Library Chronicles

They are horrible. I know I'm saying this at the end of an LSU loss that can be directly laid on at least 4 major blown calls but this applies to SEC officials this entire season. They are horrible. The SEC has decided the way to solve the problem of horrible officiating is to muzzle the coaches when they point out how horrible it is. That's pretty sad.

Labels: LSU, sports

I'm not going to waste this day finishing the Saints reporting. There's too much going on out there. This week's post was turning out to be more about Bob Roesler and mercury denaturing and xbox and Higgs boson particles than actual football anyway. I'll just fold all that bullshit into the re-cap of the Caronlina game (which I am thoroughly convinced the Saints will lose, btw).

Anyway I'm outta here for now.

I just got in. There was a debate tonight? I thought there were still like 70 more candidates waiting to declare.

Update: Just going by Kevin Allman's notes in that post, I'd say Murray wins that one.

Also... (sigh)

Perry, ever-wired into the Facebook/Twitter Zeitgeist, managed to squeeze out one Tweet from the dais while someone else was speaking.

Okay okay I gotta know. Wait a sec. Okay, hang on... rooting around the Tweeter Tube now.. and.. ok this is it. It... oh... Oh God

I'm debating 3 mayoral candidates right now at the Crimefightes debate. I can feel the swell of support in the Room

I'm beginning to wonder if the whole James Perry campaign isn't actually some elaborate prank. Or maybe it's someone's Social Media Marketing thesis project. Does he know anything about organic pizza, by any chance?

Labels: New Orleans, politics

But I'm going to see Dave Eggers speak at NOCCA tonight so I'll just have to waste part of my Saturday finishing it up... or maybe I'll make next week another two-fer. But that would suck since half of this week's post is about why the Saints are guaranteed to lose Sunday. Maybe we'll get there in time. Maybe.

Labels: saints, sports

Sometimes the way will have an eye on them
Other times the ass will snatch the morsel
Clive licks the eyes of the lonely ones
Here at the time when the mission kicks the tribe
The commission takes the bribe

The schadenfreude portion of the Dragonslaying process is usually where I begin to lose interest but HOLY SHIT 63 counts is an awful lot.

Labels: Greg Meffert, New Orleans

Former Public Service Commission member John Schwegmann calls columns libelous

Greg Meffert: “The Times-Picayune is the biggest bully in town.”

Labels: Greg Meffert, John Schwegmann, media, New Orleans, Times-Picayune

Krugman:

Back in the first few months of the current administration, when I was writing piece after piece urging the new administration to adopt a more aggressive economic policy, what I had very much in my mind — and wrote about on a few occasions — was the possibility of a sort of political economy trap. If unemployment continued to rise, I feared, Congress wouldn’t draw the right conclusion — that we needed more stimulus. Instead, the verdict would be that Obama’s economic policies weren’t working, so we needed to do less. And high unemployment would also lead to Democratic electoral losses, further undermining the ability to act (since the fact is that today’s GOP is the party of economic ignorance). The result would be a persistently depressed economy, and a fading out of Obama’s promise.

And the same thing is happening with health care.

Liberals have such low expectations these days that they're actually celebrating a health care reform bill that might include a "public option" ...but probably one with "triggers" or an "opt-out" clause. Either way Harry Reid's bill looks pretty darn crappy but liberals are somehow ecstatic.

Even if health reform passes with some form of "public option" most of us are still looking at insufficient coverage, and increasing costs for the forseeable future all to the continued benefit of the goulish death-profiteers in an insurance industry left largely intact.

The result of this is that we're going to end up with a health reform that not only doesn't do what it needs to do but also discredits the whole idea of health care reform for another generation. And all of this is because Obama has been doing it wrong from day one. And doing it wrong is worse than not doing it at all.

Labels: Barack Obama, economy, health care

Some guy came into the library the other day handing out these fliers.

At first I didn't think much of it. We get a lot of freaks in there. But then the same thing turns up on every freaking channel and I'm beginning to think it's either really bad spam or it might be... you know... a thing. Anyway, they say there's free beer so, hey.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, events, New Orleans

Please read what Karen posted yesterday morning.

Post Gustav Ed Blakely did his best to show a strong show of force, and in some ways it would seem that Gustav was Blakely’s perfect storm. One that did little damage but emptied out the City of pesky residents. In fact one of the first times I met Dr. Blakely he was crowing about his suspending council meetings in Oakland after the fire. His assertion was that he could cut through the red tape if it just didn’t exist. Employing the same logic post Gustav he worked with the Mayor to craft an Executive Order to cut through that red tape and ultimately tread on constitutional rights.

The "emergency" period following the Gustav evacuation isn't discussed as often as it probably ought to be. During this time the Nagin administration assumed and abused extraordinary powers to deny citizens access to their homes for days after the emergency had passed even going so far as to unilaterally design a staged reentry program based on socio-economic caste. It maintained these extraordinary powers for weeks afterward in order to expedite questionable property demolitions outside of the legally established review process. Recently, when Ray Nagin expressed his admiration for the emergency management capabilities of totalitarian government, he wasn't just blowing funny cigar smoke at us. He was speaking quite deliberately and informed by the policies and experiences of his own administration.

