Depressing thought of the day

Mitch Landrieu's campaign slogan. "We have one chance to fix this city and our margin for error is zero." One chance. And we blew it.

Oh yeah, one of his campaign promises was to replace Warren Riley and have a national search for his replacement.

He was our Tommy Carcetti, but we reelected Royce instead (ask Ashley).

NBA All Star Game

The Good News: Mardi Gras 2008 is on my birthday.

The Bad News: The NBA All Star Game is in New Orleans on Feb. 15th of next year. Read Jason Whitlock's great article to see what a total disaster it was. He even takes a shot at ESPN.

"NBA All-Star Weekend in Vegas was an unmitigated failure, and any thoughts of taking the extravaganza to New Orleans in 2008 are total lunacy.
...
Without a full-scale military occupation, New Orleans will not survive All-Star Weekend 2008."

Deadspin has a nice wrapup, too. Read the comments, too.

Here's one of the comments:

Next year should be a total disaster in NOLA. Like this year, but ramped up 10X. Just like Whitlock says. The NOLA police can't keep things together now, and the city has 1/2 the population as before.

So I guess, when it comes down to it, NBA All-Star Weekend will finish what Katrina and the Chicago Bears started.

The police said it was a success because they "prevented total chaos." Jesus, just imagine how NOPD is going to cope. There were multiple shootings right on the Strip. A search of Google News and "NBA Violence" gives an inkling of how bad it was.

This article reminds me of descriptions of what it's like to wait on crowds during Essence or the Bayou Classic. Too bad I can't find that Nolafugees article about waiting on crowds during Essence.

Here's a more tame version of Whitlock's article. Had Bill Simmons, who is white, written the same article as Whitlock, who is black, Simmons would be unemployed.

Why is it that many black cultural events get hijacked by the thug 'culcha?' NBA All Star Weekend, Freaknik, the Bayou Classic, Essence Fest, etc. all are, in Jason Whitlock's words, "Woodstock for parolees, wannabe rap artists and baby's mamas on tax-refund vacations." How to separate the Thug culture from the real culture. Zulu has done it. How else can it be done? Wost comes to worse, you're just have to shut the events down, like Atlanta did with Freaknik.

I'm going to be on vacation next February 15th. Out of state.

Note to the out of towners

In case you haven't noticed, all local bloggers have ceased posting. We're all getting liquored up, so please check back on us in a week or so when we finish recovering from our hangovers.

In the meantime, Happy Mardi Gras!

Articles

Yet another article about leaving the Big Nasty

And one about picking up property in NOLA. Balances out the pessimism in the first article.

There are several scenarios where I would leave town (like the offices of the remaining oil companies packing up shop), but for now I'm preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best

By the way, did anyone else notice the Cobra gunship flying at extremely low altitude over the French Quarter and Treme? My first thought was they're planning on tactical airstrikes to help out NOPD. My bet is it's just visiting from the USS Mitscher

Crime Mapping Update

I've been pretty busy. I had to get a lot of work done before the holiday rolled around. By the way, does anyone find it extraordinarily easy to get outside help (like vendors) in town around Mardi Gras?

Anyway, I've added a few more placemarks.

Here is a list of links that are helpful to crime mapping:

Map based off Mike Glaser's postings on the PANO forum

Beta site for New Orleans citizen mapping

NOPD's rarely updated (and not user friendly) crime maps

Docket Master Tracking software on all dockets in criminal court. Excellent resource. You can also search for people who piss you off. Can lead to HOURS of entertainment. Also, you can look up the million-time losers like Lostin Lee, Ivory Harris, and Eugene Treg

Chicago Crime What the New Orleans map should look at for inspiration

Greater N.O. Community Data Center

Most of these I've already posted, I just wanted to consolidate them into one place.

