Nemo's Tail

All that is now left of Nemo's tail are pictures. It seems she had an altercation with what was probably a car, and scooted away not quite in time. She seemed fine at first but her beautiful puffy tail was slowly dying, and had to be amputated. We are totally traumatized but at least we still have our foolish cat. Now she has to wear one of those awful plastic collars for a whole week....

Dunce in Chief in Denial Over Global Warming

Practically every scientist on the planet believes global warming is a man made phenomenon. Even the main stream media has bought into global warming; they don't even give a voice--in the name of balance--to the minority crackpots who deny it anymore.

So with global warming now universally recognised, it will come as no surprise that the Dunce in Chief has surpressed a report from NOAA. This report apparently concludes that hurricanes are becoming stronger due to rising sea surface temperatures. This makes sense since warm water is the engine of tropical storms; with global warming increasing sea surface temperatures, the effect is essentially to turbo charge the storms, turning disorganised category 1 storms like Katrina into category 5 monsters practically overnight.

It is clearly White House policy to continue to deny global warming, lest it impact their friends in the oil lobby, lest it require them to do something unpopular like raise fuel efficiency standards. The Dunce in Chief can't bring himself to ask for sacrifice from the American people; he can't deny them tax cuts to pay for his war, he can't ask for better fuel efficiency (though not sure what the sacrifice is here). Come to think of it, can he make a decision at all--"should I stop reading My Pet Goat?" Bush hides behind the fact that making these changes would hurt our economy. If we don't have a National Policy on global warming (like California has) the cost will be phenomenal. We know Katrina cost more than $2 billion. How much will the next big hurricane cost. How much have all the forest fires in the West cost, and the tornadoes in the mid West cost, and the flooding all over cost? All of these have risen in frequency and scope in recent years. If we don't act now, the economic cost will be phenomenal. Will it take a Katrina-like storm in Washington, DC or New York for our government to act?

ESPN in Touch

Tonight's Monday night football game at the Superdome is a great opportunity for New Orleanians to take a break from the stress of living in the post-Katrina city. The game so far in the first half is certainly giving Saints fans something to cheer about. The best thing about watching the game on ESPN though is that the commentators are not constantly telling us how this game signals the return of New Orleans.

The broadcast started a little dubiously with Dunce in Chief Sr (aka George HW Bush) telling us the Bush administration line that New Orleans was back and we didn't need to worry about it any more. However, all the ESPN commentators (as well as many of the Atlanta Falcons players) have apparently taken tours of the devestation and were not buying the propaganda. One of them referred to the steps up to concrete slabs in the Lower 9th as gravestones in the cemetery of the former community. They eloquently discussed the nature of the job that actually needed to be done, as well as giving air time to people like Spike Lee who left no doubt as to his feelings of the situation in New Orleans (though he declined to make a Kanye West statement).

Congratulations to ESPN on a great broadcast.

Musicians Village

The Habitat for Humanity Musicians Village is coming along nicely, with real houses that are built up on blocks just that bit higher than usual. Nearby are some posters that are presumably from volunteer groups that have participated in the building effort. It's heartening to see something new going up. The colors are cheerful although a bit overly bright. The banner on one of the houses that has a hammer and the slogan - the job's not done, seems a bit understated. At least Habitat for Humanity knows what the job is, which is more than we can say for most "official" parties.

Links in New Orleans

I discovered a path in City Parks the other day. It was a very pleasant path winding through grassy meadows, trees laden with Spanish moss and egrets roosting in the branches, and quiet bayous. It turned out this path was one or more of the ill fated golf courses. There was little evidence that this was indeed a golf course, no green, no fairway, not even a bunker. Just the odd marker telling you you were at the tee.

It would be a shame to cut all the grass and return this course to the traditional American style. This wild looking course could be made into an English/Scottish style links course like St Andrew's. Links courses in Britain are more in tune with nature, with gorse bushes lining the fairway. New Orleans has a unique opportunity to create a new golfing experience in tune with its natural history, and uniquely Louisiana.

