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

Serpas Signal

Just in:

New Orleans LA,-As required by the Louisiana Supreme Court, the New Orleans Police Department is issuing a public advisory regarding a sobriety checkpoint that will be conducted tomorrow night. 

The New Orleans Police Department’s Traffic Division will conduct a sobriety checkpoint, in Treme, 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. 

Superintendent of Police Ronal Serpas said” I would like to remind all drivers to always drink responsibly and use a designated driver”.

This is the second "Treme" checkpoint announced this month.  They must like it over there wherever they are. Where does Serpas consider Treme's boundaries to be anyway? If he's working from the 73 census-tract defined "official" neighborhoods,  then he's got anywhere within this rectangular space bounded by Broad, Rampart, Esplanade, and St. Louis streets to hide.  But if I had to put money on it I'd say they'll be near the Claiborne overpass somewhere either at Orleans or Esplanade.

Oh and while we're on the topic of that part of town, I was in Congo Square last weekend where I took this photo of the official signage.  I'm probably not the first person to ask but what is purpose of the quotation marks around the word, "vicinity"?

Buddy Roemer to cease tweeting

If you'd like to read that same information expressed in about 500 more words, here's his official statement.

via NOLADef

Tomorrow we celebrate the beginning of Hurricane Season

As many of you are aware, there are four seasons in New Orleans.  They are Carnival, Festival, Hurricane, and Football.  Tomorrow we transition from the second into the third.  Halfway through 2012 already and all we've lost is a head coach, a quarterback, a newspaper, two councilmembers, and the concept of public education.  Oh and, I guess, we're down one Nacho Mama's too.

The point is we're about on par in 2012 as far as horrible thing generation is concerned, so I'm expecting this year's storms to inflict only a normal amount of damage.  Likewise, the official forecasters are expecting a normal-to-"below average" amount of activity this year.  In other words, if you're not sure you remember your strategy for coping with "floating balls of fire ants" now would be a good time to freshen up.

Meanwhile, NOLA.com is celebrating the change in season with a new color scheme. Because, of course, that was the number one thing everyone was so upset with them about.  Still it might be fun if they kept changing colors with the seasons like this.  At that pace, we could expect a new NOLA.com palette for every 6th or 7th Gambit Dining Guide issue published each year. There are worse ways to mark the days, I guess.

Anyway, what was I even talking about here?  Oh yeah, Hurricane Season.  Perhaps it's a sign of our complacency as of late, but it isn't getting much play in the news this week.  Maybe our local editors need to check with BCG before publishing anything that might negatively affect the brand. Oh well, since Fridays are still on the Times-Picayune print calendar, I guess we'll find out tomorrow what they've got planned.

Meanwhile we'll have to make do with some uplifting words of encouragement from Tulane geologist Torbjörn Törnqvist.  

Louisiana is now moving to the point that it recognizes that there is no way we can save the coast, even as it is today. You know, we don't even talk anymore about restoring what we had, say a century ago. But even what we have today is not, it's not going to be possible to keep, keep it the way it is. So we're going to have to make very difficult choices and focus on trying to restore certain portions of the coast, which inevitably will go on the expense of other portions of the coast. And that's, that's a very difficult political problem. But it is one that has to be addressed, and it has to be addressed very soon. Because the longer we wait, the less we will be able to do.

And now, as a bonus, Floating Balls of Fire Ants!








Update: Ah here's today's T-P editorial

Scientists and public officials in Louisiana and other parts of the Gulf Coast have been sounding the alarm about coastal erosion for decades, urging Congress to dedicate the tens of billions of dollars needed to restore and protect Louisiana's wetlands.

But efforts to get more federal aid have been hampered because potential economic losses haven't been clearly quantified, according to King Milling, chairman of America's Wetland Foundation. That's why a new study by Entergy Corp. aiming to provide some answers is an important development -- and policymakers need to heed its dire projections. 

David Hammer wrote about the Entergy report in detail earlier this week. 

Entergy spent $4.2 million to conduct coastal restoration research for the whole region. The researchers looked at 800 coastal Zip codes across 77 parishes and counties from Texas to Florida.

The study assumes a major storm like Katrina, which used to hit a community once in the average lifetime, will hit twice per lifetime by 2030. Estimating wind damage, storm surge and sea-level rise, Williams estimated that total losses for the whole Gulf Coast region would reach $350 billion by 2030 if nothing is done to make the area more resilient.

