Aints No More

2010 February 8
by Lamar White, Jr

Last night, New Orleans felt like the center of the universe.

I watched the game in a friend’s house in Uptown and afterward had to make my way back to my hotel room at the end of Poydras. We sat in traffic in front of the Superdome for twenty minutes. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I doubt I’ll ever see anything like it again. I was there when the Braves beat the Indians in Atlanta in 1995, and believe me, Atlanta went crazy… but not nearly as crazy and ebullient and joyous as New Orleans was on Sunday night. I saw Brett Favre and the Packers win the Superbowl and felt, at the time, like it was more of a television spectacle than anything else. I don’t remember cheeseheads erupting in joy or shaking the earth. At least not in New Orleans, where the game was played.

Eventually, we gave up on any attempt at driving to our destination and decided to walk it. The streets were packed with people. I think I caught a glimpse of Morten Anderson at Lucy’s on Julia. Strangers were giving one another hugs and high-fives. By the time I reached my room, I could hear the celebration, loud as day, from the eleventh floor.

The cameras may have been on Bourbon Street and the French Quarter, but the celebration was everywhere. And I imagine it spilled across the State of Louisiana and all along the Gulf Coast. This was an historic and magical weekend for the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana.

Congratulations to Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu and to the World Champion New Orleans Saints.

My terrible photo of Mitch’s victory speech, taken, obviously, on my cell phone camera.

The Spirit of New Orleans

by Wynton Marsalis

Down on the Bayou where the mighty Mississippi kisses Lake Pontchartrain and spills into the Gulf of Mexico. There sits that jewel of the Southland. What the French lost to the British who gave it to the Spanish who lost it back to the French who sold it to America for….. Well, some folks say Jefferson conned Napoleon in a card game and won it for some jambalaya and a chicory coffee.

New Orleans, N’Awlins, the Crescent City, the Big Easy, the northern capitol of the Caribbean, Groove City. Man, they have things down there you wouldn’t believe. A mythic place of Mardi-Gras and mumbo, Voodoo and the moss-covered alligator-spiked pathways of back-country swamp drained and sprinkled with gris-gris dust to house a wild, unruly population. A city with they own cuisine, they own architecture, they own music..streets with names like Dorgenois and Tchoupitoulas.

People in crazy costumes parading talkin ’bout “throw me somethin’ mistah”, dressed like Indians chanting ’bout, “Madi,Madi-Cudifiyo”, sittin in the young twilight on the ‘poach’ of they camelback shotgun house eatin po’ boys bout to ‘make’ groceries for the crawfish ‘burl’ they gon’ have on ‘Sadday’. They sing through horns down there you know. Yeah Padnah! Something called Jazz, started by a cornet man named Bolden. They say Bolden could play so loud the sun was scared to set. Some folks say the air is so thick down here you, can eat it with a spoon.

Drummers drag rhythms in dirgey solemnity down neighborhood streets as horns moan, mock and moo. Man, hot notes echo against the sky with such weight as to be objects. Objects of sorrow so passionately played that the dead begin to cry. Then that trumpet calls and everyone falls in behind the band for a second line parade and those musicians get to hollerin and shoutin and folks get to struttin and steppin and the living let go of the dead and sorrow soon becomes laughter. In New Orleans, we bury our dead above ground.

They always walk amongst us…. but that music. It always ends happy. So when a strong rain brings angry winds howlin’ down the Mississippi or up from the Gulf,
those misty winds carry the dreams of ghosts, yes, but not just the goblins of Marie Laveau the Voodoo queen, or the tortured spirits of the legendary lascivious lovelies of Storyville sporting houses, or even the undead demons of corrupt politicians who have steeled our idealism over three colorful centuries. They also bring the spirits of Saints, of those who have lived here in quiet dignity and sanctified religiosity, of those who have raised kids in the shadow of the St. Louis Cathedral and Sundayed in Jackson Square or of the River Walk lovers holding hands… of many who have fallen in love here, proposed here, honeymooned here. Not just the howling ghouls of the frat-boy drunks on Bourbon street, but they also bring the angels of all who have romanced in and with this beautiful land on the Delta.

