Edwin Edwards running circles around Bobby Jindal

At least in the press, he is.

The politician who’s captured the imagination of at least some out-of-state junkies is governor-turned-inmate-turned-congressional candidate Edwin Edwards — who, unlike a certain current occupant of the office, has a knack for attracting attention without having to wave his arms and shout, “Over here!”

Just this month, Edwards has snagged three full-length profiles in major publications: New York Magazine (which doesn’t normally cover congressional campaigns half a country away), plus the insiderish National Journal and the conservative Weekly Standard. All entertainingly, and even wistfully, recount Edwards’ greatest hits, from the naughty one-liners to the corruption trials to the post-prison marriage to a woman 50 years his junior, not to mention new fatherhood at age 86. Never mind that his odds of returning to Congress are miniscule.

But despite a relentless campaign to get his name out, Gov. Bobby Jindal, whose aspirations are somewhat less fanciful than Edwards’, is still struggling to break through. A new Gallup poll of Republicans and those who lean Republican found that just 45 percent know enough about him to have an opinion. That puts him well behind nine other potential presidential contestants and slightly ahead of just one, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Note that, in Grace's estimation, Jindal's chances of being elected President are "somewhat less fanciful" than "miniscule."

Thanks, Pro-Life thugs!

Love, Mitch Landrieu

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu issued an official welcome this week to Operation Save America, an anti-abortion organization that interrupted an Uptown church’s prayer service with its protests on Sunday and had plans to parade the alleged remains of a fetus around Jackson Square in the French Quarter.


The certificate, which is dated July 20, extends Mayor Landrieu’s official recognition to Flip Benham of Operation Save America for “outstanding service to the city of New Orleans,” according to an image of the certificate being shared by the group on members’ Facebook pages. Supporters of the group were enthusiastic about Landrieu’s welcome, with one noting that “This is a first!”

Benham, director of Operation Save America, was found guilty of stalking in North Carolina in 2011 for distributing “Wanted” posters featuring the name and photo of a Charlotte abortion doctor, and sentenced to 18 months probation. A local organizer for the group, Pastor Dale Sochia of King Jesus Ministries in Boutte, told the New Orleans Advocate that they would be holding a funeral procession in Jackson Square on Tuesday featuring an open casket containing a “a real aborted baby.”

 Meanwhile, the mysterious "Tips For Jesus" is in town.  Reports about the tipper (or more likely group of tippers) for Jesus vary but it is speculated that there is probably a genuine religious bent to their guerrilla publicity campaign.   Maybe they're here with Operation Save America.  In which case, they would be demonstrably more thankful for the service than the Mayor.

Poor door

They should migrate this concept to New Orleans so that Jackie Clarkson has a place to retire to.

While they still exist anyway

If you look around you'll notice that the notion of affordable public higher education is almost at thing of the past. Which leaves us with the feudal system described in this article.  But if you happen to be an elite brat afflicted with a conscience, the author offers advice.

Is there anything that I can do, a lot of young people have written to ask me, to avoid becoming an out-of-touch, entitled little shit? I don’t have a satisfying answer, short of telling them to transfer to a public university.

Lionel Ferbos: noted metalworker

1911-2014

While active as a musician, Ferbos for many years also kept his day job as a tinsmith in his family’s sheet-metal business.  He went to work with his father in the family business in the 1940s, and became a master metal worker.  He also worked at Haspel’s Clothing Factory in the early 30s, where he met his future wife.  Ferbos and his wife, Marguerite Gilyot, were married for 75 years, until her death in 2009.  The couple had a daughter, Sylvia, and son, Lionel Jr., who died in 2006. 

In addition to his daughter, Ferbos is survived by three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren as well as a host of nieces and nephews. Funeral arrangements are pending.

SELA or NASA?

That's the scene on Jefferson Avenue about a week ago just near the JCC where the SELA project is applying very frightening heavy duty pieces of equipment to the construction of an underground drainage canal. They're about to make an even bigger mess as they reach the part where they have to cross St. Charles Avenue. 

"On Jefferson Avenue, what the contractor is getting ready to do is begin their canal construction in the St. Charles Avenue travel lanes, south of the neutral ground," said Wingate. "In order to do that, we need to get the traffic off. You'll have two lane traffic north of the neutral ground for about two to three blocks."

The nearby Jefferson Community Center sent out an email blast letting members know about the construction.

"Members, especially elderly members who need to come to the front entrance of the JCC, where our handicapped entrance is, can enter the JCC by coming Jefferson Avenue and taking a right on St. Charles," said JCC Executive Director Leslie Fischman. "There will be an opening for JCC members to drop off in the front circle. We'll probably use this for rainy day car pools as well for our nursery school."

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, when you're sitting in you vehicle, steamed because you hit one of these traffic nightmares, keep in mind when it's all over with you're going to have better drainage, brand new sewer and water line and a freshly paved roadway.

"Hopefully, this short-term inconvenience will produce long-term benefits," said Wingate.

In the meantime, get used to it.  We've got at least another three years before the last leg of this project is scheduled to wrap up.

"Community RFP"

The Airport bidding process just keeps getting more and more complicated.

Stand with Dignity, a local labor group, announced on Thursday that it is launching a "community request for proposals," which will, among other things, ask the joint ventures to demonstrate their commitment to hiring locals, paying them a living wage and offering them opportunities to improve their careers.

The city's selection process for the contract includes requirements for the participation of disadvantaged business enterprises -- companies usually owned by minorities, women or veterans -- but it doesn't have much in the way of guarantees for workers, particularly those from poor communities, said Collette Tippy, lead organizer for Stand.

Stand's request for proposals mirrors that of the city. However, rather than asking them to demonstrate their experience and expertise, the labor group's request asks the joint ventures to detail how they will achieve Stand's employment and wage goals.

Stand has no official authority or legal standing to select a contractor for the airport project. Participation in the group's request for proposals is completely voluntary.

Just to clarify one point.  This "local labor group" doesn't appear to be affiliated with any of the building trades unions whose members would actually do the bulk of the work associated with these construction contracts.  Instead, they're kind of a weird mix of neighborhood groups, faith-based orgs, and.. the Cowan Institute.. for whatever reason. Oh and SEIU who only get things right about a third of the time.

Doesn't mean they're wrong to insert themselves or that their concerns won't be valid.  But they're different from simply "a labor group" and they certainly aren't the only "labor group" with a stake here. 

Where did all the money go?

The State of Louisiana is now and will continue to be faced with serious budget problems for the foreseeable future.  Which is weird because we keep heating about how these are the boom times in our state. 

Last month the Wall Street Journal article enthused, "We are building a Qatar on the Bayou," in an article about the heavily taxpayer subsidized petrochemical bonanza in Louisiana. 

So get ready to read many more like this. 

A subsidiary of Chinese chemical manufacturer Shandong Yuhuang Chemical Co. will build a $1.85 billion methanol manufacturing complex on the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, the company said Thursday.

Gov. Bobby Jindal's office called it the first major foreign direct investment by a Chinese company in Louisiana.

Well.. it's also a major direct investment by Louisiana in the company.

Louisiana Economic Development started discussions with the company five months ago and offered incentives to lure the company to the state:

• a $9.5 million grant to be paid over five years starting in 2017 for infrastructure costs.
• a $1.75 million grant over 10 years to cover some of the costs of developing and creating access to the riverfront.

The company is also expected to pursue breaks through Louisiana's industrial tax exemption and the Quality Jobs program, which provides a 5-or-6-percent cash rebate of annual gross payroll for new direct jobs for up to 10 years.