The story was given equal emphasis on NOLA.com with the face-eating guy in Florida, various mugshots from Northshore DWI arrests, and, of course, the very active Kitties-in-peril beat.

Brees should sit the year

Every morning when Tom Benson gets up, says his morning rosaries, jogs his stations of the cross, and showers in holy water or whatever... I imagine he takes a few moments to thank the Father, Son, Spirit, Angels, Blessed Mother, and all the Saints for the "Bountygate" scandal. 

After all, without that distraction, Saints fans and media would have spent all these months focusing on the way he's blasphemed against their savior and nobody wants to be the object of that witch hunt.

Dueling consultants

I should point out also that BCG was paid $2 million to advise city leaders to work on spiking crime stories off the front page of the paper.  This strategy would appear to be the polar opposite of former Mayor (and current disaster and "green energy" consultant) Ray Nagin's theory that the murder rate "keeps the New Orleans brand out there"

There's some debate as to just how much Nagin was ultimately compensated for this and other wisdoms he transferred to the city during his tenure as mayor although the process for working that out is underway.

Satire is dead

Last week I suggested that journalists displaced by the collapse of the Times-Picayune might take advantage of the boom in government Public Relations jobs and start looking for work actually writing rather than exploding the lies of our beleaguered ruling classes for a change.  Later that same day, when, the mayor offered this statement

I look forward to talking with new management and others who have a stake in the future of The Times-Picayune to discuss how we can help the newspaper grow and not diminish.

 I figured he must be on the same page I was.  Sorry to quote myself from only a week ago but, here's what I thought the plan would look like.

Say, for example, if maybe we turned Howard Avenue into a special journalism taxing district... or JoZone, if you will. Then we could direct that revenue to a superboard staffed by several mayoral appointees and the Convention and Visitors Bureau who could trickle the money back into quality news stories we all can enjoy.  You know, feel good stuff like, "Unexpected Health Benefits Of Oiled Shellfish" or "Councilmembers Enjoy Well-deserved Time Off" or "Jindal's Nationwide Speaking Tour Appreciated By All" "NOPD Lauded For (Very) Warm Treatment of Henry Glover"

Now that may look like a stupid joke to you and me but, as it turns out, Boston Consulting Group.. the people who brought you the HoZone concept.. were already a step ahead of us.  James Gill explains.

Crime stories must be kept off The Times-Picayune's front page, according to the Boston consultants who produced a tourism "master plan" for New Orleans in 2009.

They won't have to worry about that so much from now on.

The report urges hiring a PR firm to "remove negative crime perception and lower crime news-worthiness." To achieve this it is apparently necessary to "determine type of information to be reported and disbursement (sic)" and to "meet with NOPD to determine feasibility based on developed parameters."

One thing we're learning is you've got to get up pretty early in the morning to out-evil the boys and girls at BCG.  Although it looks as if the "Public-private" business lobbying monster, GNO inc is trying.  

Athenae is my most favorite newsy writer person

Unfortunately she uses her powers for the betterment of the evil internet which, as she reminds us often enough, is the very thing that is thought to be killing journalism. 

Let's be clear about this: When we have fights about amateurs versus professionals, when we have fights about print versus online, about paywalls that make pennies, about subscriptions instead of ads, about form and function instead of mission and management, we are having the fight the people in charge want us to have while they run away with the piggy bank.

I've got some similar thoughts which I intend to share later in the week but since she wrote hers already you should go read that now.  Also I think David Simon is a douche but you knew that already.

There's still time to make a charitable donation

I should have been alerted to this sooner. I've been lazy, I know.  Also I thought this was Ornstein's department anyway. 

Our mission is simple.

We want to rent a billboard close to the Georgia Dome. Black background, big gold WHO DAT right in the heart of downtown Atlanta. If we can raise the funds, it’ll stay all season long. We’re working on a tag line, but of course it’ll have to be appropriate for a, ahem, larger audience.

Make no mistake – we want every Falcon fan to feel our presence every single time they approach their ridiculous circus tent of a stadium during the second quarter on Sundays.

How near to the Georgia Dome were the "Our Mayor" billboards?  Maybe we should ask Ben Edwards if he can get us a discount.

Uh oh, time for a new seafood marketing campaign

Does California even have a HoZone fund to help with that?

