of their beloved Times-Picayune would be a mistake of unmeasurable proportions.”

 Meanwhile, this week T-P staff are expected to learn their fates.  Slabbed has some speculation as to how that might come down.

This is a new world into which the Newhouse family is taking their business and it is clear the beat journalist is endangered, especially the experienced ones. Who will Mathews keep, seasoned journalists like Becky Mowbray that sport salaries on the top end of the pay scale or newbies just starting out? Will there still be 3 guys on the Jefferson Parish beat or will it be cut? Will Mathews pull resources out of St Bernard Parish like they did Plaquemines a few years ago?

Make no mistake at the end of this we’ll have less news for consumption not more and therin lies the most daming criticism I’ve heard of the Newhouse family: They are not investing in their business. This more than anything else should tell everyone what kind of future awaits the Newhouse chain as rumor has it the family does not have a crushing debt load like Gannett and McClatchy that prevent new investment at those outlets.

Why does Jeff Landry hate robustness?

Today's T-P editorial page criticizes Rep. Landry's proposal to ban a standardized method the Corps of Engineers has put in place for determining mitigation requirements for developers who destroy wetlands.

If the final version of the bill is adopted with the ban in place, the corps will have to come up with an alternate method or go back to its previous way of deciding how much mitigation is required, a judgment call that was less precise. Col. Ed Fleming, commander of the corps' New Orleans district, said that approach resulted in an underestimate of damage.

That's simply not in Louisiana's best interest, even though a Louisiana lawmaker is pushing it, with the support of local officials. U.S. Rep. Peter Visclosky of Indiana pointed out the inconsistency when he argued against Rep. Landry's amendment.

"If it doesn't work, I do not know why in 2006 and 2007 the New Orleans District worked with its federal and state partners to modify the Charleston Method so it better reflected the unique conditions found in southern Louisiana,'' Rep. Visclosky said.

What's driving the proposed ban is an effort to avoid the higher cost of more robust mitigation.

No popcorn for me

I honestly wish I could enjoy the coming robust era of Nagin schadenfreude.  But since he's gone anyway, there's much less to be gained going after the guy now that the damage is done. It's no longer a question of whether he'll get away.  Even if he goes to prison, he's already gotten away with mismanaging New Orleans during a crucial period of need. We never get that time back. We just keep living with the consequences.

Worry about the people who are currently in power and abusing you.  Otherwise you'll just be on to watching them get punished while the next group is selling you out again.  And on and on like that forever.

Entrepreneurial Spirit

The New York Times Sunday Business section features this story about South Carolina's public pension program which, is a particularly egregious example of the fact that states have learned exactly nothing from the 2007-present financial crisis. In fact, it would appear that, in a shrinking market for suckers, high stakes investment scams are focusing more on publicly funded pension funds.

THE South Carolina Retirement Systems fund manages money for 530,000 public employees, retirees and their beneficiaries. It owes these people $38.8 billion. 

Not long ago, this fund was about as boring as it gets. Before 1999, it was largely invested in a mix of United States Treasuries and corporate bonds. The fund moved into equities just before the technology bubble burst in 2001. By 2005, some state leaders were pushing to give the fund more leeway, arguing that South Carolina’s money should work harder. State laws were changed in early 2007 to let the fund put money in a broad mix of private investments. 

But to make that work, pension officials needed a money manager wise to the world of private investments. That’s where Bob Borden came in. 

A fighter pilot’s son who grew up on military bases all over the world, Mr. Borden would acquire experience in managing investments before heading up the Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System, commonly known as Lasers, from 1995 until early 2006. There, he would move 11 percent of the fund’s assets into alternative investments. In the three years through fiscal 2006, the fund’s annualized return was an enviable 13.3 percent. 

Borden then jumped ship to South Carolina where he was given more room to invest large chunks of the state pension fund in volatile but potentially high return vehicles.  Results were good for a while and then not so good.

“I remember going wild,” recalled former Gov. Mark Sanford. South Carolina piled into the stocks, as well as hedge funds, private equity and other alternative investments, at the top of the market. It raised its projected rate of return in July 2008 — just before the worst of the financial crisis hit. “South Carolina,” Mr. Sanford said, “is the dumb investment state.” 

