Library Chronicles

I'm well aware of how we all feel about some of the ugliness that goes on in NOLA.com threads but the discussion below this article about the North Claiborne expressway fantasy is actually pretty good. Anyone familiar with the way preservationism tends to favor the powerful in this city will recognize this argument, for example.

Those who deride "Generic, suburban development" also known as strip malls with national chains:

Do you not realize that the commercial development on Claiborne in the 50s was not unique to New Orleans? Every downtown area in major American cities had similar districts. What you idolize in some romantic retelling of the past was then what strip malls are today. They were how businesses were built. That's how all American cities looked. The difference is that in New Orleans, the past was preserved.

Talk as you will about how preserving that economy was good for New Orleans. It was and is great for the wealthy. St. Charles, Magazine, Carrollton, it's great for them because it's a tourist attraction and an enjoyable, throw back way of life. It was, however, devastating to communities that could not afford to be boutique, places like Treme and Central City.

Economic progress in today's world will make life more equitable in New Orleans. Preservation and attempts to return to how it was will continue to keep New Orleans divided economically.

The rich want to keep it the same because for them, life in New Orleans is great. Change? Modernize? HELL NO, because they moved to New Orleans for the funk and the old times. Progress be damned. Moving the depressed areas forward? HELL NO if it means modernization.

IT IS AS IT WAS AND IT SHALL ALWAYS BE AS IT WAS. This is how the "liberal" white New Orleanians champion their cause of the truest reactionary conservatism in America today. It's all a vacation for them.

I'll venture to add that nobody likes "generic suburban development" architecture and many (though not all) of us are less than thrilled with the commercial (and cultural) homogenization implied by the presence of national chain retailers. But these are primarily aesthetic matters* and usually are inconsequential to the actual health of the neighborhoods preservationists often presume to be protecting. But you can't urban plan your way out of a depressed economy.

Besides, if the Claiborne expressway is torn down, what will replace it? Rather than the North Claiborne of 30 years ago, we're likely to end up with the North Claiborne of today minus the overpass plus maybe a few more Dollar Generals and an Urban Outfitters or two.... and, of course, a ridiculously inconvenient means of getting across town.

But, as I said yesterday, none of this makes any difference since it's not going to happen anyway. It's just a bit of funny talk thrown in to guard against any last-minute opposition to the master plan which, I am told, also includes a provision for granting each New Orleanian his or her own personal monorail.

*A large part of the impetus behind "Buy Local" movements is born of economic and environmental concerns. But more often than not, the "solutions" coming out of such movements are fundamentally conservative in nature, focusing on policing individual lifestyles and opposing major economic development.

Update: Cousin Pat lists (maps, really) multiple things that he thinks "would have to change should New Orleans remove its I-10 over North Claiborne Avenue." It's.. um.. a lot of things... which serves as further indication of how poorly thought out the Big Idea here really is.

Upperdate: One more thing regarding the "Buy Local" movement. This week's Gambit cover story looks at ways in which national chains are attempting to co-opt the word "local" in their ad campaigns.

Surveys and anecdotal reports from business owners suggest that these initiatives are in fact changing spending patterns. A survey of 1,100 independent retailers conducted in January by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (where I work) found that, amid the worst economic downturn since the Depression, buy-local sentiment is giving local businesses an edge over their chain competitors. While the Commerce Department reported overall retail sales plunged almost 10 percent over the holidays, the survey found independent retailers in cities with buy-local campaigns saw sales drop an average of just 3 percent from the previous year.

None of this has slipped the notice of corporate executives and the consumer research firms that advise them. Several of these firms have begun to track the localization trend. In its annual consumer survey, the New York-based branding firm BBMG found that the number of people reporting locally produced products are "very important" to them jumped from 26 to 32 percent in the last year. "It's not just a small cadre of consumers anymore," founding partner Mitch Baranowski says.

 "Food is one of the biggest gateways, but we're seeing this idea of 'local' spread across other categories and sectors," says Michelle Barry, senior vice president of the Hartman Group. A report published by Hartman last year noted, "There is a belief that you can only be local if you are a small and authentic brand. This isn't necessarily true; big brands can use the notion of local to their advantage as well." Barry explains: "Big companies have to be much more creative in how they articulate local. ... It's a different way of thinking about local that is not quite as literal."

Funny stuff.

Labels: City Council, Claiborne Avenue, New Orleans

Something pulled Billmon back out from behind the curtain. The updated post concludes,

God knows I'm all in favor of shedding more light on the CIA's dirty laundry. But there doesn't seem much point in passing a new law unless we're willing to prosecute the people who made mincemeat out of the old one.

