We shoved away from the C-gate Jetway on December 25. We returned to New Orleans on January 1st. And it seemed that, if the plane's seats weren't falling apart in some way, then there was going to be a mechanical problem delaying the flights instead. We made it to the Left Coast and back all in one piece, which was the main thing.

The other main thing? It seems that every trip I take away from this city makes me realize how much more I love this place, the people in it, and how utterly necessary it is for a place like New Orleans to exist in the imaginations of our fellow countrymen at least, if not as a part of their waking reality - Dan described one encounter with a fellow traveler on this trip as something akin to "You can actually live there???"

Umm, yeah, we do, and we do it quite well, for the most part, despite all the crapola hurled our way.

Some of the best ambassadors for this are not actually living, breathing individuals walking amongst the folks at any airport, but the people spinning their CDs and spinning some yarns about this city over the airwaves. Of course the most "visible" one of these folks these days is Nick Spitzer of American Routes (which now has a superkewl archive online - thanks to Humid Haney for that heads-up!) - and that one even contributed to a bit of homesickness when I was living in NYC a few years back. Amazing what sort of yearning is evoked when the delivery guy from the Verti-Marte is interviewed...

Yes, there is WWOZ, whose perpetual quests for funding are some of the most non-annoying in all of public radio and television...but they can back it all up with some good music ( live music!) of their own, not to mention a little street talk.

WTUL's been around for quite a while, however inconsistent it may be. There are some occasional gems played there, and some moments I have a soft spot for (like when they played all of Lou Reed's Set The Twilight Reeling for me as part of their fundraiser one year), but it is still the folks such as DJ Poptart and the Community Gumbo show that keep things going.

Please clue me in on some more good stuff coming through the radio, if you will. We are actually quite privileged to have this much right here in town....and it takes going away for a bit to fully realize that.

Update, 1-3: Celcus speaks of AM radio in these parts, and reminds me of the stint on the Eric Asher show I and fellow RT-ers Adrastos and Varg were on in August '08. Celcus is right. Let's get Asher to RT IV.

In the past year, I gave my mother-in-law a cute kitty timer as a birthday gift.

However, the timer is exhibiting signs of being haunted or possessed by some feline spirit.

It meows at odd times, especially at night.

Honestly, all it wants is love and attention...

...and wouldn't we all thrive a little more in the coming year with some of that?

HAPPY 2009 from the Left Coast!

See you soon.

(meow...)

The thing about Judaism...and, indeed, most all religions and schools of thought...is that one's education in its meaning, rituals, and history never ends. It is not something that cuts off at your bar/bat mitzvah. The exploration of one's spirituality within its framework is lifelong. And the surprises just never end.

For instance, I know it will surprise a number of the kids I've taught over the past few years that the story of the Maccabees is part of the Apocrypha, the "things hidden" over the centuries from all but the most scholarly devotees of the study of the Hebrew Bible. It would also surprise them to learn that the Maccabees were not necessarily religious freedom fighters, but practitioners of a different sort of zealotry stemming from a time of persecution of any Jewish people and Jewish practices. There was no middle ground for Mattathias and his sons (as evidenced in 1 Maccabees 2:19-26) and for them, there was no way of negotiating with the king of the Syrian Greeks and his armies without the use of swords. The ones who ultimately suffered for these extremists' battles were everybody else stuck in between - from the people who went along with the hedonistic aspects of the Hellenistic culture the king Antiochus spread to the people the Maccabee band encountered in their righteous battle who were forced into circumcisions or killed outright for not being zealous enough.

No neutrality. You were a Greek or you were not. A part of the solution or part of the problem.

Is it any wonder we focus more on one cruse of oil meant to last only one day lasting for eight? Pretty, miraculous lights. That's where Hannukah's at!

To change gears a little, it is still a wonder that, in these supposedly enlightened times, the extremists are the ones whose voices are heard the loudest. And it is even more horrifically wondrous that we let them shout down all that is good, compassionate, and cooperative about the human race...all because, deep down, most of us who are good, compassionate, and cooperative feel that these people are simply talking to hear their own voices, and, when they are done having their say, they will wend their way back into whatever corner of the world they came from and keep to themselves once again.

We forget that these people not only have voices - they have brains. And limbs. And hands and feet. Everyone has the capacity to do whatever they want with what they have been given, and it is all too easy to use what is given for either good or bad. And it seems this week that The Nation has proclaimed that the bad is right in our own backyard here in New Orleans and that letting it lie is wrong. And The Nation is right.

