World Class New Orleans

Is Obama a Saints WR or a Pats DB?

2009-11-26T21:26:00.002-06:00

In this video, is the President catching a pass from Drew Brees, or is the President being a total weenie and stepping in front of a pass intended for a kid?

In any case, it's good to see Mike McKenzie in a Saints uni in a commercial whilest knowing he's actually a Saint again.

Dave Dixon: World Class New Orleans Visionary

2009-11-25T06:22:00.005-06:00

In the 1960s and 70s, New Orleans and Louisiana took a risk by investing in the Louisiana Superdome. There was strong and principled opposition to the project. I have no doubt that there was corruption somewhere in the process of construction.

In the end, though, the result was a world class building with staying power. Poydras Street and a whole section of downtown were transformed. Dave Dixon and others got all of this started.

I bring this up today, because now we learn that the Pontiac Silverdome, built AFTER the Louisiana Superdome, has been auctioned off for $583,000--less than the cost of many homes in greater New Orleans.

I am thankful for the visionaries of New Orleans who built a great facility--soon to be renovated further for yet another new life--in downtown New Orleans, and not in the suburbs (as Detroit's not-so-visionaries did). One of the real assets here is that the Dome is walking (or biking!) distance to and from so much of what we consider the core of our city and region.

Good Corps / Bad Corps

2009-11-24T07:39:00.002-06:00

One the one hand, the Corps wants to be able to inspect levees while the river water is high. This need threatens the river parish bonfires. Maybe I'm a Scrooge, but levees seem pretty important to me, so on the face of it I'm glad the Corps is looking out for us.

On the other hand, the state says the Corps has been wasting precious river silt as they dredge. If true, this is the kind of almost criminal negligence that must be highlighted by all of us as often and as loudly as possible.

Join my campaign this week: They Aren't the Patriots

2009-11-23T06:39:00.004-06:00

No, the New England football squad are either "the Pats" or "the Past."

When I think of the Pats, I think of old times.

Pats starring a quarterback named Grogan.

Pats getting beat down in the Louisiana Superdome.

Past indeed.

When I think of Our New Orleans Saints, I think of the present and future.

50 Percent More Fun in Section 635

2009-11-20T11:53:00.003-06:00

The third Dillyberto brother will join Berto and me for the Saints-Patriots game on Monday Night Football.

And he will be properly attired. See below for my order today.

Time for Payback

2009-11-13T06:39:00.003-06:00

Look, revenge is a very unattractive thing, but I just gotta get this out.

I spent three terrible, horrible, no good years in the state of Missouri. Those were the three worst years of my life.

Then I returned to New Orleans, and a few years later had to endure the Rams winning the Super Bowl, followed by some very disappointing losses by the Saints to them (although that playoff win by the Saints was a beauty).

Then two years ago we were subjected to the humiliation of losing to a winless Rams team whose defense was coached by Jim Haslett and Rick Venturi.

Look, I'm human. I want payback this week. I need to see a little Ahab/Picard out of the Black and Gold:

Pregame Grilled Oysters at Lee Circle

2009-11-09T14:01:00.002-06:00

This is what it looked like at Lee Circle (Tivoli Circle) yesterday at around 2:15 p.m.

Saints vs. Falcons = Parasol's vs. Appleby's

2009-11-02T06:15:00.003-06:00

Do it, Drew. Crank it up.

Charles Grant, show your homeboys what you've become in New Orleans.

What I Did During the Saints Win Over the Dolphin

2009-10-29T18:04:00.003-05:00

Daneeta showed me the link to the Josephnils blog, which documents the way we watched the Saints beat the Dolphins--on the porch, while shucking, eating, or grilling and eating, oysters.

Are raw oysters a bigger threat to health than McDonald's fries?

2009-10-28T07:18:00.005-05:00

According to this excellently placed (front-page) story from the T-P, 15 people--many of them already sick from something else--die from eating raw oysters each year.

This occurs in a country with over 300 million people, many of whom are overweight. Tens of thousands of us die each year because we are fat and get fat-related diseases.

The FDA's way of dealing with the oyster "menace," we learn now, will be to require processing of raw oysters 7 months out of the year.

Step back: so what we now know is that the federal government refuses to protect the homeland in Louisiana by doing little to restore wetlands and by trying to implement a flood protection system on the cheap. Now the federal government wants to ruin a key industry in Louisiana and one of life's pleasures here that many of us enjoy.