Which is to say that the ball is in Eric Holder's court. That is, if you assume that we have a politically independent Justice Department. Otherwise, you can consider it Obama's problem.

Holder might well do the right thing. He is an able lawyer who knows how to run an investigation. And, despite the bashing he would take from the pro-torture right, the Attorney General could come out of the process as an American hero -- a lawman committed to the rule of law, as opposed to the Constitutional wrecking crew that occupied the Department of Justice when Dick Cheney was calling the shots.

But the Attorney General will not do that right thing without a go-ahead from Obama's White House. The president and his aides have been highly resistant to probing the abuses of the previous administration. That stance may be softening.

But don't expect Holder to force the president's hand. The Attorney General is neither so legally nor so politically adventurous.

Labels: Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, politics, surveillance, torture

One distinguishing characteristic of the post-Katrina period upon which historians will remark for years to come has been the stellar performance and vision provided by the leadership.

Aiming to maximize federal grant money and offer proof of his city's recovery, Mayor Ray Nagin is urging Hurricane Katrina victims still living elsewhere -- and longing to return -- to record New Orleans as their home when the U.S. Census Bureau conducts its decennial head count next spring.

Problem is, that strategy doesn't mesh with census rules, federal officials say.

Labels: Nagin, New Orleans, population

It's a nice thought and all but, in addition to a massive amount of disruptive construction work accross the heart of the city, removing the Claiborne overpass would also require a compensating investment in public transit infrastructure in order to mitigate the resulting traffic nightmare.

Anyway none of this matters since the "project" is only being talked up right now to combat any potential last-minute political threat to the final Master Plan. Think of it as another one of those Big Shiny Ideas that distract the public discourse for a time but aren't really meant to be implemented. It's not Ray Nagin's idea, but I'm sure he appreciates the maneuver.


Also see: In early 2006, I posted this set of photos from under the bridge where I watched an "All-star second line" make it's way through a still largely broken city.

Labels: city plan, Claiborne Avenue, New Orleans

Louisiana Film Studios' Wayne Read laminated up some name tags for Uncle Rico.

Houser last year became an enthusiastic promoter of the newly formed film studio project, which operates in a former Winn-Dixie warehouse on a 25-acre site in Jefferson Parish's Elmwood commercial area. Read said Houser and his wife, Kristen Houser, "shared a vision and a real commitment to this film studio and were part of the LFS team." The couple traveled with Read to the Sundance Film Festival in Utah to help spread the word.

Read said he gave the Housers studio business cards and studio e-mail addresses. Those things were unsolicited by the Housers and they did not use them, said Kevin Houser's attorney Rob Couhig.

I like that the Housers had Rob Couhig deny that they ever touched the tainted business cards and email addresses.... particularly the email addresses which we know can cause all sorts of trouble, especially if you bring your Blackberry to Wal-Mart.

Also of note in this article.

The property is owned by developer George Ackel and a family trust controlled by businessman John Georges, which received the money for the purchase option and for rent. Georges said Read has "not been able to perform under our contract."

Georges has a track record of support for the Saints, buying out empty seats to prevent local TV blackouts of games. He said he tried to help resolve the recent problems among the various parties. But the ongoing legal dispute between Read and lawyers representing the Housers has made it difficult to intervene, Georges said. The family trust does not wish to take an active role in the project, Georges said.

"However, there are many parties interested in taking Mr. Read's position if things don't work out," Georges said.

"The property" referred to in this passage is the converted Winn-Dixie warehouse which serves as Read's studio. From a July 4 T-P story, we learned that Read had originally concealed the fact that he was not the actual owner of the property from his investors. The article states that Read had planned to purchase the building from Ackel but, like so many other aspects of the scheme, that didn't quite work out.

So far, in addition to the numerous Saints players and officials, what I am calling the Uncle Rico scandal has turned up the names Rob Couhig, Ron Forman, and John Georges. Two of those names have been thrown around in the early rounds of handicapping the 2010 Mayoral election. Is "Hollywood South" beginning to rival City Hall as a potential free money and patronage factory? This will continue to hold our attention as the lawsuits start piling up and as we get further into campaign and football season.

Labels: Hollywood South, John Georges, kevin houser, Rob Couhig, Ron Forman, saints, sports

Jeff Duncan's recent column on the Uncle Rico scandal has generated 586 comments on NOLA.com as of this afternoon. At first I thought, wow a lot of people are interested in this tax credit boondoggle. But then it turns out that most of it is just smack talk coming from Detroit Lions fans of all people. The Saints face the Lions in the 2009 season opener September 13. Apparently, this match-up between two teams who won a combined 8 games in 2008 (the Lions didn't win any) is a much bigger deal than anyone could have predicted. Maybe it's a Christians and Lions thing....