In another 10 years or so, we'll start to theoretically recoup some of the money we're paying out now.  That is unless we're paying it out to whoever is next in line by then.

Good news, bad news

The good news is CNN has already had a 24 hour Malaysia Airlines bureau up and running for months now.

CNN) -- A Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has crashed in eastern Ukraine, Russian news agency Interfax reported Thursday.

Malaysia Airlines confirmed that it lost contact with Flight 17 and that the plane's last known position was over Ukrainian airspace, the airline said on Twitter.

The aircraft was "shot down" over Ukraine by "terrorists" operating a Buk surface-to-air missile system, according to the Facebook page of Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. There were 280 passengers killed as well as 15 crew members, Gerashchenko's post reads.

The bad news is we never got around to electing Sarah Palin's Russia view house President which, clearly, is why this was allowed to happen.  

"Turnaround specialist"

Looks like David Gilmore really gave HANO a serious turnaround.

"I think people have been troubled by HANO in the past. We put every effort in to fix HANO especially the finance department," said Ronald McIntyre, former finance director for the Housing Authority of New Orleans.

He was brought in from Washington, D.C. to oversee the finances of the housing authority. McIntyre was hired by then-administrative receiver David Gilmore.

 He says their relationship soured when he started to question how the housing authority handed out contracts.

"David Gilmore and HANO steered contracts to his friends.  He steered contracts and used federal funds to cover those contracts," McIntyre said.

He says says his questions lead to an increasingly hostile work environment and harassment by superiors. McIntyre was ousted from the agency early this year.

"The day after I informed him (Gilmore) in writing that I was going to the EEOC and the inspector general I was terminated," McIntyre.

Will attempt to show

Advocate: Coastal Louisiana land loss worth price to fix, study will attempt to show

Let's hope the attempt goes well. It seems very involved.

BURAS — With a 50-year, $50 billion coastal restoration and protection plan to pay for, the state is gearing up with evidence to convince the rest of the country that the price tag is worth it.

The state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority started a new study in May that will quantify the worth of south Louisiana and just how much the rest of the country has to lose if nothing is done to stem coastal land loss or make coastal communities more secure.

“Try to understand the financial implications of future land loss and flood impacts,” Charles Sutcliffe, policy adviser with the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities, told Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority members at their Wednesday meeting.

This Coast-wide Economic Impact Evaluation will be done in cooperation with LSU and the RAND Corporation and will include a steering committee made up of representatives from government agencies, businesses and coastal researchers.

For future reference, when your state is faced with an environmental catastrophe on an order of magnitude such that roughly a third of of its total land area (including its most heavily populated communities) is sinking into the ocean, here is what you do.

First you will need to put together a "Master Plan" for coastal restoration.  This will be a long, politically controversial and expensive process.

Next you'll need to do the cost/benefit analysis of implementing the master plan.  This will also involve a lot of people and take several months or years to complete. This is what the phase they're on right now.  Finally, comes the marketing campaign to develop a "brand" that makes the cost/benefit analysis of the Master Plan accessible to people.

Once that's underway you're well on to drowning.

But the important thing is lots and lots of consultants and lobbyists and lawyers get paid in the meantime. Because that's what emergency response is really all about.

Magic Microbes

Seems like not so long ago they were telling us bacteria on the spilled oil was a good thing. 

A fortuitous combination of ravenous bacteria, ocean currents and local topography helped to rapidly purge the Gulf of Mexico of much of the oil and gas released in the Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010, researchers reported on Monday.

But apparently, in the ocean, there's always a bigger fish... or microbe.

A couple hundred miles away at Auburn University, Dr. Cova Arias, a professor of aquatic microbiology, conducts research on the often-deadly and sometimes flesh-eating bacteria Vibrio Vulnificus. Arias’ research at Auburn, and through the school’s lab at Dauphin Island, has focused on Vibrio’s impact on the oyster industry which was brought to a standstill three years ago by the BP Oil Spill. In 2010, out of curiosity, Arias set out to discover if Vibrio were present in the post-spill tar balls washing up on the Alabama and Mississippi coasts. She was highly surprised by what she found.

“What was clear to us was that the tar balls contain a lot of Vibrio Vulnificus,” said Arias.

Arias can show an observer Vibrio in the lab as it appears as a ring on the top of the solution in a test tube. Vibrio is not something, though, that a person can see in the water, sand, or tar balls.

But, Arias’ research shows it there, especially in the tar balls, in big numbers.

According to Dr. Arias’ studies, there were ten times more vibrio vulnificus bacteria in tar balls than in the surrounding sand, and 100 times more than in the surrounding water.

“In general, (the tar balls) are like a magnet for bacteria,” said Arias.

Arias’ theory is that Vibrio feeds on the microbes that are breaking down the tar.

Choice ridership

Rail tie work is still ongoing on the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line. The work was briefly suspended and streetcar service temporarily reinstated for the benefit of visitors over the Fourth of July/Essence Fest weekend. 


Major T-P feature this morning based on the release of a report by the advocacy group Ride New Orleans on the state of our public transit.

The news is bad.

The report argues that the RTA has not kept pace with the city's repopulation after Katrina: The agency restored only 36 percent of its bus and street car services while more than 86 percent of the city's population has returned, the report said. And ridership for public transit has increased every year by roughly 20 percent, although it remains a mere fraction of the service's pre-Katrina numbers.

"We did find that the current transit system is inequitable. We found that a lot of the service decreases have been in low-income communities and in communities of color," said Ride New Orleans president Trevor Theunissen.

For all the talk you see bandied about hyping the busy, growing, fantabulous "New New Orleans," these numbers show the old New Orleans sure did move a lot more people around. 

But in 2012, Veolia only operated 79 of the RTA's 86 buses during peak times, a much smaller fleet than the 301 buses that cruised city streets at rush hour in 2004, Ride New Orleans found. Augustine said the fleet is now closer to 136 buses, but remains a far cry from its pre-Katrina ranks.

The RTA also eliminated at least 33 routes after the storm, including 10 express bus lines that shot riders across town with few stops in between, Ride found. The agency also did away with all "school trippers," public buses that augmented school bus service. Several major routes were stretched to cover extra miles where others never returned, such as those on Carrollton and Mirabeau avenues, Almonaster Boulevard and Desire Street.

But these concepts, "booming New New Orleans" and fewer public transit riders aren't as contradictory as they sound.  Remember, the city we've rebuilt is no longer interested in serving poor people. We just watched a movie this week where Pres Kabacoff told us the poors were "a drag."

Instead, the future of public transit will be in attracting "choice riders."  

Even as ridership increases, the system needs to attract car owners -- riders who choose to use public transit -- rather than relying on passengers without other options, said Renne, the UNO transportation expert. In most cities, he said, the number of people who have no vehicles and must use public transit is too small to build a viable system.

"You've got to attract choice riders. This is not rocket science. These are simple things," Renne said.

That way you can run fewer buses for fewer riders who don't mind paying a higher fare.  Revenue per rider goes up, costs go down. Oh, and yes, of course fares are going up.   

The Ride New Orleans report comes as Veolia has signaled it may pursue a rate increase as a partial fix to a potential $10 million shortfall in 2015. At the same time, Veolia has proposed a $5 million-a-year expansion of its routes and bus services.

RTA also recently took over operation of the Mississippi River ferries. Pedestrians who once crossed the river for free now pay two dollars each direction. But probably they are "choice riders" so it's ok. 

Blame the victim

This is actually pretty refreshing.  Nine times out of ten these situations only lead to a customer service rep losing his job simply for having been put in an impossible position.  Well, actually, that's probably what will happen here anyway but at least the news coverage and the complaining customer get the story right.

