DukeEngage | Duke Center for Civic Engagement

Time for a venerable cornucopia of blogging topics.

Big Bobby Jindal, everyone’s favorite governor of Indian descent and resident political wuss, made an interesting maneuver today when he actually vetoed the legislative pay raise bill. Now, this would have been respectable oh, I don’t know, maybe when the legislature was still in session and the entire population of Louisiana was nearly rioting with protest. Instead, he asked the legislature to not give themselves more money, which would have been comical if it hadn’t enraged nearly every Louisiana citizen. Well, the legislators gave themselves more money, and Bobby waited while the state seethed. A couple legislators soiled themselves when recall petitions started up and backed out. A recall petition was even started against Jindal by the Fourniers, a random Jefferson Parish couple who decided that gathering 959,000 signatures wouldn’t be a problem (thank heavens the Fourniers dropped the petition, otherwise they would have taken entire government of Louisiana down and we would have had anarchy). Well, despite the fact that these recall petitions were basically a joke and it is nearly impossible to recall a Louisiana politician, Jindal inexplicably caved and vetoed the bill. The result was mixed reviews, everything from the expected “finally” and “better late than never” to the bitter “too late, we hate you and are going to recall you.” Good luck with that one.

Another interesting recent development is that THE FREAKING RED CROSS IS OUT OF MONEY!!! How does that happen??!? It’s the American Red Cross, not Jimbo’s Band-Aid Farm!! Apparently after raising $2.1 billion after Hurricane Katrina (some of which went to pay off a $430 million loan, the first loan in the organization’s history), a lack of donations and a plethora of storms and disasters has left its national disaster relief totally depleted of funds. When I first heard this I thought it was hyperbole or some kind of joke, so I didn’t look into it more. Then we met with a New Orleans church and found out they have to look just to Salvation Army for funds, and apparently they are only funded through 2010. I feel like this is a bigger deal than the coverage it has recieved, and I really hope I’m missing something important.

The Recovery School District, the total joke that it is, announced yesterday that it was going to fire 17% of its teaching force. Apparently they woke up one day and went “we have a bunch of crappy teachers… $15 million worth… hmmm…” and now “math and science mentors” have been replaced with “mentor teachers” and “small learning community leaders.” Those last two titles actually made me laugh out loud. There’s nothing like replacing teachers with “community leaders.”

War with Iran appears to be a distinct possibility. That should be lovely, especially because Israel seems to be itchin’ for a rumble. Because when Israel gets involved in Middle Eastern combat, the fighting never ever escalates or anything.

There is a very moving Katrina artifact leaning against a wall in the Southern Institute. It is a homemade sign, with hasty words scratched on a white board with a marker. It says, “We Need Help We Need to get Out of here We have baby’s That Need food & Water.” Having driven around the blighted areas and seen signs painted on walls declaring the number of dead found inside, signs like that sink in a lot more as to the reality of what people faced during the storm. Another thing I found today that gives some insight into how the city felt during the storm is the Times-Picayune archives. Everything from the fear as the city braced the day before the storm to the absolute shock and horror as the storm struck and then the long, slow, and painful road towards rebuilding are all there. Some of the headlines and photos were too much to deal with. “Catastrophic.” “Under Water.” “’Help Us, Please.’” Extremely powerful stuff.

Another powerful document, albeit on not nearly as depressing of a scale, was one my boss showed me the other day that he was given. It was a tattered old bit of parchment from 1832, written on in delicate quill strokes and safely kept in a plastic bag. It was a petition for the emancipation of a slave named simply Caroline. I literally got to hold in my hand emancipation papers, the literal document that allowed a woman to be freed from the oppression of slavery. It was amazing. Some wealthy New Orleanian, nearly two hundred years ago, had granted this opportunity to someone who could only see it as a privilege versus the God-given right we take it for granted as today. Moving, to say the least.