Labels: saints, sports

Following upon previous comment threads in which we aired out our repressed antipathy toward the Chinese Tallow Tree and the Crape Myrtle, I'd figure now is as good a time as any to find out what we hate about the Magnolia Tree.

Labels: New Orleans, trees

Okay we're a long way from this becoming a reality but it's nice to think it might actually come back.

A Baton Rouge amusement company has reached a preliminary agreement with Nickelodeon to redevelop the Six Flags theme park in eastern New Orleans, according to an article in Wednesday's Baton Rouge Business Report.

Labels: New Orleans, Six Flags

Since we were reminded recently of the impending end of shrimp season, we were motivated to check our local Rouses where they were selling the super huge head-on critters for $3.50 per pound on Monday. After a bit of agonizing over what to do with them it was decided that, since we'd already done the best Shrimp Creole ever, we'd try instead to replicate a soup we'd tasted at Cochon a year ago. We were fairly pleased with the results. This recipe is actually pretty similar to the Shrimp Creole recipe with a few differences and, sadly, fewer pictures this time.

• Start by peeling and deveining your huge shrimp. Reserve the meat in the refrigerator. Place the shells in a stock pot along with some basic soup vegetables (I use onion, garlic, and celery), lots of black pepper, salt, and a little crab boil. Bring the pot to a boil and then simmer for as long as you can get away with to make a nice rich stock.


• Once your stock is about ready, start building your soup in a separate pot. Begin by frying enough bacon to render a decent amount of cooking grease. Into the grease add, 1 onion, 1 clove of garlic, 2 or 3 stalks of celery, 1 green bell pepper and 1 or 2 leeks all diced.


• Once the vegetables start to cook down slice and add 3 or 4 large tomatoes. Allow them to liquefy in the pot. Add a liberal sprinkling of salt, black pepper, white pepper, and a little cayenne.


• Add one pound of Camelia Brand white beans. Stir to coat and then begin ladeling your shrimp stock into the soup. If you were just cooking white beans, you'd just want enough liquid to cover them but we're looking for something much thinner here so fill the pot up. Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat a bit. I'm likely to add more pepper here and a handful of dried thyme.


• Cover but keep checking the pot to keep it simmering and to add stock as needed until the beans are cooked. This will take about 40 minutes.


• Retrieve your peeled huge shrimp from the fridge and add them to the pot. Cover and simmer for about 6 to 10 minutes to cook the shrimp.


• Spoon it out and take one crappy phone picture just to show that you were there.

Labels: food, shrimp and white bean soup

Mitch Landrieu Says He Won't Run For Mayor

Labels: 2010, Arnie Fielkow, Mitch Landrieu, New Orleans, politics

At least they didn't call a press conference to announce it.

A local computer analyst who claims that his recent work at City Hall revealed the intentional deletion of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's e-mail and other material told authorities his Metairie home may have been vandalized last week as a "scare tactic" related to his public contract.

According to a Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office incident report, Louisiana Technology Council President Mark Lewis arrived home on June 30 to find all four of the exterior doors to his home sealed shut. Nothing inside the home had been disturbed, and no one had been home all day.

But then, again, they must have leaked it to the paper somehow, which seems to be about the same thing to me. But I'd at least take it half-seriously if it weren't for this bit which looks like an overreach to me.

Lewis, who eventually entered his home through a window, told deputies that "a similar incident occurred to the public relations associate Cheron Brylski when she was handling a sensitive matter involving a New Orleans Church in Jan. 2009."

Brylski, who handles public relations for Lewis' nonprofit technology group, confirmed that she found the exterior locks to her home sealed shut on the same day her husband received a criminal trespass citation from New Orleans police for refusing to leave a Catholic church set to be shuttered by the local archdiocese.

So we're supposed to believe that the same shadowy figure is out there retaliating (in an oddly passive manner) against people hired to search the Mayor's computer AND people protesting the Archdiocese's church closures. While there isn't much to connect the supposed motivations of the actor in these supposed acts of vandalism, there is a connection between the parties claiming to have been vandalized upon. These individuals, and this article by extension, are getting into some pretty stupid conspiracy theory here.

Labels: email, Nagin, New Orleans

Our friend Poochie has a Tweeter Tube too.

you think your (sic) buying LA film tac creits. but the fuckn snapper didnt... wow this is a fucked up world we live in

If you really are that impressed with your inherent superiority to the "fuckn snapper" maybe you could demonstrate that by taking the initiative to do some research on the "LA film tac creits" before blindly throwing your money into Uncle Rico's helmet.