In an August 2007 interview with Gambit, Ed Blakely described in detail his and Nagin's preference for governing by emergency dictate. I wrote a longer post about it at the time which you can read here if you like but what I wanted most to point out was that Blakely wasn't talking about some theoretical (although I would still say debatable) need of "emergency" governmental powers to move people out of harm's way. Rather he was more interested in longer term subversion of standards for public input or procedural transparency in the distribution of things like construction contracts. While by this point it is nothing novel to state that New Orleans under Nagin and Blakely has been an exercise in classic Bush era "Disaster Capitalism", I think it is worth noting the Gustav event as a particularly symptomatic moment in this regard.

Furthermore, Nagin's candid expression of Cuba envy underscores just how profoundly anti-democratic and dangerous the means by which we are ruled have become in these times. I'm going to share some excerpts from a recent interview between Bill Moyers and Glenn Greenwald. Moyers and Greenwald are talking about abuses of the Constitution, of the Freedom of Information Act, and of basic human dignity perpetrated by the Bush and Obama Administrations under the now familiar excuse that such abuses are "protecting" us from one or another "emergency". The entire interview is available to view online here. Take the time to watch it. It is instructive of the larger conceptual political context in which the Nagin-Blakely era in New Orleans has operated.

BILL MOYERS: No one wrote earlier or more powerfully about the claims, the extra legal claims that the Bush and Cheney Administration made after 9/11. Doing many of the things you just described, because they invoked national security and the fact that to fight terrorism you often have to use the terrorists own tactics.

To what extent has President Obama begun to deconstruct that extra-legal apparatus, the excessive secrecy, the use of extra-constitutional means of interrogation? To what extent is he undoing the infrastructure of excessive government claims that you wrote about during those last eight years?

GLENN GREENWALD: Very little. And not only is it the case that he is deconstructing that framework in only symbolic and inconsequential ways, but he's doing the reverse. Which is he is finding new and often more effective ways to embrace many of those same instruments, and to institutionalize them further. It's not the case that Obama is the equivalent of Bush and Cheney, in this regard--

[Exchange regarding the President's willingness to compromise principal in the pursuit of maintaining power]

BILL MOYERS: For example?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, one of the principle controversies of the Bush Administration, one of the defining aspects of their radicalism, was the idea that we can take human beings who we don't capture on a battlefield, who we simply abduct and pick up, who we suspect of engaging in terrorism and put them into cages for years or decades without having to charge them with any crime.

That — simply based on executive authority — the ability to point to someone and say, "This is a terrorist," then justifies the elimination of all due process and putting them into prison forever. Obama, several months ago, said that he not only believes in that power, but wanted Congress to enact a statute that would permanently enshrine this theory of law into Presidential power.

He gave up on that because there was going to be difficulty in terms of getting the bill that he wanted passed through the Congress. So, instead what he did was he embraced the Bush/Cheney justification as to why the President can do that, which is that the Congress implicitly authorized it.

And so, we're continuing our scheme of indefinite lawless detention, free of due process, free of any charges of any kind. Where we can pick up people anywhere around the world and put them into cages. He's actively defending that power in Afghanistan, by saying that people who we abduct far away from the battlefield, far away from Afghanistan, and then ship to Afghanistan and imprison at Bagram have no rights even to habeas corpus, which the Supreme Court said at least that Guantanamo detainees have.

And so, that's just one example where for years liberals yelled and screamed vehemently that Bush was subverting the Constitution and degrading the American culture, political culture, by asserting this power. And yet, here you have Barack Obama not just refusing or taking his time undoing it, but himself actively defending and advocating it. And there's very little outcry. And that repeats itself in terms of the state secrets privilege. And the effort to block accountability for torture victims. And a whole variety of other powers that Bush and Cheney asserted to great controversy.

Here we have seen these themes brought to bear on a local level. Sure, petty corruption and arrogant officiousness exist in other parts of Imperial America. But when the arrogant petty criminals who run this town talk about making decisions according to the direction and needs of an elite "coterie of people" with little or no public accountability, it stings more acutely. Why? Well, in part, because the abuses here have been about more than just the meting out of cash by the "coterie". Here we really have been putting people into cages or "disappearing" them or.. worse.

In Zeitoun, Dave Eggers relays the story of local painter and contractor Abdulrahman Zeitoun who stayed behind during the Federal Flood to watch over his home and some of the properties he owned around town. Zeitoun spent the first few days after the storm traveling the city in a canoe, rescuing people from flooded buildings, and feeding abandoned animals until he (along with three other men) was abducted from his own building by armed security personnel and locked up at the "Camp Greyhound" temporary prison constructed in the Union Passenger Terminal.

When I read Zeitoun this summer, it made me very angry. But, like Clio, I was grateful to see this story told so well by Eggers. Zetioun stands among a very small number of "Katrina" books that manage to tell a real story about real people without falling back on ornamental cliches or guilt-driven defensive rationalizations about "Why New Orleans Matters". Instead, Zeitoun simply assumes the reader will understand that the people here "matter" because they are people. The fact that the events reported upon constitute a violation of that assumption makes the horror of it all that much more poignant. This week, Gambit's David Winkler-Schmit interviewed the author. Here's a quick bit of that.

When Zeitoun is arrested, he's brought to Camp Greyhound. The jail was constructed after the storm and was a fairly extensive project. What does this tell you about the government's priorities after the levee failures?