As the overall market plunged in the fall of that year, South Carolina’s pension fund was no exception. It would drop 28.7 percent for the year as a whole.

Borden went on to earn a half million dollar salary managing the fund. The fund continues to perform erratically but it pays out hundreds of millions of dollars in hedge fund management fees on its high risk investments which is really the point of all this in the first place. At the end, Borden defends himself simply by telling us the problem is he isn't a "bureaucrat"

“Everybody wants their cake and to eat it too,” Mr. Borden said. “They want high returns at low risk and low cost.” 

Asked if he thought that he had made any mistakes in South Carolina, Mr. Borden paused, and then replied, “I have an entrepreneurial spirit, and I was in a bureaucratic job.”

State retirement funds aren't venture capital.  They represent real money deducted from modest paychecks belonging to people who trust they'll have a modest benefit in their later more vulnerable years.  A trust like that isn't supposed to managed in a way that shoots for the moon in order to maximize earnings.  Its primary goal is to keep its members' money safe.  Somehow we've lost sight of that and instead given license to "entrepreneurs" like Borden to follow their muse using other people's money.

But nevermind that. The important thing to remember is there's always another free market solution lurking around the corner.  Bobby Jindal has proposed privatizing the Louisiana equivalent of Borden's office altogether which would not only free up the "entrepreneurial spirit" of the person entrusted with the members' money but any pretense to the contrary.

In Clancy Dubos' piece I linked to in the post below, he dubiously listed state employees as "winners" in the recent legislative session, I suppose, because things could have gone worse for them than they actually did regarding their retirement benefits. Given all of the above, I guess that's true. 

Louisiana has a Gene Mills problem

Down in New Orleans it's easy to ignore the Louisiana Family Forum  but they do more damage than you may realize.  From Clancy Dubos' Legislative session re-cap:

The lobbying arm of the state’s evangelical Christians is now the first and last word on gambling bills (LFF got Jindal to veto three such bills in short order), and probably a lot more. Some lawmakers reportedly were summoned to meet with LFF leader Gene Mills on the 4th floor of the Capitol — home of the governor’s office — leading to speculation that LFF is now an extension of Team Jindal … or is it the other way around? LFF played a huge role in crafting Jindal’s education “reform” package as well. Witness the little-known Bible school in Central Louisiana that wound up with more than 300 of the 5,000 total available vouchers — more than doubling its enrollment.

It will be interesting to see what happens to LFF once Jindal is gone.  I don't think Mitt will put him on the ticket but he would be in line to become Secretary of Volcano Monitoring or some such thing in a Romney administration.   

The terrorists have won

It may be time to send a cleaning crew down to Bywater/Marigny.  The invasive species of cool kids down there have descended into self-parody.

In a way, he says, Booty’s will be a physical manifestation of their Web site’s brand. Social media and online marketing will be a key part of the concept, he says, explaining that they’ve taken to calling it a “blogstaurant.”
 
“People see food as a type of content now. They talk about it online, they take pictures of it. It becomes pixels before they’ve even enjoyed it,” he says. “We want chefs to be Tweeting and sharing the food from the kitchen and we want people to convene at our restaurant like they do online now.”

Also. Pirate unicorns. I'd say pirate unicorns presented without irony but that isn't quite right since every stupid fashion statement like this is presented with the irony implied.  Is irony even the right word?  It's whatever accent they're putting on their brand that let's us know they're selling cool in addition to whatever it is they're actually selling. Have we come up with a word for that yet?

Anyway if you're scoring at home, New Orleans is soon to be minus one classic Bourbon Street dive bar and plus one social media-themed designer cocktail and tapas outlet.  I'm sure it will go over well with the Creative Ones staying at the Rice Mill lofts.

You see, it's not just a building where you pay the kind of rent that makes people in bigger cities hate their lives (rent starts at $1,100 for a 930-square-foot studio), it seems the building aims to cultivate a culture with members of the self-branded "creative class" that's proliferated post-Katrina.

The comments section to that post is diverting.  Comment number one is, I'm pretty sure, genuine.. and also representative of everything that's wrong with America.  The successive comments are probably more.. um.. ironic... in the spirit of this now classic Craigslist bicycle ad. 

