New Orleans' "Recovery Czar"

[Benzadmiral]

Have a look at yesterday's NY Times story: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/us/10orleans.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The local media is squealing like unhappy pigs at Dr. Blakely's comments that a lot of the New Orleans locals are "buffoons," the civic elite is "insular," and that the city has "an economy made up entirely of T-shirts." One local show in headlining the story says that Blakely has likened NO to a third-world country, though I didn't see him using that exact phrase in this story. (ETA: Yes, he did use it. See the bottom of page 2.)

He's right on every count, of course. (As for being "insular," I'd be insular too if I could get away with it. Anybody would want to insulate himself from the crime and other problems here.)

Leave it to The Swamp to hire somebody to help them recover, then scream at his sensible, cool-headed observations. How do they expect to recover if they can't analyze the symptoms clearly and won't take their medicine as directed?

[Jim B.]

This guy sounds like the right man to lead New Orleans to recovery. His credentials are impeccable, and as a black man he can unashamedly point out the waste of time and futility of a race driven agenda that will surely be doomed to fail.

[G-Benz]

He points out nothing that the locals don't already know...and what I've been told by relatives that still reside there. Actually, much of this existed even before Katrina.

Nobody wants their dirty laundry aired out for all to see...hence the uproar over his statements!

[Benzadmiral]

Yeah, well, sooner or later you gotta change that dirty laundry, whether you like it or not.

[John Doe]

Originally Posted by Benzadmiral

and that the city has "an economy made up entirely of T-shirts." ?

All I had to read before I give him a big

I am reviewing some market analysis data for NOLA as we speak and only 16% of New Orleans' economy based on employment is made up of tourism.

Northrup Grumman and Oschner's are the city's two largest employers.

Entergy is no small player nor is the Port of New Orleans. Want to talk about oil? Largest pipe in the country.

I can't think of a city where the civic elite aren't snobs either, btw. I agree there is a vast gap between the haves and the have nots in NO, but i also understand that that gap is the largest presently nationwide that it has ever been since before the depression. There are some great opportunities in the city right now and if the doom and gloomers want to get left out of it, it is fine by me.

When I hit the revenue #s section, I'll post that stuff too.

[Benzadmiral]

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. . . .

[John Doe]

Originally Posted by Benzadmiral

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. . . .

You forgot the pimp fashion stores and sneaker shops on Canal

I don't disagree with you on the overall commentary of the plight of the poor in New Orleans, but I don't entirely sympathize with them either--Went to a jeff parish jury meeting a couple of months ago and they are importing LABOR, not educated folks because they have driven trucks down Esplanade trying to hire healthy men for $15-$20/hour and the guys don't want to work because they are still on the dole.

I've been going down about every 60 days, btw, and will be coming more frequently in the near future.

[catmandoo62]

why work when the govment pay you to sit on your butt and smoke crack and drink 40's all day

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by catmandoo62

why work when the govment pay you to sit on your butt and smoke crack and drink 40's all day

That's my retirement scenario you're dissin' son.

B

[Benzadmiral]

Have a look:

http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/05/blakely_says_louisiana_needs_b.html

I've been saying for years that we need birth control. We're way too crowded, and morons are producing more morons at an explosive rate. (The whole world, though, not just New Orleans. I'm reminded of Oliver Wendell Holmes's 1927 comment on the legality of sterilizing Carrie Buck, the daughter of a feeble-minded mother and the mother of another illegitimate feeble-minded child: "Three generations of imbeciles is enough." Where are the OWHs when you really need 'em?)

And it's true: the NO public school system doesn't turn out productive citizens; the schools here (and, to be fair, in many other places, I hear) are little more than holding pens for future felons.

Ed Blakely's my hero.

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by Benzadmiral

Have a look:

http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/05/blakely_says_louisiana_needs_b.html

I've been saying for years that we need birth control. We're way too crowded, and morons are producing more morons at an explosive rate. (The whole world, though, not just New Orleans. I'm reminded of Oliver Wendell Holmes's 1927 comment on the legality of sterilizing Carrie Buck, the daughter of a feeble-minded mother and the mother of another illegitimate feeble-minded child: "Three generations of imbeciles is enough." Where are the OWHs when you really need 'em?)

And it's true: the NO public school system doesn't turn out productive citizens; the schools here (and, to be fair, in many other places, I hear) are little more than holding pens for future felons.

Ed Blakely's my hero.