No alligators in the Lower 9th... Yet

Immediately following Katrina, there were wild rumours of alligators in the Lower 9th Ward. Today there are no alligators swimming among the ruins, but it's not such a long shot. The Lower 9th is overgrown with weeds growing to head high in many places, and broken water pipes creating swampland. Although some clean up of condemned buildings has occurred, the overgrown gardens and streets actually makes the situation look much better than it is, masking and softening the stark images of abandoned buildings.

Cycling around the Lower 9th is somewhat reminiscent of a ride in the rural England area I grew up in. It's green and verdant; we even had a few run down barns which double for the former homes of the Lower 9th. The number of buildings of course makes this seem more like the ghost towns of California and Nevada.

The reality here is clear, the Lower 9th is being abandoned to nature. There are clearly no services being delivered to the area; no one is helping the residents return. Looking around, it's difficult to refute the conspiracy theorists who believe the decisions were made long ago to let the Lower 9th revert to swamp. I have said frequently, these decisions need to be made, but it is key to let former residents know what the status is. The reality is clear. The alligators are coming.

Moving the Mississippi

I am familiar with the Atchafalaya diversion project but did not realize there was a proposal to move the Missisippi south of New Orleans. Although it sounds radical if this plan was flushed out and enacted it could have significant benefit for the region. The river has moved many times before and would have moved again if we did not keep it channeled in the levees we need to protect ourselves from it.

Crappy Refs for LSU Auburn

They can't ever do over the game, but Jesus, can someone get rid of those refs? The question of incompetence vs conspiracy comes to mind here as they favored Auburn time after time with incorrect calls. I hope the "official explanation" to LSU of these incidents include an apology.

Crime Summit

FYI Courtesy of Stacy Head again.


THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS
CRIME PREVENTION
& CONTROL SUMMIT

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Produced by the THE NEW ORLEANS CITY COUNCIL in cooperation with
MAYOR C. RAY NAGIN, the NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT
AND SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY AT NEW ORLEANS

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Saturday, September 16
8 am - 5 pm
New Orleans Hilton Hotel

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Luncheon Speaker
The Honorable Lee Brown
Former National Drug Czar and Mayor, Houston, Texas

Learn about the current state of public safety, crime control and crime prevention in New Orleans as well as evidence-based best practices from experts. Participate in workshop groups. This process will culminate on December 8, 2006 with a follow-up meeting to present detailed plans for a safer New Orleans.


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Presentations include:

Status of Violent Crime in New Orleans
Economics and Crime
Race, Class and Crime
Role of the Family/Community in Crime Prevention

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Free and Open to the Public
For Information Call 504.658.1000 or 504.286.5341
Register on-line www.neworleanscitycouncil.com

Bankrupting America

The last few days the Dunce in Chief has cited Osama bin Laden's objective of bankrupting the United States. Today, the budget office took great pride in announcing that the budget deficit for the fiscal year ending this month was only $300 million. Apparently even this number is an underestimate based on the various IOUs the government has given social security etc. This means that at the end of this year, the US owes an additional $300 million over and above what we owed a year ago. We actually owe in the trillions.

Given the terrorists stated goal, does Bush understand that cutting taxes and launching a war of choice which widens this gap takes us closer and closer to al Qaeda's goals every day. All it will take is for Japan or China to call in a few markers and we will be bankrupt. Not to mention the fact that we can't afford to fix New Orleans. When we can't afford to take care of our obligations at home means we are very close to bankruptcy (companies file for Chapter 11 to ward off creditors in this situation).

The Dunce-in-Chief doesn't get that his approach to the terrorist threat (spend, spend, spend) plays directly into bin Laden's hands.

This new tack may be part of a more sinister plot to abdicate their responsibility for homeland security. Just this week, Chertoff the Jerkoff said it wasn't possible to protect everything. This is likely a defensive move against Democratic criticism that the administration has failed to do enough to protect traffic through our ports, our borders, or just do anything competently I guess.

The 100 Day Non-Plan

Today marked 100 days since Nagin announced his 100-day plan to put New Orleans back on track. The only apparent progress is that we managed to pick up some trash, and that we had to bring in the National Guard to combat a burgeoning crime wave.