Of course as fun as it is to make fun of the cool kids and their eccentricities, let's remember we probably wouldn't have the Rice Mill to kick around were it not for developer Sean Cummings.  It was Cummings who had the fortitude of vision to get himself appointed by Ray Nagin to the New Orleans Building Corporation where he could direct major civic development projects that greatly inflated the value of his real estate investments.  And now that's paying off in the form of $1100 per month studio apartments where people can live Creatively so long as they can afford to.  It's all part of "building the city we want to be" as the mayor likes to put it.

Quote of the week

Obviously it's been a bit busy in these parts so the yellow blogging has been light.  But I didn't want to lose this bit which I think sums up a lot of the past two weeks' sports news quite nicely.

I have information to share and a powerful film that will help a lot of people. I’m not patting myself on the back...

--Sean Pamphilon

Kill the teal

The "youth" of Charlotte are some lame kiddos.

The Hornets played in Charlotte from 1988 through 2002 before an arena controversy pushed them to New Orleans. Charlotte Hornets merchandise, in the teal-and-purple colors, was popular from the team’s outset and has resurfaced of late as a youth fashion statement.

They can have it. And the name too. 

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/06/02/3286171/bobcats-changing-colors-team-says.html#storylink=cpy

Serpas Signal

Seem to be getting these more frequently as of late. Tonight's bulletin.

The New Orleans Police Department’s Traffic Division will conduct a sobriety checkpoint, in the Uptown area, beginning at approximately 9:00 P.M. and will conclude at approximately 5:00 A.M.  Motorists will experience minimal delays and should have the proper documentation available if requested, i.e., proof of insurance, driver’s license, etc.

Also, a word to the wise.  If you do happen to be stopped, remember to make sure that you are dealing with an actual traffic enforcement officer and not just some joker running for President. 

This will go on all season long

Breaking news from Saints mini camp.

We do have guidelines for dancing such as having a music selection free from vulgarity, and for the youth, they are supposed to keep some distance between each other and chaperones are present to enforce it.

Wait.. no, sorry.. that's an article about Mormon dance rules. Here's what I was looking for.

Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports that NFL officials have been at Saints headquarters to look at film of the team’s practices this offseason. They are looking for any sign of contact during sessions that prohibit hitting between players.

Meet the new District B boss

As a state legislator, newly minted interim councilperson Diana Bajoie earmarked $50,000 for one of Mose Jefferson's "non-profit" endeavors. 

Prosecutors also questioned him about two state appropriations to Orleans Metro authorized in 2004. One was for $25,000, secured by state Rep. Jalila Jefferson-Bullock, Mose Jefferson's niece and a daughter of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson. The other, for $50,000, was sponsored by state Sen. Diana Bajoie.

(link via Slabbed)

Also this "Hospitality Training" set up doesn't look so great either. 

And then, from 2006, there's this greatest hit.

Yesterday, the Louisiana Senate Committee on Health and Welfare voted 7-0 to recommend a new abortion ban, Senate Bill 33, for full vote by the Louisiana Senate. The bill, written by Louisiana Senator Ben Nevers (D-Bogalusa), is identical to South Dakota's in that it bans all abortions except those that would save the woman's life--with no exceptions for rape or incest. But that isn't good enough for Louisiana Senator Diana Bajoie (D-New Orleans) and several others, who are working to modify the bill to make abortion illegal with no exceptions--even when it is performed to save a woman's life. This would constitute a death sentence for women who have ectopic pregnancies.

Keep in mind Mitch appointed Ms Bajoie  fully in the knowledge that aspiring politician Drew Brees had business before the council the very next day.  Isn't that like drafting Ryan Leaf before Peyton Manning?

Ah the changing of the seasons

Just as Hurricane Season follows Festival Season, so too does Lawsuit Season follow the Legislative Session.

That thing we all figured would happen

Looks like it's happening today.

NEW ORLEANS – Mayor Mitch Landrieu has selected former state lawmaker Diana Bajoie as the interim City Council member for District B, City Hall sources tell WWL-TV political analyst Clancy DuBos. The official announcement by Landrieu will be made at 2:30 p.m.

Also good of WWLTV to dig up what appears to be a photo of Bajoie from sometime in the early 90s.

Update: The good news is we get to have a whole 'nother election this fall.  Here's the early dance card.

