The latest craze sweeping New Orleans Blogosphere

SECESSION!

Alright, now that I've got your attention with a tabloid-worthy opener, here are the facts. We're going down the tubes. Our current political system is shot. The solution: we need to subject our political system to a controlled burn. Start from scratch.

I've talked about it already.

Others are starting to get the idea.

There's one HUGE obstacle, though: the political machines. The "Progressive" Democrats will fight this tooth and nail and will call in the big boys to prevent any attempt to reign in their power.

All we need to do is get a few neighborhoods out of the system and then momentum will take care of the rest. I'm sure Broadmor will be the leader, like usual. Algiers can get in on the act, too. They've NEVER been properly respected by the city. They'll secede and declare Jackie Clarkson Madame Empress and rejoice by doing, well, whatever Wankers do. Uptown will appoint Ron Forman CEO and their city council will be a Board of Directors. Each neighborhood will govern by their own flavor.

And when all is said and done, nobody will want Nagin for anything. Not even dog catcher.

America's Most Fortified City

So, I decided to put together a map based off a book: New Orleans: America's Most Fortified City. It details the extraordinary lengths various countries have gone to to protect New Orleans from its enemies. New Orleans is a strategically VITAL location. If you were to go up to some of the people who toiled and gave their blood, sweat, and tears to defending the city and told them, "Guess what, some people in America want to abandon New Orleans," well, let's just say he wouldn't take it too kindly.

More on the Forts of Louisiana.

The Google Earth Post and the Google Earth Map (API).

Zoomed out:

A closer look:

The other thing I learned doing this is all the coastal erosion that's happened over the past 300 years or so. There are some areas that don't exist anymore.

Look at Tower Dupre (which was originally built on dry land):

Small image I used to mark forts. You might have to download it and load it into Google Earth.

I'd love to get together a tour of these locations to see how some of them survived Katrina.

Slow on posting

Hey, sorry it's been a little slow. I've been busy and also took a trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I'll resume posting soon.

Odds and Ends

New Orleans murder rate worse than we thought. We're approaching Baghdad levels here, people. And that's NOT THE BAD NEWS. It's getting worse.

I've said it before: this summer, there is going to be a low-intensity conflict in parts of the city. The only thing that's going to save us from total anarchy is Jim Lenten. He's taking thugs off the street and keeping them off. More importantly, they have an active intelligence gathering operation underway and are targeting the drug kingpins in the city. The kingpins have gone untouched since Pennington was Chief. Good luck and Goodspeed, Lenten.

This is what logic looks like. Living in New Orleans, we need to remind ourselves every once in a while what sanity looks like.

On the bright side, they like it and they might be bringing a friend.

2 Letters to the Editor about Section 8 housing.

Jefferson Parish's answer to fighting crime: Buy up tenements and turn them into parks. What they forget to mention is those residents will inevitably come back to Orleans Parish, but I think that is part of the point. It's a shame very few other New Orleans bloggers read City Biz. It's one of the better news sources out there.

UPDATE- I'm too lazy to write a new post about just one thing, so I'll tack this on. Nola.com's "Crime Scene NOLA" blog written by (mostly) Jon Donley and an officer from FOP.

USS New Orleans

USS New Orleans commissioned. The SecNav was present for the commissioning.



Very Cool.

This smells

Protesters make noise outside Councilwoman's home.

Stacy Head is one of our most effective council members. She was one of the members that voted against the amendment gutting the OIG.

Something doesn't smell right. Between the way the protest happened, the timing and the Times-Pic's coverage, my spidey-sense is tingling.

At this point, it's just a gut feeling. I'm going to go way out on a limb here, but I think someone is trying to intimidate her. One of the political machines is trying to get her to back off something. The only questions are which machine and back off of what? Answer one question, you can probably guess the second.

Wynton on the Daily Show

The video doesn't load on all computers, so here's just the link.

New Orleans Public Housing

I've decided to put together a well thought out take on the public housing situation in the city. It's be a major source of debate in the city.

Before I get started, I'd like to put forward MY definition of two important terms:

Affordable Housing- Housing for families of semi-skilled workers. Focus on home ownership or reasonable (but not subsidized) rent. Think about a Pre-Katrina $500 rental or a $100,000-175,000 Pre-Katrina home. The majority of Lakeview, St. Bernard Parish, and parts of New Orleans East fit this model.

Low Income Housing- Very cheap homes, majority are rental in the $100 a month range. Almost always subsidized in some fashion. All of the public housing stock (except for River Gardens) fits this model.

Public Housing stock- A term of convenience I'll use for the two or when it's not clear which is being effected.

I don't know what the industry terminology is, but this is what I'll use. I think establishing these two terms is incredibly important to any discussion of public housing.

The debate thus far has been extremely heated all around.