Pepper

They're having a "Suspicious Package" break in classes at the UL-Lafayette campus this afternoon. 

Looks like two "packages" which, if the pattern on these sorts of things hold, are most likely a discarded wig and an old metal lunchbox. But the police explode them anyway just to be safe.  Sadly the Lafayette cops don't seem have a specialized bomb robot like the one NOPD occasionally get to play with.

They do have dogs, though.  According to the Advertiser report picked up by WWL, the university also has a dog.

The university's dog, Pepper, and those from other local law enforcement are being used to sweep all buildings on campus including the Cajundome and the University Research Park.

Does the University of Louisiana have a dog? Yes. How many dogs does it own? One. What is the dog's name? Pepper.  What does the dog do?  Hangs around mostly... deterring crime.

So what made University Police decide to add K-9 help?

"As an emergency response agency we try to use her as a deterant to crime, so we got her knowing that that's something we needed to do," Sgt. Lasalle says.

And they use her frequently, making random sweeps along the campus and bringing her to big events.  University Police also lend Pepper out to other agencies in the case of bomb threats or bomb scares around the area.

 Yeah sometimes the cops need her to help them do stuff. 



The UL cops are happy anyway.  They're even looking to expand the program and assemble a team of super-dogs to watch over the campus.

Pepper is only two and a half years old, and soon she might have other K-9's by her side.  University Police are looking for other dogs with other specialties to make this campus the safest that it can be.

Can't wait til the movie comes out. 

Happy Birthday!

Nukes. They are 69 years old today.  Still haven't quite blown up the whole world. But then again, Tom Benson is 18 years older than you are so there's still time.

Last minute appeals

Monday evening the internets were buzzing with news that Saints TE(?) Jimmy Graham had filed an eleventh hour appeal of an arbitrator's ruling that he was in fact a TE(!) With less than 24 hours remaining before the franchise tag deadline. Was this cause for panic? 

Of course not.  As it turned out the last minute appeal was only a prelude to the Saints working out a deal with their TE(¯\_(ツ)_/¯)  He will continue to play for them and make lots of money.

Graham, 27, agreed to a record four-year contract Tuesday morning, the team announced. The four-year deal is worth up to $40 million with $21 million guaranteed, according to ESPN. Not only does that make him the highest paid tight end in the league, but it is also the biggest contract ever given to the position.

On Tuesday, former Mayor Ray Nagin created a similar but smaller buzzing when he let it be known that he will appeal his conviction on public corruption charges.

The one-paragraph notice of appeal does not reveal Nagin's appeal strategy. It says only he could challenge the jury's verdict, his prison sentence, the $500,000 judgment he was ordered to pay based on the value of the cash and gifts prosecutors say Nagin took while in office.

Probably not going to be as happy a result though. 

Swollen and infected but so what

"It's impossible for you to have been more wrong"

Sometimes smiles come from the little things.

Honest graft

As you read this article about how the outgoing HANO director used a non-profit to circumvent public bid laws and direct contracts to consulting firms of his choosing there are two things to keep in mind.

First, this person was in charge because he is a "turnaround specialist" charged with managing a federally mandated receivership of the notoriously corrupt housing authority and, you know, showing us local buffoons how grown-ups are supposed to behave.

Gilmore was the latest in a series of receivers since HANO was taken over by the federal government in 2002 after years of poor management. He oversaw the agency’s day-to-day operation and was its lone board member.

The federal government had been scheduled to relinquish control of HANO in mid-2013, but the city had not yet selected an executive director or appointed a board for the agency at that time, so HUD renewed its contract with Gilmore’s company, Gilmore Kean LLC, for six months, through Jan. 8. An option in the contract allowed for a three-month extension, putting Gilmore’s end date at April 8.

Public housing residents and landlords portrayed Gilmore and his team from Gilmore Kean LLC as attentive leaders who cared about improving the lives of those living in government-subsidized developments in New Orleans. Many said they considered the redevelopment of various housing complexes, including the multimillion-dollar Iberville redevelopment, as Gilmore’s greatest accomplishments during his tenure.

Ok well. Good job, then. 

The other thing to note is that this profiteering took place over the course of a long and much delayed process of demolishing New Orleans's public housing and replacing it with.... less public housing.  Because this is what "moves the city forward" or something. So it's honest graft, really.

Last night PBS aired Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker's documentary about the 2010 District B Council election "Getting Back To Abnormal."  The fate of public housing in New Orleans is a major theme of the film.  You can watch it here on the POV website until August 12.  There a number of memorable quotes to play with there but my favorite is the part where Pres Kabacoff tells us that after Katrina, "We don't have quite the drag we had here with so many poor people living here"

Again, what was the point, exactly?

Law passed ostensibly to kill the SLFPA-E lawsuit probably doesn't actually kill the lawsuit.

John Barry, whom the governor removed from the levee authority board for leading the lawsuit effort, now heads the nonprofit Restore Louisiana Now. In a letter to his organization, he recently outlined some of the tactics that lawyers for the Flood Protection Authority may use to keep the suit alive.

Barry described two points of contention: that legislators broke their rules on public notice while moving the bill between committees, and that the language of the law actually exempts the levee authority from the intended oversight.

During the session, lawmakers supporting one bill to stop the suit failed to gain approval in one committee. But they were able to have it amended into another bill that was before a more receptive committee, where it eventually passed.

“So not only was proper notice not given, but [the new bill] as it was heard was entirely different from how it was filed,” Barry wrote. “And it gets even more egregious: forget the lack of notice — even if you were physically in the room when the committee heard [the bill] you could not get a copy of the bill. This violates all sorts of notice and open meetings standards.”

  So what was the point of that law?

SB 469 appears to have been written and deliberately designed by lawyers who represent the oil and gas industry in order to shield, reduce, or eliminate their clients’ exposure to civil damages on a wide range of pending and future claims, including, most notably, BP’s liability for billions of dollars in outstanding claims related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Indeed, according to people intimately involved in the legislative process, no one lobbied harder for the passage of SB 469 than those associated with BP.

Prolific texter

Documents released by the Governor's office confirm a bunch of stuff we all pretty much suspected from the beginning.  Bobby Jindal's hand-picked Sec. of Health and Hospitals steered the state's Medicaid privatization scheme to his former employer.

An anonymous whistleblower warned federal officials about problems “dangerously close” to fraud in connection with the state award of a lucrative, now-scrapped state Medicaid claims processing contract, according to recently released documents that the Jindal administration used in making its decision to cancel the largest contract the state lets.

The email shows that federal regulators had alerted state officials of the potential issues with the nearly $200 million contract prior to its award to a company that formerly employed the state’s health agency chief. As secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals, Bruce Greenstein was in charge of the agency that oversaw the contract.

Greenstein repeatedly has said he was not involved in the decision to award the contract to his former employer, Client Network Services Inc., the Maryland-based technology firm known as CNSI. But phone records and other data included in the released documents show at least 2,882 contacts between Greenstein and CNSI executives and the company’s lobbyist.

Everyone who cared enough to even read a little bit said this was happening the entire time.  Legislators opposed Greenstein's appointment.  PAR raised objections to the privatization plan.

But all of this went right on through anyway. Even now Greenstein says there's nothing inappropriate about his relationship with the firm receiving this huge contract from the office he oversaw.  