I started doing a lot of research into [Camp Greyhound] and it had been fairly well documented in those weeks after the hurricane, but it wasn't widely known outside of New Orleans. (Zeitoun) had figured out some math when he was locked up there about just how quickly they had assembled this outdoor prison in the wake of the storm. It has been confirmed that while people were dying in attics, struggling to eat or find water, yearning for help on rooftops and the government couldn't get anything right on a national level and was still bungling in so many ways, at the same time, there was a very efficient operation happening at the Greyhound Station. [Prisoners from Dixon Correctional Institute] and trustees from Angola were bused down along with a vast amount of materials to erect a very shiny and well-built prison. That contrast struck me and it felt very emblematic of Bush-era priorities, where it's command and control over any sort of humanitarian concerns.

What prompted this collapse of the criminal justice system, where people were arrested with little or no provocation, no investigations were made and then suspects weren't allowed to contact anyone on the outside?

It was very hard to have land lines working at Greyhound, or so they say — and if we grant them that it would be very difficult to make calls, but in lieu of that, there has to be other systems in place. It also doesn't excuse the fact that after they evacuated from Greyhound (to) Hunt (Correctional Facility in St. Gabriel, La.), they were still not given phone calls. But there was a lot of that left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing, because once a prisoner was processed through Greyhound and sent to one of the many longer-term prisons throughout the state, they were lost in the system for weeks, if not months, when no one really knew where they were. Records weren't being kept. Lawyers and human rights advocates think that what was done was an evacuation via incarceration — where they wanted to clear out the city, so anybody found within it was accused of looting or some other trumped-up charge and thrown in prison.

I was also struck by the efficiency with which "Camp Greyhound" had been constructed compared to the numerous other failures of emergency response happening concurrently. It's a fact that moves one off the point of criticizing the competence of the government in these situations and on to its priorities.

One of the most insulting things Blakely did in his Berkley interview was to lay blame for his ineffectual tenure in New Orleans at the feet of a "lazy" and "illiterate" population. It is remarkable that a man who spends as much time as he does seeking ways to belittle and subvert citizen involvement in civic affairs would be so disapproving of a supposedly disengaged citizenry. But Blakely is a two-bit carpetbagger so it's folly to take much of what he says at face value.

On the other hand, something must explain why a supposedly free people allow themselves to be ruled and misused this way; why we arrive at a government that can't deliver water to stranded citizens but can build a mini-GITMO in less than five days. Moyers asked Greenwald to speculate on it and I think he came close to hitting on something here.

GLENN GREENWALD: I think there's several aspects to it. But I think the principle one is — and interestingly, Barack Obama actually talked about this in his Presidential campaign, quite eloquently and insightfully — that there gets to be a point where citizens look at the government, and they look at both political parties, and they conclude that the system itself is so radically corrupt and the political parties are so fundamentally nonresponsive that no matter what it is that they do, they aren't going to be able to achieve any change. They feel a sense of learned helplessness. And they essentially accept whatever it is that's done to them and simply hope that it's not too bad. And I think that's the population. It's not that they're apathetic. It's that they've come to believe in their own impotence. And I think that's actually sadder and-- and more dangerous.

Like I said, I think he's close. I think there actually are a lot of justifiably angry people out there. But so many of them are so misled or so misinformed that their anger manifests in such ways as to further discourage the rest of us. I'm not sure I understand it fully but I do know it creates the sort of environment where Nagins and Blakelys of the world can flourish at our expense. But now, Blakely is gone and Nagin is on the way out. Given that Obama hasn't been much of an improvement over Bush I suppose the best we can do about the upcoming municipal elections is continue to hope that whatever comes next isn't too bad.

Note: Dave Eggers will be discussing his book at the NOCCA institute (2800 Chartres St.) on Friday at 8:00 PM. Tickets are $10.00 Click here for more information.

Labels: Barack Obama, books, Ed Blakely, flood, George W Bush, Nagin, New Orleans, police, war

In fact, my next post will recommend two items from that paper. So it's only fair for me to say here that I could not possibly give less of a fuck about 40 social-climbing Yurps. Please can we do away with this annual embarrassment to everyone involved?

Labels: douchebaggery, Gambit, media, New Orleans

As many of the regular readers are aware, when I go to the Saints games I bring with me 1) a cell phone for posting comments to the Tweeter Tube and 2) a flask full of liquor for mixing with my eight dollar soda. The combination makes for increasingly fun stupidity as the game wears on... not to mention some cringe-worthy moments upon review of the game-time Tweeter Tubings come the following morning. For example, it appears that the last thing tweeted last evening somewhere around midnight reads:

Thank God the Saints won because FUCK ED BLAKELY

Worse still, I seem to have been so proud of that one that I decided to copy and paste it to Facebook where it reads:

hank God the Saints won because FUCK ED BLAKELY

And so let us all give hanks to God this morning. The Saints are 7-0.

More to come... hopefully before week's end.

Labels: Ed Blakely, saints, sports, Tweeter Tube

For example, 8/29 is also the day most of us met Sarah Palin. Ponder on that for a while.

Labels: Sarah Palin

It was Brees' fault.