The other significant progress is that journey home offices have been opened in a couple of cities, and the city is going to start a website so we can monitor the pathetic progress ourselves from afar. Interestingly, according to nola.com, an office to coordinate recovery in the next few months. I'm not sure what this office is going to do, but shouldn't we have started something like this a long time ago?

But when you put all this together, the starkest issue is that despite all this back-slapping on progress (apparently New Orleans is better off now than when Nagin was sworn back into office--things could hardly have been worse could they?), there is going to be no rebuilding plan until at least the end of the year. So all those people monitoring the website, or going to the journey home centres, or just deciding how to spend their paltry FEMA cheques, still won't be able to make informed decisions for another 4 months. Presumably that plan will take several more months to be adopted and longer to be implemented.

Nagin promised a plan after 100 days. What we got was yet another plan for a plan. Let's check back with Mr Nagin in another year.

Confederacy of Journalists: New Induction

Congratulations Katie Couric! You've been inducted into the Confederacy of Journalists. You will join Diane Sawyer in this exclusive club.

After Katrina, Diane Sawyer became the first inductee. When interviewing the Dunce in Chief she failed to follow-up when he made one of the most crass statements of that disaster, "No one anticipated the breach of the levees." How could anyone let that one go? How could you not ask a follow-up question?

So Katie Couric pulled the coup of a Presidential interview in her triumphal start to her new job. Yet when he told her that the hardest part of his job is linking Iraq to 9/11, she let it go. This was a startling statement. Some people have given her kudos for drawing this statement out of him, and some have labelled her anti-Bush for making him look like an idiot. Confederacy of Dunces thinks she should have asked him what he meant. Why does he have to make this link?

Good journalists go for the jugular when offerred something like this. Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric are not good journalists, and so are members of the Confederacy of Journalists.

Katrina's Silver Lining

Before Katrina, the garden in front of our Esplanade condo was really struggling. People used to leave their trash in it, pick the flowers for their own use. Today, the lack of tourists and reduced foot traffic (though Port of Call appears to be doing some good business still) has allowed the garden to become a tropical paradise. Hopefully it will be able to continue to thrive as the tourist trade picks up.

9/11 vs Katrina

Following the 9/11 attacks there was a call for government to give a significant amount of money to the families of those that died. Government actuaries came up with a formula that put a value on a life, and paid out over a million dollars in many cases. This was despite the fact that various insurance policies/pension funds paid out. However, you look at 9/11 (conspiracy theories or not), it was not directly government's responsibility.

Fast forward to Katrina where 1836 people died and countless thousands suffered and were made homeless, the majority as a direct result of government negligence. I've heard no talk of compensating the families of the dead (I note here that given actuarial tables this value would come out as significantly less than a 9/11 life). Furthermore, there is no talk of government compensating people for the loss of their homes caused by government negligence, just a pittance that is designed to cap out any payout at $150,000 including insurance payouts.

The media in New York the past few days has devoted a lot of space to whether or not the government should compensate the 40,000 workers who helped clear Ground Zero. The feeling here is that they should be. If these people are compensated for voluntarily doing the government's bidding shouldn't people in New Orleans be compensated for losing their homes and lives caused by the incompetence of the Army Corps of Engineers.

The contrast is profound. After 9/11, we paid out millions regardless of insurance. After Katrina the government ran from its responsibilities. At the time I felt we were setting a dangerous precedent in making such payouts. Where do we draw the line on compensating victims of such disasters. Victims of the first World Trade Center bombing cried foul instantly and got included. So now we know where the line is drawn. It's where it's convenient to government and certainly bares no relationship to its responsibility.

Remembering 911

I was in New York City on September 11, 2001. Once a week I commuted to Brooklyn via the Hoboken Ferry to the WTC subway, the other 4 days I went through Penn Station instead. On Sept. 11, I went through Penn Station. A colleague on the Staten Island ferry saw the second plane fly directly over his head and into the WTC. He reported the ferry stopped just short of Manhattan, put it in reverse, and retreated back to Staten Island at a fast clip.