Fat-related diseases that kill millions of Americans are often caused by foods (made poisonous by bad agriculture and then heavy processing) in areas of the country that are more "American" and more palatable than we "exotics" are in south Louisiana. Midwestern corn, for example, is fine, even though it is used to make products that kill many of us.

All-natural oysters, however, kill 15 people a year, but they must be heavily regulated.

Inadequate levees, disappearing wetlands, and screwed-up oysters. This is what the American federal government is doing for us through a combination of inaction and willful stupidity.

UPDATE: Here's a nice link from Jeffrey. While the feds fret about oysters, the Army Corps' head is waving the white flag.

Best Op-Ed Page in America Today; Thanks, Times-Picayune

2009-10-25T07:54:00.002-05:00

Although the overarching purpose of this blog is to point to a positive vision of what New Orleans can and should be, sometimes I use that vision to criticize our city's newspaper titan, the Times-Picayune. (It's a "titan" because it's the only one.)

After the storm, the Times-Picayune and its reporters and photographers were heroic, at least for me. Their work kept New Orleans on the informational map; they helped to remind us that we remained a community despite the chaos and destruction. They kept the idea of New Orleans alive even when the reality was that we were dispersed and sometimes despairing.

More recently, however, I have expressed disappointment that the T-P has reverted back to being a "normal" newspaper with silly headline stories. I just want the publisher, Mr. Ashton Phelps, and the editors to know that they don't need to lead with the Saints and kitty cats and naked burglars to get me to buy the paper.

Today, though, I am really proud of the Times-Picayune. What a great op-ed section!

An editorial summarizing where we are on flood protection and wetlands loss and restoration (and the news is not good).

A from-the-neighborhood essay from Dennis Persica about what it's like to use gritty determination and faith to return to a neighborhood in Ray Nagin and George W. Bush's free-market world of rebuilding (and the news is inspiring at the individual level but pathetic at the communal level). Persica talks about jack-o-lanterns, and not because it's Halloween time.

And then a James Gill essay (I love that guy) in which he pointblank calls Nagin a fool.

It feels especially good to be a New Orleanian today.

Of course, it helps that I'll be eating home-shucked oysters while watching the Saints play the Dolphins.

World Class Cartoon Time

2009-10-20T14:21:00.002-05:00

What a beautiful thing by the Preservation Hall gang and Mr. James Tancill.

Sustainable Recovery: Carpetbaggers Need Not Apply

2009-10-20T09:14:00.007-05:00

Ed Blakely is gone (that's old news), but his departure and other things I'm seeing help me to conclude that we are arriving at a significant and stirring phase of the resurrection of our region.

We are more than four years beyond the levee failures that temporarily crushed our spirits and our confidence in American know-how.

I have been inspired by the ongoing stream of volunteers who come to our city to help rebuild at the micro-level. Church groups, schools, national organizations of every strip--they came early, and they continue to come.

At the macro-level, however, I sense something significant and stirring.

The carpetbaggers are getting bored, and they're starting to leave. You may have experienced carpetbaggers over the past four years. I certainly have.

These are the people who smelled the chance for immediate financial gain from the plight of a city on its knees.

In many cases, we made it easy for the carpetbaggers--witness Ed Blakely. We offered them ridiculous compensation packages because "we" thought that's what it would take to attract allegedly national and international "experts" here to help us.

We didn't have enough confidence in ourselves--in our knowledge, our hearts, our passion, our work ethic.

And so the city and some major institutions in the city squandered precious dollars to bring in people who brought us . . . nothing. (Well, they did bring us heartache and frustration.)

The real action has been at the grassroots. The grassrooots generates its own expertise, and I don't just mean some romanticized notion of the "wisdom of common folk." The new New Orleans features people who take advantage of the explosion of the accessibility of knowledge, and we combine that with hardcore know-how. New Orleanians are great students of human nature. We know what makes people tick.

We are applying all this to building a better New Orleans.

We know how the world works. We can spot a carpetbagger or a "Simpsons" monorail-builder. (Many of our mayors seem to lose that ability.)

We have great meals and and great parties--we know how to live--because we know what motivates people.

We have all that, but because we are naturally a little skeptical--even of ourselves, especially of ourselves--in 2005 and beyond we spent top dollar to bring in "experts" to "lead" us out of our mess.

The good news is that having extracted plenty enough cash to last them for awhile, people like Blakely are leaving now. Four or five years is about all they could take.