Drew Brees is still unsigned... for now

In the back of my mind I've always suspected the Saints wouldn't make a serious run at signing Brees until I paid for my season tickets.  Yesterday I wrote out my last check which means that soon they should have the necessary financing in place.  So I'm not surprised that the news has become increasingly sunny on the negotiation front.

The hope comes from the fact that the gap is far smaller than previously reported.

Widespread reports over the past several months have pegged the Saints’ offer at $18 million per year, with Brees’ demands north of $21 million.  Some accounts have put Brees’ expectations at $23 million annually.

Per a source with knowledge of the situation, that’s not the case.  Brees, we’re told, has never asked for $21 million.  And the Saints are believed to be offering more than $18 million, possibly closer to $19 million than $18 million.

The $400 I paid yesterday should help close that $1-2 million gap.  Although I may have confused matters by earmarking those funds for other purposes. In the memo line I wrote, "Good for one whack or cart-off" which, of course, I didn't mean literally. But there's a decent chance we'll soon see Roger Goodell waving my little joke in front of the media as some sort of nefarious bounty evidence.  At least Scott Shanle seems to get it.

What Shanle described fits with the narrative we've pieced together through various sources, both on and off the record. The Saints did have a pay-for-performance program, which included payouts in the range of $500 and $1,000 for a variety of big plays, including big hits. And those hits were sometimes referred to as "cart-offs" or "knockouts" when players were injured. But Shanle said that didn't mean the intent or purpose of the pay-for-performance system was to target players for injuries.

These incentives, while unsportsmanlike at least in terminology, were in practice based on the result of contact that occurs legally within the rules of football.  It's not out of the realm of what we expect from football coaches... Gregg Williams in particular.

Shanle said those terms were used "in Gregg's language," referring to the fiery defensive coordinator, whose over-the-top motivational tactics have been well-documented. But Shanle insisted that players didn't take Williams literally, and he believes Williams was the best motivator he's had in 10 years in the NFL. "Gregg said crazy stuff," Shanle said. "If you take him literally, you're gonna be locked up. But he was the best motivator I've ever been around."

Anyway I'm not defending Williams' attitude. But there's a difference between meathead hyperbolic coach talk and actually laying bounties on individual players as the league has alleged.  Williams' unfortunate motivational device here is designed to encourage his players to hit hard.  Which is... you know.. what football coaches do.  Many current and former players have been saying all along that you're likely to find similar rhetoric in any locker room.  Take, for example, this quote from acting head coach Joe Vitt this afternoon.

#Saints Vitt said LB David Hawthorne has been pleasant surprise. Said he knew he was athletic and a 'thumper.' Also pleased by smarts.
— Mike Triplett (@TripTP) June 6, 2012

Goodell has yet to rule on whether or not he's going to fine Hawthorne per "thump" this season as they occur or just wait until the end of the year to check the ledger.

The news is about us, after all

The difference between these reactions in New Orleans and Birmingham doesn't have as much to do with the quality of the newspapers as it has to do with the way the locals view their cities. People in New Orleans want to read about what's happening in New Orleans and believe someone should be writing about that every day. 

Critics often look down on New Orleans for its fanatically provincial sense of community.  But they underestimate that at their peril as well.

The Boston Consulting Group report suggested that the architects of the HoZone should reach out to community/neighborhood groups but "not put too much effort" into it.  If the "stakeholders" in the HoZone proposal learned anything from this debacle I would hope they learned their 1.5 to 2 million dollar report was flawed in at least one fatal way...New Orleans neighborhood and community groups should be listened to with gravitas.   Having modeled their report on transient cities like Las Vegas, I suspect the BCG sadly underestimated the strength of New Orleans' community organizations and neighborhoods.

What's even sadder is that the "stakeholders" completely ignored the neighborhood and community organizations and tried to push the bill through without any public input or discourse.  They never even tried to involve the community in their plans.

Now how much would you pay?

If only David Simon's paywalls would come and hide all this quality journalism from us, this sort of thing wouldn't be a big deal.

There is, as usual, no indication that these media outlets have any idea whatsoever about who was killed in these strikes. All they know is that “officials” (whether American or Pakistani) told them that they were “militants,” so they blindly repeat that as fact. They “report” this not only without having the slightest idea whether it’s true, but worse, with the full knowledge that the word “militant” is being aggressively distorted by deceitful U.S. government propaganda that defines the term to mean: any “military-age males” whom we kill (the use of the phrase “suspected militants” in the body of the article suffers the same infirmity).