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan's crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance.

"We were frankly kind of startled," said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But even so, that's still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the U.S. and Japanese governments.

On the bright side, we can expect our sushi to be bacteria-free for a while now that it comes pre-radiated.

Digitally focused robust news-style awesomeness

Headlining NOLA.com this morning.



Here's something else. I use a browser plug-in called Do Not Track Plus in order to keep this sort of thing to a minimum. But I usually have to disable it in order to read NOLA.com... particularly the Saints pages there. One advantage of a print edition is it isn't quite as into reading you back as a website is.

Fun Fact: I somehow never got hold of an "Amen" edition

I do, however, have a box packed away with every Monday sports page from the 1991 season. Anyway, as Allman says, here's yet another way in which Newhouse/Advance is failing or indifferent toward the New Orleans market.

Who will tell my story now?

One thing I appreciated about the T-P was they were always calling attention to various personal exploits of mine.  None of them were factually accurate but that never bothered me.  I was just happy they spelled my name right.

Still number one

I checked. This site is still more yellow than NOLA.com

"The 'so much more' bin"

This is what happens when the company you work for doesn't value or understand the product you create for them.

But, of course, the internet is killing journalism.

It's the staff, stupid

People read the paper for the quality of its reporting not because of the big bright yellow banners and 50 million v-logs from the parking lot on Airline Drive or whatever.  Advance/Newhouse's strategy is based on picking the wrong side of that divide.  Dambala suggests competing with them.

However, I would like to make a suggestion to the talented ones....start your own online media outlet.  The worst thing that ever happened to the TP is NOLA.com.  It didn't have to be that way but perhaps this is an opportunity to do it right.  The ONLY reason people read NOLA is...well besides the Saints....the quality of journalism the TP staff provides.  If that quality disappears, NOLA will be a big pixel puke of advertising with some Saints stuff thrown in.  If Newhouse thinks it's time to cull the TP, I think the culled staff of the TP should start their own online venture and set about the task of culling NOLA. 

And sure for everyone's sake I hope something like that is possible.  But it still doesn't solve the fragmented readership problem that's baked in to online publishing.  I'm sure there are a few folks in New Orleans who read The Lens and Uptown Messenger and NOLA Defender and NOLA.com and Gambit's site and Offbeat's and a handful of decent blogs and niche sites.  Putting all that together you get something that approximates the breadth of coverage you get from one good daily newspaper.  But realistically most of those "and"s are actually "or"s.

All of those online publications are great.  I'll parrot what Athenae said this morning,

I like the Internet. I think the Internet has been awesome for journalism. But that doesn't mean the Internet has to be the only thing we do. If people like a paper and read a paper, buy a paper, and if people advertise in a paper, why not have a fucking paper?

The best way to make sure the most news is reaching the greatest number of readers is still printing up a damn daily newspaper.  And that's the one thing nobody wants to do anymore.

Oh by the way...

Of course, the T-P was turning a profit.

The Times-Picayune remains profitable. As recently as the beginning of this year, the paper was paying bonuses. Staffers got bonuses at the end of 2010 and 2011 as the result of unexpected profitability.

Also given New Orleans' well known intense interest in all things local, plus its relative lack of broadband access, plus the paper's relatively healthy high rate of penetration, one would think that this is a market uniquely suited to "buck the trend" and maintain its print newspaper.  But nevermind all that.  What's really important is the parent company's national strategy.

Like the Ann Arbor News, The Times-Picayune is an arm of Advance Publications, owned by the Newhouse family, which owns a chain of newspapers and magazines across the country. As a private corporation, the Newhouse/Advance financial holdings are a closely guarded secret, but The Times-Picayune has always been considered one of the jewels in the Newhouse chain, both for its profitability and the quality of its journalism, which has won numerous Pulitzer Prizes.

And, of course, the strategy is to somehow increase the appeal of the product by making that product shittier. 

Look, right now very, very few newspaper "company" executives have any idea what the fuck they're doing, and instead of letting newspapers do what they're good at and break even or make small profits, they're determined to flail around and blither about "new technologies and changing tastes" and make excuses for killing off their product. I do not get it anymore. I used to think this was just about money, and while newspapers make money they don't make ENOUGH money, but what's happening to the Times-Pic is destroying something that made unexpected amounts of money last year, so someone please explain to me why you'd want to mess with that.