On the anti-public housing side, there have been moves by St. Bernard Parish, Jefferson Parish, St. Tammany Parish, and even New Orleans East to drastically restrict public housing stock.

The suburban Parishes are BLATANTLY saying, "Keep it in New Orleans." Let's be clear, this isn't something where people are saying NIMBY when it's actually safe, like say a nuclear power plant. Both blacks and whites have a serious NIMBY-thing going on. There are very real reasons not to want public housing near you. Homes are generally the largest investment a person will make in their lifetime. Part of appraisals take into account the value of nearby homes, so the price of your largest investment goes down. Crime is a factor. Just look at the Pre-Katrina crime near the old public housing sites depicted in this map. You've got numerous other side issues like how unfair it is for these people to get free utilities while we're paying utility bills that are close to house notes. There are plenty of perfectly legitimate arguments in the anti-public housing camp. Also, dare I say this, but the majority of the residents of New Orleans, white and black, are opposed to reopening public housing (at least in its old form) and we live in a democracy. Majority rules.

In the pro-public housing camp, you've got the huge housing crisis in the city. There's been an explosion in the homeless population. I work in the Lower Garden District and live in the French Quarter. Both areas have seen a huge boom in the homeless population. I can personally attest to that fact.

It's also wasteful to tear down structurally solid housing in a hurricane-vulnerable city. I've heard a little bit about the construction methods used in the homes, but don't have a full set of data. From personal familiarity of construction from the same era (the Huey Long Bridge) I have no reason to doubt these claims. In fact, I have a strong feeling figure HUD released for the cost of demolition is a low end figure. I suspect the oldest units are built like bomb shelters and will be quite expensive to tear down. There are other reasons, but I don't have the time to write a book right now. I'll just blow you in the direction of one of their websites.

So, what to do, what to do?

Step 1- Both sides need to stop and take a deep breath. There's been a lot of hot air generated with little accomplished. Let's create solutions and not waste oxygen.

Step 2- Tear down the newest projects. These were built in the late 70's and were notorious for substandard construction methods and outright fraud. These were some of the high rise type towers that you used to be able to see near Simon Boliver. There were kickbacks on kickbacks on kickbacks when these were under construction. They've got to come down. Fortunately, there isn't much dissent on that issue and it's already nearly complete.

2- I think the loss of affordable housing is incredibly detrimental to the long term future of the city. The focus should be on affordable housing first and foremost. This would be the housing for the construction workers, nurses, tradesmen, and other semi-skilled workers that are vital to the recovery of the city.

How about an out of the box solution? "The Bricks" haven't been renovated in over 60 years. No matter what happens, they need extensive renovation just to bring them up to fire code. How about spending a little more money to make them really nice and sell them. I'm not the first one to come up with this idea. I'll bet if the renovations are nice enough, there's good landscaping and marketing, the city will actually be able to turn a modest profit on the project. I propose these units be approximately equal in cost to the Habitat for Humanity homes and be run in a similar model. Habitat for Humanity, while not reaching the poorest of the poor, has been extremely successful in helping 'teach people how to fish, instead of just giving out fish.' Less than 2% of Habitat homes suffer foreclosure.

3a- There could be a certain percentage of the larger complexes reopened. One possibility would be to decentralize the unit by simply moving them. It would be challenging, but it's technically feasible. Whatever profit the city gets from selling the Bricks could be plowed back into these homes. I refuse to accept the number of new low income housing units should be equal to the number Pre-K. I propose that the number be capped. I propose to somehow equate this cap with the funding for social services available to the residents. I strongly believe that some basic medical services (like a nurse on duty) and social services (like child care) must be included in the reopening. Tie the number of units reopened to funding for these services, that way nobody is completely "stuck" at the bottom. Also, shake surrounding parishes down for money. They'll gladly contribute some money if it means keeping poor people out of their neighborhood. If not, threaten to build a HUGE Cabrini-Green type public housing block right on the parish line. That'll get them to kick money into the pot.

3b- Partial opening in NO East. Sorry, but there's so much housing stock nearing completion that it just can't be ignored. Thousands and thousands of units... At least some of them must be reopened. No where else in the city can you reopen so many units in such a short period of time at equal quality of the units that are about to be finished. Might I suggest screenings for those with outstanding warrants/violent criminal backgrounds, like, say this guy. There is a criminal element that's quietly hoping the projects are reopened to strengthen their "business." Let's institute some basic checks in the process.

4- Something interesting with squatters rights. This will help out those at the lowest rung in society. We've got a lot of abandoned buildings and I bet we could come up with something interesting. Unfortunately, Squatters Rights/Adverse Possession is a tricky legal area in which I hold no expertise. I've got to differ to the legal minds out there. Someone want to take a stab at it?