That Greenwald column also links to this Colbert segment which everyone should see.  Luckily it is still free to distribute. 

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Maybe they're too close to the Hospitality Zone

The New Orleans Mission will have to close its doors for the summer.

Executive Director Linda Gonzalez says it takes $750,000 a year to operate the mission that provides food, shelter, employment, and other services. Most of the money comes from private donations.

Gonzalez says last year the city gave $100,000 to the mission, but this year the mission's received nothing from the city.

Back in November, the Mayor revealed a much applauded "10 year plan to end homelessness." It isn't clear whether this $100,000 line item was part of that plan. 

#Standing

Wait a minute. I was certain I heard David Simon recently drone on and on about how much he didn't care about "standing." It's all very confusing.

But when he suggested in a recent piece for CJR that people like me who disagree with his position on paid content were unqualified, that got under my skin a bit. Simon wrote, “These folks (paywall opponents) don’t understand the first thing about actual journalism.” He also lumped us in with an imaginary crowd of people who supposedly think amateurs can replace professionals, though we take no such position.

Owens goes on from there with a robust list of reasons "David Simon is wrong about paywalls." Go read the rest of the article. It's free to access.

To me the central question here is one of mission. If, for instance, you believe the purpose of a daily news publication is to provide quality reporting to a small but well educated and relatively affluent niche of the population then the notion of a digital subscription model might be attractive to you. David Simon produces a smug and boring show about the "authenticity" of New Orleans culture meant for an educated and affluent niche audience of premium cable subscribers and that works quite well for him.

Must be that 3 dimensional chess thing I don't get

On the one hand, Obama's drastic reductions in government spending during a stagnant economy have ensured that we will continue to experience sucky to non-existent growth and terrible employment figures for the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, Obama's drastic reductions in government spending during a stagnant economy will do absolutely nothing to blunt the political narrative of "Big Government Democrats" vs "Fiscally responsible Republicans" which is sure to dominate the coming election season. So... wins all around, then.

They only show up at the robust events

"Local politicians, who often show up to trumpet good jobs news, were nowhere in evidence..."

Adding this here since it's on the topic.  From the looks of things, I don't see what course of action on the part of readers is going to make much of a difference here.  I suppose they could boycott the paper which would only kill it faster and no doubt strengthen Newhouse's contention that it is unsustainable.  Or they could mount a subscription drive in which case Newhouse will simply stay its current course. 

The only thing I could possibly conceive of that might work would be a brand new competing publication.  But the resources necessary to make such a thing succeed are non-existent.  

He could have just said no

We all know the District B appointment is Mitch's prerogative now.  We also all know he wasn't going to appoint George.  There's no harm in him just coming out and appointing someone else.  Going with the bullshit line just insults everybody.

Once again, here we are

Today, in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker is likely to barely survive a recall election.  You can follow the day's events at First Draft where Athenae has provided a pre-game speech here.

We think this is some insurmountable problem, some terrible divide, that we've never seen before. We have always had people saying sit down, shut up, don't rock the boat, while some slick-talking jerk in a shiny suit was pouring fire and brimstone about how the company was gonna mess you for your own damn good. We have always had the jerk, too, and his bosses, and the company will always be with us. This is how this has always worked. What we haven't always had is an entire pseudo-middle-class establishment media, especially on 24-hour cable news, appealing to ignorant-ass 'necks reinforcing the message to lay back and think of Wall Street, or else they'll come for you next, but even that's not a total excuse.

They're always coming for you, is what I want to tell everybody who's angry and everybody who's scared. The jerk, the company, they're always out there, and the only thing you can't afford is to think they're on your side. When they're done with the teachers and the steelworkers and the cops, they'll come for you, too, and no racist sign or hat with teabags glued on gonna save your soul then. The only thing to fear is fear itself, said the last person who understood this well enough to make a case, so up you get.

But if you're too busy today to watch closely, here's what will happen.  Walker, who has brought this near calamity on himself by pushing through a radical attack on collective bargaining rights last year, is going to very narrowly hang onto his seat. Most national news organizations will spin this as a great victory for the Republicans' austerity agenda and excellent news for Mitt Romney.  One or another Obama surrogate will place the blame squarely on liberals for even bothering to make a fuss of this in the first place.