To a point.

As a New Orleans blogger and a reader and supporter of other New Orleans bloggers, I can say that there is one thing above all the other things we write about, a thing that caused most of us to start this blogging stuff in the first place: our troubles are also this country's troubles. We do our best to refute those who would argue that the events of 8-29-05 here were simply the result of a natural disaster - they are symptomatic of a lack of real consideration for the upkeep of our infrastructure as a nation. We decry those who would let former centers of health care rot for their own financial gain, only to push even more residents out for a new, pie-in-the-sky, maybe it'll be built facility. And, as Athenae points out:

Jackass could have stayed in Chicago and learned the real "meaning" of the N-word just fine. The sentiments expressed in this story could have been expressed by any one of a hundred people I've talked to in my years living here. This isn't about the South. This is about America, as it always has been, as we keep saying here: Our fate is your fate, and it was, and it is. Our own.

I mean it, how often do you hear this? Every day? My house, my block, my neighborhood, I live here and you don't. Moreover, I BELONG here and you don't. Our lives are a crazy quilt of safe areas and danger zones, in which we make snap decisions about who "looks" like they belong here and who doesn't. But for the outright violence, but for the semi-official nature of the "militia," is there anyplace in this country this couldn't have happened? Neighborhood Watches and community meetings and everybody on the lookout, all the time, for what's coming after them. It's no wonder, no wonder at all.

No, the majority of us don't necessarily possess the religious zealotry of the Maccabees, but we do have that heavy individualism that can get just as bad. And I think that we, too, forget something important.

We, too, have brains. And limbs. And hands and feet. And voices.

There are times when we have to use those voices, and let me tell you, there is NO time like this very second.

Speak up. Write, email, call, to let The Nation and many, many others out there know that the racist idiots who shot Donald Harrington and his companions did not act as you would have acted in that situation. Let everyone know that the racist whites in the YouTube made by reporter A.C. Thompson are not expressing your views.

THEN...make sure, no matter what your race, creed, or color is, that justice will be served, not only in these shootings, but in how Charity Hospital is regarded, how the decentralization of our "system of schools" is increasing, how our finances are being messed with on a too-regular basis, and how the people we elect to act on our behalf constantly betray our trust.

This kind of thing needs to be done nationally as well.

One of the prayers said at the time of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is an alphabetical acrostic proclaiming to God, as we each beat our hearts with our fists, all of the ways in which we have transgressed against God in the past year and how ashamed we are of our actions. We then proclaim that we will act more righteously, and with greater consideration.

Consider it my wish for us all at the dawn of a new year: that we admit our culpability in all of this and act to make this right...

...and that, more importantly, we continue to do so.

E eloquently weighs in on The Nation's recent article on Algiers Point after 8-29-05 and the Color of Change's demand for justice:

What we need is an independent federal investigation into all of it: All of the vigilante killings, all of NOPD's desertions, all of Nagin's mistakes, all of Brownie's incompetence, all of Bush's neglect, and the Army Corps of Engineers for the failure of the federal levee systems. We need the truth and we need accountability, but what we really need is healing. Color of Change's call, even if it succeeds in precipitating an investigation into what happened in Algiers, is just as likely to salt our civic wounds as it is to sanitize them.

We needed it starting in late 2005 and we still need it today. Color of Change isn't going nearly far enough. They're flailing in Bobby Jindal's direction in reaction to the Thompson piece instead of actually putting forth a proposal that might help usher New Orleanians toward some sort of closure.

But again, I don't just want to call out Thompson and Color of Change. This instance is emblematic of the larger role that Katrina and New Orleans play in national political discourse.

For the nation, the federal response Katrina signalled a final deathblow to President Bush and conservative governing philosophy. Polls demonstrate that the public pretty much turned on the GOP for good as a result of the Katrina saga. The PR battle that took place between the parties was one in which the Right blamed Nagin and the natives for their lack of "personal responsibility," while the Left (and the vast vast majority of the country) blamed Bush and his henchmen for their inexplicable and inexcusable inability to respond to an entirely predictable catastrophe in a major American city.

Since then, national analysis of New Orleans is through these lenses, not just the lens of 'Katrina' but the lenses of were was the immediate partisan reactions to Katrina.