Labels: douchebaggery, finance, Hollywood South, Jeremey Shockey, kevin houser, saints, sports, Tweeter Tube

Shorter descriptions applied to the establishments on the Gambit's "Top 50 Bars" list for your convenience.

1. Hipsters


2. Frat boys


3. Tourists


4. Tourists


5. Yuppies


6. Uber-hipsters


7. Yuppie-hipsters


8. Frat-Yuppies


9. Never Been There


10. Hipsters


11. Yuppies


12. Tourists


13. Hipsters


14. Hipsters


15. Hipsters


16. Yuppie-Hipsters


17. Hipsters + Old People


18. Frat Boys + Old People


19. Frat Boys + Beer Snobs


20. Tourist-hipsters


21. Yuppies + Frat Boys + Beer Snobs


22. Yuppie-tourists


23. Hipsters


24. Yuppies + Hipsters + Tourists


25. Hipster-tourists


26. Rednecks + Old People


27. Tourists


28. Rednecks + Yuppies + Old People


29. Hipsters


30. Hipsters


31. Yuppies + Frat Boys


32. Yuppie-hipsters


33. Yuppies + Tourists


34. Yuppie-hipsters + Frat Boys


35. Hipsters + Old People


36. Hipsters


37. Tourists + Frat Boys + Rednecks


38. Hipsters + Yuppies


39. Never been there... looks like Hipsters + Gay (Update: What's up with the conspicuous lack of gay bars on this list, BTW)


40. Hipsters + Yuppies


41. In Metairie


42. Hipsters + Yuppies


43. Yuppies who think they are Hipsters + Me when I'm hungry


44. Hipsters + College Kids Who Aren't Necessarily Frat Boys But Just As Annoying If Not Moreso + Me on trivia night


45. Yuppies + Frat Boys


46. Hipsters + Frat Boys + The Odd Redneck


47. Never Been There


48. Never Been There but looks Hipstery


49. Hipsters + Tourists + Old People + The Odd Redneck + Me on many a Sunday afternoon


50. Hipsters

Labels: bars, New Orleans

Last week we asked whether former Saints long snapping specialist Kevin Houser was a small-time Bernie Madoff who suckered Saints players and coaches into a ponzi-like investment scheme based on the promise of state tax credits available from a local film studio. But based on this story we read in the T-P Saturday, we're not sure that's quite right. The Madoff character in this situation is Louisiana Film Studios owner Wayne Read.

While more than two dozen Saints football players and coaches fear they may have lost nearly $2 million they entrusted to Louisiana Film Studios owner Wayne Read, they are not the only people in the New Orleans area who say the motion picture executive owes them money.

The financial dealings of the Elmwood film studio that have come to light in the past week show that Read accepted cash payments from the Saints members without returning the tax credit investments or explaining what happened to their money.

After signing a contract for construction work on the studio that he later canceled, he is also being sued by the contractor for $681,000 in unpaid invoices. And St. John the Baptist Parish is still waiting for Read to pay $100,000 that local officials say he owes for bills related to his use of the parish's civic center for a movie production in 2007.

Louisiana's "Hollywood South" film industry sprang up virtually overnight when the state instituted its tax credit finance scheme in the early 2000s (Jesus that's sort of a long time ago now). The state grants tax credits to film production companies who raise cash by selling them at a discount to brokers or directly to investors who can apply them against their income tax liability.

While the tax credit scheme may have helped attract Hollywood star power to Louisiana, it's the back-end trading in taxpayer-financed investment vehicles that has attracted so much local talent to the game. Opportunistic lawyers like Read and former LIFT Productions CEO Malcolm Petal suddenly became studio executives with the power to distribute lucrative tax shelter opportunities to the well-off. According to the T-P, Ron Forman's son was President of Read's firm for a time proving once again that the Formans know a thing or two about making a buck off of government financed entertainment amenities.

But apparently that business model with regard to the film industry is still in need of some tweaking. Petal pleaded guilty last year to bribing a state official for inflating the value of tax credits allotted to LIFT. Read, meanwhile, seems to have been accepting "investments" in tax credits he hasn't been able to deliver.

Kevin Houser, who was dismissed Monday as the long snapper for the Saints, became a point man for Read's effort to raise money among the team's current and former players and coaches. In November, 27 men with ties to the Saints -- including coach Sean Payton, quarterback Drew Brees and former quarterback Archie Manning -- paid large sums of money with the expectation that by the end of March they would get back about $1.33 in tax credits for every dollar of their investment.