I'll bet the Boston Club hates the guy as much as the MidCity crowd hates him. Who could ask for a better cluster of enemies to define oneself?

Who do you favor for gov now that Kathleen seems headed back to domestic goddess status? Who is going to run against Mary? I voted for both of them wimmen the last election. Unless somebody better comes along I'll likely vote for Mary again, despite my less than stellar track record of candidate selection.

B

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by G-Benz

He points out nothing that the locals don't already know...and what I've been told by relatives that still reside there. Actually, much of this existed even before Katrina.

Hey, lets build a city below sea level next to a big ass lake and in a hurricane prone area... while were at it lets build us some dikes in a shoddy manner to save money ...

[truckinik]

Funny, I drive through, and or spend a lot of time down there..But the good doctor's thoughts, are exactly the ones I have every time I'm there, and I agree with him about a lot of it. I'm not used to such low standards of living as the people down there are though, and try to imagine it, but can't. I feel they are a bunch of fools for wanting to live anywhere near there, or especially rebuild anything there.. They should have taken advantage of it all, and left while they had their chance, when the storm hit. I've felt this way for many years, long before Katrina was a even a passing breeze, in her mother and father's eyes..
They can keep their "Cess-Pool", and their "Sub-Standard" ways of life if they want it..I'll stay on my side of the tracks.

[Botnst]

There are several issues at play that I think y'all might be interested in exploring.

1. New Orleans was founded in the early 1700's on the first major high ground upstream from the mouth of the Mississippi River.

2. Some parts of the city have not flooded in recorded history.

3. The French settlers were mostly poor and from cities in France. They were led by military aristocrats of minor French nobility. None of the settlers knew squat about farming in a subtropical delta. What they did know of farming was from temperate French methods and French crops and French livestock which were almost completely unsuitable to the region.

4. The 2nd and 3rd wave of French settlers were plantation farmers who knew how to work slaves to grow sugarcane and cotton. They hired overseers from French colonies in the Caribbean and brought in slaves from those colonies, principally Haiti but also Martinique and some from French West Africa.

5. The French attitude towards slaves was quite different from the Anglo-German attitude. The French legally recognized the products of liaisons between owners and slaves, for example. Also, manumission of faithful slaves was not uncommon. Slave families were almost never broken-up and sold. Slaves were often asked about potential sale to another master or would ask to be sold to another master. House slaves were often educated. Occasionally well beyond reading and writing. With the owner's permission, slaves could own property and even have a business.

6. Plantation owners farmed the low ground around NOLA. They built canals to help drain the low ground so they could plant earlier in the season. Slave quarters for field hands were built near the fields. Annual floods often washed-out the slave quarters and flooded the fields so the plantation owners built low levees, less than 3 ft high, around their fields.

7. The population grew and expanded into the leveed agricultural areas. Levees were raised to increase flood protection in the late 1700's after a couple of especially severe floods and a major yellow fever epidemic.

8. Trade up the Mississippi River and overland to the Natchez Trace expanded dramatically with the expansion of the plantation system up the Mississippi and Red Rivers.

9. The population of NOLA began to grow exponentially from "Americans" westward expansion and immigrants from France and later, Spain (France sold Louisiana to Spain). The levee system was expanded and raised.

Unbeknownst to geologists of the day, leveeing and drying the relatively unconsolidated soil surrounding NOLA increased oxidation of the highly organic soil resulting in compaction and subsequent loss of elevation. Also unknown to geologist was the fact of deltaic subsidence due to dewatering and overburden compression. Finally, nobody knew that leveeing, which held the river floodwaters out of the city, would prevent resaturation of the soil (preventing or slowing oxidation) and fertilize the vegetation which actually "grows" land.

Continue the above for another 150 years of plantation farming, increase levee expanse and height, and channelizing all of the upstream tributaries to increase run-off and drain wetlands up into the Ohio, Tennessee, and Missouri Rivers systems and we have the city of New Orleans.

B

[Deezl]

Originally Posted by Botnst

Continue the above for another 150 years of plantation farming, increase levee expanse and height, and channelizing all of the upstream tributaries to increase run-off and drain wetlands up into the Ohio, Tennessee, and Missouri Rivers systems and we have the city of New Orleans.

Remember to throw in such desultory, yet simply amazing people such as Ray Nagin, Kathleen, the Longs, and Edwin over the last of those 60 or so years, and you've got La., the cesspool that it has always been and will continue to be.