The emails by CMS and the whistleblower were among those recently released by the Jindal administration in response to a public-records request. The administration provided thousands of pages of mainly text-message logs revealing frequent communication between Greenstein and CNSI executive Carroll Creighton before, during and after the selection process and subsequent bid award. Creighton is CNSI’s vice president of government affairs and business development. The records cover a June 2010 to June 2012 time frame and indicate a higher volume of activity around key events in the selection process.

Neither Greenstein, who returned to Seattle, nor Creighton agreed to interviews. Attorneys for Greenstein and CNSI said the men are longtime friends who stay in close contact.

“The vast majority of the text messages and phone calls are of a personal nature and have nothing to do with the contract,” said John McLindon, Greenstein’s Baton Rouge attorney. “Bruce is a prolific texter, and I’m told that Carroll Creighton texts a lot, too.”

Creighton, who lives in Seattle, started work at CNSI a few months after Greenstein in 2005.

Yeah ok fine.  By this point in the Jindal administration we're all pretty much used to the cynical cronyism and political calculation that guides policy on every issue from education to flood control to health care.   So, weary as well all are, maybe "prolific texting" is as good a reason as any to just shrug it off.

But remember Bobby Jindal ran for Governor pledging to wage a "War On Corruption" and his campaign was greatly aided by the propagandists who provide us with our professional news services.  Maybe they'll be less credulous when the next LABI, Louisiana Family Forum,  and oil industry backed "reformer" comes along. But probably not. 

Ancien Regime

Tom Benson turns 87 years old today. Believe it or not this only makes him the third oldest current NFL franchise owner. And that's not the only way in which the league resembles a medieval society of competing but also interlocking and cooperating branches of  hereditary nobility.

This is from an article published a few months ago about the succession plan for Benson's empire of publicly subsidized sports franchises who play in state-owned facilities.  The plan is said to be a closely guarded secret but it is assumed that Benson's daughter and grandchildren would  receive his ownership stake. The NFL prefers this as a matter of policy.

The NFL prefers to keep teams within their controlling families after a majority owner has died.

That's not always the case. In Buffalo, the Bills will be owned by Wilson's estate because his wife, Mary, and two surviving daughters, Christy and Edith, have no interest in running the team.

But in most cases, teams are transferred within family ranks whenever possible.

For instance, McCaskey and her family have controlled 80 percent of the Bears since her father, George Halas, died in 1983.

In Tennessee, Adams' daughters Susie Smith and Amy Hunt, and the family of his deceased son, Kenneth Adams, each received a third of the Titans.

And in Pittsburgh, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell arranged for Dan Rooney to maintain controlling interest of the Steelers, which has been in the Rooney family since Art Rooney founded it in 1933. 

In which Ray Nagin tells you about a thing being "surreal"

He's kind of an expert in that.

Nagin spoke to the WDSU I-Team exclusively, maintaining his innocence and suggesting that he had been “targeted” by the government.

When asked what went through his mind as the sentence was handed down, Nagin sounded a defiant note.

“Well, you know, all of this is pretty surreal to me,” he said. “I still maintain my innocence. We're going to appeal this thing and, you know, it's just something that's very difficult.”

I haven't watched the interview yet but according to the report, Nagin's appeal will lean on the US Attorney commenting scandal a bit as well as on prosecutorial "magic.

“The prosecutors were fairly magical in their ability to take something that supposedly happened and paint it as reality when it didn't really happen,” he said.

I know we're still waiting on Katrina's Secrets Volume II but if Nagin wants to write a YA novel of two while he's got all this time on his hands "Fairly Magical" might make a pretty good series title.

QOTD

This AZ post is not about the Ray Nagin sentencing. It's about coverage of the BP claims process.  Still this is a good line to have in mind on the day this creature the NOLA press created and sold to voters as an anti-corruption Dragonslayer is sentenced to ten years in prison for being one of the dumber and sloppier criminals to hold public office in recent times.

Anyway, here you go.

Folks, I want you to understand something if you don't already realize it....most mainstream media resources, on the whole, are bullshit PR printing presses....or rather pixel presses.  That holds true in our little swampy corner of the world in spades.

Nagin ended up getting 10 years which is probably the best he could have hoped for given the sentencing guidelines.  It's still an awful long time to be in prison. Remember how long Nagin's term in office seemed to all of us? This is actually longer than that.   There's a chance he'll only serve about 8 of those years but that would depend on Nagin exhibiting "good behavior" and when has that ever happened?

Anyway he's going to jail while others in similar circumstances (Fred Heebe, Gary Solomon, others) are apparently immune to prosecution and the people who decided Ray Nagin should be mayor in the first place are still picking our candidates for us today.

Also, for some reason, Mitch Landrieu was asked to say something.  He said, we're "moving forward."

Said Mayor Mitch Landrieu,“Today marks the end of a sad chapter for our city.  The people of New Orleans are turning the page and moving forward."

But if there's any actual progress, or even justice, in any of this, it isn't easy to pick out.

Nagin derrangement syndrome

It's Ray Nagin's big day. I guess they'll finally show that guy what's what. Surely there will be dancing and cheering in the streets when Ray Nagin gets taken down a peg.  Can't wait to see what that might be like.

Since his conviction, the lender on his family's townhouse in Frisco, Texas, which testimony showed Nagin's family living in rent-free after Hurricane Katrina compliments of the developer before they eventually bought it, has sought to foreclose on the property.

And after trial, Nagin's wife Seletha filed for bankruptcy, in the process presenting a grim picture of the family's finances.

Then another financial blow came when U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan in May ordered Nagin to forfeit $501,200 that prosecutors totaled as the gains he received in the bribery schemes for which he was convicted. That figure reflects travel paid by city vendors, cell phone service, money meant to appear as investments in Stone Age, ill-gotten business for Stone Age and free granite provided to the company.

And Nagin could face yet undetermined amounts of fines, in addition to a lengthy prison term, at sentencing.

Files in the Seletha Nagin bankruptcy case in Texas show the Nagin family went from "a seven figure net worth" to $204,810 in assets, surpassed by liabilities of about $223,256.

The bankruptcy files list the Nagins owing $42,839 to the Internal Revenue Service for 2011 and 2012 taxes. They list about $6,059 in debts for bills at retail stores Kohl's and Macy's and for medical services from a handful of providers, including a pathology lab, an orthopedic clinic and a radiology practice.

The court documents list Ray Nagin as unemployed. They indicate Seletha Nagin works as a sales clerk at a Bath and Body Works store in Texas, making about $490 a month.

They also reflect her collecting $312 monthly in food stamps and receiving $400 from one of their two sons, with the name not specified, bringing their average monthly income to about $1,202.

Well ok but that's just the total financial ruin of the man and his family. That might be a big deal if we were talking about someone who is also pretty near unemployable at this point and... well, ok so he's also unemployable.

That might be a big deal if we were talking about a person who hadn't lived through Hurricane Katrina as the Mayor of New Orleans. There's probably some money in that story.. you know.. in the right hands, it would make a compelling book and.. oh.. yeah.

Ok well, so Ray Nagin is pretty well screwed as things stand right now.  This morning Judge Berrigan can only make matters worse when she sentences the 58 year old Nagin to what will probably be something between 10 and 20 years in prison. Apparently this is supposed to serve some sort of purpose.

At least according to what the many folks on the parallel internets demanding an "apology" from the gelded stooge seem to think this week.  Who knows why so many people have decided to make this petty thief's conviction about their honor. It's especially puzzling given the fact that the major criminals who created the petty thief in the first place are still pretty much running the city anyway.  But there's no accounting for hurt feelings.

One friend in the parallel internet did a pretty good job yesterday of explaining why Nagin personally irks people. Why, for example, did Nagin think taking his case to trial was a good idea?