In correspondence to Houser in December, Read said he planned to spend $12 million to buy the property and $13 million on reconstruction, and that the credits would be delivered by the end of March.

"No risk to you all," Read wrote.

By the deadline, Read had not even applied for the tax credits from the state film office and had not met at least two important requirements to qualify for them.

So it seems that Wayne Read and not Kevin Houser is running the (somewhat sloppy) Madoff-like enterprise of misleading investors until more investors can cover their investment. Which means that Houser, as the sales stooge, is more like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite.


Kevin Houser (T-P photo)


Uncle Rico imagining tiny little seahorses

Think about it. Rico is an ex-(sort of) football player who sells crappy Tupperware and herbal breast-enlargement products door-to-door. Houser is an ex-(sort of) football player who sold products of a similar value to his teammates in the locker room. Rico liked to make home movies of himself throwing a football in an unusual fashion to nobody in a corn field. Houser wanted to make movies and was often seen throwing a football in an unusual fashion (between his legs) to nobody (Saints' punters) on the football field. Both men thought they had a quick way to make some "sweet moola". Both really really wish they could go back in time now.

Labels: finance, Hollywood South, kevin houser, movies, saints, sports, Wayne Read

Let's assume for one second that Sarah Palin's decision to "Go Galt" yesterday really was, as she put it, a move to spare her constituents the apparently inevitable "waste" of her lame-duck status. Does that mean we should have asked Nagin to quit the day after he was reelected?

Alternatively, let's assume that Palin's decision to quit really was, as conservative pundits are putting it today, a clever move to strengthen her status in the Presidential race, then shouldn't Bobby Jindal follow this example before he falls too far behind the Palin juggernaut?

Labels: Bobby Jindal, Nagin, politics, Sarah Palin

Coffers Empty, California Pays With I.O.U.’s

Labels: California, economy

Kevin Houser interviews Kevin Houser about being cut

"Was I prepared for it? No. Was it heart wrenching? Yes. did I lock myself in the bathroom and cry like a baby? Sure," Houser said.

Labels: kevin houser, saints, sports

Amazing

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

Snip

"Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate," says the one-page flier. "Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. ... Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders."

The flier promised the dinner would be held in an intimate setting with no unseemly conflict between participants. “Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No,” it said. “The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it. What is guaranteed is a collegial evening, with Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds typically on the guest list of 20 or less. …

Imagine if there were a social event in New Orleans that brought together "business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds" along with various political folk and the publisher of the Times-Picayune and.... um... that's the Rex Ball, isn't it?

Labels: lobbying, media, politics

Who can blame the T-P, really? When a story drops into your lap that ties together the Saints, the motion picture industry, financial scandal, and Rob Couhig can you really do anything but blow it up all over the front page?

BATON ROUGE -- Archie Manning, Drew Brees and coach Sean Payton are among more than two dozen people with ties to the Saints who together put nearly $2 million into an Elmwood film studio that has failed to return their investments as promised.

Louisiana's film industry is financed through a program which grants tax credits to studios and production companies who then sell them at a slight discount to wealthy investors (professional athletes being one example) for cash. The investors can then apply the credit to their state income tax liability and end up coming in between 30 and 40 percent ahead on the deal. In this case, state tax dollars would reimburse Saints players for fronting the money to make movies. This taxpayer financed system of wealthy individuals shifting money back and forth is the lifeblood of Louisiana's "Hollywood South" film industry. Facing competition from other states, the Legislature extended and increased the credit in the recently concluded session. And while he isn't too keen on crucial mental health services for New Orleans residents, the governor is unlikely to veto this appropriation.

In addition to attracting film production to the area, the tax-incentive program has also caught the attention of the FBI on occasion. Late last year, attorney and LIFT Productions CEO Malcolm Petal pleaded guilty to bribery charges stemming from a scheme to acquire more value in tax credits than he intended to spend on film production.

Bribery is one way to game this system. Another would be fraud.

Manning and an attorney for one of the players said Wednesday that they thought they were taking part in a routine tax credit program offered through Louisiana's motion picture studio incentives until they discovered that the studio project never received state authorization for the credits and that their money was at risk.

"They weren't approved -- there was no reason to think they would not be, " Manning said.

Manning said he had received a telephone call from an FBI agent seeking information about the studio's investment plan.

Wayne Read, chief executive of Louisiana Film Studios, said that he was not aware of any federal investigation and that the Saints investors would get their money back as new financiers are brought into the project, which he said could happen in two weeks.