Brees works teammates with the autocracy of a corporate CEO. He printed up T-shirts in the preseason with mission statements like "Smell Greatness, " "Finish, " "Be Special" and Super Bowl 44" on them. To emphasize the need to finish games, he bought wristbands and the book "212: The Extra Degree" for players.

And then there's this

The hottest local T-shirt in the city displays a football in the shape of Greek Ichthys, the fish brandishing a fleur-de-lis instead of an eye. The inscription: Breesus.

Seriously, folks we are O.D.ing on stupid here. Almost makes you wonder if we don't deserve to lose this one just to shut some of this crap down. But then something tells me that wouldn't do any good anyway.

Labels: douchebaggery, saints, sports

That tragedy, of course, being that he realized too late what the rest of us knew from the beginning.

"I should have left a little earlier, for two reasons: One, my health wasn't good. Secondly, I had other things I wanted to do, and administering a recovery is not one of them."

Adding: We really are in trouble around here when we've got the head of the Corps and the (ex) (titular) head of the "recovery" sharing the same nihilistic view of our future.

Blakely also played climatologist, saying New Orleans "isn't likely" to be around 100 years from now. He said the Mississippi River and another storm would probably conspire to "wipe New Orleans off the map."

Look, I'm not very big on the concept of "leadership" myself but you'd at least think the bare minimum requirement would be that the leader thinks the damn job is worth doing. Unless this whole business of "recovery" really has been one big rush to steal whatever rubble left over after the disaster had any decent resale value. In that case, these are exactly the kind of leaders you might want.

Previously I had called this sort of thing the very definition of "carbetbagging" but the sensitive types have found this term lacking in decorum as of late. I guess I'll never share in Dr. Blakely's enlightened approach to sensitive racial discourse but I can dream.

Labels: Ed Blakely, New Orleans

I'm not sure if this really is going to be the "first" forum but it would be appropriate.

Labels: New Orleans, politics

City Business editorial:

It is unfortunate that Rosenthal has chosen to take her worthwhile battle to a front where there seems to be little resistance to her cause. It’s also a borderline insult to local newspaper readers and TV news viewers, implying that they require explicit and redundant detail to understand where the finger of blame for Katrina flood damage needs to be pointed.

Um... yes, we do require "explicit and redundant detail to understand where the finger of blame for Katrina flood damage needs to be pointed" and it strikes me as exactly your job to give that to us. Yes, I know Sandy Rosenthal can seem like something of a "concern troll" from time to time. She certainly gets on my nerves anyway. But I really have to marvel at CityBiz's thin skin here.

It is especially unfortunate that she takes umbrage with the work of journalists, many of them having braved the conditions of post-Katrina New Orleans to provide an accurate account of the events that transpired in the wake of the federal government’s shortcomings.

Media criticism is about participating in the conversation and thereby (hopefully) helping to shape the message. Not everyone has to agree but surely no one who has even a semblance of a point should be so blatantly discouraged from participating. One would think the professionals would know that even if they do work for a modest business rag.

Labels: flood, media, New Orleans

Apparently, this was Ronnie Lott's fault all along.

Lott, who played cornerback and safety in his 15-year Hall of Fame career spent mostly with the San Francisco 49ers, is now a successful businessman in northern California.

He met with the Saints this summer when they traveled to play Oakland in the preseason and spent some one-on-one time with (Saints safety Darren) Sharper, offering pep talks that resonated with the veteran.

Lott provided one of the Saints' motivational slogans for this year: "Smell Greatness." And Sharper said Lott encouraged him to enjoy every practice and every game as if he were a rookie all over again.

"What I remember from that talk is that sometimes you don't see the greatness that other people see in you, " Lott said. "I think Darren Sharper has greatness written all over him. You can see it. You can smell it.

Of course, the Saints did pick that up and print it on T-Shirts. It's still unclear to me who was responsible for that.

Labels: douchebaggery, saints, sports

On this day in 2005, we restored library service in New Orleans. And that really does seem like just yesterday. Every three or four years, I find myself saying, "those were the strangest years of my life" or some such. In this case, yes, very much so. If the pattern holds, it's only gonna get weirder.

Labels: flood, library

Alright first things first. We promised to say something about last week's Saints-Giants game so here it is. In order to save us all a bit of time, I've been searching the Yellow Blog archives for a recyclable description of my physical state that Sunday. It's too familiar a situation for me to have to re-write entirely. Ok here's one. This is how I felt while watching the Saints' Week 2 loss at Tampa back in 2007.

Usually a hangover entails a few morning hours of discomfort coupled with partial blindness and the obligatory self-loathing. But yesterday was something special, a hangover only the professionals like myself are called to endure, featuring twelve hours of dry heaves, an inability to breathe without pain, and the feeling that your brain is being subjected to two additional atmospheres of uninterrupted pressure.

So there it is. The only difference between that day in 2007 and this week was, this time, the Saints were playing at home. This means that while I watched the game from my convalescent couch, I was forfeiting one of those highly prized home games we scrape together to pay for each year. Following upon that unfortunate business, I've had to answer various phone calls, text messages, emails, blog comments, skywriting, PA announcements, etc. all of which say some form of, "Dude how could you miss the GREATEST GAME EVER? WTF is wrong with you?"