The good news for journalists about to be laid off is there's always money to be made in becoming somebody's PR flack. 

And this, in turn, means more good news for our political and business leaders who'll be welcoming these media professionals over to their side.  If they're smart they'll come up with some clever way to keep them there by creating a stream recurring revenue stream. 

Say, for example, if maybe we turned Howard Avenue into a special journalism taxing district... or JoZone, if you will. Then we could direct that revenue to a superboard staffed by several mayoral appointees and the Convention and Visitors Bureau who could trickle the money back into quality news stories we all can enjoy.  You know, feel good stuff like, "Unexpected Health Benefits Of Oiled Shellfish" or "Councilmembers Enjoy Well-deserved Time Off" or "Jindal's Nationwide Speaking Tour Appreciated By All" "NOPD Lauded For (Very) Warm Treatment of Henry Glover"

Just whatever happens, please do not let Newhouse sell the paper off to Tom Benson, as some are already suggesting. He'll just combine it with the Clarion Herald and re-name it like the Daily Angel-Spirit or something as stupid.

Would it help if they added more bright yellow ad bars to the website?

Apparently the New York Times Media Decoder blog had this story before the T-P's own staff did.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which distinguished itself amid great adversity during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, is about to enact large staff cuts and may cut back its print publishing schedule to several days a week, according to two employees with knowledge of the plans.

Newhouse Newspapers, which owns the Times-Picayune, will apparently be working off a blueprint the company used in Ann Arbor, Mich., where it reduced the frequency of the Ann Arbor News, emphasized the Web site as a primary distributor of news and in the process instituted wholesale layoffs to cut costs.

It would be wrong to say anyone is shocked given the industry trends. Nonetheless it is difficult to overstate the scale of a disaster the subtraction of a major daily from New Orleans would be. Certainly no one can say this is a town that lacks for news. 

And for all the (deserved, mind you) criticism leveled at the paper for its consensus elite to conservative editorial bent, no one can deny that.. even during the recent years of gradual reduction..  it is (was?) among the very best American daily newspapers.  Just this past Friday, in fact, I kept myself distracted from a dismal all-staff meeting at work by reading through that day's installment of the T-P's extraordinary series on Louisiana prisons. And while I was doing that I actually thought about how lucky we are to live in a city where the paper at least still fucking tries despite everything.  And then just a few days later, here we are.

Maybe if they tweaked the strategy a bit and published only on days when the city council had a quorum they could keep it together.  Maybe if they brought on a couple of these robot sports writers... or maybe if they outsourced a bureau or two to Sal Perricone's various NOLA.com personas...or sold the naming rights to Mercedes-Benz.. or.. oh nevermind. 

Any way you look at this, it's horrible news for the city.  Hopefully it isn't as bad as what the NYT is reporting but it's likely going to be awful regardless.

Zombie Zone

This should be interesting.  Word comes in at this late hour that the legislature might try to sneak in the original version of the HoZone bill minus Senator Peterson's amendments this afternoon.

Update: The bill did not come up today after all.

In today's papers, the mayor made some extraordinary comments that should be noted.  For instance, here he tells City Business that the amendments, which take into account the democratically expressed concerns of actual downtown residents, “don’t make any sense from a governing perspective.”  According to the mayor. "governing perspective" comes not from listening to the concerns of the constituency so much as being in the right meetings with the relevant lords.

But Landrieu insisted he was “counting votes” in the legislature and said that Peterson refused to accept a proposal that was workable.

“Had she been in all the meetings I had been in, or if she would have taken responsibility for creating this out of nothing, instead of coming in during the middle, she may have been more attuned to the political possibilities,” Landrieu said.

Near the end of this story in this morning's Times-Picayune Landrieu explains the bank shot trickle-down economics behind his rejection of Peterson's amendments.

Landrieu said the argument that more of the new tax revenue should go to infrastructure improvements than marketing is "penny-wise and pound-foolish ... because marketing is actually the thing that actually produces more tax revenue for infrastructure."

Rrriiight. Mitch is literally proposing that we market our way to better infrastructure. 