Yes, the ‘haints become more famous but the Saints endure. Where were you when 85,000 people gathered in the last open seated stadium in professional football to witness John Gilliam run our very first kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown? When Tom Dempsey kicked that 63 yard field goal with half-a-right foot? When Tom Fears, Hank Stram, and Jim Mora prowled the sidelines? Were you there when Howard Stevens, Danny Abromowicz, Rickey Jackson, and Archie Manning donned the black and gold? Ahhh..those New Orleans Saints! Confined to a purgatory of their own making looking for the fast track to hell. Maybe a brand new dome would appease the gods of football—a Superdome.

Fathers bounced kids on their knees while explaining how we would certainly blow our 30 point halftime lead by game’s end…..and the Saints did not disappoint. Where you there when the Dome Patrol brought us to the upper chambers of purgatory in search of playoffs, playoffs..playoffs? Yes, ‘haints become famous but Saints endure. Just ask Deuce. If 4 years is a long time: (your high school years, your college days, the length of the Civil War..WWII)…then 43 yrs is an eternity. You ever wait for something so long that waiting for it becomes the something? You ever see grown folks put bags over their heads in public, covering up to hide from themselves like an old alcoholic who won’t admit? We can’t help it. We’re with our Saints even when we ‘aint. New Orleans people are stubborn and hate to leave home.

Down here, people like to brag about how they handle tragedy. Epochal hurricanes like Betsy and Camille are discussed as if they’re people. “Betsy was bad but Camille, ‘Lawd Have Mercy’, the water was up here to my neck.” Nobody brags on Katrina. She swept through here like death on a high horse. Those flood waters seemed to run all the demons, goblins, AND saints away forever. There goes old Jean Lafitte the pirate relocated to Houston, there goes old Jelly Roll Morton off somewhere in Memphis with that diamond still sparklin in his front tooth.

But quick to return is the unbending will and irrepressible spirit, sin-dipped in Tabasco sauce and spiced with file’ in possession of an unshakable, unbreakable soul that Louis Armstrong first announced to the entire world through a red hot trumpet, that Danny Barker broadcasted on a burnished banjo, and Sidney Bechet shouted and screamed through a scorching horn said to be a soprano saxophone. And here comes that chastened Noah’s arc of a dome rising from ignominy to become again a beacon of community. And, oh yes, they are still down here marching in those funny-named streets blowing history AND the present moment through singing horns. And people still dance with abandon, exuberance, and unbridled human feeling because that music tells ‘em “what has been may be what is, but what will be cannot possibly be known.”

We live the moment. Laissez les bon temps rouler! –Let the Good Times Roll. I think I hear that trumpet calling the children of the Who Dat Nation home–not Gabriel’s or the horns that blew down the walls of Jericho–that jazz trumpet conjuring up the spirit world with a Congo Square drum cadence. Ghosts, goblins, and ‘haints aggravate. Saints congregate. I hear them now bringing that 43 year second line to a glorious crescendo. “Who Dat Say What Dat When Us Do Dat?” It’s like waiting 43 years to hear somebody say ‘I Love You’ back. And they do. Let the tale be told ’bout how the black and gold won the Super Bowl.

And those jazzmen still play sad songs but they always end happy…..they always do.

Wynton Marsalis

To Our Friends in New Orleans

2010 February 4
by Lamar White, Jr

It looks like those of us in Central Louisiana may be jumping aboard your ongoing battle against the Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA.

From The Town Talk:

Many homeowners in Alexandria, Pineville and throughout Rapides Parish could be staring at mandatory flood insurance with an annual premium costing as much as $5,000.

….

Joe Sloan, an insurance specialist with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Flood Insurance Program, told a gathering of more than 100 local residents, business leaders and elected officials of potential upcoming “insurance ramifications” after FEMA de-accredited the north, south and eastbank levees along the Red River in Rapides Parish.

The questions ranged from the process of de-accreditation by FEMA and decertification by the Corps of Engineers to how much the problem will cost to fix, who is responsible for the cost of the repairs and how much money local residents will have to pay for flood insurance.

The flood insurance would be mandatory for anyone in the new flood plain who is still paying a mortgage on a house, officials said.

Sloan advised residents that it’s still too early to tell specifically how much money they’ll have to pay for flood insurance because a new map hasn’t been drawn and the costs will differ on a case-by-case basis.