The people who remain, natives and truly committed people who came after the levee failures, as well as the people who are still streaming in, are up to something great.

Now is when the resurrection takes a really interesting turn. Our monorail days are over.

The Most Important Stories Run on the Last Page of the Sports Section in the Times-Picayune

2009-10-15T00:07:00.004-05:00

A few days ago, the Times-Picayune ran one of those stories that should change the outlooks (or confirm them) of any thinking people on the planet.

The story ran on the back of the Sports section.

We are sinking. The Gulf is rising. And our congressional delegation (ALL OF THEM) are in the back pocket of the idiots who are helping to create and sustain the problem.

Thank you, Bob Marshall.

To Ashton Phelps and anybody else who helps decide what goes on the front page: YOU ARE CLUELESS.

Naked guy burglars on the freaking Northshore. Kittens thrown from the Causeway.

Give me a freakin' break.

You, Mr. Phelps, are what is killing our community.

I love the Saints.

But they don't belong on the front page of a serious newspaper.

Battle Over Low-Income Housing Reveals Post-Katrina Anxiety - NYTimes.com

2009-10-03T22:56:00.000-05:00

Battle Over Low-Income Housing Reveals Post-Katrina Anxiety - NYTimes.com

ESPN Radio Teases Us Who Dats

2009-10-02T06:36:00.002-05:00

The Mardi Gras beads are a bit much, but this made me smile anyway.

I couldn't get the You Tube video to embed correctly, so here's the link.

Thanks for Zeitoun, Mr. Eggers

2009-09-25T23:30:00.002-05:00

I finished Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers, during my trip to New York this week.

I was on a plane from JFK to Memphis as I read the last 50 pages. I couldn't swallow, such was the lump in my throat.

I think it would be a striking read for anyone. For New Orleanians--at least for this one--it is downright overwhelming.

Eggers gets the city right; he captures feelings and scenes that we all experienced.

On top of that, though, Abdulrahman Zeitoun's story is one that most of us couldn't imagine would happen, I think. Having read the story, I now feel stupid for thinking that this wouldn't happen. It seems obvious now that it would happen, given the country we've created for ourselves.

Great. The T-P is now covering fake games.

2009-09-17T23:41:00.000-05:00

What up with this?

More Lyrical Whimsy from Saints DE Bobby McCray

2009-09-17T07:13:00.006-05:00

As part of the Occasional Gridiron Poetry Series at World Class New Orleans, we present a new poem by Saints defensive end Bobby McCray, as taken from today's Times-Picayune:

So until Monday afternoon,

we can still be high off our victory.

You know,

talk about it,

talk to your parents about

it.

'We saw you on TV, you did good.'

You know, 'blah,

blah, blah.'

But then

once 4 o'clock hits,

it's Philadelphia.

This has been today's edition of the Occasional Gridiron Poetry Series.

David Byrne's Essay on the Ideal City, Biking, and New Orleans

2009-09-12T13:40:00.002-05:00

Berto and I are preparing today to ride our bicycles to the Superdome tomorrow for Our New Orleans Saints' first regular season game. Fittingly, at breakfast this morning I read a great essay by David Byrne in today's Wall Street Journal, "A Talking Head Dreams of a Perfect City."

Before I get to the really good stuff, I want to cite the lines that really grabbed me:

As someone who has used a bicycle to get around New York for about 30 years I've watched the city—mainly Manhattan, where I live—change for better and for worse. During this time I started to take a full-size folding bike with me when I traveled so I got to experience other cities as a cyclist as well. Seeing cities from on top of a bike is both pleasurable and instructive. On a bike one sees a lot more than from a freeway, and often it's just as fast as car traffic in many towns.

That's the paragraph that made me take the article seriously. Bikes are the way to come to know a city. Period.

Anyway, he cites New Orleans a couple of times, and I think he pretty much gets it right. Byrne's perfect city involves the correct proportions of the following: size, density, sensibility and attitude, security, chaos and danger, human scale, parking (he correctly doesn't much care about this), boulevards, mixed use, and public spaces.

He rates New Orleans high on sensibility and attitude. I was struck by the fact that he mentions New Orleans as often as or more often than he mentions places like San Francisco, Venezia, and Berlin.

Here's what he says about the sensibility and attitude of World Class New Orleans:

New Orleans is a city where people make eye contact. There's a more open sensuality there as well. I'd take that in my perfect city, minus some of the other aspects of that town, such as its tragic poverty, corruption, and crime.