The moron is too narcissistic to realize his fluffers have long ago abandoned him and plead out. No, he wanted to be tossed out the front door, he wanted his show trial with all the cameras focused on the perfect shine on his head. He doesn't give a crap about his finances or his family or his "legacy". The whole prosecution has been about HIM and one more chance to bask in the glow. He will go down hard simply because he chose that path.

It's true Nagin was always just a little too stupid and/or full of himself to understand that everything wasn't always about him. But surely the current mania for revenge can be described as a direct reflection of this overinflated sense of importance.

Maybe there's some symmetry in that but it still doesn't look to me like a long prison sentence is necessary to balance out Nagin's stupid and crude but only moderately significant crimes. 

Wait.. why?

Bob Ellis's pro-Airbnb astroturf group held a community meeting to discuss their advocacy of legalized short-term rentals in New Orleans.   This was weird.

Rather than keeping unlicensed, short-term rentals illegal through an outdated rule, the city should embrace a new law that legalizes the practice and generates revenue and accountability through licenses and enforcement.

That was the argument presented Tuesday night by the Alliance for Neighborhood Prosperity, a nonprofit formed to advocate for legalizing short-term rentals from websites such as Airbnb and VRBO in the city.

"There's obviously demand," Christian Galvin, a a group board member, told about 50 people gathered at the Jefferson Parish Library in Harvey. "There's thousands of these types of rentals online...it just needs to be regulated so that the good operators rise up and give a strong representation for New Orleans."

What were they doing in Harvey?  Priced out of the New Orleans meeting room rental market for some reason?

New Orleans is famous the world over for its property values

Can't let anything take precedence over the resale value of a piece of property.

"There's no way in the world that I can ever sell my house or much less even live in my house with the way it is right now," said Torres, who used to own SDT Waste & Debris Services and recently opened a resort in the Bahamas called the Cove. "When you go in the backyard, it sounds like you're at a club."

The lawsuit claims that the live music at Buffa's has damaged Torres' property value at 1011 Esplanade Ave. and caused significant pain and suffering. It also claims that the city wrongfully issued the bar a live music permit. It calls for an injunction to stop the performances and requires the owners to regularly measure the sound levels to ensure they are not exceeding the legal limit.

Sharing the wealth

What are the benefits of having oil and gas extraction dominate your state's economy?   Cash payoffs, apparently.   Pennsylvania residents are enjoying that exact benefit now.  And it only cost them... some legal technicality.

It didn't take long for the residents of Finleyville who lived near the fracking operations to complain – about the noise and air quality, and what they regarded as threats to their health and quality of life. Initially, EQT, one of the largest producers of natural gas in Pennsylvania, tried to allay concerns with promises of noise studies and offers of vouchers so residents could stay in hotels to avoid the noise and fumes.

But then, in what experts say was a rare tactic, the company got more aggressive: it offered all of the households along Cardox Road $50,000 in cash if they would agree to release the company from any legal liability, for current operations as well as those to be carried out in the future. It covered potential health problems and property damage, and gave the company blanket protection from any kind of claim over noise, dust, light, smoke, odors, fumes, soot, air pollution or vibrations.

The agreement also defined the company's operations as not only including drilling activity but the construction of pipelines, power lines, roads, tanks, ponds, pits, compressor stations, houses and buildings.

But hey, fifty grand, right? Who wouldn't trade all future claims against poisoning for that?

Someone should tell St. Tammany Parish residents to ask Helis Oil if they can get in on this deal.

Actually the smart guys in Louisiana might be a bit more risk-averse.  They're only willing to sacrifice their integrity. 

In April, the PSC hired Acadian Consulting Group LLC of Baton Rouge to complete a report by Nov. 30 comparing net metering’s costs against its benefits.

State records show David E. Dismukes is an owner of Acadian Consulting Group, the company hired for the study. Dismukes also is an economics professor and executive director of LSU’s Center for Energy Studies.

In a complaint filed Tuesday with the PSC, C. Tucker Crawford, president of Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association, alleged Dismukes cannot produce an impartial study on net metering because he has in the past lobbied “for the elimination of renewable energy subsidies and the augmentation of fossil fuel subsidies.”

Crawford added that Dismukes accepted $20,000 from a fossil fuel group, the American Energy Alliance, before arguing last year against federal tax and financing policies benefiting the wind-energy industry.

In addition, Crawford wrote the PSC, Dismukes received $96,000 from America’s Natural Gas Alliance in 2012; $76,000 from Shell in 2012; and $37,000 from the Louisiana oil industry in 2004.

Cab drivers and concierges as sources

Brazil is maybe an extreme example but it is remarkably easy to get visiting reporters to tell only the story your tourism boosters want them to tell.

As is often the case with the mainstream media, they have started with an indisputable truth and then have chosen to draw conclusions that match their own embedded perspective: a perspective shaped by Sepp Blatter, his broadcast partners and a blinkered reality of hotels and black SUVs. It is certainly true that the million-person protests have not taken place during the World Cup, as they did during the 2013 Confederation’s Cup. But the conclusion that now everything is awesome and “parties have replaced protests” is simply not true. I recently returned from Brazil and saw a different reality. The fact is that there are protests, strikes and battles with police happening every day. In the favelas, there are demonstrations against the police occupations that are happening because of the Cup. (Here is a terrific photo essay by Andalusia Knoll that shows images from all the World Cup protests that are not happening.)

If the protests are far smaller than the ones a year ago, it is because the streets are militarized down to the last inch, ruled by a military police force who are tear-gassing any group of people who attempt to gather and raise political demands.

Offense level

The guidelines that will help Judge Ginger Berrigan decide Ray Nagin's sentence make about as much sense as those stupid charts NFL coaches use to decide whether they want to go for two point conversions.

Under the rules, Nagin starts with a base “offense level” of 20 because he was an elected official who took multiple bribes but otherwise has no criminal history — facts that, with the jury verdict, are now undisputed.

The other major factors that will add points to his offense level include the financial “loss” the court assigns to his actions, the court’s judgment as to whether he was an “organizer or leader” in “criminal activity” that involved at least five people, and whether Nagin is found to have obstructed justice by lying to investigators and to the court.

There is some gray area in all of these questions. For instance, the monetary loss can be calculated to include not only bribes paid and received, but also the proceeds of any contracts that resulted from bribes.

At a minimum, however, Berrigan will almost certainly find that the loss was greater than $200,000, as the jury convicted Nagin of taking more than that amount in bribes. That would bring his offense level to 32, but it could go significantly higher depending on whether Berrigan decides to include the profits of some or all of the contracts Nagin signed.

Were the judge to use the amount of “ill-gotten gains” she has ordered Nagin to forfeit — $501,500, which includes the money his granite company took in from a deal with Home Depot — the offense level would jump to 34. If she includes the profits from contracts won by firms owned by those who bribed Nagin, the number could go higher.

This article is fascinating.  At its core is the premise that the sentencing guidelines will trump sentiment coming from third party appeals for a harsher or lighter treatment.  In a way, we are told, this might be a good thing for Nagin since he appears to have surprisingly few "friends" speaking on his behalf.

And yet, after carefully explaining that the sentence is really predetermined by math, we come right back to multiple factors the judge can consider if she feels the math is maybe too harsh.  For example, she can take into account whether there is a pressing need to protect the public from future crimes of this nature by the defendant. In Ray Nagin's case, that would seem a minimal risk.

Also the judge can go light on Nagin if he begs for mercy.

