Barbecue ain't a crime

Looks like Austin is having pretty much the same problem with smell that New Orleans is having with sound.

CITY COUNCIL meetings in Austin, Tex., tend to be droning, low-drama affairs, but that wasn’t the case earlier this month when barbecue was on the agenda: specifically, the smell of barbecue and a proposal to control it, in response to some citizen complaints.

The suggestion that a smell some would dab behind their ears if possible should be mitigated by special exhaust systems called smoke-scrubbers provoked local outrage, with opponents accusing the complainers of being from California (in Texas, that’s not a compliment).

But that’s the thing about smells. One person’s putrid is another person’s pleasant, and local governments around the country are having a hard time regulating what’s in the olfaction of the beholder.

Vincent Marcello's swimming pool causes a week of street flooding

That is, if you believe this bit about the re-interment of 250 year old bodies Marcello dug up in his courtyard.

Saturday morning’s rainfall also was analyzed through diverse lenses. “It’s a sacred day,” said drummer Luther Gray, who noted that, in African traditions, rain on the day of a funeral is symbolic of a sky opening to give blessings. In the Choctaw tradition, rain is seen as a purification, a washing away of the bad to allow the good to flourish.

Even the project that removed the bodies from the ground came from “the intent to bring water” — a swimming pool, said Reggie Diop Green, who performed a traditional African burial rite at St. Louis No. 1.

Which one will they pick?

Here is a breakdown of the legislature's options for dealing with the wasteful and destructive "Hollywood South" film tax credit program this session.  There are several bills they'll consider this week.  Pay special attention to J.P. Morrell's bill, though. 

Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, has spent considerable time studying the issue after creating the Louisiana Entertainment Industry Development Advisory Commission in 2013 to propose changes.

His Senate Bill 96 offers the most generous cap — $300 million per year. “But I’m not hard and fast on that figure,” he said.

Morrell doesn’t want to go much lower, though. “Capping the program at $200 million per year really sends the wrong message across the nation, especially to states that are competing with us or are looking to expand their programs,” he said.

Morrell has closely consulted with the film and motion picture industry but said he is not their favored legislator.

“When drafting my bills, I did my best to address the obvious issues and flaws in the program while still making it accessible to the film industry and Louisiana citizens to utilize the credit,” he said.

With other bills he has offered, Morrell would limit deductions on some expenses and would make it easier for the government to recover credits given to people caught defrauding the program by requiring all applicants to sign sworn affidavits beforehand. The sworn affidavit is intended to prevent a repeat of a case in which an independent auditor ordered the state in February to issue $6.5 million in credits to a man who had been convicted of swindling the film tax credit program.

The critical detail there among the gobbledy-gook is the $300 million cap.  $300 million is actually a 20 percent increase over the program's maximum annual  cost so far. This means Morrell proposes to use the controversy surrounding the program  as an opportunity to expand it rather than reign it in. I'm guessing this is the bill most likely to pass.

In other words he's a liar and so is she

Here are a couple of videos concerning the 12 nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations.  This week, Congress is poised to grant an eventual agreement "fast-track" authority, meaning they will essentially concede their prerogative to amend the details of a deal the President has largely negotiated in secret.

If that sounds shady to you, it's because it is. Here's a cute short video of Robert Reich drawing cartoons to sum up the troubling aspects of the TPP.



And here is a much more in-depth discussion from a few years ago with Bill Moyers, Dean Baker, and Yves Smith.



That's a must-watch video for a lot of reasons, not the least of them being the part where Moyers pronounces the name of Smith's site, "Nekkid Capitialism."   One especially crucial point concerns President Obama's seeming 180 degree reversal from the skepticism of international "free trade" agreements like TPP and NAFTA he expressed during the 2008 campaign.  Here's how that goes.

BILL MOYERS: What do you suppose is the influence on President Obama that caused him to reverse course on NAFTA and not fulfill what was a campaign pledge?

DEAN BAKER: Well, I think it's the nature of politics in the United States. I mean, it's not a secret. You know, you have very powerful politically, economically-- people who, you know, are pushing for this. And you know, we saw this with Wall Street, you know, when President Obama first came into office. You know, at that point, you know, Wall Street is on its back, meaning the financial industry.

And basically President Obama had it in his ability to break up the big banks, totally restructure finance, he decided not to go that route. And his top advisors, well Robert Rubin, played an enormous role, you know, as the top executive at Citigroup and formerly Goldman Sachs.

He was not going to go that route because these are the people he was listening to. And I think that's continued to be the pattern throughout his administration, that's he's listening to people with a corporate interest, he was just talking about there. Those are the people who are steering the policy.

YVES SMITH: I mean, I'd go a little bit further than Dean on that. In that when you look at Obama's record of his campaign promises versus what he's actually done, there's sort of a normal, acceptable level of political lying, and Obama has gone way past what is historically the normal in terms of, you know, politician fudging and then doing something else when they've been in office. This is just another example.

BILL MOYERS: Do you buy Dean's argument that it is the power of Wall Street? That it is--

YVES SMITH: I think Obama's fundamentally a very conservative person. The idea that he ran as the anti-Bush because the country was desperate for somebody other than Bush. So he sold what would sell. But he's liberal on social issues, but economically, he's not very different than the Republicans.

Also not very different from the Republicans (perhaps even less different than Obama) on crucial economic issues is presumed 2016 Democratic Party Presidential annointee Hillary Clinton.  Amazingly, the serious political press continues to treat the known quantity Hillary as though she has yet to reveal a position on TPP.

As she launches a 2016 presidential campaign in which she seems to be interested in grabbing the banner of economic populism—going so far as to complain in her announcement video about how “the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top”—Clinton can and should stake out a clear position in opposition to granting President Obama Trade Promotion Authority to negotiate a sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Despite overwhelming opposition from labor, farm, environmental, and social-justice groups, Congress is preparing to consider whether to provide Obama with the “fast track” authority he seeks to construct a “free trade” deal linking the North American and Asian nations of the Pacific Rim. Imagine the North American Free Trade Agreement on steroids and you get a sense of what is at stake. Yet, so far, Clinton’s office has offered only a statement about how she is “watching closely” as the debate evolves and a suggestion that she wants “greater prosperity and security for American families, not trade for trade’s sake.”

That’s not a clear commitment one way or the other on fast track or the TPP. And the coming congressional debate demands clear commitments not just from members of the House and Senate but from those who seek the presidency.

And that article comes to us from the serious liberal press where even there we find credulous writers asking a known corporate shill to tell them another pretty lie.  As long as we're happy with that, our politics is going to remain essentially meaningless.

Thanks, BP

Norman Francis treasures his relationship with you.

Marine Blizzard

Norman Francis says it's all better now, though. So thank you, BP.

The problem with the sticky mix is not only that it suffocates life forms, she said. The BP oil droplets also still contain tiny amounts of toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. If exposed to air at the ocean's surface or onshore, those chemicals might quickly evaporate or decompose, she said. But a mile below the Gulf surface, where there's low light, cold temperatures, and limited oxygen, the PAHs are surviving.

"There seems to be something about the matrix that is also not amenable to microbial oxidation" of the PAHs, she said. "We have yet to come up with a good explanation about why it isn't degrading."

Five years after the spill, deepwater coral continue to be affected, she said.

"Every time we've gone out, we've documented more limb loss and mortality," Joye said "It's a chronic problem. It's not just an acute, one-time exposure and the damage is done."

Bobby is doing OK

People think nobody likes him. But that's only really true in Louisiana and, as Bobby clearly demonstrates that he knows, Louisiana doesn't really count.  