However, he said that a preferred risk policy can be purchased before the new maps are drawn for between $120 and $350 per year. That coverage then can be “grandfathered in” after the maps are finished, albeit at a higher cost ranging anywhere from $750 to $1,200 per year.

This should be an issue that all of us in Central Louisiana, regardless of our political beliefs or views on social issues, can agree on: This could be a major body blow to Central Louisiana. It could hurt small businesses, big businesses, and every nearly single homeowner in and around Alexandria. And we simply cannot afford it, both in the short-term and the long-term.

More than eighty years ago, the feds built our levees to their standards, then, recently, they changed those standards without any funding in place to ensure the structures they built could meet their new standards– which means that all of us who relied on those assurances provided by the federal government when deciding where to invest, where to raise our families, and where to buy our homes could now, suddenly, be left paying a high premium for our right to own property– in a place in which the levees have never been breached, even when the Red River rose over ten feet in 1973.

While this may hurt the vast majority of Alexandrians, many of whom have an income significantly below the national average, it would likely help boost the profits of the insurance industry and, believe it or not, engineers.

Maybe I’ve gotten this all wrong, and if you know better, then please educate me.

But either way, it is clearly time that we all write our members of Congress to let them know how this will affect us as individual citizens.

James O’Keefe, of PimpGate/Louisiana Watergate Fame, May Not Be The Best Person For Conservatives To Champion

2010 February 3
by Lamar White, Jr

Yes, yes, I know: I’m stating the obvious. But in light of what Breitbart and Ben Stein and others have said about the young Mr. O’Keefe (who, for those of who don’t know, was arrested with three other men for allegedly attempting to tamper with Senator Mary Landrieu’s phone lines) and considering how Chad Rogers of The Dead Pelican has dedicated a lot of precious space on his website aggregating stories defending Mr. O’Keefe, it’s probably appropriate to discover what, exactly, Mr. O’Keefe was up to prior to his sudden rise to fame. Is this just another folly of youth?

From Salon.com:

By O’Keefe’s own account, his racial troubles became acute when he entered the multicultural atmosphere of Rutgers University’s dormitory system. In an online diary that has since been scrubbed from the Web (but not before being captured on Daily Kos), he wrote that he was forced to live on an all-black dormitory floor after refusing to live with the gay roommate he was initially assigned. O’Keefe claimed his next roommate was “an Indian midget … who smelled like sh*t.” The roommate left, however, and was replaced by “a greek kid.” The new roommate complained to a residential administrator that O’Keefe had called his neighbors “n****rs,” prompting the school to expel him from the dorm. He rejected the accusation as a “complete lie,” writing, “I was lead out of the room crying and screaming at him and my situation, no friends, no one one [sic] to talk to, forced to go in front of a black man, Dean Tolbert, to defend myself and help explain that I did not call anyone any names.”

I suppose his white roommate was just lying about O’Keefe’s remarks, and it was all just one big conspiracy to get him rusticated. Riiiiight.

And then there’s this:

During the call, O’Keefe offered a donation to the clinic on the condition that it would be earmarked to pay for aborting African-American fetuses. “Because there’s definitely way too many black people in Ohio,” O’Keefe remarked to the receptionist. “So, I’m just trying to do my part.”

O’Keefe’s termination by the Leadership Institute hardly ended his career as a conservative activist. Right-wing online publicist Andrew Breitbart, hearing of the merry prankster’s exploits, hired him to carry out the ACORN operation that would make him famous. Since his arrest, however, some of O’Keefe’s former associates are scrambling to save face. “I am shocked by the reports of this behavior,” declared O’Keefe’s collaborator on the ACORN operation, Hannah Giles. (Giles had tarted up as a prostitute for the stunt.)

Shocked, I tell you.

Acid Tongue

2010 January 31
by Lamar White, Jr

Lizz Gardner from Alexandria, Louisiana:

Fuzzy Math

2010 January 31
by Lamar White, Jr

Update: As someone who helped to build the entire process behind this initiative and who has worked, on a daily basis, with all of the principal players involved, I can state definitively that the numbers presented by Mr. Aymond aren’t just heavily inflated; they’re egregiously inflated. Period. He can say whatever he pleases about me as a person. He is perfectly entitled to his opinion. (And I can take it. I know I’ve been critical of him too).