One factor that could play a role is whether Nagin speaks at the hearing and what he chooses to say.
When defendants plead guilty, they typically give an “allocution” — a speech to the court apologizing for their behavior that can sometimes sway judges.

But Nagin did not plead guilty, and although he was convicted by a jury, he has never admitted to any wrongdoing, even creating a website to raise money for a legal defense fund in which he steadfastly maintains his innocence.

“In my experience, the kind of speech a defendant gives at sentencing can matter a lot to what judges decide to do, especially within the (sentencing) range,” said Tania Tetlow, a former federal prosecutor and now a professor at Tulane Law School. “I’ve seen judges cross out what they had written down and change it based on what the defendant does. But if he’s not prepared to fall on the sword and beg for mercy, he may say very little. And he seems pretty determined to maintain his innocence.”

And that seems kind of nice but, if you think about it, it's a juvenile and irrational practice. To say to people, well we'll let you go if you make a show of supplicating yourself before the court is almost medieval, really.

And yet that seems to be what people want. Some sort of public apology. As if individual hurt feelings are what actually matters here. People are pretty small that way. 

I've never been anything near to what one would consider a "friend" of Ray Nagin.  He was elected in 2002 as a political creature of elite New Orleans. Nagin was a product of the popular con at that time which sold people on running government "like a business."  He was a bad mayor pre-Katrina who proved even more spectacularly incompetent at handling the post-Katrina morass.  And on top of everything he turned out to be a foolish and incompetent criminal clumsily accepting small time bribes for often petty reasons. 

There was something that could have been done to prevent Nagin from blundering around for four years after Katrina but we reelected him anyway.  Extracting an "apology" now won't help anyone.  And neither will throwing this thoroughly humiliated and bankrupted person into federal prison for 20 years.

According to the sliding "offense level" chart, Berrigan could give Nagin anything from 10 to 30 years.  Even the low end of that seems unnecessary at this point.

Why did it fall the way it did?

I used to wonder if the 17th Street canal levee breach after Katrina that flooded Lakeview could have just as easily broken on the Jefferson rather than the Orleans Parish side. Maybe it wouldn't have made a tremendous difference in the amount of water that ended up piling into Lakeview thanks to the breach in the nearby London Avenue canal levee.  Or maybe it would have.

One thing's for sure, it would have meant a lot more damage in Metairie.  And this McBride post indicates it sure could have happened that way. More to the point, though.  Maybe it still could.

Given the shallow depth it was found in 2011 and 2014, it makes sense some of the debris was part of the I-wall and levee construction in the early 1990's. That work did involve placement of dirt on top of the existing levees at the time. It extended the entire length of the canal (all the yellow and red lines shown above). Other, deeper debris has likely been there far longer. The records of nearly every soil boring taken in 1981 along the west bank - long before the I-walls were put in - have numerous mentions of shells, wood, bricks, and other "miscellaneous fill." Those records were used in the basis of design for the Corps' early 1990's work. This junk has been known to the Corps for a very, very long time. It also very likely extends the entire length of the canal on at least the Jefferson Parish side.

How it got there doesn't really matter now though, because all the junk is still there today, and the integrity of the outfall canals remains the responsibility of the Corps. As the decision recorded in the contractor quality control log of March 11, 2011 indicates, there is no way the 17th Street canal west bank levees would be built today with the debris-riddled dirt that is currently sitting in them. That dirt is - according to the Corps - "unsuitable." Yet there the levees sit.

Correction: Originally this post cited a breach in the Orleans Avenue outfall canal.  Orleans Avenue did not, in fact, breach. Here's that T-P Katrina animation in case anyone else needs a refresh.

What is the sound of lemony fresheness?

Looks like another round of noise crackdowns is in the works.

Mimi's in the Marigny — one of the central venues in the ongoing conversation about music permitting and noise ordinances — has suspended its live music schedule. As first reported this afternoon on NOLA.com, Mimi's music programming is taking a brief hiatus, though staff there haven't confirmed why.

Meanwhile, Buffa's Bar & Restaurant announced on its Facebook today that the watering hole and entertainment spot now faces a lawsuit from 1011 Esplanade Avenue Inc., alleging that it has violated the city's noise ordinance. The post also says the suit challenges Buffa's mayoralty permit allowing live music, though the venue has been a longtime fixture for music in the neighborhood.

Gambit further reports that "1011 Esplanade Avenue" belongs to Sidney Torres who the Buffa's owners say was something of a regular.. or at least a customer.  So what gives?  

Wonder what they actually fired him for

On Friday, the Fourth of July at 7PM.

Malachi Hull's troubled tenure managing the New Orleans Taxicab Bureau came to an abrupt end when Mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration announced Friday (July 4) that he had been fired.

Landrieu spokesman Tyler Gamble said Landrieu had asked Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux to investigate the bureau after several incidents led to the arrests of inspectors there

You could say that he was fired for incidents of brutality and intimidation toward drivers and tour guides instigated by his inspectors. But that seems unlikely since this butt-kicking style was probably what the mayor was looking for when he hired Hull to implement a series of reforms unpopular with drivers. Hull's heavy-handedness in Atlanta where he was employed when Landrieu hired him had resulted in a lawsuit.

So it could be that, with the mission accomplished, Hull just isn't as necessary as he once was.  But I'd consider the proposition that the administration was unhappy with his behavior maybe a bit dubious. 

On the other hand, he did write that C&D letter to Uber.  Mitch can't have liked that very much. 

The bead trees are so hard to look at during the offseason

Here is a well known St. Charles Avenue Bead Myrtle in full bloom just after Carnival.



And here it is during the summer months when it's growing some other crap.

What, then, was the point?

The "Kill the Lawsuit" bill does not appear to have actually killed the lawsuit.

The attorneys will definitely challenge this bill on several grounds. Let me name just two:

First, Act 544 does prohibit “local government entities” — except for parishes — from suing over any oil-related damages in the coastal zone. However, a local government entity has a very precise legal definition, and that definition does not fit the flood authority. So the bill actually does not prohibit the flood authority from suing. That is a very strong argument that the attorneys will make.

Obviously there's more to Barry's post there but the highlighted part is what's interesting to me.  It suggests the bill's authors may not have had the levee board lawsuit in mind specifically even if that was the ostensible reasoning behind the bill. 

"Suspicions grew"

Stacey Jackson pleaded guilty Wednesday to accepting kickbacks from contractors her non-profit hired to do remediation work that was never actually performed on flood damaged homes after Katrina.

Jackson, 47, was the focus of prosecutors' five-year investigation of the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership program, the troubled non-profit that she ran as its executive director. She eventually became another black eye for Nagin, whom a jury convicted of 20 corruption charges in February. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 9.

NOAH wasn't only "another black eye for Nagin" amid the various instances of corruption for which he was prosecuted. (Nagin wasn't charged with anything relating to NOAH anyway.)  It was the moment at which the local press.. and possibly federal investigators.. started to take these kinds of allegations against the Nagin administration seriously.

It's remarkably difficult to put yourself back in that time even now but back in 2007-2008 the conventional wisdom communicated through the daily news about Nagin was still wrapped up in his image as an innovative, reforming, businessman... an image the Times-Picayune had invested much in crafting and selling to voters in 2002.

Ray Nagin was a largely unknown businessman who was polling at 2 percent in his campaign for mayor before The Times-Picayune editorial board, of which I was and am a member, endorsed his candidacy. The endorsement, which was printed earlier than usual, helped give the erstwhile long shot some legitimacy.