Two new polls out this week on the race for the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nomination offer a mixed bag for Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

In New Hampshire, a Public Policy Polling survey found Jindal had one of the best favorability ratings of all the possible candidates that respondents were asked about.

“He may be someone to keep a closer eye on moving forward,” PPP concludes.

Think about it in terms of this analysis of Hillary vs the GOP field from earlier in the week.

The ones who are at least relatively well-known are much less popular. The ones who are close to her net approval are close to unknown. The best takeaway for the GOP is that Rubio and Walker are basically unknown and thus don't bring a lot of negatives with them. But still, for an age of extreme partisan polarization, Clinton is pretty popular.

It's becoming more widely understood now that Jeb Bush is in no way a foregone conclusion for the GOP nomination.  Walker and Rubio have more room to grow as they get a chance to introduce themselves. They have their weaknesses, of course. Rubio is not exactly popular with hispanics outside of the Florida Cuban exile community.  Walker is a tremendous douchebag. But neither of them is really any better off than Jindal excepting the fact that their names are slightly more familiar nationally right now.  That can and will change once the campaigning begins in earnest. (Hell, Bobby hasn't even announced his candidacy yet.)
 
Not saying Bobby is gonna win the thing. Just that he's doing pretty okay right now.

I know I keep saying so but I swear I've got a lot more on this soon. 

"There is something to be said for relationships in Louisiana"

It's easy to point out villains amongst the petty corruption of elected officials, or the offenses of a bullying, abusive police force, or the salaciousness of celebrity murderers and rapists.  There are monsters everywhere.

But the worst people in New Orleans come from the "respectable" club of paternal figures who run interference for their powerful monster friends.  The monsters run the club, of course. But they keep people like Norman Francis handy specifically for this purpose. 

There is something to be said for relationships in Louisiana. In the early years of my presidency at Xavier University, we had a vision for national expansion while remaining a major contributor in the New Orleans academic and civic communities. Our strategic approach included reaching out to build relationships with successful corporations to engage their collaboration and support. One of the early calls I made was to BP, and I was encouraged to find that it was eager to partner with us. That relationship began nearly 33 years ago and remains strong today!

There are many more like Francis in New Orleans.  They happen when a person decides he or she can do some good by being in the club and thus gaining "access" to the halls of power rather than do a lot of good by tearing down those halls altogether. This is always the immoral choice. It always serves to perpetuate and excuse the worst of the status quo.

But for the individuals who make this choice, it is quite comfortable. For them, it is the key to office, to seats on important boards, to fawning op-eds, and loving cups.  Hell, sometimes there are actual crowns involved. This is really all the ambitious climbers among us want out of life, anyway.  It's the "respectable" life.  There really is "something to be said for relationships in Louisiana." Norman Francis knows all about that.

If a "respectable" person is telling you to leave his monster friends aloonnee, just know that that person is not really respectable. They are, in fact, the worst people in town.

Dear Judge Carville

Please receive the contents of this envelope I am faxing to you on behalf of Harrah's Casino Inc.

Harrah's Casino and many French Quarter bars and clubs have filed a suit against the City of New Orleans to halt the impending smoking ban set to take effect April 22. The suit was filed in Civil District Court, which has set a hearing date for the case on May 21. The court, however, denied Harrah's request for a restraining order that aimed to stop the ordinance before it was to take effect

It might be time to pull the film tax credit

Filmed in Orleans Parish Criminal Court:

James Carville shot a pilot for a New Orleans-based "Judge Judy"-style TV court show last year, though "Carville's Court" apparently isn't going forward. The project came to light Thursday (April 16) in an exchange of Sony Pictures Television emails released by Wikileaks, and first reported Friday by Politico.com.

"We did this, and it didn't work out," Carville said Friday. "I liked the people. It would've been fun."

Thank God for Wikileaks. Otherwise how would America know that, yes, there were even worse ideas than The Governor's Wife which could have also been greenlighted.

Anyway, the Louisiana Legislature is considering scaling back its sprawling, corruption-ridden, wasteful Hollywood South tax credit.  And now we know Carville and his friends got their share of the loot while they could. 

Here are some kale and quinoa salads in a bucket on ice

There is also some Thai chicken.



I saw this today on display on top of a bar in a basically empty and quiet room.  Nobody seemed to want any.  I couldn't figure out if it was supposed to be some sort of art installation. 

The story of our lifetime

American wages peaked in 1972.  

Adjusted for inflation, average weekly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees–the bulk of the workforce–topped out in October 1972, according to the Labor Department. In today’s dollar, that weekly paycheck was the equivalent of about $811, compared with just under $703 a week last month.

I was born in 1974.  Older people's perspectives might be different but my entire life, growing up, being educated, coming to terms with how the world works, has all taken place within the context of long steady decay.  For as long as I have been conscious of the world around me, the theme has been, "Things used to be getting better but now they are getting worse." 

Nobody my age or younger has any tangible reason to expect differently.  That worries me. Especially since my generation is getting to be the olds now. If this is everyone's perspective, it makes for a pessimistic, defeatist politics.  And by that I mean a cynical politics where even the guys selling the "Hope"  and "Change" actually are not selling those things at all and everyone knows it. Which, of course, is what we have. How do we pull out of such a cycle?

Hotels on LaSalle St.

That's what it says, right?

Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, whose district includes Central City, introduced an amendment that would establish the LaSalle Street Overlay District between Washington and Louisiana avenues. She said the five-block stretch has the potential to become the next Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, which has experienced significant commercial growth in the past several years.

The LaSalle Street overlay is designed to promote businesses catering to the cultural arts and live entertainment as well as hotels, similar to what was done on Freret Street. Adult-themed businesses and karaoke bars would not be permitted.

The main benefit of the proposal would be to pave the way for the redevelopment of the historic Dew Drop Inn into a boutique hotel and live music venue, Cantrell said.

"This is a part of the history of the city of New Orleans, and the uses that are being proposed are those consistent with how the Dew Drop Inn was operated in the past, particularly prior to the civil rights movement and in the Jim Crow south," she said.

Weird. I know this isn't what they mean to say but that almost reads like we are deliberately planning to go back to Jim Crow times.   Then again, when you plan to put a "boutique hotel" and entertainment district where just a few years back you forcibly removed public housing residents, you can kind of see the consistency in that.

Bizarro Grand-Birtherism

Bobby wants to see Hillary's grandparents' birth certificates because he thinks maybe they are too American.

Maybe just trade every pick for a veteran

B&G Review gives us a useful breakdown of what we might reasonably expect from the NFL draft.  First here is the good news.

Including the last three drafts, the Saints have the best pretty-okay-or-better player hit rate in the NFL. Not including the last three drafts, the Saints still have the best pretty-okay-or-better player hit rate in the NFL. The median 2003-2011 hit rate was 29.1 percent, and the Saints beat that mark by quite a lot.

In so many words, a third or so of NFL draft picks turn into players who are pretty okay or better, and the Saints rank first.

The Saints have the best odds in the NFL of coming away from a draft with one (maybe two) of the very small number of available players who are even worth a damn in the first place.  That's the good news.

Then there is some further discussion about what that good news statistic might or might not mean. I'm not exactly on board with the B&G company policy of drafting a bunch of defensive players but that's a different post. This one is very good, regardless. I'll let you read through it.

But then comes the bad news. 

Since 2003, 496 of 3028 NFL rookies have started at least ten games. That’s 16 percent. The percentage of players who start fewer than ten games but contribute otherwise is higher. For example, 33 percent of NFL rookies have appeared in all 16 games of their first season, in some role or another, a number that approaches the Saints’ overall draft hit rate under Mickey Loomis.