Those are two questions and so there are two answers. First, what's wrong with me is that I'm getting too old to stay out as late as I used to without there being serious consequences the next day but am far too stupid to have any appreciation for the word, "consequences" and so... the ugly cycle continues indefinitely. Second, this really wasn't all that great a game. The Saints got out ahead, passed the ball well against a confused and out-manned secondary, and missed just enough tackles to give up more points than is commonly considered decent. Other than that, sure, it was the GREATEST GAME EVER that exactly zero people will be talking about by next month. Actually, forget next month. After what happened in Miami this week, nobody is talking about it now. The Miami game actually will stick in the mind for a while but we'll get to that in a minute. By the time Atlanta has come and gone, the Giants game will be just about as hazy as my head was while it was actually happening.

Saints vs Giants notes (short version)

• The good news: Good to see Lance Moore back on the field. I actually think he's got better hands than Colston. The Saints protected the quarterback well, although Jermond Bushrod still looks like a problem to me. Reggie Bush barely touched the ball on offense all day.



• The bad news: The Saints missed a ton of tackles, not only on defense, but also on special teams.



• Darren Sharper loses a TD because the NFL is run by Madison Avenue. Sharper had yet another interception return for a touchdown in this game but it was nullified by a questionable roughing the passer call.
  
  I suppose we have to live with this sort of thing but we don't have to like it. The modern NFL does whatever it can to protect the marketing value of quarterbacks. Because of this each year brings numerous new perversions of the rules designed to protect the QB personally and to encourage coaches to over-emphasize the passing game in general. But this really is just one of the many aspects of professional sports that are presented to us by people who care about marketing for people who don't really care about sports. We don't like it but we live with it. Would have been nice to have that touchdown, though.



• Last week's media complaints During the Giants game, the FOX announcers once again stuck us with another gratuitous Katrina reference in the middle of the football game. Enough, already.
  
  Also, dear local media, please no more "How can the Saints save the local economy?" stories. They're almost as embarrassing as the "How can the Saints help solve the city's crime problem" story WWLTV ran during the 2006 season. (I referred to the story in a recap of the Saints-Eagles playoff game which I am linking back to here because it also describes yet another personal alcoholism episode)



• Last week's Dome complaint Because I was unable to make it to this game, people who were there called several times during the day to taunt me. Because of the poor cell reception and excessive noise inside the Dome, I was unable to understand much of what these people were saying to me. I'm...uh... not sure this qualifies as a complaint.

Saints vs Dolphins

• GREATEST GAME EVER Okay not really. However, unlike the Giants game, this was clearly the most entertaining Saints game of the 2009 season and, unlike the Giants game, will likely be talked about by Saints fans for years to come. As regular readers know, we've written extensively here about nearly every Saints game played during the Sean Payton era. If we had to pick favorite moments from each of those seasons they would be:
  
  1) The Monday Night return to the Dome vs. Atlanta
  
  2) The "Granny-Killing" reverse game vs. Tampa in 2007
  
  3) The Monday Night game vs Minnesota last year which seemed to have everything. Really, go back and read that (although I have to fix the pics in that post). That is probably the best football game I've watched in the last 5 years.
  
  So far in 2009, this Dolphins game is the most entertaining I've seen. Unless the Saints end up winning the Superbowl (they won't) it's going to be hard to top this.



• Do not attempt to adjust your set. We'd prefer to just hit it with a hammer. I said this was the "most entertaining" game we've seen this year. This doesn't mean it was particularly well played... or well coached... but we'll get to that in a minute. One thing for certain is that it was not very well officiated.
  
  By this point in the week, you've already read and heard plenty about a first quarter replay review that didn't happen due to malfunctioning equipment. Yeah that was weird. And yeah they got the call wrong. But look at what else they got wrong even while the machine was supposedly working before you tell me how short-changed you feel about this.
  
  Late in the 2nd Quarter, the Dolphins, already leading 24-3, had again crossed into Saints territory and had an opportunity to add to their lead before halftime. Miami receiver Davone Bess caught a pass at the 47 yard line and "fumbled" the ball which was fallen on by Scott Shanle to kill the Dolphins threat. Replay review clearly showed Bess's knees on the ground before the fumble occurred. Despite the fact that the officials (we are lead to believe anyway)now had access to functioning television equipment, the fumble was not overturned. The Saints took possession and scored just before the half ended putting themselves back in the game. It isn't putting it too mildly to say that the game turned on this badly botched call even though the replay equipment was (we are lead to believe) functional at this point.
  
  The Dolphins still had control of the game when on the third play from scrimmage of the second half, Darren Sharper intercepted a pass, returned it down the right sideline, and clearly fumbled the ball before crossing the goal line. The ball bounced out of the endzone and should have been ruled a touchback. Instead, the official on the field ruled that Sharper has scored. Replay review clearly showed that the call on the field was incorrect and yet, despite the fact that the officials (we are lead to believe anyway)now had access to functioning television equipment, the call was not overturned.
  