Some people are going to complain that what I'm proposing is unfair. Yes, it is. But guess what, we've got bigger problems right now and worrying about public housing is, at best, a secondary issue.

Planet Earth

Found this today. About halfway through there's a shot that will make your jaw drop.

It's from a series on the Discovery Channel called "Planet Earth." Here's an article by Wired about the show. God, just imagine this in High Def!

BTW, I have a friend who works offshore in tropical Africa. He says nature is pretty much undisturbed over there. Hundreds of sharks circle below each offshore platform. Hmmm...

Unified (NO) Plan

"Watchdog Group says Unified New Orleans Plan is Vague and Unrealistic". No shit, Sherlock. Local bloggers
have pounded the UNOP for months. This is my favorite beat down.

I initially thought the idea of a "community-based planning process" was a great idea and would be in the best traditions of New Orleans. It would serve to truly give "the people" a voice. Boy, was I an idiot. The UNOP was one clusterfuck after another. It either focused on things that were obvious or things that just need to be centrally decided by experts (like flood protection).

We need to retreat away towards dictatorship to right the ship. We need to retreat and accept either the Bring New Orleans Back Commission or the ULI report.

Just as I reminder, we need a plan to get rebuilding money. We need to at least not have yet another black eye for the city. The list just goes on and on. This city has pissed away this country's goodwill just like Bush after 9/11. There, I said it.

Just like the US after 9/11, New Orleans had the unquestioned sympathy of all of America. We even had arch-conservatives like Newt on our side. And look what we've done. Even some of the most sympathetic now believe we got what we deserved. I'm ashamed. I'm so ashamed.

The planning process has been a trainwreck. It'll take drastic action to correct it. People will get pissed off. Egos will be bruised. Some people will just lose out. Too bad.

The survival of the city is at stake. We can't afford to fuck up things over and over and expect to survive.

More on the Drug Trade in NOLA

Salon.com Article

The last of City Biz's series about the drug trade

The Salon article is much more scientific and numbers oriented. City Business takes a more humanistic approach. Both are depressing as hell. Both conclude that things will get worse before they get better.

Morse, the Tulane public health professor, believes the worst is yet to come. "I don't think we've seen it yet," he said. "Most of these kids realize at age 15 that they're screwed and the only way to do anything in New Orleans is with the drug trade. I think it's really going to hit the fan come this summer,"

Summers are always the wost months for crime. If we've had 35 murder to date, this summer is going to be really bad. A murder a day wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

Another article by CB focusing on the lack of job training and rehab facilities.

Wetlands and Nutrias

The Times-Pic just started an incredible series about Louisiana's vanishing coast. It's a must-read.

I wanted to relate a tale about those pesky little nutria.

I had the same roommate freshman and sophomore year. I elected to stay on campus and got into Aron. Roger decided to live off campus junior year. He rented a nice apartment with two other students near Audubon Park for $300 a month (remember when rents were reasonable?). Roger moved in the summer before junior year with a female friend to take some summer classes at UNO.

Late the first night, he awoke to the sound of his female roommate shrieking. It turns out they had an extra roommate.

There was a nutria living in the wall of his apartment in Uptown New Orleans.

He first tired barricading the nutria into the wall using a desk wedged against the wall. He came home the next day with a huge hole gnawed through the formica.

Next, he tried using rat poison. He put down enough to kill a rottweiler. Unfortunately, he didn't use enough, so he was forced to stay up all night listening to the nutria puke it's guts out in the wall. The nutria survived.

A friend of his from Chicago was in town the next night, so the two of them decide to lay out a bunch of Funions, stay up all night, and ambush the little fucker with clubs and baseball bats. The nutria did come out to and did eat the Funions, but was way to quick for these two. By this point, the female had taken to staying in the hotels with strange men she picked up at the bar she worked at as a shot girl. Can't say I blamed her.

I suggested that Roger bite the bullet and hire an exterminator. The landlord (of course) was reluctant to pony up the dough and so was Roger. It was his all-consuming mission to eradicate his nemesis.

My dad offered his .357 magnum to dispatch the beast. Having already visited the Third Wold shithole known as Central Lockup once, Roger politely declined.

Roger looked on the internet and found a new and better poison. He put down enough to kill an elephant. Sure enough, it worked. The nutria puked and puked all night long, but to no avail. He was dead. Unfortunately for Roger, he was entombed in the wall.

Roger called up the landlord and tells him the story and threatens to leave the nutria in the wall if the landlord didn't man up and cough up some money for being a douche. The landlord gave him $100 for new sheetrock and pain and suffering.

True story. Moral of the story: first off, landlords don't like to pay for anything until it gets really, really bad. Second off, those nutria are tenacious little vermin.