The Saints have about a one in three shot per draft pick of finding the immediate contributors for the 2015 season that they need.

The Saints are trying to get a lot better real fast before Drew Brees retires.  We know he thinks that's going to be another nine years from now but, realistically, it's probably three at the most. Drew Brees this year is about as old as Ken Stabler was when he became the Saints' quarterback. There isn't a lot of time left.

With that in mind, the chances of getting a lot better real fast by drafting players are pretty slim. You're probably not going to find even one who becomes a starter. You're definitely not going to find anyone who immediately turns your whole defense around.. if we assume this is the goal.  (I'm not convinced of this but, again, that's another post.)

So rather than pull nine raffle tickets for a chance at getting probably 3 "pretty okay" players two or three years from now, why not just trade them all for nine Parys Haralsons now?  No need to take a flier on a potential superstar nobody has time to develop.

Settling the major issues of the day

Yeah, whatever, Brett.  Fried seafood is delicious. Arrange it on your plate in whatever way makes you most happy.

A little early for handicapping mayors

This is a very Politico article by Tyler Bridges. It's a pretty good profile of LaToya Cantrell's rise in city politics born out of post-Katrina neighborhood activism.  But, its headline reads, "LaToya Cantrell, Madame Mayor?"  The article really isn't about Cantrell's mayoral chances, though.  I'm assuming Bridges didn't write the headline. 

He does drop some unsubtle hints, though.

This, in a nutshell, is LaToya Cantrell—the most interesting up-and-coming elected official in New Orleans today. Now that Landrieu is a lame duck—he’s term-limited and his tenure ends in 2018—Cantrell has attracted enough notice that she is frequently mentioned as a possible successor. But she gets a little shaken up when people refer to her as a politician.

Is LaToya Cantrell, really "the most interesting man in the world" in New Orleans today? Hmm, well, it's a little early to start handicapping mayors. But if we really are starting to think about the 2018 election in 2015, this article is a good one to bookmark.

How many more?

We've been drilling for oil out in Gulf for a very long time.  Sometimes when a rig blows up and oil gets all over everything, it makes news for a while.  Other times it does not. 

An Associated Press investigation has revealed evidence that the spill is far worse than what Taylor — or the government — have publicly reported during their secretive, and costly, effort to halt the leak. Presented with AP’s findings, that the sheen recently averaged about 91 gallons of oil per day across eight square miles, the Coast Guard provided a new leak estimate that is about 20 times greater than one recently touted by the company.

Outside experts say the spill could be even worse — possibly one of the largest ever in the Gulf.

Taylor’s oil was befouling the Gulf for years in obscurity before BP’s massive spill in mile-deep water outraged the nation in 2010. Even industry experts haven’t heard of Taylor’s slow-motion spill, which has been leaking like a steady trickle from a faucet, compared to the fire hose that was BP’s gusher.

The Taylor spill is a curiosity because it's a bit large to have received so little attention.  But the fact is spills that we never hear about happen all the time.

A recent Department of Justice case offers a glimpse into a practice that some industry workers say is commonplace in offshore operations. The case revealed that one Gulf-based oil company failed to report a major spill it was responsible for in 2009, and had some of its workers “collect” fake water samples so that federal authorities would think no contamination occurred.


Houston-based W&T Offshore pleaded guilty in January to not alerting federal authorities about its 2009 oil spill near the Louisiana coast. Company officials also admitted to doctoring water samples taken from spill areas.

New Orleans WWL-TV investigative reporter David Hammer found from unsealed U.S. Justice Department records that W&T filtered “oil out of the water samples that were sent into a lab and recorded with the federal government. Meanwhile, the water they were dumping back into the Gulf on a constant basis stayed contaminated.”

The feudal sharing economy

At least they're starting to admit who they are.

The "vision" of Mr Brian Chesky, the celebrated CEO of the other billionaire new kid on the block of the sharing economy: AirBnb, comes very close to this new feudalism. That's what he said in an interview reported by Venture Beat: "In essence, Brian Chesky wants a world more like the villages of old: highly trusting and filled with micro-entrepreneurs who shared their assets to make a living. Cities used to be generally villages, and everyone was essentially kind of like an entrepreneur,” he told a packed room at the Atlantic Aspen Ideas Festival. “You were either a farmer, or you worked in the city as a blacksmith, or you had some kind of trade. And then the Industrial Revolution happened". Just put the word "serf" where he uses "entrepreneur", and you've got the whole picture. He likes this world so much, this is our bright future in his vision, with the multitude being those micro serfs depending on the moods of the Lord of the Village, Brian Chesky himself of course

Today the front pages of your local newspapers are trumpeting the city council's recent licensing of UberX to operate in Orleans Parish.  Everyone is very gung-ho.

City officials have said they would be able to start processing applications from ride-hailing services as soon as the regulations become law.

“We are stepping out of our comfort zone and leading on a cutting-edge issue,” Councilman Jared Brossett, who drafted the regulations along with Councilwoman Susan Guidry, said in a statement. “This law strikes the right balance. It serves the needs of our citizens and visitors in adding a new high-tech model to complement our traditional for-hire industry. The bottom line is that this will lead to a strengthened transportation environment for all.”

But the so-called Sharing Economy is, by its very nature, not built to "serve the needs of our citizens."  Unless, you limit your concept of "our citizens" to the very wealthy which Susan Guidry and Jared Brossett very well might. 

Covering the latest app has become commonplace because it’s the latest thing, and therefore it must be cool and life-changing. While it’s “cool” to most of the world, it’s only “life-changing” to those who can shell out the cash for the lifestyle—which is a lot of the journalists writing about them.

Matter’s Lauren Smiley, who lives in the building in which her story is set, referred to these apps’ users as members of the “Shut-In Economy.” The piece describes them as aware of their #whitepeopleproblems, but unapologetically so. “Basically, people a lot like herself,” Smiley wrote, referring to a woman who epitomized this new economy: the class of men and women who are late 20s to early 30s, have a high income and use on-demand services without batting an eye. “That’s the common wisdom: The apps are created by the urban young for the needs of urban young.” Last week, New York Magazine’s Annie Lowrey took it a step further and lived with only these modern conveniences for two weeks. Her piece was slapped with a painfully tone-deaf headline: “Will the New Concierge Economy Mean the End of the Errand?"

Of course not. For the vast majority of us, the inconvenience of running errands doesn’t outweigh the financial costs of doing it ourselves.

High income 20 and 30 somethings. Those are the only people who have any representation in city government these days. Even if those aren't the people who actually live here, they do comprise the population New Orleans's political class aspires to represent.  We've only been slightly more successful than Baton Rouge at affecting this demographic change.  But just look at how sad it makes them.

The parish's birth rate and international migration basically carried the area's population growth. And according to Louisiana demographer Elliott, Stonecipher, that's not good.

International migration, it's safe to assume, is mostly derived from Latin America, he said -- mainly from Mexico. These newcomers mostly work in low-wage jobs, and in many cases are not in the country legally. Therefore, they pay little or no taxes.

"That's why you hear politicians (talk of attracting) quality in-migrants," Stonecipher said. "It's not a value judgment."

Leaders of most metropolitans, and especially in Baton Rouge, actively seek to attract young, educated professionals who are currently busting at the seams in places like Austin, Texas, to grow and maintain their tax base.

