Like Southern Louisiana...
... we're disappearing.
After the Levees
Alexander Redux
I'm leery of being in the position of defending Hastert, but I'm increasingly convinced that a greater share of the blame for this needs to be put on Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-Turncoat). Given that there were many other sources of information on Foley's antics (eg, Fordham, Trandahl), this does nothing to actually help Hastert out, but in this one case it seems he was underinformed by Alexander and didn't get the information he should have received.
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"Didn't Alexander's office have an obligation to make sure that Foley was not hitting on other kids?"
A great Harper's article on Foleygate includes this passage about Rodney Alexander's mishandling of the matter (my emphs):
Oh You Can Laugh...
Check out this nine seconds of hilarity as Rep. Randy Kuhl (R-Delusion) tries to invoke the response to Katrina as an example of effective government. Indeed you can laugh...
Rep. Rodney Alexander should resign
The more I think about it, the more I think Ramesh Ponnuru's point is central and devastating to La Cage a Foley. (Thanks to Boyd's important post below for the heads up.)
About the initial emails that were brought to Rodney Alexander's attention, Ponnuru writes:
Don't Let Alexander Off the Hook
I think Rodney Alexander, one of our Louisiana congressman, has shown that he like Denny Hastert cares a lot more about his political position than he did about the safety of any of the pages in Washington. Of all people, it's Ramesh Ponnuru over at the Corner who makes this point most strongly.
And don't forget that Alexander was in an interesting spot, having switched just parties in 2004 (on filing day, so no Dem could oppose him) in return for a seat on Appropriations. And hiding behind the wishes of the page's parents rings a little false. Let's take a look.
Former house page getting threats
U.S. Rep. Rodney Alexander said a former male House page from Monroe has received threats since reports surfaced Friday that former Congressman Mark Foley sent him inappropriate e-mails."This teenager and his family have gone through hell," Alexander, R-Monroe, said Monday. "It's just not fair that they got caught up in this and became casualties. His mother is just broken up by it. Naturally, she's concerned about her child."
Foley, R-Fla., resigned on Friday after reports were published about the e-mails connected to the Monroe teenager, who's now 17. Though the e-mails to the Monroe page weren't sexually explicit, it was later revealed that Foley did send sexually explicit e-mails to other pages as early as 2003.
A week later, "Super Saints Monday" lives on...
I trust After the Levees readers have had enough time to savor Boyd's post (below). I thought I'd provide a little more on Super Saints Monday:
Here's an excerpt from an article titled "Saints' defense blows Falcons away" in Tuesday's Times Picayune:
More Than Just A Game
Now that was a game. And it really was a lot more than that. I always find the psychological aspects of a sporting event’s effect on a community to be very interesting, but in this case the role the Saints played in uplifting New Orleans last night was worth the millions of dollars that was spent on the stadium. Some New Orleans folk are conflicted about the decision to invest so much in a single building when there’s this, you know, housing problem, but I’m with those who think that this was a good and important way to spend it. To understand why, we need to return to the theme of the Common Good.
Update on Katrina Death Toll
Tonight ESPN showed Katrina statistics including the death toll of 1833. Seeing that number used I realized I never did an update here on the Katrina death toll. The death toll dropped in August......
Superdome myths
A recent T-P Sports article said:
For [Saints] quarterback Drew Brees and several others it will be their first trip inside the stadium that drew worldwide attention during Katrina."I'll be wide-eyed a little bit just looking around and seeing what it's going to feel like for the next 10 years hopefully, the rest of my career," Brees said. "I've only seen it on television.
"If anything, the Superdome was a saving grace for a lot of people; it housed a lot of people and probably saved a lot of people. For that to have happened -- I think several people were killed and there was a suicide, that was horrible. But to think of all the people who were saved, you look at that arena as more than just a football stadium."
While quarterback Drew "Cool" Brees is correct to say that the Superdome is more than just a football stadium, and that it was the refuge of last resort for "a lot" of people (over 25k) during and after Katrina, he did make a factual error which the T-P article failed to correct. This post will endeavour to remedy this oversight. However, let me say at the outset that Brees' claim is still probably far more accurate than most people's lingering perceptions of the so-called "atrocities" that supposedly occurred in the Superdome during the Katrina aftermath.
Blaming The Victim
I’m still surprised by the number of times I hear about what a stupid place New Orleans is to have a city. Even more, it seems a little bizarre that these people I’ve just met still seem so eager to tell someone from New Orleans their opinion on this. It seems a little cruel to want to kick us like that when we’re down, but I think I understand it.