Soon enough we'll be on to the next radical Republican initiative for consensus Democrats and pundits to legitimize. And on and on like that.

Bucking the trend

In the wake of recent "Don't Miss" NOLA.com " on "Fascinating Cats From Around New Orleans" and emergency kitten amputations, the current Antigravity Magazine appears to be taking a contrary tack.

No doubt this will be a very robust rally

I'll admit to some mixed feelings about Anne Milling's rally around the T-P movement. 

On the one hand, the destruction of the city's only major daily newspaper is an outrage. Many talented reporters, editors, and support staff will be losing their jobs because of a horrible decision made by a disinterested out of state corporation.  A population with inadequate access to broadband internet will be poorly served by the crappy website expected to take the paper's place.  It's a travesty and I've said as much repeatedly.

On the other hand, we would do well to remember that, while the T-P had in recent decades become the "paper of record" by default, its editorial bent remained true to its upper class roots. The T-P stretched itself to fill its role as the city's only daily.  It employed several excellent reporters. It made an effort to cover the city as a whole.  But it remained the Phelpses' and the Millings' paper.  It covered New Orleans from a top-down perspective by default.

Even now as the paper is being shuttered by the Newhouses, we're reading many of its elitist backers lay the blame for this outrage upon their presumed social and intellectual inferiors.  If only the internet weren't so interested in "divisiveness" opined Jed Horne last week, none of these bad things would be happening to our oracles of consensus.  If only the NOLA.com commenters weren't so full of bile, implied this bilious anonymous commenter, the professional arbiters of good taste would still be free to tell us what to think.

It sucks that we're reduced to begging for the survival of this elitist rag because it happens to be the last remnant of a once-robust New Orleans press. But that's where we are.  Our city isn't getting its due here.  At the same time, it's tempting to think that some of our "betters" and their enablers are getting theirs.

Retro quote of the day

The late Al Hirt from a 1967 column by the late Bob Roesler.

We want the people to know that the name was taken from the jazz number, "When the Saints Go Marching In" and has nothing to do with religion.

We all know what Al meant.. but it's kind of an absurd proposition.  If it has to do with the song, it has to do with religion.

Not that it matters anyway.  Despite Roesler's stupid protestations, the name was (divinely?) inspired and has worn well over the years.  And it's why I've  suggested that Tom Benson would do well to re-name the Hornets as the Ramblers.. which is taken from another jazz number which has a little less to do with religion but does complete the funeral.

Ro-busting the trend

I'm starting to think that when Newhouse promised us a more "robust" T-P they just meant that they'd be using that word more often.


Rising hotel room rates reflect robust rebound in New Orleans

Several factors are at play. The most obvious is that the hospitality industry is still rebounding from the effects of the levee breaches after Katrina. Hotel occupancy dropped to a low of 48.4 percent in New Orleans in December 2006, after being artificially pumped up by relief workers and residents. That figure coincided with an average daily rate of $103.23, less than half of which the hotels recorded as profit.

"Although we're many years removed from Katrina, we have been growing back into who we were before the storm, so our growth pace has been quicker than other markets that have been stable over that time," Chambers said.

"Back to who we were before the storm" sounds about right.  You may not think that's such a great thing to be.. unless you're a hotelier.

It's probably going to be Bajoie

But that apparently hasn't put a damper on the parlor games springing up around guessing who the Mayor will appoint to the District B council seat this week.  Donze and Krupa collected the names they've either heard thrown around or made up themselves (they just call them "names being mentioned")  for an article printed in yesterday's Times-Picayune.

 It's a very robust list. It includes the son-in-law of former Mayor Sidney Barthelemey and the son of Xavier Universtity President Norman Francis.  But because we don't like to think of our public offices as being distributed according to hereditary privilege,  it isn't likely that Moon Landrieu's son would go in that direction. 

I don't know why the director of Cafe Reconcile or the wife of Terrance Blanchard are on there other than for the sake of novelty.