While population data for Baton Rouge might appear to reflect younger, quality migrants, Stonecipher said it's not likely the case. Hispanic migrants tend to be younger and of childbearing age, so international migration growth can be easily confused to suggest growth of quality, domestic migrants.

You really have to feel for these "metropolitan leaders." They're trying to select a better quality of people to serve but keep ending up with all these dang Mexicans.  This is literally the complaint they are making. Seems like democracy was supposed to work the other way around. But who knows anymore.

In any case, they're probably too quick to dismiss their competitive advantage since "concierge apps" are only possible when you have a ready supply of cheap and desperate labor to feed them.

There are still only twenty-four hours in a day. When “downtime” is turned into work time, and that work time is unpredictable and low-paid, what happens to personal relationships? Family? One’s own health?

Other proponents of on-demand work point to studies, such as one recently commissioned by Uber, showing Uber’s on-demand workers to be “happy.”

But how many of them would be happier with a good-paying job offering regular hours?

An opportunity to make some extra bucks can seem mighty attractive in an economy whose median wage has been stagnant for thirty years and almost all of whose economic gains have been going to the top.

That doesn’t make the opportunity a great deal. It only shows how bad a deal most working people have otherwise been getting.

And maybe this is the future of regionalism in South Louisiana.  Nobody actually lives in Orleans Parish but it's a swell place to vacation (or own property if you can afford it.)  So get yourself to NOLA, luxury citizen! While you're there you can call on a vast army of chauffeurs and errand do-ers to keep you comfortable simply by punching some buttons on your phone. They live just outside the city or just up I-10 a bit.

Of course, when you do get here,  you'll need a place to stay and/or rent out at too damn high prices.  The city council is working on that for you too.

This pension will self destruct

Just like, say, a Snapchat message.

City Finance Director Norman Foster, who has been a voice for skepticism on the NOMERS board, questioned whether the pension fund, anyone else for that matter, could predict the future.

In the 1990s, a Mesirow fund of funds saw returns in the single digits when massively overvalued tech startups tanked. Whose to say the current fund wont tank in a similar way, Foster said.

Snapchat, as a privately held company, doesn't have to disclose much about its business, so not clear what, if any, revenue stream it has. It's a free service that doesn't even, as yet, sell much advertising. The company's gaudy valuation is based entirely on the assumption that the it will be able to monazite its user network, which is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.
"How much was Snapchat valued at," Foster asked.

"Nineteen billion," DeBolt replied.

"And how much revenue did it make last year," Foster continued.

DeBolt demurred. "That's confidential, but you can guess that it's a pretty small number."

If that's not a bubble, Foster said, then nothing is.

Pension funds should never ever ever be invested in high risk tech stocks like this.  Unless the goal is to end up with decades long lawsuits on their hands, like this one.  Or unless you don't actually care whether or not the fund can support pensions over the long term which is probably the case.

More creeping feudalism

The machinery of law enforcement is being put to the task of extorting people for the benefit of private partners.

The suit, filed by the Southern Center for Human Rights, charges that Red Hills Community Probation conspired with local police in two small Georgia towns to jail poor people without any court approval or legal authority, effectively holding them for ransom.

The plaintiffs, who live in Bainbridge and Pelham, GA, were ordered by the court to pay exorbitant fees for misdemeanor offenses. Edwards pleaded guilty to burning leaves, while others were told they needed to pay hundreds of dollars for speeding, failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, and driving with a suspended registration.

At this point, these stories are reminiscent of reports coming out of Ferguson and the surrounding area, where municipalities exploit a murky labyrinth of court fees and traffic tickets to make money off poor defendants. But private probation companies like Red Hills, which are used by more than 1,000 court systems in ten states, further feed on these moneymaking schemes by tacking on their own share of fees. In Pelham and Bainbridge, the suit alleges, the probation firm went even further, committing false imprisonment and fraud, among other charges.

This is actually the rare public policy area where Jefferson Parish is actually doing better than much of the country at this point.  But only because they've learned the hard way.

Get em coming and going

The drama of frequent environmental disaster in Louisiana sure does make for good theater. But it's not really even the source of the deep trauma.  That comes later as the victims are slowly taken advantage of over a period of many years after the event. 

So if you really know what you're doing, you'll get your people in on both sides of that business.

I believe Connie M. Easterly is the former, possibly current, wife of Shelby Easterly.  I don't know if this officially constitutes a conflict of interest but I would think it should have been disclosed to the court before he applied for the Special Master position.  

But then again, in this state a judge could get caught in the sack with a juror and it would be overlooked.  Now a judge, a prosecuting attorney and a juror....that ménage à trois may raise eyebrows...maybe.  

Also note that Calvin Fayard was formerly a law partner of one of Texas Brine's current attorneys,  James E. "Jimmy" Kuhn.  Kuhn also served as a judge for Louisiana's First Circuit Court of Appeals.

QOTD

Soon to be retired Senator Harry Reid is going into fuck all y'all mode.

“I don't really care,” he said, when asked about the GOP field. “I think they're all losers."

Reid said McConnell, the Senate GOP leader, thinks coal is “the salvation of the world.”

Reid told  CNBC  that he wouldn’t criticize McConnell for sending a letter to governors saying that the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate regulations were illegal.

“I don’t criticize McConnell for doing that,” Reid said. “He comes from a coal state. I don’t mean to be mean spirited, but he is a lump of coal. He believes that coal is the salvation of the world. I don’t believe that.”

We've reached peak offseason

Here's your Saints weird project player story for 2015.

Former Xavier University forward Sydney Coleman has dumped dunking - his favorite basketball feat - in favor of a new sport - a switch which if successful, will allow him to follow the unorthodox NFL path of All-Pro tight end Jimmy Graham.

Coleman wants to play for the New Orleans Saints.

He worked out for the Saints in late March, and is scheduled to showcase what he’s learned in a Friday workout. Coleman’s improvements, if substantial, could earn him an invitation to Saints mini camp.

Yeah that's not happening. Probably. 

Meanwhile actual basketball season is either over or not tonight. You'd better watch or else someone is bound to lecture you about bad fandom or something.

Creeping feudalism

The local sheriffs are looking more and more to the nobility for support.

While it's difficult to nail down just how prevalent it is for big money donors to serve as reserve officers with local law enforcement agencies, there is some anecdotal evidence. Consider one of the more infamous band of law enforcement reservists in the country: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's posse of some 3,000 volunteer deputies.

The Arizona Attorney General's Office in 2011 was investigating Arpaio's chief deputy, David Hendershott, for allegedly receiving a discount on a lease in a mall owned by a developer named Steve Ellman, The Arizona Republic reported. Ellman happened to be a captain in one of Arpaio's posses who'd also donated $25,000 to a political action committee that ran attack ads against the sheriff's 2008 election opponent, according to the report.

There's also been a notable recent report of a "pay-to-play" reserve unit in Michigan. The tiny village of Oakley, Michigan made local headlines when it came to light that its police chief had hired nearly 150 reserve officers, many of whom lived nowhere near Oakley and were among donors that contributed almost $200,000 to the town of just 300 residents.

An anonymous former reserve officer told the Detroit Free Press that reservists are not required to donate anything to the village. But each reserve officer pays $1,300 for a uniform, gun and armored vest and for the privilege of carrying firearms in public places where they are usually prohibited, even when off-duty, according to the report.

Also in New Orleans, we've allowed the local lords to outfit bands of knights with battle equipment (and smart phones).  So far they've gone around beating up on the peasants. Which, if you know anything about medieval history, you'll understand is pretty much going to be their function.