Latest KMZ file

Two Shows to Watch

American Experience. One of my favorite Tulane professors, Larry Powell, helped put this documentary together. On PBS

Code Blue: Sweet Charity. Documentary about Charity Hospital. WARNING- NOT FOR THE SQUEMISH! I've had several friends go through residency at Charity. It was a trial by fire for them, but it was the greatest learning experience any doctor could ever have. If you were an anesthesiologist, you learned how to deliver babies. If you were a pediatrician, you learned to patch up gunshot wounds. You got challenged there like no other place on earth.

Why I stay

Sometimes, living in this city is like dealing with an abusive spouse. You stay, even though it's destructive. The reasons to leave just go on and on. It's like living inside an episode of The Wire.

I mean, come on! I named my blog Nola-dishu for christ-sakes.

Here's what's keeping me going in this city:
* My job (which I love)
* The food
* Occasional quirky incidents

Here's what I mean by that last one. I was watching Krewe Du Vieux the other day and something that could only happen in New Orleans occurred.

The parade was stopped and I was walking through the krewe members with my friends and then this lady stops me and says, "suck on my tits."

"Excuse me?!?!"

"Suck on my tits," she said. Upon closer inspection, I realized she was wearing a bra made of water bottles. After 'further' inspection, I discovered they were filled with White Russian.

That lady was a complete stranger and I have no idea who she was. That incident would NEVER happen in ANY other city in America.

And yet, she wasn't a stranger. She was a fellow inmate at the asylum.

Eddie Jordan's Business Card

Gun and Drug Crime

CNN goes for a ride with NOPD

This drug dealer/gun runner actually made a you tube video. He's got a pretty ridiculous disguise, but it works.

More Crime Mapping

There's going to be a meeting at the Sound Cafe (2700 Charters) this Monday concerning crime mapping.

This is the prototype of the website they want to set up.

The meeting is at 7 PM

Ithuteng

Think about this: start a school in the middle of the shittiest shithole on earth, but have the students teach the classes. The students have to do pretty much everything.

The students come from the worst ghettos in the world in Soweto, South Africa. Many are rape victims. Some are HIV positive.

Instead of being a disaster, the thing turns out to be one of the most inspiring stories to come out of South Africa.

Some of the techniques I find very interesting: school uniforms, physical education, personal responsibility, wilderness retreats, scared straight trips to jails, and reenactments of rapes. That's right: they reenact rapes. The victims direct the actors to recreate the whole scene and everything leading up to it. It's a way to prove to the victim that they aren't responsible for the rape.

They also take the kids away from the most the abusive parents and keep them at school in a boarding school-like environment.

Damn! We need an Ithuteng in Orleans parish!

Here's HBO's page.

Here's the film's homepage.

The filmmakers also have an incredible story to tell.

The Plan for the Future of New Orleans

This *IS* the plan.

What's going on in the city is exactly what those in power desire. They don't want to spend any money rebuilding the wetlands. They want people to move to higher ground and leave behind a small city just based off the port.

New Orleans East, the Lower 9th, St. Bernard, etc. are toast.

And that's exactly what they want, but just don't want to say on the record.

Mom of the Year

Mom of the Year. In hell, at least...

My mom is a public school teacher with over 30 years under her belt. I talked to her about this story. She said that that mom's behavior is common amongst 70-80% parents at the worst schools. She's had students whose moms sent them to school with knives. There's nothing emptier than a bad public school on Parent-Teacher Conference day.

Some of the poor kids' upbringing is worse than if they were raised by wolves. The parents pollute their minds. They convince the kids they don't need to work. They just need have a baby out of wedlock and get on welfare. She said that those kids are unteachable and almost hopeless by age 7.

Fucked up...

I hope Vanessa Johnson gets the needle.

New Economic Base for New Orleans

The tourist industry is a horrible base for this city and is partly responsible for much of what's wrong with the city.

Here's an idea: create a city based on the study of theoretical physics.

Nonleaniar attractors= Check

Crazy Blackhole Physics Experts= Check

Lab facilities to study Brownian motion= Not needed.

I'm sure Dr. Morris would approve.