This beauty of a paddywagon was found hiding on City Park Avenue, right next door to the Municipal Training Academy, also where the Parking Division’s Administrative Hearing Center NO LONGER EXISTS (would someone please inform the City of No’s stationers?)
Microsoft’s ‘dirty tricks’ archive turns into hot Torrent
The material needs to find a home in a academic institution, which has the time to curate it, check for completeness, and put the material in context. And ideally this should be in a region beyond US jurisdiction – if there are any such places this side of Jupiter. (Perhaps the Gates Foundation can recommend somewhere) … For now, however, Bittorrent appears to be doing the job for which it was designed.
Mark pointed the NOLA bloggers to da po blog’s take on Andrés Duany’s article on New Orleans in BusinessWeek. (Feel free to read the article and the post/comments before checking back in here). Here are some of Duany’s statements that da po’ boy emphasized:
I realized at that instant that New Orleans is not really an American city, but rather a Caribbean one … then I thought that if New Orleans were to be governed as efficiently as, say, Minneapolis, it would be a different place—and not one that I could care for …
… One way to leisure time is to have a low financial carry. With a little work, a little help from the government, and a little help from family and friends, life could be good! This is a typically Caribbean social contract: not one to be understood as laziness or poverty—but as a way of life.
It is a lifestyle choice, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with it.
My first thought on reading this: Tell this to the families of murder victims whose killers walk the streets due to inefficient government, the parents who work two or three jobs and save to keep their kids out of NOPS and the accident victim whose ambulance is delayed by potholes, uncoordinated lights and drivers who don’t have the common bloody courtesy to pull over for an emergency vehicle.
Understand that Duany wrote this article to justify alternatives to current American building standards – “drawings, permitting, contractors, inspections” – that put up blockades to affordable housing, and not the dangerously fine social line between a laissez-faire joie de vivre and abject apathy. His is not an excuse for the high high highs and low low lows that characterize this city. Let’s not confuse cultural accomplishment to date with an effective society, especially when we host a murder a day and some banana republics have it more together than us. If culture were my only criterion for an American city, New Orleans would win hands down, but as (for just one example) my own recent goat rodeo with the City Of No’s parking division* attests, we have miles and miles to go before we rest on any laurels, folks.
Like it or not, we are still the 18th state of the Union and would do better to abide by the standards of infrastructure and effectiveness of other states (no, not the federal government, which couldn’t find its way out of a wet manila envelope) to meet our own state’s motto of union, justice and confidence. As I commented at da po blog, we can have the best of all, it is not an either-or proposition. It’s not America vs. New Orleans or bust. For as another commenter astutely observed, “Culture is how you lay out the roads in your city, infrastructure is how many potholes exist in those roads … I’ve also heard that an ambulance will show up in Minneapolis 4 minutes after you call in an emergency, anywhere in the city. You can have that same sort of response in New Orleans, too. It has nothing to do with culture.”
Res ipsa loquitur. Why can I not have both the most breathtaking amount of festivity and bonhomie and preeminent levels of service, response and conscience on the part of my government and fellow citizens? And I mean all citizens, not just the same ones I read about and meet over and over again in recovery circles. If we put the same amount of soul and determination into rebuilding and demanding the best of this city as we do a Mardi Gras costume, Jazzfest art and a school band, we would then be world class. And don’t ever tell me one person cannot chill when required and then step to it when the occasion demands. Never state that the free spirits that fill this city with its art, music, soul and culture don’t have the gumption and can-do attitude to accomplish things logistical and lasting. Work hard, play hard, demand the best!
Do we have it in ALL of us, each and every one of us from the Iberville projects to the mansions on St. Charles Avenue and beyond? That’s what is required. Or we’re done.
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* to be explained in an upcoming post – until then, hold your goats
Looks like Ms. Betty was an Allstate customer. Today’s nola.com reports that many homeowners are surprised that Allstate cancelled their policies although their flooded homes are fixed or being repaired, or in some cases didn’t flood at all.
The article sums up the problem nicely and includes the names of insurance companies that are following in Allstate’s footsteps. The insurance companies aren’t the only ones to blame. The red tape and roadblocks generated by insurance reimbursement, FEMA (SBA) and Road Home are as culpable in this process. Is Jim Donelon going to do anything about this miscarriage of justice? Louisiana is listening.
Here is something particularly heinous that underscores the tangled web our society has woven itself.
[Ray Broussard's] agent counseled him to go to City Hall and get a building permit, but Broussard said he wouldn’t qualify for a renovation permit because the house was already demolished … he didn’t want to lie about a construction contract to keep his insurance.
“My agent told me to go to one of those kiosks and get a repair permit. I said, ‘Wouldn’t that be insurance fraud?’ I wasn’t willing to do that because it’s not the truth,” said Broussard, who has been an Allstate customer for 10 years.
His penalty for being honest: a cancellation notice that arrived last Saturday telling him that he’ll be booted March 21.
The whole thing is disgusting and, as it unfolds so close to home, exponentially increases my distrust of the marriage of big government and big corporation.
I’d like to think that the mayor’s call to run Road Home out of New Orleans will speed things up and increase accountability, but, as our own Eye On City Hall reports, abject transparency is not his strong suit.
Scarecrows don’t talk!
Severe storm warnings issued for New Orleans Metropolitan area
… there is moderate risk of severe weather beginning Saturday afternoon and ending Sunday night for our region. The local National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) office and severe weather outlook team are concerned that this group of thunderstorms could produce large hail, damaging winds and tornado activity that rivals what we witnessed on February 13th, 2007.
Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the “ape” in apricot? What have they got that I ain’t got? Courage!
Update: D tells me not to worry as the storm is going to travel to the north of us.
“We Americans want it all: endless and secure energy supplies; low prices; no pollution; less global warming; no new power plants (or oil and gas drilling, either) near people or pristine places. This is a wonderful wish list, whose only shortcoming is the minor inconvenience of massive inconsistency.” — Robert Samuelson
Help Oiled Birds
Please help some innocent living things by supporting the efforts of The International Bird Rescue Center in locating, rescuing, and cleaning wildlife affected by the ongoing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Click on the pelican to donate.