Manufactured nuissances

The smoking ban, in and of itself, is fairly obviously the correct thing to do.  At least if you care about healthy working conditions for service employees, it is.  But the external problem it's going to cause is.. well, it's going to be a problem.

Snake and Jake's, however, is a different story.

"I have nowhere to tell people to go outside to smoke," Clements said. "People tell me, 'It's no big deal. They can just go outside.' My bar gets busy from 2 in the morning until 7 or 8 in the morning, and I'm in a residential neighborhood. Even in the backyard, there are houses that butt right up there. It might be fine for Carrollton Station, which has a back patio. For me, it's going to be a real  problem."

"The locals, they're going to respect our neighbors," Rogers said. "When we have tourists in town ... those locals are going to remind people, if they get a little bit loud, to keep it down. They'll police themselves quite a bit. If that doesn't happen, we'll take steps to make sure people are aware."

Bars labeled a "nuisance" are subject to heavy fines and penalties from the city's Alcohol Beverage Control Board, and the Landrieu administration has cracked down on them several times during the mayor's two terms in office. A 2012 press release from the city boasted that while only 32 violations had been prosecuted in 2009, "due to a successful commitment to better enforce nuisance establishments, 287 prosecutions have occurred since the beginning of 2011."

Unless we come to some reasonable solution to the ongoing sound ordinance debate... and unless the ABC board suddenly decides to stop its crusade against neighborhood bars, (don't hold your breath in either case) this is going to cause more trouble. 

Republicans are going to try to claim inequality as their issue in 2016

I've said this a bunch of times already but I'll keep saying it until somebody notices. Somebody besides Trumka, that is.

While he tussles with Obama on trade, Trumka simultaneously praises and mocks the Republican candidates for discussing income inequality. “I like the fact that they’re adopting our language and recognizing that inequality is a problem and that falling wages are a problem, even though their policies are what got us here and even though the policies they’re pushing will make things worse,” he said.

In a wide-ranging interview, Trumka praised Hillary Clinton, now the official presidential frontrunner for the Democratic party. Nonetheless, Trumka – who has headed the 56-union federation since 2009 – said labor would press her, like every other candidate, to spell out how she would raise wages for America’s badly squeezed workers.

“I find Hillary a wonderful, independent woman who is very, very smart,” Trumka said. Then in an unmistakable effort to nudge her to the left, he added: “There are people like that I wouldn’t necessarily vote for if their policies are bad. It’s about policy. It’s about what are you going to do to raise wages. It’s about what are you going to do to change the rules to help everybody and not just those at the top.”

During the mid-terms, Republican candidates began trying out some language meant to cast themselves as the party most concerned with income inequality in contrast to an elitist Democratic party run from Wall Street.   If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, this message (however hypocritical) will certainly connect with many voters. 

Meanwhile tomorrow is Fight For $15 Day.  Might be a good time to go out and count the number Republicans out agitating for actual working people.  Because when they start to co-opt the rhetoric next year, it will be helpful to remember when they weren't backing it up.

Disruption

Mayor Landrieu is really "the Uber of" disrupting Civil Service protections with overpaid political appointees.

Michael Glasser, head of the Police Association of New Orleans, said the emails only confirm what he and his union suspected from the start: The creation of the job is the latest in a long line of attempts by the mayor to assert more control over the department.

The deputy chief of staff job was "clearly implemented by the mayor, and it will be the mayor's pick that fills it," he said. Given the department's decreased size since Landrieu took office -- it has shrunk by a third, according to Glasser -- the addition of another management position only makes sense when viewed as "a hand up the back of the department ... a continuation of the puppet show," Glasser said.

Meanwhile State Senator JP Morrell introduced a bill to the legislature yesterday to consider creating a new elected head of a merged NOPD and the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Department.  Not sure how that would affect the Civil Service framework but it's reasonable to suppose it would limit the Mayor's influence over the department either way.

Dig a deeper hole

We're having a bit of weather today.

That seems very dramatic but it's actually pretty routine for springtime.  Every now and then it gets particularly bad and everyone decides something needs to be done about it.  The last time that happened was 20 years ago.  In reaction to the famous "May flood" the Army Corps of Engineers was persuaded to begin an ambitious drainage improvement project.  They still haven't finished it.

Here they are digging a new culvert on Napoleon Avenue just yesterday.



But simply digging a bigger drainage ditch may not be solving the problem. It could, in fact, be making it worse.

Locals may celebrate that efficiency, but Roelof Stuurman, a visiting Dutch groundwater specialist, shakes his head in disgust when he thinks of that rapid and regular wet-to-dry cycle in New Orleans.

“You spend your money trying to get every last drop of water out of your city when you should be trying to keep some of it in,” Stuurman said. “You have this serious problem, and no one is in charge of it. Instead, you’re making it worse.”

That problem is subsidence — the steady, costly and dangerous sinking of the city caused by the drying of the delta soils on which it rests. It turns out that New Orleans, known for its epic battles to keep water outside of its levees, is also threatened by keeping too little water in.

A city that prides itself on embracing contradiction is now waking up to this one: The levees and pumping stations it has spent nearly 300 years perfecting to guard against external threats have also been the catalysts allowing an unseen enemy below to savage its budgets and cloud its future.

“When we settled here, the land under us was like a sponge that contained a lot of water,” said David Waggonner, a landscape architect and co-author of the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan, which aims to change the city’s relationship with water. “And what happens to a sponge when you dry it out? It shrinks.

The  "Living With Water" plan involves a potential $9 billion worth of additional projects designed to stabilize the water table.. to some extent anyway.

It proposes doing that not only by keeping water inside the levees, but actually by showing it off.

The 82 miles of open drainage canals that form concrete scars across the cityscape when empty would become manicured bayous lined with recreation paths and holding water all year long. Empty lots left by Katrina that now collect only weeds and debris would become rain gardens — temporary reservoirs that can reduce the speed and amount of water rushing toward the pumps during heavy downpours.

But the change would be more than skin-deep. Streets and parking lots would be surfaced with materials that allow water to seep into the soils below. Homes and buildings would have rain barrels that trap runoff from roof gutters, then let it out slowly over time. New developments would need to have stormwater management plans to account for their impacts on the system.

Keep in mind, that this isn't going to solve our problem. The city is sinking and will continue to sink.  But maybe we can do some stuff to help it sink less rapidly.  But first we have to finish digging these ditches. 

Update: Hey look the water management plan that only exists in your imagination right now has won some kind of recognition. 

New Orleans' strategy for redesigning the urban landscape to better manage its water resources -- better known as the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan -- is being recognized as a model for the rest of the country to follow.

The American Planning Association will present the city with its Environmental Planning Award at its April 18 conference in Seattle. The honor is given to cities that work to "create greener communities that reduce the impact of development on the natural environment and improve the environmental quality."

Hey congratulations, you guys have made zero actual impact. This will look great on a resume, though. 
 

A matter of conscience

If you ask me, I'd say Karen Carter Peterson has the religious freedom to choose not to serve under these objectionable circumstances if she wants.

But the speech earned only tepid response from legislators who gathered in the House chamber to hear him, and drew infrequent interaction and applause — save for standing ovations for Jindal’s family and loud laughter that followed a joke about people looking forward to Jindal’s final address.

“I guess it was a nice farewell,” said state Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton. “I would have liked to have heard more specifics on how to get through the budget process.”

At least one Democrat — state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, of New Orleans — showed frustration. Peterson chairs the Louisiana Democratic Party.