  
  Darren Sharper effectively pleads his fraudulent case
  
  Much has been written this week about the importance of the closing minutes of the first half and the opening minutes of the second half in the outcome of games like this. In Sunday's game, these did indeed appear to be the crucial moments. It isn't going too far to say, then, that this game was decided in the Saints' favor by two very timely incorrect decisions by the officials. (Okay that's not the only factor. There was also some extremely crappy coaching on the Miami side but we're getting to that)



• Player of the Game This should probably go to Jeremey Shockey... but we can't stand Jeremey Shockey... so instead let's congratulate former Saint Ricky Williams for his 3 touchdown, 80 yard rushing performance (including a 68 yard first quarter touchdown) We've always been Ricky Williams fans here at the Yellow Blog. He's the rare example of a pro athlete who doesn't have to be a loudmouth or a pretty boy or a kiss-ass teacher's pet in order to be successful. We used to own our very own Ricky Williams Saints jersey but were sadly separated from it a few years ago. Anyway, it's always nice to see him do well.
  
  
  Player of the Game Ricky Williams
  



• Idiot of the game: Tony Sparano As always this award could also go to Shockey but we're giving it to Sparano since his idiocy had a more direct effect on the outcome. In many ways, watching this game was like watching any of a number of the typical Saints heartbreaking losses we've witnessed over the years only from the opposite sideline. The team jumps out to a big lead, is victimized by rotten officiating, the idiot coach gets flustered into making bad decisions, and the whole team chokes down the stretch. Apart from the blown replays, Dolphins coach Tony Sparano's decision-making cost Miami this game moreso than any other factor in play.
  
  With seconds remaining in the first half, Marques Colston caught a pass from Brees and was tackled at the one foot line. In what should have looked like a replay of the Titans-Rams Superbowl, the clock should have run out on the Saints right there. Luckily the game official on the field incorrectly ruled that Colston had scored. The ensuing review of that call stopped play long enough for the Saints to get their kicking unit on the field. I remember thinking that it might be difficult for the Saints to even get the kick off in time once the clock started again and that the disrupted timing could make the field goal less of a gimme than the negligible distance implied. Amazingly, Sparano relieved the Saints of this pressure by calling an inexcusable timeout. Sparano's stupid timeout ensured the Saints of picking up at least 3 points at the end of the half. As it was, Brees convinced Coach Soupy to let him dive over the pile for 6. I probably would have taken the field goal but, in retrospect, Sparano really did deserve to have that one shoved up his ass.
  
  But it gets worse. Here's Yahoo! Sports' Chris Chase on Sparano's second half strategy.
  
  

  The New Orleans offense was potent in the second half, per usual, but the comeback was aided greatly by the Dolphins' bizarre, pass-heavy fourth quarter play-calling. Nursing a three-point lead early in the final period was a strange time for Miami to get the urge to throw it around like the Saints usually do.
  
  Here are the Dolphins' first two drives of the quarter, along with the score at the time:
  
  Miami 34 -- New Orleans 31
  
  1st-10, MIA20 13:23 C. Henne incomplete pass to the right
  2nd-10, MIA20 13:17 C. Henne incomplete pass to the right
  3rd-10, MIA20 13:12 C. Henne incomplete pass down the middle
  
  New Orleans 37 -- Miami 34
  
  1st-10, MIA20 8:35 C. Henne incomplete pass down the middle
  2nd-10, MIA20 8:30 R. Brown incomplete pass to the left
  3rd-10, MIA20 8:21 C. Henne incomplete pass to the left
  
  That's zero runs during the two most crucial possessions of the game for the team with the NFL's No. 1 rushing offense. Bizarre

  
  
  Meanwhile, here's the Saints' play-by-play during the intervening possession where they scored the go-ahead touchdown.
  
  

  1st&10 NO40 Mike Bell Off Left Tackle to NO44 for 4 yards
  2nd&6 NO44 Mike Bell up the Middle to Mia49 for 7 yards
  1st&10 Mia49 Drew Brees Pass to Jeremy Shockey to Mia33 for 16 yards
  1st&10 Mia33 Mike Bell up the Middle to Mia31 for 2 yards
  2nd&8 Mia31 Drew Brees Pass to Jeremy Shockey to Mia17 for 14 yards
  1st&10 Mia17 Mike Bell up the Middle to Mia10 for 7 yards
  2nd&3 Mia10 Drew Brees Pass to Heath Evans to Mia2 for 8 yards
  1st&2 Mia2 Drew Brees up the Middle for 2 yards for a TOUCHDOWN
  

  
  
  That's 4 Mike Bell runs straight at the defense interspersed with high percentage passes to the tight end and fullback culminating in QB dive up the middle. During the crucial moment of the game, the team trailing by three points was still playing football while the other was in full-out panic mode. Yes, there were some badly dropped passes by Dolphins receivers during that stretch, but as any longtime Saints fan will tell you, as the idiot coach starts to panic, the players will tend to choke.
  
  
  Tony Sparano: Idiot of the game
  



• Everybody Thinks I'm a Raincloud People keep telling me how "negative" I am. I don't think this is the case. I just prefer to think about what I'm watching rather than hoot and holler about it. Besides, here's what I tweeted at halftime,
  
  

  Hey does anybody remember the Dave Wilson comeback at Cincinnati in 1987? Was 24-10 at the half.

  
  
  Often I talk about how I've "seen this movie before" and mean it in a bad way. Here I was saying the same thing but in a good way. We were down fourteen points. People elsewhere in the city are freaking out and brandishing weapons and here I am looking on the bright side. Some damn credit. That's all I ask.
  