Read (another attorney-turned-movie mogul, by the way) intends to repay the Saints players, not with tax credits, but with money acquired from "new financiers." Not that Read is actually running a Madoff-like ponzi scheme but we'll easily forgive these Saints players if they continue to squirm over these next "two weeks." In Read's defense, since he hasn't obtained any tax credits, we can reasonably assume that he hasn't tried to bribe anybody.

On the other hand, I know these guys are pro-athletes and all but man this is... not smart.

(Recently released deep snapper Kevin) Houser and the other Saints members made their investments in late 2008 and were due to receive their tax credits by the end of March, according to a tax credit contract and Houser's attorney, Rob Couhig.

The studio has yet to obtain the credits, Read said. Studio officials are talking to potential long-term investors for the project, and an announcement could be made in two weeks, he said. The money from the new backers would be used to return, at a minimum, the original amounts paid by the Saints investors, Read said.

Read said that although he received money from many of the Saints members, he had contact only with Houser. In some cases, players invested money without signing agreements, Read said.

Is this true? Did Saints players and coaches (Sean Payton was an investor) simply drop their five and six figure sums in a hat (helmet?) that Houser and Couhig passed around the locker room? Did they even tell them what it was for? Maybe they just told them they were getting into show-biz. We already know that Payton has been trying to sell a screenplay. Was this his way of getting his beak wet in the industry?

Labels: finance, Hollywood South, kevin houser, Louisiana, movies, Rob Couhig, saints, sports

Senator Landrieu's D.C. office line: (202)224-5824

New Orleans office: (504) 589-2427

Labels: health care, Mary Landrieu

Over the past few years, headline writers at City Business and The Times-Picayune have promoted a pet myth of a recession-proof New Orleans "recovery" economy "bucking the trend" of national hard times. The loosely implied thesis is based on two ideas. The first part of the theory holds that since the local job market is heavy on T-shirt & booze pedaling and light on manufacturing or technology or finance it isn't as vulnerable to the kinds of shocks that have affected other parts of the country. Or, since there aren't many real jobs around here in the first place, there aren't that many to lose either. And while that may be kind of true, it seems an inappropriate cause for cheering in the business pages.

The second major tenet of trendbuckery asserts that because the Federal Flood left us with so much shit to either knock down or rebuild (but mostly knock down) we're in the midst of an unparalleled construction boom. This is also partially true but, again, less than cheering when one takes into account the degree to which it relies on a system of slave labor.

About 80 percent of wage laborers in New Orleans, mostly Hispanic, report they have been stiffed. New Orleans has the highest incidence of wage theft by far in the South, according to a survey by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"This isn't a few bad apples," Gonzalez said. "It's systematic."

Neither does it affect only the 30 or so members of the Congress of Day Laborers, affiliated with the Center for Racial Justice, who showed up to the council meeting in work clothes and boots, wearing Spanish and English "Stop wage theft!" stickers over their hearts.

Darnell Parker, a black U.S.-born day laborer, said one contractor waited until a grueling job was finished to tell him he was being paid less than expected. The only explanation offered by the contractor was that he changed his mind.

Licensed union contractors also lose out: They are at a disadvantage if they have to compete against freelance contractors who can underpay laborers without facing penalties from a union or the police, experts said.

Wage thieves drive "honest businesses out of business," said Ted Quant, director of Loyola's Twomey Center for Peace through Justice. Homeowners lose out at that point because the pool of contractors available for jobs thins, Fielkow said.

Thanks should go to Councilman Fielkow for hosting that hearing, by the way.

Meanwhile, also not magically insulated from the national recession is the local financial sector.

NEW YORK — Continued problems with repayment of mortgage loans in Whitney Holding Corp.’s Florida markets has led Fitch Ratings Service to downgrade the company's ratings, and its forecast is that the situation is not likely to improve in the near future.

Investors refer to Fitch ratings to gauge the perceived health of the company.

Fitch lowered Whitney’s long-term Issuer Default Rating to BBB from BBB+ to reflect the bank’s increased level of nonperforming assets.

Whitney Bank is a subsidiary of Whitney Holding Corp. It's unclear to me just how insulated Whitney is from its parent's investments but suffice to say there's almost no such thing as a local bank anymore. If you're a lending institution, chances are you've been affected by "troubled assets" in one way or another.

Now if Whitney happened to have a friendly Senator or two lying around someplace, things might be a bit different.

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye's staff contacted federal regulators last fall to ask about the bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that he had helped to establish and where he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth.