“She walked out because we’ve heard that speech from him before,” Louisiana Democrats spokesman Beau Tidwell said in a statement to The Advocate. “No ideas for Louisiana and no clue. Between his Iowa campaign and his budget nightmare, he walked out on the state and on the families of Louisiana a long time ago.”

Petty tax farmers

In city after city, our so-called law enforcement infrastructure is directed toward extracting fees from defenseless people.

When I read the Department of Justice Department's scathing report about Ferguson, Mo., and how the police there were routinely harassing black people to add more money to the town's coffers, I was reminded of a similar report the Department of Justice wrote about New Orleans four years ago. That report didn't accuse the police here as being driven by money, but it did say that it arrested so many more black youths than white youths that the disparity couldn't plausibly be explained with statistics, with the varying rates those demographics commit crimes.

So as New Orleans is so is Ferguson.

Wait, Karakatsanis writes. "After conducting interviews with community groups, victims, and lawyers in dozens of cities, as well as performing simple Internet searching, I have been unable to find a major metropolitan American police force without a recent history of systemic constitutional abuses."

And he writes of an unnamed place in Alabama where people are being held in jail for unpaid tickets and told they can cut $25 dollars off their debt each day they work as a janitor for the city.

These are medieval practices.  People with  weapons are sanctioned by the government to harass and collect from the lower classes in the name of keeping the peace. But they are more ingrained in American life than we like to believe a lot of the time.   We do a remarkable job of lying to ourselves about it given just how many people are affected in this way.

Be very afraid

The Louisiana Legislature is in session.

I know the weather has been bad. Hope that didn't stop the Religious Freedom Parade portion of the opening ceremonies.

Meet the old boss

How ready are you now for Hillary?  She made a video on Sunday. 



No not that one.  The one that looks like an iPhone commercial but with even more hollow promises.  You know, the one with the stupid logo.



Good grief... just..... look...

Hillary Clinton says in the video she wants to be a "champion for everyday Americans."  Is this even a remotely plausible proposition to anyone?  How little attention must the presumed targets of such a pitch have been paying for it to connect?

Everyday Americans, here is the resume of the person who thinks so little of you that she just insulted you with this nonsense.

One of Clinton’s first high-profile public positions was at Walmart, where she served on the board from 1986 to 1992. She “remained silent” in board meetings as her company “waged a major campaign against labor unions seeking to represent store workers,” as an ABC review of video recordings later noted.

Clinton recounts in her 2003 book Living History that Walmart CEO Sam Walton “taught me a great deal about corporate integrity and success.” Though she later began trying to shed her public identification with the company in order to attract labor support for her Senate and presidential candidacies, Walmart executives have continued to look favorably on her, with Alice Walton donating the maximum amount to the “Ready for Hillary” Super PAC in 2013. Walton’s $25,000 donation was considerably higher than the average annual salary for Walmart’s hourly employees, two-thirds of whom are women.

After leaving Walmart, Clinton became perhaps the most active first lady in history. While it would be unfair to hold her responsible for all of her husband’s policies, she did play a significant role in shaping and justifying many of them. In Living History she boasts of her role in gutting US welfare: “By the time Bill and I left the White House, welfare rolls had dropped 60 percent” — and not because poverty had dropped.

And that's not even the part about her support for the international finance plutocracy or the part about her role in the prison boom or the part about her vote in favor of the Iraq war or the part where she served as the face of a morally corrupt US foreign policy in cynical support of murderous repressive regimes all over the globe.

All of that stuff is in there and more, of course. But Hillary Clinton, the People's Champion Brought to you by Wal-Mart ought to be enough.

My God, the very idea that anyone could support this monster is bad enough. But what if I told you no one is even bothering to oppose her?

All of which bring us to the present point in which it is difficult to see anything but a game changing mistake or scandal standing in her way. Because of this all the issues that get hashed out in a primary process - ideology, the future of the party, the ordering and power of constituency groups within a party, political strategy and more - are being played out within her candidacy. So the question is becoming not whether Hillary should be the nominee but what sort of nominee you think she should be. Constituency groups are not sizing up different candidates but trying to define what a Hillary Clinton candidacy and presidency would look like. Al Gore's candidacy in 2000 had some elements of this. Bill Bradley was his only real challenger. His campaign didn't have the resources or the candidate to make it a credible one. And Gore, in good ways and bad, was essentially running against himself.

But all of that.. that "what sort of nominee you think she should be" question... supposes that we are making a candidate from scratch. And, I guess, this is what Hillary's insulting announcement is banking on; that nobody knows or cares that she has a long career in public life which tells us exactly the sort of nominee she will be.

Whatever you think about the faults of our strange electoral system, Presidential primary elections are not extended product launches. Rather, they are an opportunity for robust examination of party policy priorities. This happens in a stupid and flawed manner, of course, but this doesn't mean it shouldn't happen at all.

In 2016, Democrats owe it to themselves not to skip this exercise.   The intramural personality spats within the staff and fundraising sphere of one imperialist corporate plutocrat candidate cannot be the substitute. If it is, then the many many people left out of the conversation will have to look elsewhere for a "champion."

It's Chinatown

Our glimmering Hollywood South racket. It's the same as all the other rackets.

One of the defendants is Peter Hoffman, a colorful Hollywood producer who has beaten a federal rap once before. Another is Michael Arata, an actor and lawyer who is married to Emily Arata, a top deputy to Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

The Aratas are related by marriage to Fred Heebe, the landfill magnate who was the target of a federal investigation when he famously brought down former U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and two of his top lieutenants by bringing to light an online-commenting scandal. Arata is being represented by Billy Gibbens, one of the lawyers who helped Heebe get the federal probe of him dropped.

Kicking the poors

You'll never ever ever go "broke".. politically speaking... by beating up on the broke.

Although Americans don’t like the impoverished in general, the cases of Walter Scott and Eric Garnershow it’s particularly easy to deny the black poor humanity. During the infamous 2014 water shutdowns in Detroit, Common Dreams’ Kim Redigan spoke to waiters who worked downtown, and she heard a common refrain: “If they can’t pay their bills, too bad.” Instead of relying on the common decency of their fellow citizens to offer solidarity, it was the United Nations who had to issue a declaration on the shutoffs. “This is what it’s come to: appealing to an international body to uphold the basic human right to water,” Redigan wrote.

In an essay that went viral in 2013, Virginia Commonwealth University sociology professor Tressie McMillan Cottom argued that behind all of these cases isn’t just a hatred for poor people but a need to separate them from ourselves. When two Barneys customers were racially profiled that year while purchasing expensive luxury goods, it was easy to tsk-tsk not just at structural racism but at their own decisions. On Twitter, New York journalist Errol Louis tweeted: “#SFMH over a not-filthy-rich-person spending $2500 on a handbag.”

In response to his tweet, McMillan Cottom writes, “At the heart of [such] incredulous statements about the poor decisions poor people make is a belief that we would never be like them. We would know better. We would know to save our money, eschew status symbols, cut coupons, practice puritanical sacrifice to amass a million dollars.”

It’s easy to “expose” the poor for their own failures and much harder to look behind that mask to see the person gasping for breath inside it. Why would someone living in poverty want to go to the movies or a theme park? For the same reasons that everyone else does: to enjoy a momentary escape from real life. However, Kansas and Arkansas seem to serve the same purpose of Sarah Jane’s assailant, reminding her that no matter how far she runs, she can’t run far enough. Sarah Jane spends her entire childhood trying to be someone else, the kind of person who would have, in fact, starred in a movie with Ronald Reagan.

But eventually, we all have to grow up and see things for the way they are. If life forces you to walk in the road, someday you have to ask why.