• Stat of the game Jeff Duncan notes
  

  The Saints scored 45 or more points in a game five times in the first 642 games of club history. They've now done it four times this season. And none in more incredible fashion than Sunday.

  
  
  That's just... unbelievable. I have no further comment here.
  



• New Jersey update Well, the poll results are overwhelming.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  People really want us to give Fujita some love. But I'm still not sure this is the choice for me. We'll continue to deliberate as 1) the Holiday jersey buying season approaches and 2) Fujita nurses his calf injury.
  



• This week's media complaint
  
  
  
  SI, come on, man, you're killing us here. Cover Jinx? The week before the Falcons game? With fucking Reggie Bush in the photo? We're not even sure he's played enough to even letter this year.
  
  If forced to pick a magazine cover photo from this game, we probably would have gone with this.
  
  
  Although it's probably better to keep Brees clear of the jinx



• In defense of Reggie Bush "Oh noes!" say the headlines, Reggie said something on the radio that might be construed as arrogant if one chooses to ignore the context. Whatever will we do?
  
  The "incident" in question is described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jeff Schultz here.

  Bush appeared on SportingNewsRadio’s, “The Monty Show.” The show’s host set up Bush by asking him if he believed the Saints could go 16-0.
  
  Rather than do the smart thing and issue the one-game-at-a-time ramblings coaches like to preach, Bush responded: “Can we go undefeated? Yes. I do think we have the players, the chemistry, we have the heart and dedication, the coaching staff, we have the players.”
  
  OK. It’s not loud and obnoxious. But it’s the kind of statement that can come back to haunt a guy. And a team.

  
  
  The audio and transcript of the interview is available here I'll excerpt the controversial bit but you really need to listen to it to fully understand what happened.
  
  

  Q: Can the Saints, now 6-0, go undefeated?
  A: Of course my first answer is going to be, 'We're going to take it one game at a time, and that's our mentality" (laughs). I have to say it--if I don't say it, then I'm going to get some hell from teammates. But can we go undefeated? Yes, I do think we have the players, the chemistry, we have the heart and dedication, the coaching staff, we have the players and ...
  
  Q: Do you have the schedule?
  A: A lot of people would argue that we have a tough schedule. We weren't supposed to beat the Giants like that, the New York jets were supposed to be tough, each week I don't think we've been picked to win a game yet. We were picked to lose in Miami, we were picked to lose against the Eagles, against the Giants, we were picked to lose against the Jets. But we continue to weather the storm, we continue to believe in ourselves.

  
  
  The "laughs" were coming from the radio host and were a commentary on the cliched answer Bush had started to give him. Bush decided to (quite benignly) add to that specifically out of respect for the interviewer. Bush offered the "one-game-at-a-time" line. It was, quite rightly, rejected so he said something else only to be criticized by an Atlanta reporter for not offering the stupid "one-game-at-a-time" line. We call bullshit. Which brings us to...
  



• Fuckabuncha Falcons We may not do much cheerleading here at the Yellow Blog but we are Saints fans and we do know what we hate. And we really hate losing to Atlanta. The Saints-Falcons game in the Superdome could qualify as the highlight of any season regardless who is or isn't possibly going undefeated. They should play all of these on Monday night. We will be there this Monday come hell or hangover.

In the meantime, have a great Halloween weekend. Menckles and I carved our pumpkins last night. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do one of these.

Labels: saints, sports

Predominantly white Catholic high school with heavily suburban student body fosters prevailing atmosphere of juvenile racism. And people are surprised at this?

Fun fact: It so happens that I was a freshman at the very predominantly white Catholic high school in question during the 1988 Presidential Election. The school, in the interest of promoting "civic responsibility" among its population of young men, held one of those lame "mock" elections where students were required to cast pretend votes for the candidate of their choice. Unfortunately, (or fortunately if you consider the absurdity of the exercise to begin with) the results of the fake election were occasioned by a minor scandal due to the embarrassing success of a certain fringe write-in candidate whose name I'll leave it to you to guess.

Labels: New Orleans, racism

Looks like he's ready for his close-up.

Though an announcement is now set for Wednesday, Georges has already effectively launched his campaign, hiring a communications director and spokeswoman and distributing "Georges for Mayor" literature and bumper stickers.

"I have discussed this decision with my wife, Dathel, after a successful fundraiser last week," Georges said in a statement released Friday morning. "I have made my decision and will make it known Wednesday."

The event will take place at Li'l Dizzy's café on Esplanade Avenue at 3:30 p.m.

Li'l Dizzy's, of course, is the cafe' of choice among the city's political class so that makes it a fitting location. The fried chicken is pretty good there. Although we hear that when Georges really wants to impress, he pulls out the top-shelf stuff.

Labels: John Georges, New Orleans, politics

I'm writing an email regarding a grad school application process I began just prior to the Federal Flood and have finally decided to follow up on. Even in this format, I have taken pains to describe the event as "the flooding of New Orleans occasioned by the levee failures after Hurricane Katrina". I wonder if they'll find that rude. (NOTE: An early draft of the application itself once began, "Dear Fuckers")

Commentary on two weeks of Saints football coming sometime tomorrow, I think. Meanwhile, just go read Wang. Best football writing anywhere. Although... maybe a bit too much cheerleading... but then that's my critique of ALL Saints coverage these days.