Well the Louisiana State Legislature wrapped up its session the other day. Not only did they go ahead with the “I like myself so I’m going to give myself more money” bill, they also threw in a $300 million-a-year tax cut bill and a school voucher bill. I, like my beloved mother, am a diehard believer in providing as much funding as possible for public schools. I wish private schools did not exist in primary education. Therefore I hate school vouchers more than most things in this world. The phrase “tax cut” usually makes a person smile, but my general outlook of hopeless negativism combined with the fact that the tax cut is for upper-income earners who can afford to pay taxes doesn’t leave me grinning. I don't really consider myself a negative person, but I do like making references to films by the Coen brothers.

Anyways what's really funny is the public is giving the legislators a giant middle finger and has started to submit recall petitions. While I don't know how effective those measures will be, at least one legislator has soiled his britches and begged for forgiveness and for Wussmaster Jindal to veto the bill. I appreciate the difficult political position Jindal is in, but 1) he worked himself into it with conflicting campaign promises and 2) his "well I won't veto it but can you pretty please just not try and pass it?" strategy just reeks of wussery.

Funny comment on the Times-Picayune message boards in response to an online news brief about a St. Charles streetcar and automobile colliding:

If only there was some way we could be aware of exactly what route the streetcar was going to take. Then we could take steps, as motorists, to avoid that route, and not get hit. You know, like if we put these streetcars on set "rails" or "tracks". RTA should look into this.

I found that humorous, but only because nobody was hurt in the accident. I think as soon as you can verify that no injuries have taken place, any situation is basically fair game for humor.

A really cool place if you are interested in New Orleans history is the Preservation Resource Center. We went down there today for an interview and while we only met with someone who deals with the Rebuilding Together New Orleans partnership, we got to poke around the museum-like lobby while we were waiting. A lot of cool history about the different districts and neighborhoods in New Orleans, as well as stuff about the different types of houses and everything that makes New Orleans unique were all over the place. I really enjoyed it.

We had a group dinner yesterday at Cafe Somethingorother with Providence Community Housing CEO Jim Kelly. To answer the obvious question, no, I was unable to convince Felicia (who works for Providence) to inform Mr. Kelly that he was my favorite quarterback from the 1990s not named Warren Moon. She also would not ask him about his four straight Super Bowl appearances or playing with Thurman Thomas or even getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. Apparently she claims to do something called "work" and doesn't have time for my "stupid jokes." I found that rude.

Anyways Jim Kelly was an extremely cool guy with some great stories about Katrina and interacting with displaced and injured and elderly people in the immediate aftermath of the storm. Some very inspirational stuff about praying with the elderly and dying at Louis Armstrong Airport. A lot of what he does with Catholic Charities as well as Providence is really cool, too, so I definitely respected him. They work with low-income people and hold the right to return as an ironclad principle as well, so I don't even have sufficient grounds to make fun of Abby, Felicia, Tim, and Britney for their jobs, which is depressing for me to have to deal with. And contrary to what Danny claimed, I don't think Lance would have tried to fight him.

Excellent op-ed in the New York Times yesterday by Paul Krugman about the emphasis on homeownership over rental housing by the federal government. The fact is, homeownership is not a financially viable option for some homeowners, especially those with low income, and the extreme emphasis on owning a home to the point of suggesting renters are less American than homeowners is very detrimental. I've been doing some research on this and plan on writing more about the housing situation in both New Orleans and the United States a little later on. Also I plan on writing my findings and opinions on education (to summarize, I love public schools, dislike charter schools, and hate private schools), healthcare, and some other topics since I will be researching them a lot for my project at work. I'm sure this will in turn spark some spirited debate with English major, Florida resident, and Volvo driver Meg Foran. Should be a good time.

Still waiting for a call back from Brad Pitt. I'm sure it will be any day now.

I realized that everyday at work is like watching an episode of The Wire. Every single day I hear a new story from Lance about the dysfunctional institutions in New Orleans, whether the subject is housing, race, healthcare, education, politics, the media, rebuilding, or anything else. The only thing missing is an addict named Bubbles.