Post-Katrina New Orleans is a kicking-the-poors boomtown.  We judge their grocery selections. We clear them out from under our overpasses and tourist right of ways. All of which is precisely why no one with any political power will ever give much of a shit that the rent is too damn high. If you can't keep up, it's obviously your fault.

Transparency

Certainly some of us are old enough to remember Bobby Jindal's 2007 campaign for Governor. It wasn't that long ago, although it may seem that way.  More than anything else he proposed to do, he promised to cram us all more full of ethics than a clown car is full of clowns.



You would have been perfectly reasonable to assume that an ethicsy administration would endeavor to be diligently responsive to records requests. On the other hand, how could you be so stupid?  This is from a letter from Lamar to Jindal's  lawyer Thomas Enright. I think you can get what's going on here from this bit.

In Louisiana, a citizen’s right to access public records is considered fundamental, and the burden is on the government to provide a legal basis for each and every record denied. Unfortunately, your office has elected to prevent the disclosure of even a single record.

Gov. Jindal recently requested the full disclosure of all e-mails maintained by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, presumably under the belief that those e-mails would enhance accountability and transparency and better inform the public.

Gov. Jindal’s unwillingness to disclose even a single e-mail, under the pretense of deliberative process, stifles the fundamental rights of Louisiana citizens and starkly contradicts the law and his own repeated pledge to implement a “gold standard” of ethics reform.

So that's cute.  The Advocate's request was also denied too.  Here's what they were told.

FWIW: I have heard from multiple folks that Gov. Jindal tends to be a caller, not an emailer...
— Elizabeth Crisp (@elizabethcrisp) April 11, 2015

Another reason Jindal doesn't rely on email very much is he tends to send most of his communications through a 12 year old intern who writes his regular news opinion columns for him.

Meanwhile, Marlin Gusman is under considerably less of a pressing obligation to maintain open records.  Rather than the serious commitment of a political commercial full of clowns to answer to, he only has a federal legal proceeding.

Attorneys with the U.S. Justice Department and the MacArthur Justice Center asked a federal judge this week to order Sheriff Marlin Gusman to turn over a stack of some 1,200 reports documenting an array of potentially problematic incidents at Orleans Parish Prison.

The attorneys claim Gusman’s refusal to release the records violates a court-ordered plan to reform the jail, an agreement that calls for the Justice Department and inmate advocates to have unfettered access to the jail and relevant documents. They say they can’t evaluate Gusman’s progress and compliance with the reform plan, known as a consent decree, without being able to review the incident reports.

 Don't expect Gusman to be too quick to comply with this request.  He can't even pay his own employees.

A former sheriff’s deputy has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman failed for years to pay him and other hourly employees for all the hours they worked, in violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

The suit was filed by former sheriff’s deputy Donald Marshall, who left the office last year. Marshall is seeking class-action status for the suit, applying to all current and former deputies for the past three years.

It's probably this kind of reliable attention to records keeping, transparency, and all around good government that convinced the wise professional analysts at the  Bureau of Governmental Research  to recommend that voters pass Gusman's millage request on the May ballot. Those guys certainly know a steward of propriety and transparency when they see one. Thank god they're around to tell us what to do.

Hollywood South Hayride

The latest episode begins next week. Here's some background but see if you can spot the one interesting fact that is missing.

Meanwhile, periodic scandals have marked the program - like the one in which prominent players and coaches for the New Orleans Saints were victimized by a man, sentenced to prison in 2010, who sold tax credits he never actually obtained.

In the trial that opens Monday, the defendants are Peter and Susan Hoffman, identified in court documents as an estranged husband and wife and principals in Seven Arts Entertainment and related companies; and Michael Arata, a New Orleans lawyer also involved in the film business.

The law at the heart of the case allows movie production companies to get a tax credit - at the time of the alleged crime it was up to 40 percent - of certain infrastructure costs, defined as the "purchase, construction and use of facilities that were directly related to and utilized for motion picture production in Louisiana."

If tax credits earned exceed the business's actual tax liability, the credits can be sold to another party that wants to use the credit to pay off its liabilities.

Federal authorities say the Hoffmans and Arata, through companies they owned, purchased a dilapidated mansion just outside the French Quarter in 2007, with plans to turn it into a post-production facility. The alleged crime was using fraudulent documents to obtain tax credits for work that was not actually done on the renovated mansion, credits that Arata purchased at a discount from his partners, then sold at a profit to local businesses and people.

Okay, I'll just tell you.  Arata is married to one of our handsomely compensated Deputy Mayors.  You really aren't anyone in this town until you've made a little something in the movie biz. Which is why, despite all the hand-wringing over the tax credit, you can rest assured the legislature is going to leave the program largely intact.

Swipe right

Fact: Sidney Torres's app can also be used for dating.

St. Roch Consumer Price Index

I think this exchange is going to require some research.

"Eddy P" writes:

I am sure that all the former Brooklynites who live in the Bywater and Marigny will get a huge kick out of the market. But we should ask the poor people who live in the 8th Ward, directly behind and around the place, how they feel about yet another unaffordable, impractical food market in the neighborhood.

The St. Roch neighborhood is changing; some of the changes are necessary and good. My fear is that the new St. Roch and the new St. Claude Avenue are forgetting those who live there. A boondoggle of a streetcar is being installed from Canal Street to Elysian Fields Avenue, just a few blocks from the market, and not even those who pushed for it are pretending anymore that it is anything but a grab for tourist dollars instead of real transportation.

Craft cocktail bar? Fusion cuisine? House-made charcuterie and freshly-foraged produce? In most neighborhoods, this would sound like a bad hipster joke; here it sounds like a tragedy.The message for those who have been living and struggling here for so long is very clear: You do not belong here. And this is not the first time that those families have heard these words.

"Jarman" responds:

The St. Roch market is a blessing to the neighborhood. I live in the 8th ward, directly behind the market, and have lived here for many years. Along with myself, all of my neighbors are also excited. To say that inserting a community gathering place that serves very affordable, healthy food is not an appropriate response to the neighborhood is incoherently wrong. You are associating healthy food to white people. You are also saying that the people of this neighborhood should not have healthy food. Produce that is cheaper than sav-a-lots, coffee that is cheaper than all other coffee around, the cheapest pastries around, among numerous other vendors, all amidst a community dining hall, how is this not a good idea for the struggling people in our community? Or maybe we should just keep it closed, and buy a meal at the rally's across the street that is more expensive than a meal at st. roch market.

I think we might have visit the St. Roch "market" themed attraction and then compare receipts with area produce, coffee, and pastry providers.  Also we should go to Rally's, I guess.  It would be nice if we could compare to a nearby supermarket but it has been ten years since there was one around there and we are still waiting for that to change.

Not sure exactly how to quantify the value of the "secrets" described in the article.

“The market gives everyone an all-access pass to the secrets of New Orleans,” says Will Donaldson, who co-owns the business with his partner Barre Tanguis

 Although I think it might be hard to beat the $2.99 ebook price.

Update: Lord David is already on the case. 

Uh oh

This can't be a good sign.

At the National Hurricane Conference last week, Klotzbach hinted at a below-average season saying, “looks like a boring season.”

I might evacuate next Wednesday just to be on the safe side. 

The Sidney Sweep

Millionaire directs his armed gang to commandeer city streets on behalf of hoteliers.

On the eve of French Quarter Festival, 12 people were arrested Wednesday (April 8) in another round of sweeps fueled by businessman Sidney Torres IV and targeting the transients that police say have generated numerous complaints in the city and state's tourism epicenter.