Labels: saints, sports

Dead at 81

Ten years ago, when Edwin Edwards was convicted (by U.S. Attorney Eddie Jordan, btw) of racketeering, he made this statement to the press,

Edwards ended his comments by quoting a Chinese saying, "If you sit by a river long enough, the dead bodies of your enemies will float by you. I suppose the feds sat by the river long enough and here comes my body."

I suppose that quote takes on an even more morbid meaning today. An ironic one too, since Treen was most visible in his later years lobbying for Edwards' release from prison. That effort was unsuccessful. Edwards' sentence will not end until 2011. Treen's, it would seem, is now complete.

Labels: Dave Treen, Edwin Edwards, Louisiana

Based on the content of the public cell phone conversations and other rambling monologues one is treated to sitting in here day after day, it's fair to say that something like two thirds of the adults one comes into contact with are in the mid to later stages of having their lives fall apart in one way or another. You'd think that might leave one with a somewhat dark view of humanity but we think we're pretty much immune to that sort of thing around here.

For example, we have no idea when Supa Saint's life fell apart but thank God it did!

Labels: library, New Orleans, saints

Even Tom Friedman says so

It is crunch time on Afghanistan, so here’s my vote: We need to be thinking about how to reduce our footprint and our goals there in a responsible way, not dig in deeper. We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the domestic support, the financial resources or the national interests to justify an enlarged and prolonged nation-building effort in Afghanistan.

I'd actually prefer abandoning the area altogether but some might say "That is outside my brief."

Labels: afghanistan, war

Yglesias points out here the strong likelihood that income inequality = overpriced assets = unstable financial markets... which generally implies an unhealthy economy.

I think this type of model might be useful when discussing policy with mainstream "liberals" since the moral argument, income inequality = most of us are poor, is generally lost on such people.

Neither will get you very far with the Obama-Summers-Geithner Administration, though since all they understand is income inequality = most of my friends are rich = a system that must be preserved at all costs.

Labels: economy, politics

Maybe they should hire someone else.

Labels: flood, New Orleans

To see that the BGR has so many problems with the Master Plan as of late. Typically I'm not a fan of either of those enterprises. Anyway, nice of BGR to provide this information to a public which has already forfeited the opportunity for it to inform a vote.

Labels: city plan, New Orleans

If there's one thing left about the T-P that still sells the paper for me, it's James Gill.

Labels: media, New Orleans, Times-Picayune

Saints fans have been doing this as long as I can remember. I've never lived anywhere else. Do fans in other cities go meet the team at airport in Week 7? I really have no idea.

Welcome Party

T-P video via Nola.com

Labels: saints, sports

Things we will not be ripping on in this week's Saints post

Even before the first kickoff, Drew Brees commissioned T-shirts with the word in big block letters across the back -- SPECIAL -- and distributed them around the locker room to teammates.

Because: 1) It's a bit too easy and 2) It's still not as funny as the "SMELL GREATNESS' T-shirts

Labels: douchebaggery, saints, sports

Amid the jokes and stuff, one thing I really did want to say about the Giants game was that the Saints seemed to miss a lot of tackles. That could be a problem against Miami. Anyway I'm off to find food and beer for this afternoon.

Labels: saints, sports

Yes, it's a problem but no, it's not a problem that could have been equitably avoided by the BNOBC's proposed green-dotting of entire neighborhoods. At the time of the "footprint debate", people were still openly fantasizing about cleansing the city of "undesirable" residents. Minimizing the Jack O'Lantern effect was never really the priority there.

Anyway, that fight is over with. Now we have a new one to deal with. Redeveloping these neighborhoods will depend on 1) protecting the entire region from future flooding. and 2) creating new economic opportunities for current and future residents. But we would prefer not to hear the elitists and the racists rally around Jack O'Lantern "I-told-you-so"s because that isn't what any of this was about.

In other planning-related news, I agree with this guy on today's idiot page.

I-10 stretch is here to stay: a letter to the editor
October 25, 2009, 1:38AM

Re: " I-10 over Claiborne gets royal treatment," Metro, Oct. 22.

Tearing down this expressway, as proposed in the New Orleans master plan, is nearly as bad an idea as putting it there in the first place. Those who think otherwise say that it led to the demise of neighborhoods and businesses along Claiborne Avenue, yet they ignore the fact that other areas with similar socio-economic makeup suffered the same decline even without an interstate highway dividing them, e.g. St. Claude Avenue or Earhart Boulevard.

Macro-economics and big-box retail killed the mom-and-pop stores, and some existing neighborhoods have found that the highway makes a great roof for festival marketplaces and other outdoor activities.

Removing this structure is also the least "green" option. Presently, vehicles traveling along I-10 are running at or near their peak efficient speed, whereas ground level traffic would be traveling at far less fuel-efficient speeds.

Removing the highway would exacerbate already bad streets by adding heavy traffic loads to them. It would lead to major increases in traffic in normally tranquil neighborhoods.

All city officials need to do is block off the length which the master plan proposes to be demolished. It will become readily apparent that removal of a major artery like I-10 is foolishness of the highest order.

George E. Merritt

New Orleans

Again, if people have jobs and feel safe, the neighborhood will be ok. If we just tear down an overpass, all we'll get are more streets crowded with cars.

Labels: Claiborne Avenue, flood, New Orleans