As I learn more and more about the events in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina from Lance’s perspective I feel like I get a clearer understanding of what happened, if not always why it happened. When thousands of people were forced to seek refuge in the Superdome and Convention Center the government not only failed in providing help to them but actually prevented food, water, and medical care from reaching the suffering citizens. Lance and others who stayed behind were forced to fight a “guerrilla war,” as he put it, to try and smuggle food and water into these buildings and past federal troops. The reasoning, according to the Red Cross, was that by withholding care they were attempting to force people to board buses and evacuate as soon as possible and not settle in at the Superdome and similar facilities. Since families were reluctant to be broken up in such an exodus, they resisted these measures and people lost their lives.

An interesting Katrina story is how the people who felt most ignored, forgotten, and abandoned were those who could afford a two-story house. When the floods rose to fifteen feet and upwards, these people took hatchets and cut holes in their roofs and climbed up away from the water. When the Coast Guard and National Guard helicopters flew over the area they seemed to totally ignore these residents, who at first yelled and waved sheets and articles of clothing to try and grab the attention of the pilots, and finally resorted to firing shotguns into the air (some helicopter crews thought they were being fired upon). In reality, these people were not forgotten but the helicopters instead were trying to find residents who lived in one-story houses and were around the city desperately trying to avoid drowning.

I read today what I considered to be an alarming article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. It was about a committee which was proposed to create and follow a “master plan” (is it even possible to use that term in any way without it sounding ominous?) that would govern all of the future development and reconstruction in New Orleans. The problem with this, however, is that the committee is not popularly elected, it is appointed. The reason for this, and this is a direct quote, is “to take land-use decisions out of politics.” For one thing, zoning issues are already heavily influenced by a small group of wealthy and primarily white power-wielders. Having a small and extremely powerful committee deal with them in implementing a “master plan” seems… I don’t know… risky. The big problem I could see, however, was pretty much spelled out in the article. “Taking decisions out of politics.” That is a very nice way of saying, “democracy is annoying, so we just aren’t going to use it anymore.” Now none of this has been implemented yet, but if I were to take a totally wild guess, just completely out of the blue, I might think that there’s a good chance that committee just might not be totally representative of the demographics of New Orleans, both on a class and color basis. Now what does that mean? Well, it means that it wouldn’t be all that surprising if you were to look at that “master plan” and think to yourself, “Hm, that’s funny. Lakeview and Metairie look like they are being developed quite nicely, but for some reason Gentilly, New Orleans East, and the Lower Ninth Ward are giant piles of rubble.”

In other news, Governor Bobby Jindal, who I’m learning has not just a few skeletons in his closet, is under serious fire from all sides for not vetoing a bill that is currently on his desk. The Louisiana State Legislature woke up one day and went, “You know what? I like money, and I don’t think I have enough of it. Let’s double our salary.” This, predictably, puts Jindal in a tight spot, because he 1) doesn’t want to anger the legislature, 2) promised voters he would veto bills exactly like this, 3) is an inexperienced and ineffective political operator, and 4) is a giant flying wuss. Or at least that’s how he’s seen by much of New Orleans, especially the working class black community. I’ve been listening to WBOK 1230 AM, a completely African-American station in New Orleans, and its clear people are not happy with him at all. I really like the afternoon program because it both provides an interesting perspective into the black community through both the hosts and the residents who call in about the issues and the hosts also happen to be really funny guys. Anyways, sometimes it seems like every problem a city could ever have is present in New Orleans but magnified many times over.

In a totally unrelated note, I was able to use my substantial political savvy to procure a couple of slices of Abby’s pizza from the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen. Italian sausage, Andouille sausage, and alligator. I love this place. Except for Supercuts on South Carrolton near St. Charles. They botched my haircut and now I look like an albino carrot.