The already revised history tells us the turning point came when Nagin delivered his stupid (but also overblown and misunderstood)  "Chocolate City" speech on MLK Day in 2006.   And it's true that this was a political turning point for Nagin.  It signaled a new and more populist reelection strategy as Nagin surely knew many of his moneyed, white backers "some people Uptown" were about to abandon him. But the press was considerably slower to turn on him.

And by "turn on him" I mean give credence to the mounting evidence that the phony they created out of whole cloth was... well.. a phony.

But, as the story says here, "suspicions grew."

Federal agents stormed NOAH's offices in August 2008 as suspicions grew that little to no work had been done at hundreds of properties assigned to the agency. What followed led to guilty pleas from four contractors, including Jackson's cousin, Richard Hall. Hall stood accused of stealing $117,000 from NOAH while performing few of the house repairs he was hired to do. He admitted his guilt in 2012, but he did not admit kicking cash back to Jackson.

How and when did the suspicions grow?  Not relevant to the story, apparently.  But for fun,  let's check the other paper to see if they know.

Jackson’s crimes were committed while she was serving as director of New Orleans Affordable Homeownership, a city-supported nonprofit program that Nagin made the centerpiece of an anti-blight campaign.

The agency hired private companies to gut and board up some of the tens of thousands of properties damaged in Katrina and its aftermath. Media reports at the time revealed that many of the properties the city had paid to remediate in fact got little or no attention and remained in shockingly bad condition.

Rather than acknowledging the problems in the city-administered grant program, Nagin reacted angrily toward the news media as critical stories unspooled, a move that did lasting damage to his relationship with the public. His image was tarnished further by the fact that his brother-in-law, Cedric Smith, was a leading contractor for NOAH, although Smith never was charged with any wrongdoing.

"Media reports at the time" likely refers to the WWLTV's investigation of NOAH.  Lee Zurik in particular seemed to get under the Mayor's skin. It was to WWL cameras that Nagin made his famous "cold cocking" threat.  Zurik deserves the credit he's received for picking up and running with this story. It's the story that made his reputation as an investigative journalist; one he still trades on today.

But Zurik didn't "break" the NOAH story.  Then-amateur investigator Karen Gadbois did. The WWLTV series became a collaboration between Zurik and Karen and a few researchers working with her Nagin would later deride as "council sponsored college students turned spies." (scroll down to page 7 of this PDF)



Karen would go on to jump into professionalism herself and found The Lens which still sort of does some spying despite appearing to be out of money lately. (Must have lost that council sponsorship. You can help with that.)

It's a shame, though, that the critical role she and her associated "dangerous people of the internet," as Advocate publisher John Georges calls them, played in the unraveling of the Ray Nagin myth seems to have been written out of the official history.

Update: Turns out NOLA Defender credited Karen Gadbois. Good on them. 

Drew Brees of policing

I had forgotten that Mitch Landrieu introduced Chief Serpas to New Orleans as that.

“Now we have the Drew Brees of police chiefs. We didn't get the best police chief in New Orleans. We got the best police chief in the country,” Landrieu said.

I was only reminded of that cartoon by this statement from PANO President Mike Glasser  issued via Facebook this afternoon. (Aside: Organizations really need to stop using Facebook posts as their primary communications platform. It's lazy and also limiting.  Share your stuff there, sure. But put it on your own website, please.)

I can't agree with everything Glasser says here.  I think the consent decree reform is necessary and I think the Mayor is right to look for ways the city can avoid having local taxpayers shoulder its entire cost wherever possible.  But Glasser makes some points that are worth taking seriously. Particularly this.

Four years ago, the Mayor stood at Gallier Hall and announced the appointment of the “Drew Brees of Policing” as our Superintendent. The Superintendent then put forth and imposed strategies and plans and realignment of resources, picking the “best and brightest” to lead and ignoring the Civil Service safeguards which included competitive testing and vetting. As a result, two years ago the Police Association of New Orleans informed the sitting City Council that these strategies and plans were counterproductive, that crime was rising. Further, these strategies were creating a morale issue which was driving an unrelenting and catastrophic attrition. We implored the City Council to step in. They did not. The Mayor claimed it was a handful of disgruntled officers and not the opinion of the general rank and file of the NOPD. A legitimate survey by Tulane University staff proved that to be wrong, but the Mayor remained in denial. And here we are, two years later, and regrettably as predicted, 500 officers short, and losing one officer every 60 hours. They had four years to reform the NOPD and it's been reformed..... into a faltering organization that the Mayor concedes can no longer effectively police its own city.

This is essentially about the Landrieu-Serpas approach to management. It prefers Great Leaders and "efficient" (more with less) systems rather than supporting line employees who do the actual work.  It's a good sell for a politician or a professional administrator.  From their points of view, everything is about them.  Let's go on TV and introduce our Drew Brees guy. He'll get in there and kick some butts.  Respecting people and giving them what they need to do a better job, though, is harder and less sexy.

Mitch and Serpas say terrible things to camera, probably

Press conference about the weekend shooting.  Watch here if you can stand it.

Not exactly a do-over after all

Figured there had to be some sort of re-shuffle in the works.  Otherwise, what would have been the point?

A shake-up in the organization of one of the ventures vying to build Louis Armstrong International Airport’s new terminal has bumped one of the state’s largest minority-owned engineering firms up to a full partner in the project, while dropping a firm that had been a source of controversy.

When the team that had been organized as Parsons Odebrecht submits a proposal for the $546.5 million terminal next month, it will do so as NOLA Airport Builders, a new joint venture that now includes a seat for Royal Engineers and Consultants at the head of the table and leaves out Woodward Design+Build.

That reorganization seems aimed at shoring up the company’s weak points even as it doubles down on the themes that received a positive reception the first time it faced off against Hunt Gibbs Boh Metro, a competing joint venture that includes several local firms.

July

Hot.  Damn hot.  Gonna get hotter.  Also nature is pretty much just all up in your face.



Don't go outside if you know what's good for you.

Free-riderdom isn't free

Well, OK, maybe it is a little bit moreso now.

The Supreme Court dealt a limited blow to organized labor on Monday by ruling that some government employees did not have to pay any fees to the unions representing them. But the court declined to strike down a decades-old precedent that required many public sector workers to pay union fees. Writing for the 5-to-4 majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. concluded that there was a category of government employees — a partial public employee — who can opt out of joining a union and not be required to contribute union fees.

Not quite as bad as it could have been, from the looks of it. 

Count the days that we have wasted from the start

Here are some notable anniversaries that passed during the month of June.  I meant to mention them sooner but I've had a busy month.

Happy 10th anniversary to Antigravity Magazine.

If you're of a certain age, you might remember a time when the only "music scene" in New Orleans anyone ever wrote about seriously consisted of 1) The sorts of acts old white people RVed in from Wisconsin and bought Jazzfest tickets to go see. And 2) That's about it.

And if you're a bit younger or maybe just recently arrived to New Orleans you'll know that not a whole lot has changed.  But also now there's Antigravity.  Here's a list of blurbs from some of their contributors over the years.  This quote is from Leigh.

While much of New Orleans and its visitors has been stunned by the spotlight on more traditional local culture, such an environment has allowed Antigravity to stealthily arrive and thrive in this town for ten years now, raising a raucous— sometimes downright unruly—yet always relevant voice on what has been deemed “alternative” culture. That Antigravity is predominantly a free paper first and foremost in a time seeing the rise of virtual media makes it all the more precious as a cultural touchstone, a small, potent remnant of DIY zinedom available in many locations around town.

"Alternative culture" doesn't accurately describe Antigravity's beat, though.  Those words imply a kind of pretentious affected otherness that, frankly, sounds more to me like the imagined New Orleans experience that Jazzfest visitors are looking for when they buy their vacation packages.