Let's back up a few steps here just to show how absurd all this is.  The original reason Mitch and friends told us we needed a HoZone tax was because the Convention Center had offered to spend its $30 million surplus on downtown street improvements but insisted that a continuing revenue source be created in order to maintain those improvements.  Of course there's no real need to tie this money which already exists to a new HoZone tax but Mitch and friends needed a bargaining chip and figured these infrastructure improvements would do. They even used the "ticking clock" of the countdown to next year's Superbowl as a kind of false crisis in order to force the issue.

So in order to resolve this crisis that Mitch and friends had intentionally invented, they demanded that the legislature create a special district governed by an unelected superboard of hospitality magnates.  The superboard would determine how revenues generated by taxes on things like hotel rooms and restaurant bills could be dispersed.

According to their plan some of that money would  indeed go toward maintaining the promised street improvements, but most of it would go to the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp and the Convention and Vistitors Bureau where it would be used primarily to fund advertising campaigns.  Or at least that's what we were told. Since the CVB likes to consider itself a private club its leadership insists that it need not disclose exactly what it does with the public funds it receives.

Senator Peterson's amendments reversed all of this.  The amended bill struck the superboard entirely and re-directed the larger share of the revenue away from the hoteliers' clubs and back toward the street maintenance Mitch and friends began this process by telling us were the essential issue in the first place.  But because Peterson had not "been in all the meetings" Mitch immediately declared her revisions a "nonstarter."

And now he's telling us that the real way to spend money on infrastructure... you know... the way that makes sense from a "governing perspective" works like this.  First, give all the money to the private hoteliers' clubs.  Next, the clubs use that money to make commercials for their hotels (probably... but who can know?)  Then later, through some "pound-wise" process this all trickles back into money for street maintenance.  How exactly isn't important.  Nor is it clear how long this trickle-down effect takes which is weird given that the "clock is ticking" and all.

Anyway Mitch's vote counting must have gone well for him because apparently this evening Senator Murray has brought up the bill minus the amendments for a full vote of the state senate (Update: No this is not correct as it turns out) so stay tuned.  As we noted in an earlier post, arrogance is quite the thing these days.

Arrogance

It's quite zietgeisty.

Because football sells itself as America's sport and the people running football -- as they make up new rules to exploit their leverage over everyone and everything -- embody exactly the sort of greed and arrogance that's slowly chipping away at America, in general. And just like in America, they're pretty much getting away with it because we're all too busy or confused to care. Plus, at this point, greed and arrogance seems synonymous with any major success in American business, so really why should we waste our energy getting upset about it here? This cloud of confusion and cynicism follows pretty much every controversy involving Roger Goodell these days.

Goodell and his cronies are now being sued by the NFLPA for collusion during the supposedly uncapped 2010 season.   Yesterday I suggested that it's precisely this sort of arrogance that is keeping Tom Benson from just paying Drew Brees what he's worth on the NFL market.  This just reinforces such suspicion.

"What degenerate produced this abortion?"

Believe it or not I can actually see Zach Galifianikas as Ignatius Reilly not so much because of the obvious typecasting but because of what NOLADef's Shay Sokol hints at in this paragraph.

Ignatius J. Reilly once mused, “Apparently I lack some particular perversion which today’s employer is seeking.” Zach Galifianakis – the comedian who smoked a joint on television – might be uttering those lines to himself this week

Sokol is actually trying to make a slightly different point with that quote but it hits very near to the heart of Confederacy which I've always thought of as a subversive book.  Or at least, I think it succeeds because it captures that essentially subversive something about New Orleanians that makes so many of us incompatible with "the particular perversions" of  regimented employment in Ignatius' or any other day.  If you've seen Galifianakis' standup act, you get the impression that he's just smart enough to strike the right tone.

On the whole, though, I still don't expect Hollywood to get this right no matter who they put in the cast. It will be too tempting and too easy to turn Confederacy into a gross-out slapstick like the American Pie franchise rather than stay true to the Simpsonsesque satire it really is. Anyway, as we all know by now, the odds are against the movie ever getting made which is just fine with me.

If they can make a taco walk...

Surely they can give you wi-fi access in the stadium.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says he wants every fan in every stadium to be able to access the Internet using whatever device they carry into the stands with them, as the NFL continues to grapple with the fact that for many fans, watching games on TV at home — for free — is a better experience than spending a small fortune to go to the game.

What he's not saying, of course, is that it will probably cost $20 (or 2 beers)  per quarter to access or some such thing.

Oh also, shut up, Cowherd. Nobody wants you here anyway.