Why Over Half of New Orleans Cannot Return - No $ for Renters
Renters are being encouraged not to return to New Orleans.
Though over half of the people of New Orleans before Katrina were renters - none of the federal housing money coming into the area is designated for renters. There is some money going to landlords and developers who at some point may provide some affordable housing to some people - but essentially renters are being left out.
This is an administrative complaint sent to HUD that challenges in detail the refusal of the state to help renters.
Nola blogger scoops Times Picayune
Congratulations to Dambala at American Zombie for anticipating (if not scooping) the Times Picayune's Front Page story on Imagine Software and their controversial pleasure craft.
Here's the first few graphs from Gordon Russell's T-P article titled "Yachting by N.O. official raises questions":
St. Bernard Parish--One Year Later
If I'd driven through St. Bernard Parish before Katrina I'd probably have yawned because it was so typically average American. But to see it now leaves one angered and mystified that this is happening in America.
I think St. Bernard Parish unfortunately is often overlooked in the Post Katrina narrative. Most are aware of the Lower 9th Ward yet many other areas in and around New Orleans were devastated. Lives, homes, businesses, neighborhoods and whole communities were lost directly affecting people of all races and incomes. All their stories of survival and the struggle to reclaim their lives deserve telling.
I was afraid of this
After the GOP-controlled Congress had scheduled so few full legislative "workdays" in the coming session (11 if my memory serves), I was worried that the all-important House/Senate oil-royalty bill negotiations would fall victim to the thin schedule, which precedes the contentious political season. During his Katrina tour two weeks ago, the President paid lip service to Louisiana's need for royalties to rebuild the wetlands before quickly turning to Iraq war speeches and demands for Congress to pass clarifying legislation for the CIA's secret prisons... etc.
According to today's article in the Times Picayune, the outlook for the royalty bill seems to be grim:
Moving Backward: 9/11 to 8/29
I wasn’t originally going to write the obvious post about the odd relationship between 8/29 and 9/11. The whole thing is just too negative, and I couldn’t compose anything that didn’t seem like a rant. But Keith Olbermann’s stinging rebuke of the President last night unlocked something for me. After 9/11, the nation put its collective will into the hands of the President and asked him to lead. His leadership consisted of stoking the fear to absurd levels of paranoia – in essence, the demand was that the American people turn into a bunch of cowards. And in a massive display of national unity, the people complied.
FEMA refuses audit
As an extension to Boyd's excellent post below on gubmint waste, I wanted to link to a fine NOLA blog called Wet Bank Guide, which points to the latest FEMA absurdity. Believe it or not, Louisiana is getting penalized for being fiscally responsible, and wanting to do an audit of costs.
A Fiscally Responsible Assault
Today is the anniversary of the most transparent attack against the working poor by a government in my memory: the suspension of the Davis-Bacon act for all the counties/parishes affected by hurricane Katrina. In a stunningly cynical move, Bush argued in the proclamation itself that this suspension would "result in greater assistance to these devastated communities and will permit the employment of thousands of additional individuals."
Of course, it wasn't just Bush. There was significant pressure for him to do this within his own party.
Recall Nagin petition surfaces
Less than a hundred days after being sworn into his second term, the Mayor of New Orleans already has a "Recall Nagin" effort on his hands.
Flooding and Ignorance
In a recent column in the Chicago Tribune, Clarence Page basically blamed the problems with rebuilding in New Orleans on mayor Ray Nagin. This is a fairly common assertion, and depends on a contrast with Mississippi’s supposedly spectacular pace, as with Tony Blankley’s assertion that it is all because Mississippi’s leadership is “honest” (ha!) while Louisiana’s is “notoriously corrupt and incompetent” (I refuse to link to him). Nagin has been a very handy scapegoat, which is one of the reasons rich white Republicans in Louisiana worked so hard to get him re-elected.
This is just silly. What happened in Mississippi (hurricane) and what happened in New Orleans (unprecedented flood) is beyond apples to oranges (maybe apples to manatees?). Moreover, the people making the assertions show a depressing ignorance of the basic facts of the issue.
The New Orleans of Possibility
Another excellent piece from Michael Sartisky, CEO of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities:
In the face of growing expressions of reluctance from some quarters nationally to restoring New Orleans, let it be understood that as New Orleans goes, so shall go the cultural soul of America. For just as surely as New Orleans was overrun by a storm surge because her buffering coastal wetlands had been allowed to erode through years of neglect, so too will American culture sink into terminal banality and homogeneity if it abandons the root city of American culture.