For years afterward the anniversary was a time of reflection and of remembering the anger I felt that day. It was unlike anything I ever felt before, that someone had actually tried to kill me and destroy my way of life. I remember being shocked they came up with the name of Osama so quickly, that they would know who would do this. If they knew, why didn’t they do something to contain him? Now as the 5th anniversary is remembered, I feel anger again, but now it’s directed at more than just the terrorists. I feel anger that we were struck, but also that this country has diverted their resources into meaningless wars. We remember the victims of 9-11 more prominently than those killed by our own government in New Orleans on 8-29. We have given up many civil liberties and disregarded the rule of law in our country. We have a president that is no better than any third world dictator, and we can’t get rid of him. Our noble ideas of how great our democracy is are dead. Our country is crumbling and we are not OK.

The image of the WTC burning on that beautiful, crisp, clear fall day, as viewed from the Brooklyn waterfront, is etched into my mind. It is always a dramatic viewpoint but this day it was like watching a movie in real life. Glittery bits of paper, or something light, floated away from the building in the sky with the plumes of smoke as the flames flickered through the two buildings. From this distance, we saw no jumpers. After watching for a bit my colleague and I agreed to return to our office a short walk away to try to hear the news and find out what was going on. When the buildings came down we heard nothing.

We evacuated from our office with the rest of our team to the Brooklyn Marriott and proceeded to order appetizers and get drunk watching CNN in the lounge for the rest of the day. I hoped my husband in Times Square would stay away from the chaos, even as I wanted to do anything to help. At the Marriott we watched the migration of office workers, some covered in ash, as they walked down the road towards home, having just crossed over the Brooklyn bridge. Water stations were set up for them. We heard the downtown Marriott was no more. At the end of the day the reports were that the subway was reopened, and I dared a ride through the hazy, smoky underground tunnels since it was the only way home. On arriving at Penn Station there was only one train going to NJ and I took it. It was the wrong line but I knew if I could get across the river to Newark I could walk the rest of the way, it was only a few more miles to my house.

On this day I learned the meaning of shell-shocked, and of the thousand yard stare. What is the worse way to go, fire or water? I wasn’t in New Orleans on 8-29 but I have a glimmer of knowing how it felt. Five years later, the “hole in the ground” is coming along nicely.

Is the death toll carelessness or misfortune?

As we mark the first anniversary of Katrina changing our lives, it is worth pausing for a minute to reflect on the human toll associated directly or indirectly with the Dunce in Chief.

Katrina: 1836
9/11: 2793
Iraq War (just the US military deaths): 2671 (and rising, plus 250 coalition deaths)
Afghan War (just the US military deaths): 272

In the words of Oscar Wilde (from The Importance of Being Earnest), "To lose one parent Mr Worthing may be regarded as misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness." Mr Bush has lost 7521 US citizens, not to mention the untold thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm prepared to forgive the 272 deaths in Afghanistan just because I supported that war--though it is worth noting that most of the deaths occurred after the Dunce in Chief abandoned the task at hand in that country. For a man who runs on a platform of making America safer, he is losing a surprisingly large number of Americans. We are not safer, we are suffering horribly at the hands of one of the most careless men in history.

Remembering Post-Katrina Days

Those post-Katrina days are all a blur and it seems I don’t really want to remember them. A few things I do remember – I “worried myself sick” – coming down with a hideous cold and felt as though I would just collapse. I called in sick to work on Day 3 after landfall. I was mad, but mainly felt despair for the city and for the people who were still stuck. I worried about the trauma of the situation and became very worried the frustrated survivors would burn the city to the ground. The confederacyofduncesusa blog was started on September 5, 2005, to try to contribute at least our outrage, and to stop feeling so helpless.