The State of Our City is a Donut Hole

I caught the beginning of the Mayor's speech, then I had to go do something, then I got to hear the end.  Reading through the tweets and early reports and stuff to glean the middle part.  Looks like a whole lot of nothing so far.

That is until we get the details of these anti-crime initiatives sorted out. From here I'd say some of it looks benign  but worth doing. Mitch is asking for mentoring, counseling, and mental health services... you know.. all the stuff the Governor has spent the last year and a half slicing out of the budget.

Some of it looks like it could be bad. For example, "creating a team of federal law enforcement specialists to prosecute drug kingpins" sounds ominous. Brendan McCarthy tweeted that this mysterious program might be what's referred to here.

The initiative comes from the highest reaches of federal law enforcement; it is the fruit of conversations between Mayor Mitch Landrieu and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

The effort appears to be spearheaded by the local office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, better known as ATF, which has for years worked with the New Orleans Police Department on larger-scale gun and gang crimes.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, in a conference call with Phillip Durham, head of the local ATF branch, acknowledged Monday that "additional resources" from the federal government are forthcoming.
"At this time, we cannot provide further details on this," Letten said.

Maybe they're bringing in a few drones, which I'm told are all about good and friendly things now that they're being launched domestically. 

After issuing a statement denouncing Krauthammer’s remarks as “irresponsible” and “dangerous,” Toscano said the AUVSI would go on the offensive against critics. While the strategy is still being shaped, Toscano made it sound like something straight out of a crisis-management textbook — or Orwell. The AUVSI wants to bombard the American public with positive images and messages about drones in an effort to reverse the growing perception of the aircraft as a threat to privacy and safety.

“You have to keep repeating the good words,” Toscano explained. “People who don’t know what they’re talking about say these are spy planes or killer drones. They’re not.” He criticized Salon and other news organizations for using the term “drones,” saying “remotely piloted vehicles” is more accurate.

Anyway, if you want to read the Mayor's remarks they're posted here.  I haven't figured out how to filter out all the stuff about "speaking with one voice" yet, so, sorry about that.

Taking their zone and going home

Tourism magnates show their true colors.

Sources say the proposed "Hospitality Zone" bill appears dead for this year’s legislative session. That news comes after a Senate committee amended the proposed measure at the request of state Sen. Karen Carter-Peterson, D-New Orleans. Hospitality industry leaders reportedly cannot accept Peterson’s amendments, and they are said to be ready to pull the plug on the bill.

Peterson's amendments struck the unnecessary  super board of business owners and dedicated more money to infrastructure maintenance (the bill's big selling point) than to the Convention and Visitors Bureau's slush fund (the real reason CVB wanted this in the first place). 

By pulling the bill, Mayor Landrieu and his hotelier allies are telling us that if they can't get what they want, downtown doesn't get any of these street repairs they keep telling us we need before the Superbowl.  What happened? Mitch kept telling us the "clock is ticking." Did they call a timeout?

Creeping medievalism

Hunting witches

North Carolina Pastor Charles Worley shared with his congregation this weekend how he thinks the country should deal with the scourge of gay men and lesbians: Lock them into a pen with an electrified fence, drop food down to them, and because they can’t reproduce, they will die out.

Worshiping relics

LONDON — A Channel Islands online auction house has angered Ronald Reagan's foundation by claiming to offer a vial that once contained his blood.

The PFCAuctions house says the vial contains some of Reagan's dried blood residue. The auctioneers say it was used by the laboratory that tested Reagan's blood when he was hospitalized after a 1981 assassination attempt in Washington.

Buying indulgences

Further, (Tom) Benson has undergone an almost St. Paul-like conversion in his personal life, thanks in part, friends and associates say, to the faithful work of his wife.

In recent years, he has made millions of dollars in contributions to Catholic Charities, Ochsner Medical Center, Loyola and Tulane universities. And for every lucrative donation, there've been countless more behind-the-scenes gestures.

Roger Goodell is wondering what ESPN is even for, then

Apparently domestic propaganda has been illegal in this country for some time now. Although that might be about to change.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to mark up the defense authorization bill tomorrow morning, making crucial decisions on an amendment that seeks to “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda.

The amendment received bi-partisan support in the House of Representatives last wek and was voted on en bloc along with 15 other amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), whose other controversial, Republican-backed provisions include indefinite detention and banning same sex marriage on military facilities.

