How bad is it?

Every New Orleanian has to endure countless hardships. It's hard to describe to out of towners all the little slings and arrows. It's sort of like death-by-a-thousand-cuts.

How bad is the blight problem? It's bad by Iraqi standards. Read the comments by an Iraqi blogger.

How bad is the crime? It's so bad, it's killing New Orleans. The murder rate is 10 times the national average.

What's worse than the crime? Incompetence in City Hall. UNO has been doing this survey since 1988 (!) and for the first time, they've found something WORSE than the thugs: Clarence R. Nagin and company (with special guest stars, "the Amazing Cynthias"). Out of every problem (crime, high cost of living, low quality of life) City Hall was the worse problem.

UPDATE- New Orleans drowning in Crime. He says a few unusual things, but it's mostly on-point.

Another Fest!

So, I was just sitting around thinking and I realized Cinco De Mayo is just around the corner. Given the ever-increasing Hispanic population of New Orleans, I bet it's going to get bigger and bigger as the years progress. Just imagine an unending stream of festivals from Mardi Gras to St Patty's Day to Spring Break to French Quarter Fest to Jazz Fest to Cinco De Mayo.

Now THAT would be in the spirit of New Orleans!

BTW- Where are the big Cinco De Mayo celebrations? The only place I've ever been is the Bruno's block party on Maple. Got any tips?

UPDATE- City's List of Recovery Priorities for the Legislative Session. Didn't want to write a new post for that one thing. It's an important thing to read. Don't worry; it's short.

Brand new city for Katrina victims

Looks like we might not have to go to New Zealand to establish our colony of New Orleanians. Sorry Dr. A.

Interesting.

Blakely in the NY Times

HOT DAMN, SOME FUR IS GONNA FLY OVER THIS ONE!

Blakely tells it like it is, even when it's things we'd rather not talk about.

New Orleans now is “a third-world country,” he said.

Hmmm. Maybe we should just erect a new sign:


UPDATE- This has really divided the New Orleans blogging community. Some are Extremely upset. Some think he hit the nail on the head. It's fascinating. I definitely side with the second group, but it's great watching the (productive) back and forth.

Blakely clarifies his comments.

UPDATE 2- Well, you knew this was coming.

UPDATE 3- The best roundup of buffoon-gate. The Tony Amato parallels are starting to scare me...

New Orleans, Repeating Old Mistakes

MSNBC Article

The often quoted definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

At the end of the article, they talk about how people are rebuilding on the lowest lying areas of the city without raising their homes and "just praying it doesn't happen again."

Wonderful.