But the facts are the facts. And the fact is: He’s wrong, and he is misleading his readership.

Re: The Downtown Hotels Initiative in Alexandria.

Considering this was picked up by a local talk radio station and has been covered by another local blogger, I think some clarification is in order. A handful of people have asked me why I even pay attention to this; it’s simple: Apparently, a few folks in our local mainstream media actually believe this.

From Greg Aymond:

What the Town Talk actually wrote was that “The initial phase, Roy said, will be a project in the range of $50 million to $60 million, with more than 80 percent of that funding coming from the private sector”. (See: “$50 million-plus downtown plan will cost Alexandria at least $9.5 million“). The opposite of “private” is “public”, which I thought that the “public” meant us. If my math isn’t wrong, that comes to up to $12 million in “public” funds.

In addition to what Hospitality Initiatives Partnership (H.I.P.) has to put up, or not, (the $12 million in “public funds”), we taxpayers of Alexandria will also be out of an additional $10 million in infrastructure improvements plus an additional $2 million — and use that as “gap financing” for the project through a long-term lease or sale at a reduced cost. id. That is, also if my math serves me correctly, is $12 million from us citizens of Alexandria.

So the total costs to us taxpayers is a total of $24 million. I apologize for stating that it was $15 million.

You see what he did there?

He extrapolated numbers based exclusively on a single media report. The Town Talk reported the project could represent between a $50M – $60M investment in Alexandria, which is absolutely true, and the Mayor said the public component would represent less than 20% of that investment. Remember: The public already owns and/or operates two of the three pieces of the project, both the Fulton Hotel and the Riverfront Center, and the public investment would be, almost exclusively, in public infrastructure. (By the way, last I checked: Public dollars were also used to pave the roads and build the infrastructure in and around Mr. Aymond’s law office, but I guess that is beside the point).

Anyway, Mr. Aymond used the high end ($60M), determined that 20% of $60M would be $12M, and proclaimed that we’d be spending $12M on the deal. I know for a fact: He has NEVER spoken with any of the principals on this deal; he’s never seen any numbers; he is basing his assumptions, exclusively, on ONE story in the newspaper.

(I know: He’s a lawyer; therefore, he’s an expert, at least in the mind of at least one, very local talk radio personality).

Then, Mr. Aymond doubled that number. I’m not sure why he doubled that number, but make no mistake about it: He is using the same exact, inflated numbers TWICE, numbers he extrapolated from a single quote from a single article in the newspaper.

The best thing about this: He is now polling readers on whether or not taxpayers should be on the hook for his invented number.

So:

Can you recognize everything?

2010 January 29
by Drew Ward

There was a comment posted a while back saying that Alexandria could never be used as a filming location for anything but scenes needing small southern town Americana sort of stuff.

Alexandria Film Maker Marshall Woodworth has this video:

Camera angles and lighting obviously do a lot, but it doesn’t look terribly small town’ish to me.

Rest in Peace

2010 January 29
by Lamar White, Jr

Seriously?

2010 January 28
by Lamar White, Jr

Once again, I know I’m going to get lambasted; I know I’m going to be called, yet again, some variation of a “rich, liberal, petty, spoiled, little brat” by Mr. Greg Aymond, who will, more than likely, put my name in bold capital letters in his headline and may also choose to litter his response with profanity, because that really drives home the point.

I’ve been reading Mr. Aymond’s insights on government and politics for nearly four years now. Maybe I shouldn’t be admitting to such, but unlike New Orleans, which has a vibrant and diverse blogosphere, Alexandria only has a handful of bloggers, of which Mr. Aymond is easily the most prolific.

Anyway, after four years of reading his blog posts- some with which I agree and many with which I disagree, I have arrived at a few conclusions. My personal opinions:

1) He is a bully:

Setting aside his crusade against Rich Dupree and the entire e-mailgate controversy, which, thus far, has resulted in the expenditure of thousands of taxpayer dollars and nothing definitively damning or felonious, Mr. Aymond has also publicly crusaded against Ed Hooper, the blogger behind WeSawThat, and has disclosed that he is now suing Mr. Hooper for defamation because of a series of posts in which Mr. Hooper labels Mr. Aymond as “unethical.” For the record, I don’t believe Mr. Aymond is unethical. I think he is a bully, and being a bully is not necessarily against the law. I enjoy a good argument and an informed debate. But after suing Mr. Hooper, Mr. Aymond then proceeded to publish a series of posts that, I believe, were intended to personally and publicly insult Mr. Hooper’s intelligence. To me, there seems to be some cognitive dissonance here. Personally, I think Mr. Hooper is a little reckless (and his whole Zionist conspiracy stuff is really off-putting), but Mr. Aymond undercuts his “I’ve been defamed” argument every single time he publishes rants against the very person he claims defamed him. I have noticed that since Mr. Aymond announced his decision to sue Mr. Hooper, Mr. Hooper has stayed away, while Mr. Aymond continues to bully. I’m not attempting to stick up for Mr. Hooper; I’m just calling it as I see it.

He has publicly insulted me, repeatedly, and most of the time, frankly, I don’t care. I don’t know Greg Aymond. I’ve never met him. A year or two ago, I spoke with him on the telephone on a few occasions, and he was always courteous. I don’t consider him to be a journalist, no more than I consider myself to be one. He writes a blog about his personal opinions, and he is absolutely entitled to that right, as am I.

When I express my opinions, contrary to what he may say, I am not carrying water for anyone. I am an unclassified employee of the Mayor. I predict that, after this post, Mr. Aymond will imply, as he has in the past, that because I derive a portion of my income from taxpayer dollars, I should be ashamed for expressing my own opinions. To him, I would ask this: As a disabled American, I have to wonder: When you say that you draw a disability check, who, exactly, pays for that check? Is your disability check funded entirely by private-sector dollars? What about your health care?

2) We give him far too much attention:

He is prolific, and I take the blame for drawing even more attention to him. But I think there is a good reason the Mayor didn’t want to interview with him on his blog. He employs racial epithets and then claims he is simply championing free speech or channeling rap music. Most intelligent folks simply don’t buy that, particularly when it’s delivered from a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Sorry.

3) Most importantly, he doesn’t seem to understand the role and function of government:

Mr. Aymond, you imply that you somehow understand the details of the Downtown Hotels Initiative more than anyone involved. Yet you have never met or even spoken with any of the principal deal-makers. You don’t know their numbers. You don’t seem to understand that people have to purchase tax credits, and you don’t seem to understand how the whole project works.

You’re ignorant about this project, and your ignorance begets ignorance.

One day, maybe you’ll be interested in the truth, but until then, people should understand that you don’t actually know what you’re writing about.

So sue me, because, to me, that is all you seem to know how to do whenever anyone confronts you, and frankly, you’ve set yourself up for a slam-dunk counter-suit.

Pelican Institute: Not in Good Standing with LA Secretary of State

2010 January 27
by Lamar White, Jr

Link (Search for Pelican Institute)

Name Type City Status
PELICAN INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY Non-Profit Corporation NEW ORLEANS Active
Business: PELICAN INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY
Charter Number: 36615065 N
Registration Date: 12/17/2007
Domicile Address
400 POYDRAS STREET, 30TH FLOOR
NEW ORLEANS, LA 70130
Mailing Address
400 POYDRAS STREET, 30TH FLOOR
NEW ORLEANS, LA 70130
Status
Status: Active
Annual Report Status: Not In Good Standing for failure to file Annual Report
File Date: 12/17/2007
Last Report Filed: 9/10/2009
Type: Non-Profit Corporation
Registered Agent(s)
Agent: MICHAEL L. VINCENZO
Address 1: 201 ST. CHARLES AVENUE, 45TH FLOOR
City, State, Zip: NEW ORLEANS, LA 70170
Appointment Date: 12/17/2007
Officer(s) Additional Officers: No
Officer: KEVIN KANE
Title: President, Treasurer, Director
Address 1: 400 POYDRAS STREET, 30TH FLOOR
City, State, Zip: NEW ORLEANS, LA 70130
Officer: STEPHEN M. GELE
Title: Director, Secretary
Address 1: 440 BEVERLY GARDEN
City, State, Zip: METAIRIE, LA 70001
Amendments on File (1)
Description Date
Domicile, Agent Change or Resign of Agent 6/18/2008

Best Political News Headline of the Day

2010 January 27
by Lamar White, Jr