A little more than half of those arrested in Wednesday's five-hour sweep of the French Quarter were booked with obstructing the public right of way, New Orleans police said in a press release. Three dogs were taken into custody by the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals, police said. The agency has joined NOPD 8^th District officers and off-duty NOPD officers working the Torres-funded French Quarter Task Force security detail on both publicized sweeps, doing so with the help of a $4,000 donation also from Torres.

Get used to these.

Shoot first, yell at the potheads later

I'd say Newell Normand maybe picked the wrong week to vehemently defend his officers' prerogative to shoot people whenever they want.  

Screaming at points during an impassioned address, Normand vented about an array of topics, denouncing efforts to legalize marijuana possession — “We are collectively stupid” — while defending his deputies’ decision to unleash dozens of bullets upon Desmond Willis, a man who allegedly opened fire on authorities Monday after fleeing a traffic stop.

But it's getting to the point where, we're understanding police shootings are pretty much just a regular matter of course.

I have some different questions for Normand. Have you been paying any attention to the news? Did you hear about the white North Charleston, SC cop who shot a black man in the back after a traffic stop? Have you seen the video that shows the crime and the officer planting a taser next to the man’s body? The citizen who shot the video was afraid that his life might be in danger if he came forward. Who do you think he was afraid of, Sheriff Normand?

The advent of the smart phone has changed a lot of things in our society, many of which are trivial. The fact that the actions of the police can now be filmed by anyone is a game changer.  We’re learning the extent of police misconduct in our country and it’s not a pretty picture. Am I surprised? No, but it’s still disheartening.

Just how the "game will be changed" remains an open question, though.   It could be that more documentation will mean a calming of police behavior.  But, I'd rather doubt that.  Instead, the trend to watch for is a growing willingness to shrug off even the video evidence in favor of some business about how the victim probably deserved it.  It's what we've been doing for decades, anyway.

Maybe I'm wrong about that but, at the same time, I'm pretty sure Newell Normand stands a good chance of being reelected pretty much forever.

Banksters eat pensions

The problems with the New Orleans firefighters pensions are different from this. But not too different.

The Lenape tribe got a better deal on the sale of Manhattan island than New York City’s pension funds have been getting from Wall Street, according to a new analysis by the city comptroller’s office.

The analysis concluded that, over the past 10 years, the five pension funds have paid more than $2 billion in fees to money managers and have received virtually nothing in return, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer said in an interview on Wednesday.

“We asked a simple question: Are we getting value for the fees we’re paying to Wall Street?” Mr. Stringer said. “The answer, based on this 10-year analysis, is no.”

Until now, Mr. Stringer said, the pension funds have reported the performance of many of their investments before taking the fees paid to money managers into account. After factoring in those fees, his staff found that they had dragged the overall returns $2.5 billion below expectations over the last 10 years.

“When you do the math on what we pay Wall Street to actively manage our funds, it’s shocking to realize that fees have not only wiped out any benefit to the funds, but have in fact cost taxpayers billions of dollars in lost returns,” Mr. Stringer said.

Why the trustees of the funds — Mr. Stringer included — would not have performed those calculations in the past is not clear.

Tough anti-immigration candidate receives endorsement from prominent hispanic

This quite a coup for Senator Vitter's campaign.

Jeb Bush is backing David Vitter in Louisiana's governor race this year and will appear at a New Orleans fundraiser for the Louisiana Senator April 15.

"I am confident Senator Vitter's conservative credentials and reform-minded principles will make him a successful governor. He will ensure states' rights are protected, enact pro-growth policies and be a tremendous advocate for the people of Louisiana," said Bush in a written statement released through his staff.

I wonder if he knows, though. 

That thing about the past not being past

Politico:

For much of the post-Civil rights era, Confederate perspectives were in retreat, or so it seemed. What happened in the 1980s, however, was the establishment of magazines, such as Southern Partisan, that published reinterpretations. of recent American history through a Confederate lens. By the 1990s, publishers like Pelican Books of Gretna, Louisiana, offered new jeremiads like The South Was Right! (which boasts on its inside cover of 120,000 copies in print) and this small but active cohort began spreading their viewpoints through websites and by hosting conferences on topics such as a state’s legal right to secede. By the 2000s, supporters were able to fund the creation of research venues such as the Abbeville Institute. In these various forums, proponents rearticulated 19th century Confederate beliefs for a post-Civil Rights audience, joining tired but persistent arguments about states’ rights to articulations of laws regarding secession and the right to nullify federal legislation.

The important thing to understand about the Confederate strain in our national politics is that it is an essential component of the mainstream.  Too often it is papered over as some sort of anachronistic fringe but that description does more harm than good.  Seeing the past as merely the past slows the pace of progress.

It is precisely the lie that old battles have been "won" that allows them to go on in perpetuity through new generations ignorant of the significance of what has gone before them.

Bobby's doing just fine

I know it looks kind of stupid and desperate when Jindal follows whatever wacky conservative cause dominates the weekly news cycle with a "me too" announcement. But that's only because, if you follow the news too closely, you might confuse stupid and desperate with calculating and phony.  Despite what the columnist suggests here, there's nothing risky for Jindal about associating himself with this anti-gay bill. It's either a nothing or a plus.

Bobby's doing just fine. He's building a resume. In a few months from now it won't look as desperate.

Innovation

Mitch Landrieu's New Orleans ranked number one in government by feudal beneficence.

There's a trend among U.S. cities to lean more and more on philanthropists to fund city services, and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has been in the vanguard of the movement, according to an article in Governing, a magazine dedicated to state and local policy and politics

The article is about the Bloomberg model of taking city services out of the public decision-making sphere where elected representatives allocate a budget and relying instead on the interest of wealthy investors to determine your priorities.

As the field of city foundation partnerships evolves, says Albert Ruesga, CEO of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, mayors should be wary of relationships that erode democratic decision-making. “Cities have the power to levy taxes,” Ruesga says. “I don’t think it’s healthy for cities to forgo levying taxes for central public services and goods, thinking that they might get that money from private sources. There’s a price to civilization and we need to be willing to pay that price in our taxes.”

In effect, what they're doing is privatizing the most essential function of governing. As more of your  budget is shaped by grants, your democratic representatives become less relevant.  It also gives them fewer tough decisions to make so, of course, they love that.

Landrieu, however, thinks he’s reached a point where he can justify using public money to pay not just for the projects started by the Bloomberg innovation team, but also for the team itself. Last year, the city spent $300,000 on team activities, about a quarter of their annual cost. (All cities had to match a third of the Bloomberg grant.)

“You don’t even have to sell it to the city council. They want you to do more of it,” Landrieu says. The challenge is making sure the city has room in the budget for a new service, but he seems committed to doing that. “When the philanthropic money runs out, you’ve got to grow your economy or raise your fees or cut in other ways to pay for that service.” The reason he’s willing to make room in the budget isn’t just the impressive results so far, but the method that made them happen. The innovation model, he says, has the potential to address any number of other problems the city still needs to tackle.

Oh see there is still a use for your tax money. Landrieu thinks it's time to start using that to pay the "innovation team" directly. You don't get to vote for them but they will be making more decisions about  how to manage the private grants that will pay for your streets and parks and police task forces. Until that money runs out and you're suddenly paying higher fees and special sales taxes just to keep up.

Maybe you don't think that's fair. But, honestly, if you can't afford to join any of the philanthropic societies and dinner clubs who make all the decisions in this town, you probably don't belong here at all anymore. I think that's the message they're trying to send, anyway.