It's interesting to note that  Civil Service commissioner Dana Douglas is a candidate.  Everyone knows Mitch is interested in gutting Civil Service in the near future.  Presumably Ms Douglas would be a  favorable vote for his "reforms" on the council.  Of course, since the source on these names is anybody's guess, it's likely her name shows up more because of speculation about what will be on the council agenda than because of any inside knowledge as to the Mayor's inclinations.

Likewise the fact that Entergy general counsel Marcus Brown is a "candidate" stems from the fact that Entergy is currently asking for a rate increase.

The rent is too damn high

Looks like we spoke too soon with that short list of things we've lost so far in 2012 we whipped out yesterday.  Now we have to tack on  Johnny White's Sports Bar.

Located at 720 Bourbon Street, it's a local's bar that sits in the middle of a tourist strip where everyone else is trying to pack 'em in. The space is simple and seats no more than a dozen, without any of the glitzy Bourbon Street decorations or neon signs outside. There are Mardi Gras beads hanging from the doors, but what else would they use to lock the doors?

The 24/7 watering hole gained a place in the national media in the wake of Katrina, when the bar became a safe haven for those who stayed in the area for the storm. Without the locks on the doors and safe on the original high ground, patrons and employees kept the bar open throughout Katrina despite the lack of water or electricity.

Because of that little bit of Katrina trivia, this is the most famous of the dive bars in the Quarter that carry the "Johnny White's" monicker.  Unfortunately that won't be enough to save it.   I wonder what sort of business will go in that spot now.  Maybe one of those national burger chains you see popping up everywhere?  I hear there's a Smashburger going in on Magazine Street which, itself has become too high-rent to support anything but large chains.

Rents on Bourbon Street have long been ridiculous and the White's spot on the corner of Orleans is a prime location.  Maybe someone will dress it up with a New York style hip "gastropub".. or maybe a designer cocktail destination .. or a combination of both of those fads like the horrifying SoBou over on Chartres.

It was suggested to me earlier that perhaps they'll go the Uptown development route and bring in a Pinkberry or a Pilates studio.  And while either of those would make a pretty good name for a strip club, somehow I don't see either happening on Bourbon.

Anyway whatever it is, I'm sure it will be "robust" which, in addition to being the word of the moment around town, is also not such a bad name for a strip club itself.

Letters to the Editor

Times-Picayune staff submit a list of detailed questions to Jim Amoss and Newhouse/Advance in an open letter here.

If compensation is based on or influenced in any way by the number of clicks, what safeguards, if any, will be in place to avoid a slide to the sensational, to avoid dissension among reporters/content producers with similar job descriptions?

Or to put it another way, "Will we be paid per kitteh?"

Navigating Flood Regions

Apparently "robust" is the new local buzzword.

In New Orleans and Jefferson Parish, officials this week said interior drainage systems are at top capacity, with backup power systems in place to keep pumps running if commercial electricity fails.

"We have more redundant backup power than we did during last season, and we have projects that are under construction that will make it a more robust system than it ever was in the past," Sewerage & Water Board General Superintendent Joe Becker said, referring to new diesel generators at two pump stations. At three more, generators are being installed, he said.

Also of note, Mitch has prepared some typically Mitch newspeak for us in order to encourage us to evacuate.

As in previous years, anyone who wants to return to New Orleans before an evacuation order is lifted to attend to a business must get a placard from City Hall. Placards issued in 2011 are still valid this year, while those issued in 2010 or earlier are not, Sneed said. To reapply, visit ready.nola.gov.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu also encourages residents who visit the site to sign the "NOLA Ready" pledge, which reads: "Because I love New Orleans, I know how I will leave New Orleans. I am New Orleanian. I am NOLA Ready."

The placards, if you remember, caused all manner of hardship for residents trying to get back into town after the 2008 Gustav false alarm. "Top tier" political and business elites were allowed to come in to "check on" their property/business while the plebes were made to spend money they couldn't afford to spend in motels or  wait it out on the highway.  It's the Hospitality Zone mentality applied to emergency preparedness. Tiered reentry was such a hassle and such an insult that many of us have concluded we're altogether fine with not bothering to evacuate next time. 

So I am changing Mitch's pledge to, "Because I my home is in New Orleans, I know I have a right to come back to my home regardless of your stupid  placard system.  I am New Orleanian. I am Not Leaving. "

Shit floats but it won't float away
Let's just stay