Outcome of our personal issues with Katrina:
• Parents boat in New Orleans, destroyed. Found a part of it in the parking lot of the marina where it had been placed along with bits of other boats into a convincing boat-like object. Didn’t even notice for a while it wasn’t all our boat, but this boat had stairs down to the cabin where we had a ladder. Further inspection revealed mast bits that also did not match. Happily, insurance paid out on the boat.
• Parents half-a-block-from-the-beach house in Biloxi, destroyed. House was still standing but had been “gutted” by the storm and also was missing some exterior walls, making it a tear down. You would have never known this house used to have furniture, sheetrock, etc. Dead pelican found in master bedroom. Large multi-family condo building across the street and a bit closer to the water disappeared completely, with spiral iron exterior staircase and slab the only indication of its previous presence. The condo on our side fared better, it was only 50% disappeared. Small house between our house and the condo, only a slab remained. No known deaths on this block but several people successfully swam/floated to safety as the houses collapsed around them. Bizarrely, the house was paid out on by the insurance “windstorm” policy and also collected a small business loan to rebuild. It is located outside the official floodplain due to the rise in elevation between the house and the beach.
• French Quarter condo, relatively unscathed. The door blew open in the storm but a non-evacuated neighbor mopped up the water and closed the door the next day. A month later some FEMA subcontractors were convinced to clean out the courtyard of debris and downed tree limbs in exchange for showers and beds for a few nights in the units of some evacuated residents.
• Mom’s childhood home in Mid-City, flooded and observed on animal rescue program. A dog was rescued from the porch roof and reunited with his owner. The animal rescue people had been targeting another address in the area but found no dog there so took pity on this one and broke into the house to retrieve him.
• Mom’s later childhood home in Lakeview, flooded and new owner missing presumed dead last we heard. Very sad story, he turned down boat evacuation offer after the storm but stayed to tend to the house which had only a few feet of water. He was never seen again. Family remains in Texas.
• Friends, other relatives, many destroyed or damaged houses but no injuries or deaths.
• Neighbor in the French Quarter decided to leave the city the day after Katrina blew through due to the forecasts of no electricity for weeks. He got into his low clearance sportscar and proceeded to drive out of the city, from the French Quarter to Baton Rouge and beyond, by taking River Road through Uptown to Airline Highway. The same city, the same Airline Highway, the same River Road, that the US Military and the Red Cross were unable to access for 4 more days. Perhaps the Reserves should trade in their Humvees for Porsches.

Nagin on 9/11

Mayor C. Ray Nagin has taken a lot of heat in the past week for his comments about the pace of recovery in New York. Our readers outside the New York area will be interested in a piece that ran on WABC7 News last night. They interviewed a number of small business owners who were struggling to survive 5 years after 9/11. This included restaurant owners, as well as the famed Chinatown. These business owners were frustrated by the speed of recovery aand said that unless revitalisation of the World Trade Center site happens soon, they will not survive.

So, Nagin was right. There has been a lot of bickering about the WTC site, and it is taking too long for people who have downtown businesses. But, I think he missed the key learning. Just because they haven't rebuilt Manhattan's business district doesn't mean that New Orleans has the same amount of time. The speed of rebuilding in New York should not be an excuse to delay further, it must be a reason to speed progress.

If rebuilding of New Orleans infrastructure does not begin soon, in 5 years we'll be lucky if there are businesses to complain about the pace of recovery.

Decadence in Perspective

We ate at Pere Antoine's in the Quarter last night. On the blackboard in the foyer was written, "Decadence: before Katrina 37 staff, today 11 (crossed out) 10."

During our recent trip to New Orleans the strain on staff at various establishments (bars, restaurant, shops) was clear. The level of service in the city was not what it used to be. This raises some ethical dilemmas as a consumer in the city. How should we tip sloppy service? Should we be understanding and ignore the gaffs and surly service recognising that these people need our help? Or, should we hold them to the standards that we expect?

Having given this some thought, I think we need to follow the latter path. There is a shortage of staff, but also a shortage of consumers. It's not like our wait staff is really stretched so thin that quality of service needs to be abandoned to merely reach a basic standard. If the proportion of consumers has risen relative to wait staff, the wait staff are making good money, and don't need excessive tips for shoddy services.

One of the charms of New Orleans is the friendly quality service. Unless we hold the pioneers who are leading the fight back to the standards that we expect, we will be creating a culture that is foreign to what we want New Orleans to be. So reward good service, and stiff on bad service.