Elitists

Congress Speaks At 10th Grade Level, Study Says

Members of Congress aren’t sounding any smarter. In fact, the 112th Congress speaks collectively at a 10th grade level, down from that of a high school junior in 2005, according to a Sunlight Foundation study released this week. 

Banana Republic Bobby

Whatever place could Lombardi be describing here?

In its current incarnation, this small republic operates with a populist authoritarian government led by individuals in search of advancement to more prosperous and internationally significant posts. Their skillful combination of populist rhetoric, economic manipulation of a state dominated economy, and first-world media management has maintained them in power. The regime has taken every opportunity to create illusions of progress by continuously bleeding the nation's treasury to buy the participation of foreign companies that receive tax-supported subsidies. Their arsenal of management also includes the use of state resources to conclude beneficial contracts with favored national business interests.

When confronted with opposition, the regime mobilizes its sycophantic adherents and paid partisans to discredit, isolate, and eventually drive out any people with an ability or opportunity to address the real issues and consequences of the regime's behavior.

Shifting State of the City

Just noticed on a parallel internet that the mayor's big "State of the City" address has been moved from the NOCCA campus over to the Mahalia Jackson Theater. The details copied and pasted from what I assume was a press release.

LAST-MINUTE LOCATION CHANGE FOR Mayor Landrieu's "2012 State of the City Address tomorrow at 2:00 PM

Due to an overwhelming response to attend, we are relocating the State of the City speech to the Mahalia Jackson Theatre. Thank you for your interest and we will see you there.

Mayor Landrieu’s State of the City speech

Mahalia Jackson Theatre

May 22, 2012 at 2:00 p.m.

Update: Found the actual press release here.

Meanwhile, here's the latest on the amended  HoZone bill, which Mitch is likely to bring up in tomorrow's speech.

Also, speaking of the Mahalia Jackson Theater, just this past Friday I had my first chance to visit Armstrong Park since it reopened to the public.  I happened on a small wedding ceremony in Congo Square of all places just as it was concluding. None of this has anything to do with anything other than to say that aside from the controversial statuary, it looks pretty nice in there.  Here, I took a quick photo of the lagoon.

Net Neutrality obsoleted

Remember a few years ago when we reached that "compromise" over net neutrality rules which kept the principle in place for the "wired" internet only?

"Nobody could have predicted" that would be the part of the internet that's going away.

I think fragmenting content delivery according to device is probably a mistake.  When you lose the internet as a universal platform you lose the characteristic that made it a revolutionary medium in the first place.

Councilmembers still at large

It's still looking like this is mostly about denying Stacy Head her "two votes" on the Council throughout the interim term of Erroll George.

Hedge-Morrell and Johnson offered no explanation of why they both skipped the council's next regular meeting this past Thursday, though Hedge- Wednesday, when they also missed a special meeting Clarkson called to try to take care of the numerous agenda items left unfinished when the two walked out May 3. As for George, both suggested, though again without really saying so, that they don't consider him qualified to serve on the council but that their biggest objection is the fact he was nominated by Head -- who, as Johnson pointed out, will continue to sit on the council, meaning that George's selection could be seen as giving her two votes on every issue.

It isn't clear that this is strictly true, although it probably is mostly so.  Technically speaking, though, since the District B chair was won by Ms Head for this term in the most recent election it's hard to argue that there's really anything wrong with the councilmember occupying it to reflect the results of that election.  But if Errol George really wanted to be on the council, he probably wouldn't keep showing up at so many meetings.

Anyway, it won't matter now since it's looking more and more like the Mayor will make the appointment and that he will appoint someone other than George.

Scuttlebutt in the chambers is that Landrieu is looking to install former state Rep. Diana Bajoie in Head’s former seat.

Bajoie also was a favorite of the mayor to fill the seat that Arnie Fielkow vacated, a position that went to longtime City Council staffer Eric Granderson. Head replaced Granderson May 2.

Interesting bit of trivia here, as well.  According to Frank Donze, the last mayor to make an interim council appointment  was Victor Schiro in 1961.  Yesterday I noticed a reference to a similar situation in 1974 where Frank Friedler was appointed to replace Peter Beer.  It was suggested to me that this was a similar situation but, according to Friedler's obituary, his was a council appointment.