The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was an unlikely candidate for a program designed by the Treasury Department to bolster healthy banks. The firm's losses were depleting its capital reserves. Its primary regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., already had decided that it didn't meet the criteria for receiving a favorable recommendation and had forwarded the application to a council that reviewed marginal cases, according to agency documents.

Two weeks after the inquiry from Inouye's office, Central Pacific announced that the Treasury would inject $135 million.

Now there's how you go about bucking a trend.

Labels: Arnie Fielkow, Daniel Inouye, economy, labor, media, New Orleans, politics

After months and months of wrangling over New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, Jindal vetoes the funding anyway.

Labels: Bobby Jindal, health care, Louisiana, New Orleans, politics

John Labruzzo is a guest this morning on WBOK.

Labels: John Labruzzo, New Orleans, politics, radio

Greenwald: "The duty of Congress is not to obey the wishes of the President."

Labels: Barack Obama, climate bill, politics

Today Michael Jackson is still dead and people everywhere are still freaking out. As I am typing this, CNN just tweeted the date and location of the public viewing. OH and look they found his will. Michael Jackson "news" and photos were given front-page treatment by the local paper IN NEW ORLEANS for four consecutive days. At the moment, he's been displaced at the top of the NOLA.com feed by Dollar Bill but I'm sure we can expect that to change by this afternoon. According to Pew, "Fully 93% of cable coverage studied on the Thursday and Friday following his death was about the King of Pop." The fanfare is inescapable. Even if you shot your television and ran screaming from your house on Sunday, you may have run right out into a friggin second line for Michael Jackson attended by hundreds of people.


I've noticed several columnists, bloggers, and other generic opinion spewers write the same milquetoasty missive in which it is claimed, 1) The writer was not really a fan but 2) The writer prefers not to dwell upon the tabloidy freak show aspects of Jackson's life (but isn't going to not mention them) because 3) The music was "important" or it "really holds up" or some other non-negative acknowledgment (although the writer was not really a fan). What is it about the death of Michael Jackson that has stricken so many commenters with a sudden reticence to call crap crap?

Michael Jackson... or at least Quincy Jones and Pepsi and Disney and the rest of the machinery presenting Michael Jackson sold the world a sort of post-modern motown-disco fusion which, although catchy and cleanly engineered, never sounded like something produced by an actual person. Perhaps this was fitting as Jackson himself, owing to his unusual child-prodigy-celebrity upbringing, was about the farthest thing from an actual person a human being can be but more likely this is just coincidence. Jackson's well-trained voice and athleticism made him a perfect spokesmodel for the several products and fashions he was employed to promote. Jackson's legacy lies not in the music-like product he was associated with (Can we call it musicyness?) but in the innumerable industrially produced bubble-gum tabloid pop acts he helped pave the way for. Without a Michael Jackson prototype, we may never have been able to produce a Britney Spears... and THEN where would Chris Rose's career be?


As for the public freak show that we came to know Jackson's personal life as, contrary to the popular wisdom, I think there's some significance in that as well. Richard Kim at The Nation sums it up well

Without his extravagant eccentricities and ambiguous, obsessive relationships to race, gender, mortality and childhood (and children)--indeed without the conspicuously tenuous link he had to the category of the human itself--Michael Jackson would have been a B-list has-been. Most likely last seen on the latest episode of Celebrity Apprentice, his obit would have followed Farrah Fawcett's. In short, he'd be John Oates.

Our fascination with Whack-o Jack-o has never been only, or even primarily, with his prodigious skills. It was with the way he personified our culture's most central ambitions to whiteness, immortality, wealth, real estate and fame. Lodged somewhere between the superhuman and the alien, aspiration and disgust, Jackson was a grotesque reflection of our collective desires.

While never allowed to be an actual person, Jackson did become a personification of our collective ugliness. In the end as ugly, twisted and phony as the world that made and used him. Or, as Mike Gerber writes the world that took out its frustrations in ridiculing him.

Unlike say, Cary Grant, Michael Jackson had the ill fortune to be a celebrity when nightly scrutiny of a pop singer's personal habits became what passed for incisive commentary. Precisely when American power needed all the restraining that satire could throw at it, satire became obsessed with celebrities. Coincidence? Surely not. Part of this was the entertainment industry's self-aggrandizing belief that nobody in the audience knows about anything but entertainment--which, after fifty years, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But even more powerful was simple risk-aversion. Any Jackson joke was risk-free. Since he was both celebrity and inhuman autopilot, the material flooded forth; and in that flood was protection, safety in numbers. That's why it all felt strangely impersonal, as if this "Michael Jackson" we were all laughing at didn't exist as a person. To the extent that anybody I knew spared a thought for the guy, the human being, they decided he deserved it for being so weird. Such is the compassion of the herd.