Here's what he says about chaos and danger:

To some, security means rigid order and strict rules. I do believe we do need some laws and rules to guide and reign us in a bit, and I don't just mean traffic lights and pooper scooper mandates. But there's a certain attractiveness to New Orleans, Mexico City or Naples—where you get the sense that though some order exists, it's an order of a fluid and flexible nature. Sometimes too flexible, but a little bit of that sense of excitement and possibility is something I'd wish for in a city. A little touch of chaos and danger makes a city sexy.

I will get more and better work done today because of Steve Gleason

2009-09-11T07:25:00.002-05:00

Why? Because he said all of this, but particularly this (in remembering the Greatest Play in Saints History):

So I remember that moment. And I remember thinking -- as I broke through the line -- that I wasn't going to get there. I was like: I don't think I'm going to make it. I don't think I'm going to make it. And then: I am going to make it! And I remember running through the end zone and dropping to my knees. I remember looking at the crowd and fully comprehending the magnitude of the moment. It was pure joy. And I thought: This is it. We're back.

I will also have a better day because Jeffrey wrote this, but I don't have time to riff on it right now.

I Sent a Message to Senator David Vitter Using His Advertisement on the NY Times

2009-09-08T21:25:00.001-05:00

. . . though I'm not sure it's the message he wanted.

I was peacefully reading an article at nytimes.com when I saw his ad in the sidebar. The ad was an attempted slander of Charlie Melancon. I didn't like the looks of it.

So I clicked on the ad--I have clicked on an actual Internet ad maybe 4 times in my life.

Anyway, I clicked through and found a way to send Senator Vitter a message. And here's what I said (you can use the same form here):

Sir, You bring dishonor to yourself by slandering Mr. Melancon. I am not a registered Democrat, but it's just wrong what you're doing. Please run on a positive agenda. I know almost nothing about what you are for. I only know what you are against. Your agenda seems purely negative. The only other thing I know about you is the horrible scandal that you have brought to our state. Feel free to contact me if you think it would be useful. Thanks, Mr. Clio

Congrats to Dambala

2009-08-31T08:08:00.003-05:00

I was privileged to meet him last week at Rising Tide IV.

Now it looks as though he's in for an adventure dealing with City Hall people.

Dambala is a world class part of the new New Orleans.

The City Hall people described in the T-P article sound like old New Orleans.

Big Week for World Class New Orleans

2009-08-21T06:32:00.004-05:00

Why?

1. I'm a practicing Catholic, which means I'm not very good at it. But our city took a step forward out of its leadership crisis when Archbishop Alfred Hughes stepped down. (Can you imagine? The city has gone through the failure of federal levees, Katrina, utter chaos, and the leaders we get include Archbishop Hughes and Mayor Curly. Awful.)

I'm glad a local guy, Archbishop Greg Aymond, is taking over. However, he apparently started his tenure by calling himself a shepherd, which is unfortunate because it implies I'm a sheep. Jesus could get away with that. It doesn't sound good in 21st century New Orleans, though.

2. Rising Tide IV is happening tonight and tomorrow, and for the first time, I'm going. And I'm even on the Sports panel. Scary. NOTE: You can still register for the conference, attend, but then skip out before my panel starts so that you don't have to listen to Jeffrey and me arguing about the merits of Reggie Bush.

Speaking Through (the flashing of) the Barrel of a Gun

2009-08-19T07:22:00.004-05:00

On WWL 870 radio today, I caught the tail end of a talk that Tommy Tucker was doing with the director of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The director was talking (via phone) about how it goes against common sense to have people showing up to townhall meetings about healthcare flashing guns.

Tommy Tucker was acting like it is an open question, that this is something that we should actually spend time discussing, and he was soliciting calls for either side of the question.

(Silence.)

So this is what things have come to.

What other things will WWL radio hosts and listeners want to debate? If we actually think this issue is an open question, I suggest we debate the following:

A. Whether or not it's right to herd all illegal immigrants into concentration camps and then gas them.

B. Whether or not it's right for Fox News host Sean Hannity to hold a knife to President Obama's throat while interviewing him.

C. Whether or not it's right to incarcerate anyone who criticizes insurance companies.

Because, you know, rational citizens with a right to free speech need to discuss things like this.

On radio.

During drive time.

UPDATE: I wrote this before I read Jeffrey's excellent post about Tommy Tucker's lunacy of yesterday.