Ah, Monday

Elsewhere, engineers work 16 hours a day, 6 days a week. They're well compensated, but they don't get a chance to relax until retirement. I work hard, but I still get to enjoy the little pleasures in life.

3 things to do if I ever become Dictator...

This city's biggest problem is a total lack of leadership.

Let's suppose for a minute that the local bloggers get together and launch a Coup D'Etat against the city. The people cheer, the crooks run for the hills, and then we get down to work.

Here are 3 things that I'd do if I were dictator:

#1- Like Rumsfeld, Donald Powell has to go. He's actually not a bad person, but he has no presence. The Gulf Coast Recovery Czar should have the ability to command broad bipartisan support and use the bully pulpit. Donald Powell has NEVER ONCE used the bully pulpit. He simply can't. Everyone sees him as a bean counter, which is pretty much accurate. A Czar should be able to inspire fear in other politicians. We need someone with balls. Here's my short list of acceptable candidates:
* Colin Powell
* Sandra Day O'Connor (She has balls in a Margaret Thatcher-sort of way)
* John Breaux
* George H. W. Bush (the bonus for him would be all the psychoanalysis of Shrub that would eat up the 24 hour news networks...)
* Bill Clinton (If the Republicans were really smart, this would be a genius move on their part because it would occupy Hillary's greatest strength)

#2- Institute the Death Penalty for corruption in Louisiana and "chop down the tallest trees." You've got to signal that the old ways are gone. You've got to prove to the rest of the nation that we're cleaning up our act and you've got to signal to the politicians to stay out of the most important public projects, like our schools and our levees.

For the first round of executions, I suggest Bob Odom, Bill Jefferson, and as many former Orleans Parish School Board members as possible. Hang 'em all in Jackson Square.

Here's the biggest advantage of the death penalty for public corruption: FAR easier to make cases. It's a real motivator for plead deals. These guys are cowards and I think an incentive like that would cause smaller fish to roll left and right on their political patrons

The final reason to institute the death penalty is we've already screwed up once. Onshore oil production in Louisiana was once HUGE and the state got royalties from that production. Unfortunately, the royalties went into the pockets of human slime like Leander Perez. As onshore oil reserves were depleted, oil production moved outside areas where the state got a cut of revenue. Hence our current dilemma. This state cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. We have one chance to get this right, so let's not fuck up again.

#3- Something has to be done about the city's footprint. A tax base of 150,000 people can't support a city footprint for 600,000 people. I've come up with 3 ways this could be done.

Option A- Shrink the footprint of the city. The smallest the city can be is the heavily populated "sliver on the river." The largest it can be is the area west of the industrial canal, plus Holy Cross/Lower 9th. The area I think would be the most efficient is just the area west of the Industrial Canal. The city would amputate injured limbs to save the body. It's not pretty and the people in the abandoned areas would hate it, but it would save the city. There would also be horrible press from "abandoning the Lower 9," which the press has adopted as its pet. You'd also have to plan out the shrinkage. It's not an ideal solution, but there just comes a point when you have to acknowledge you can't 'pick up a turd by the clean end.'

Option B- Annexation of surrounding parishes, especially Jefferson. Gobble up Jefferson, St. Tammany, St. Bernard, and Plaquimines Parish. Maybe also St. Charles Parish. The surrounding Parishes have a huge tax base, which could finance city services. This would be the New York model. The surrounding parishes can't survive without the white collar jobs in the CBD and the port and Orleans needs the porperty taxes from those parishes. Pulling this off would be really tricky, though. It would have to be done at the state level and Orleans Parish politicians would have to surrender significant powers to their neighbors and we all know how politicians HATE giving up their power. One of the deals that would entice the suburbanites to join up would be dissolving NOPD and creating a regional police force under the leadership of Harry Lee.

Option C- "File for Divorce." There comes a point where government becomes too big and too unresponsive to the citizens. A lot of people have problems getting a meaningful response from their district councilman, much less their mayor. But, look how responsive neighborhood groups can be. Dissolve the city and set up smaller cities all over Orleans Parish. The Levee already suggested something along these lines. Over time, they can reformulate a new, unified city government that is more responsive to the citizens.

I think any of these options would work and I have no real preference on which is selected. Bits an pieces of each of these is already being implemented. The mayor's office has already told RSD and Orleans Parish Public Schools to limit the number of public schools opening on the western side of the Industrial Canal. JPSO and NOPD are cooperating like never before and have even extended "hot pursuit" privileges to each other. A long time ago, when friction between the Americans and Creoles reached a crescendo, the city subdivided itself into 3 separate cities. The city 'cited irreconcilable differences and filed for divorce. The three cities were Carrolton (Uptown - American), New Orleans (Quarter and Marigny - Creole), and I can't remember the name of the last city, but it encompassed the CBD and Central City.

Anyway, I hope these ideas get people thinking.