It remains to be seen whether or not any of this actually matters going down the road. It's fairly obvious that the mayor and the absent councilmembers are colluding on this appointment.  That doesn't necessarily mean the mayor is getting any big prize in the deal, as some have suggested, though.

The pie explodes

Dambala suspects the estimated revenue from the HoZone tax has been lowballed in the paper.

That's 19 million and it doesn't even take into account the restaurant and parking taxes proposed for the zone.  I am guessing this thing is going to generate between 25 and 30 million...possibly double what they are projecting.  However the RevPar number is a cumulative average of all hotel rooms rented in the city, while the bulk of hotels lie in the proposed Hospitality Zone, many do not.  I do not believe the tax will apply to hotel/motel rooms outside of the Zone so this number may be high...still it will most likely be higher than the base 16 million they are projecting for all the extra taxes imposed. 

Also, they are not factoring in the annual increase in room rentals we've seen almost every year for the past few years. The 2012 numbers are already up 20.4% (per Smith Travel Research) from last year. That puts this year's total revenues at $1,310,834,532. That would put the 2012 tax generated from only the hotel/motel tax @ $22,939,604 (Please check my math).

Since we don't have exact numbers for rooms and revenue specific to the zone, this isn't the most precise guess but you can see what he's getting at. Also if you add the fact that tourism officials are expecting to increase the annual volume of visitors to downtown amusements, there's another reason to expect that the pie is going to be plenty exploded enough for Convention and Visitors' Bureau to be more than pleased even with their reduced slice.

Bonus Tom Benson factiod

Benson's right hand man Dennis Lauscha (profiled in yesterday's T-P) was plucked away from disgraced accounting firm Arthur Andersen during the height of its relationship with Enron.

It's May 21 Is Drew Brees signed yet?

Hell no. Cue Tom Benson saying something technically true but not very reassuring.

On Friday, Saints owner Tom Benson tried to assuage the fears of his team's loyal fan base by guaranteeing Brees "will be playing here this season."

No one doubts Brees will, at some point, be in a Saints uniform. The exclusive rights free agent tag pretty much guarantees it.

But it's one thing to be playing here and quite another to be playing here happily -- and Brees clearly will not be happy playing under the franchise tag.

"It's been extremely frustrating for me," Brees said last week. "I didn't think the negotiation really should have been this difficult. But here we are."

This is the sort of thing that can only happen in a Tom Benson run organization.  If the rules say Benson can force a star player to work under unfavorable circumstances, he's perfectly fine with doing that.

Given how well the market has defined the parameters of this negotiation, one would expect the two sides could work something out.  Everyone knows Brees' resume.  Having been the first quarterback to lead the Saints to a Superbowl championship would be impressive enough.  Putting together the best statistical season for any quarterback in NFL history is pretty strong argument in his favor as well.  Having done all of this within an environment where these achievements are defined in the public imagination as a crucial element in the re-birth of an entire city in the wake of disaster, he's attained a rare status normally reserved for conquering generals or mythological figures.







But in Benson-land, everything is really about Tom Benson. Which is what I think is probably causing this to drag on the way it has.

Just this weekend Tom Benson, who tried very hard to rip the Saints out of New Orleans both before and during the flood crisis, was the beneficiary of yet another image-polishing apology on his behalf from Jeff Duncan who writes,

His reorganization of the front office -- featuring the appointment of three New Orleans natives to key posts: Chief Financial Officer Dennis Lauscha, Vice President of Marketing Ben Hales, and Vice President of Communications Greg Bensel -- has stabilized the club and transformed it from what some saw as a standoffish, insular institution to a beloved community-minded civic leader.

I think the Brees negotiations give the lie to any suggestion that Benson's organization has "transformed." Tom Benson wants everyone to know Tom Benson is in charge.  Peter King's column today features an interview with former NFL (and Saints) executive Jim Miller who offers this insight.

The only positive news about the Brees negotiation is that money appears to be the major issue. Jack Donlan, the NFL's lead labor negotiator in the 1980s, believed any negotiation where money is the issue should never result in a prolonged stalemate. One side starts high, the other starts lower and the two sides eventually settle in the middle.

 If  that's where this thing has been hung up (for 2 years running, now) then we have to conclude that it's actually about something more than money. It's about Tom Benson wanting to make the point that he's the boss of everyone including his folk-hero superstar quarterback.