On the other hand, as Adrastos points out here, ridicule of the Michael Jackson phenomenon DID help bring Weird Al Yankovic's career to greater prominence in the 1980s. And the world was certainly a better place for that.

Title modified slightly post-publication. It's still a bit weak.

Labels: michael jackson, music, pop culture

But I saw this story about a junkyard fire in East New Orleans and couldn't resist linking it since it gives me an opportunity to use the "flaming garbage" tag for only the second time ever.

Labels: flaming garbage, New Orleans

About two thirds of the "content" is advertising. We live in a truly bizarre time where people voluntarily sign up to follow a series of pizza commercials, bar specials and... oddly calculated gossip about the exciting yet undefined activities of ad-hoc business associations. It's the world's worst opt-in spam machine. But everybody loves it.

Labels: internets, Tweeter Tube

I'm thinking something very much like this.

Labels: Barack Obama, Honduras, media

Shrimp season closing in eastern Louisiana

I was really getting on a roll with the large head-on shrimp the past few weeks. Last week I made barbecue shrimp with an Abita Turbodog sauce. A few days ago, I boiled a few pounds and made a remoulade salad. If the price is still good by this weekend, I'll try and do another shrimp creole.

Labels: food, New Orleans

The Climate bill that just passed the House may not be the most direct way to go about reducing carbon emissions or "creating green jobs" as the President is fond of claiming, but it does create some interesting secondary markets.

When the program is scheduled to begin, in 2012, the estimated price of a permit to emit a ton of carbon dioxide will be about $13. That is projected to rise steadily as emission limits come down, but the bill contains a provision to prevent costs from rising too quickly in any one year.

The bill would grant a majority of the permits free in the early years of the program, to keep costs low. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the average American household would pay an additional $175 a year in energy costs by 2020 as a result of the provision, while the poorest households would receive rebates that would lower their annual energy costs by $40.

Several House members expressed concern about the market to be created in carbon allowances, saying it posed the same risks as those in markets in other kinds of derivatives. Regulation of such markets would be divided among the Environmental Protection Agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Wow what a fascinating potential clusterfuck that is to ponder.

Anyway, I'm not usually one to cheer oddball compromise market-incentive-based approaches to environmental legislation. A better bill would have set limits on emissions and EPA enforced penalties for violating those limits. But what they've come up with is far more imaginative and should be fun to watch in action. I'm just not so sure I mean "imaginative" and "fun" in a good way.

Labels: climate bill, energy, global warming, politics

Those of you who are about my age or older will, no doubt, remember the grinding nausea imposed upon an entire generation by the post-mortum semi-deification of Elvis Presley. Let us not begin the cycle anew. Now is the time to nip this in the bud. Anyone claiming to spot a miraculously risen Michael Jackson crossing the street or working at a local Arby's or whatever will be shot on sight.



Update: Phenomenon already dangerously close to out of control.

Labels: michael jackson

I enjoyed watching Marcus Thornton at LSU. Let's hope Byron Scott doesn't lose patience and run him off like he does all his other young prospects.

Labels: Hornets, sports

Has a foreign government ever placed a sitting U.S. Congressman under arrest?

Kachikwu said he had once worked closely with Jefferson, testifying that in May 2004, he had gotten information that authorities in Nigeria were prepared to arrest the congressman, who was in the country trying to resurrect the telecommunications project. Kachikwu said he learned the arrest was based on complaints from a fellow NDTV executive that Jefferson had sought bribes from the company.

Kachikwu said he drove the congressman and iGate CEO Vernon Jackson to the airport about 5:30 a.m. so they could leave the country earlier than planned and keep Jefferson from being imprisoned.

Really? The Nigerians were going to arrest him? On bribery charges? Really? Did they think that would have looked okay diplomatically? How would it have looked on cable news? Would Nigeria have been declared a terrorist state? Would there have been a call to send in the Special Forces? What would Jerry Bruckheimer do with this material? Does anyone else think Kachikwu's story is bullshit?

Labels: Dollar Bill

Time for everyone to shake hands, congratulate themselves, and wait for Jindal to veto everything... including the hard fought NOAH rescue.

The health care restorations include 67 positions at the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, the Uptown mental hospital that Jindal had proposed to close in a cost-saving measure. But Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine said he will ask Jindal to veto that language, as the money for NOAH would be taken from dollars that are targeted for outpatient mental-health services in the New Orleans area.

Labels: Louisiana, politics