But there's no phony exoticism  in AG.  It's just a music magazine. But it's a magazine about New Orleans music rather than about New Orleans Music^TM. And  that, in this increasingly tourism obsessed city and media market, is what makes it seem like an "alternative" publication.

Happy 20th anniversary to a great rock album.

I drone on and on about how great GBV is so I'll try to avoid that here. Although I will borrow a great quote from David Giffels's book about  the rust belt that Leigh highlights in her Antigravity blurb. 

“Rock and roll needs a void, and we had that, in abundance. We had empty garages and basements and warehouses, and great stretches of empty time, and—most important—no one paying attention.”

GBV is very much a product of the declining post-industrial midwest Giffels is writing about.  The mythology and appeal of the band; middle aged school teacher creates a sort of alternate universe of rock history in his basement with his drinking buddies;  is tied to the idea of, not so much escaping that scene, but  persevering and making it your own even if there is "no one paying attention."

Leigh is right to connect that ethos with the antediluvian New Orleans that spawned Antigravity back in 2004. Were the New Orleans and Ohio of that time, "parallel lines on a slow decline"? It's a hard thing to see from here.  There's a contrast between that time and the seemingly "vibrant" New New Orleans you might read about today. Much of the New NOLA  is an illusion of course, but sorting that out is beyond the scope of this post.  For those of us who came of age in the slowly fading New Orleans of 90s and early 00s, there's some resonance in this music.  At least for me there is. 

Bee Thousand is actually the second GBV record I bought. it's also my second favorite but that's not important right now. The consensus of the critics is that it's the important one.  I got it at Paradise Records in Baton Rouge back in Nineteen Something And Five.

Here's a faux-listicle that actually breaks down the record quite well.

And here is the whole thing on YouTube.





And finally, Happy 20th Anniversary to this 1994 World Cup USA T-Shirt I wasn't sure I still had.  It's not exactly wearable but neither is my 20 year old car (Happy Birthday to that too!) and I keep that around for some reason. There's no rational reason to expect the US to move past Belgium on Tuesday.  But worrying about that sure beats arguing over Jimmy Graham's contract this week. 

Watch Lamar interview former Governor Edwin Edwards

Link!

I saw candidate Edwards in action a few months ago at a Loyola forum. Lamar asked him some of the same questions that came up there and his answers don't seem to have changed much.

The highlight of this for me is the way he frames the question of accepting the Medicaid expansion... a far more popular idea with Louisiana voters than Bobby Jindal's stubborn posturing might lead one to believe, by the way. Anyway Edwards says, basically, "Even if you are not a believer in the words of Jesus (that the sick should be cared for)... then look at it from the conservative point of view..."

He needs to keep running with that.  Anyway, go watch.

Heathers

The new bosses are always just a worse version of the old bosses.  Somehow we keep not figuring that out.

The theme is familiar to anyone who’s tried to join a country club or high-school clique. It’s not supposed to make sense. The Culture can’t really be written about; it has to be experienced. You are expected to conform to the rules of The Culture before you are allowed to demonstrate your actual worth. What wearing a suit really indicates is—I am not making this up—non-conformity, one of the gravest of sins. For extra excitement, the rules are unwritten and ever-changing, and you will never be told how you screwed up.

Clothing is the least of it. Your entire lifestyle and outside interests are under examination, as is your “commitment”. Say you’re asked out for coffee on short notice, which you decline because you’re busy. Is that a “ding”? Did that lose you the job? Who knows? Maybe it did. You’re still trying to figure out what they mean by “wowing” them. Should you ask? Maybe you’ll seem desperate if you ask. Oh, shit!

Again Max Levchin: “PayPal once rejected a candidate who aced all the engineering tests because for fun, the guy said that he liked to play hoops. That single sentence lost him the job.”

The obscurity and arbitrariness are very much by design, and is why explainer posts are supposed to be so valuable. Having engineered an unfair situation, insiders then offer secret guides to winning it.

Once upon a time, young go-getter douchebags wore suits to job interviews.  But that was "disrupted" by  a new kind of "culture fit" involving young go-getter douchebags who do not wear suits to job interviews.  And the difference is... what, exactly?

Well, mostly nothing of course, except nowadays the pressure to conform to the company culture can extend deep into the employee's personal and social life.  This happens for various reasons some having to do with popular fashion others having to do with the way technology has eroded personal privacy. 

But there comes a point where we have to decide where the boss's purview over our individual lifestyle choices ends. And we're pushing  the line in an uncomfortable direction. 

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom. It was, a dissent said, “a decision of startling breadth.”

The 5-to-4 ruling, which applied to two companies owned by Christian families, opened the door to many challenges from corporations over laws that they claim violate their religious liberty.

It's bad enough if failing the "culture fit" test means the company doesn't like to have coffee or play hoops with you. But sometimes it's also the company doesn't care for your unapproved fucking activities.  And, see, that's much more of an obvious downer but it's really the same principle at work. 

Something stupid

You may have noticed on Sunday that only one news story happened in the City Of New Orleans. 

When the gunfire stopped, surveillance footage showed, those who ventured back out to the suddenly deserted street found at least two people lying wounded on the ground and rushed to their aid.

It was two “cowardly” men arguing about “something stupid” who were responsible for the wounds to the nine victims, Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said at an afternoon news conference at the scene.

Maybe if we let the vigilante stalker dude parade his "Minutemen" around the Quarter none of this would have happened, right?  No, of course it would have happened just the way it did because an incidence of sudden gunfire on a crowded street is just as likely to happen regardless of who how many vigilantes there are. All it takes is "two cowardly men arguing about something stupid."  And if you're going to make that illegal then.. well good luck shutting down Twitter.

The same is true with regard to NOPD manpower but that won't stop every city official who cares to comment from clamoring for MORE POLICE EVERYWHERE.

City Council members Jared Brossett, Jason Williams and Nadine Ramsey considered the shootings a clarion call to turn a more critical eye toward management of the New Orleans Police Department. Ramsey has demanded an audit of the 8^th District's on-duty roster that night to determine how many cops were working near the 700 block of Bourbon when shots were fired at 2:45 a.m.

"Chief Serpas needs to answer that," said Ramsey, whose district includes the French Quarter. Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said Sunday that 25 officers were in the vicinity.

"I'm not clear what the number is," Ramsey said. "The audit will tell us how many officers are assigned to the 8^th District and how many were out in the field on that day."

In their defense it really is hard to resist the temptation to jump up and say a thing into the microphone in these situations.  Notice the three councilpersons offering immediate comment were the rookies. (CM Gray also issued a statement but it wasn't an excited call for more cops.) They'll probably learn.

Or maybe they won't.  Retired professional communicator Norman Robinson didn't. 

The answer to the violence in the French Quarter and the rest of the city is simple but we are afraid to face it. It's time to stop and frisk suspicious looking characters. To hell with the protest. Better frisked than dead. 

Ok, Norman. Please go back to bed. I wonder if he has a similar opinion about the DUI checkpoints..

Anyway, looks like dreams really do come true for these people.

NEW ORLEANS – State Police plan to increase their presence during the upcoming Essence Fesitval and they’ll also begin patrolling where they’re needed throughout the city of New Orleans for the rest of the summer.

The need for additional resources was magnified after the early morning shooting Sunday that left 10 people injured on Bourbon Street.

The cavalry is here. That'll make us all feel safer.

Anyway Serpas may or may not be right about this situation beginning with "cowards arguing about something stupid," but it should be obvious to everyone that it's definitely ending up that way.