But working for Northrup Grumman and Ochsner Medical requires education -- something New Orleanians view at best with indifference and at worst with the same horror as we do our native cockroaches. These big employers would have to *import* people with brains and education.

The tourism stuff, though, is in your face everywhere you go downtown and in the French Quarter. I remember when Canal Street was *the* shopping district, not just a string of hotels and tawdry electronics shops, the FQ (where I grew up) was a relatively serene neighborhood with actual service businesses, and the Port was the second largest in the country. How the mighty have fallen.

If Entergy and the oil industry are such big players, why is this dump still a dump?

There probably are opportunities to exploit here. Just be aware how schizophrenic and stupid things are here. In early '06 this place turned down an offer from a company to *pay the city* to haul away abandoned, Katrina-trashed cars, then turned around and handed several million $ to another company to do the same job. . . .

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-- Paul W. (The Benzadmiral)
('03 Buick Park Avenue, charcoal/cream)
Formerly:
'97 C230, smoke silver/parchment; '86 420SEL, anthracite/light grey; '84 280CE (W123), dark blue/palomino