The Left, during Katrina, was justifiably incensed over the way that African Americans were labeled "looters" while whites just looking for food. That's why it is unsurprising to see the lions of the liberal netroots (HuffPo, Think Progress, Color of Change) seize upon this story - it scores points in that old front against racist right wing media portrayal.

Katrina is an eternally smoldering political fire, that actual people live here New Orleans is an abstraction that most don't, can't, and won't think about in the midst of the constant drone of the 24 hour news cycle. That the story of New Orleans continues, that it takes on new twists and turns, that its existence continues to be tenuously propped up on a three-legged stool of racism, corruption, and incompetence seems lost on much of the progressive netroots, on thinkers who I respect greatly and read every day.

The most frustrating thing to me is that the progressive netroots really can be of great assistance in this city, without really sacrificing the opportunity to score those political points.

Sign the Color of Change petition here, and keep in mind that it is a call for a beginning into an investigation of one of many things that went wrong during that terrible time over three years ago.

"Santa's gonna bring you something nice and put it in your stocking!"

"No, he won't," the little guy said.

"Don't say that. Of course he will!!!!" she insisted.

The little guy walked off, and the waitress related this story to me.

"He says he won't get anything in his stocking!" she said to me, slightly horrified.

"Well, no, he won't," I said as her face fell even more,"because we're Jewish."

With that, we laughed together.

Yep, no stockings waiting to be stuffed are hanging in our home, thanks. We won't be expecting Santa to be stuffing himself down our chimney anytime soon, either. And from what I gather, Santa won't be too thrilled to find this house if he does come...


Sorry, Santa, we won't be accepting Jesus as our savior. Not even for more presents. Back up the chimney with you, now.

Coozan Pat alerts readers to this article from The Nation examining what happened in Algiers Point on the West Bank of the Mississippi shortly after 8-29-05. A sampling:

The new information should reframe our understanding of the catastrophe. Immediately after the storm, the media portrayed African-Americans as looters and thugs--Mayor Ray Nagin, for example, told Oprah Winfrey that "hundreds of gang members" were marauding through the Superdome. Now it's clear that some of the most serious crimes committed during that time were the work of gun-toting white males.

So far, their crimes have gone unpunished. No one was ever arrested for shooting Herrington, Alexander and Collins--in fact, there was never an investigation. I found this story repeated over and over during my days in New Orleans. As a reporter who has spent more than a decade covering crime, I was startled to meet so many people with so much detailed information about potentially serious offenses, none of whom had ever been interviewed by police detectives.

Hill, who runs Tulane's Southern Institute for Education and Research and closely follows the city's racial dynamics, isn't surprised the Algiers Point gunmen have eluded arrest. Because of the widespread notion that blacks engaged in looting and thuggery as the disaster unfolded, Hill believes, many white New Orleanians approved of the vigilante activity that occurred in places like Algiers Point. "By and large, I think the white mentality is that these people are exempt--that even if they committed these crimes, they're really exempt from any kind of legal repercussion," Hill tells me. "It's sad to say, but I think that if any of these cases went to trial, and none of them have, I can't see a white person being convicted of any kind of crime against an African-American during that period."

Read more on those seeking justice for New Orleans here.

Update, 12-21: The Zombie weighs in:

I don't doubt for one second that these incidents are true...but they are a drop in the bucket to the overall level of lawlessness and crime which occurred in the days following the Federal Flood. There are so many "incidents" which occurred in those days of horror, it just really peeves me to see a "national" (pun intended) reporter cherry pick incidents and call it "Katrina's Hidden Race War"

....gets your blood pumping doesn't it?

I've got an interview, on tape, with a young lady who was in the Dome who witnessed an elderly woman thrown over the walkway outside simply because "...she was a white woman". I've got interviews with people on Dumaine Street who told me of a band of men (African-American) with guns, a police officer included, who were systematically hunting down drug dealers and thugs in their neighborhood and killing them.

Point being....a lot of horrible things took place during that time. Were there white racists with guns shooting at people? I'm sure there were. Were there black racists with guns shooting at people? I'm sure there were.

Had Thompson framed this story as "Katrina's Hidden Vigilante War" I would have no problem with it because I think there were many, many vigilante incidents which went untold or unreported...one of the most egregious being a beheading of a child molester at the Convention Center (the headless body was actually shown underneath a blanket on CNN for a about a 10 hour period then the story mysteriously disappeared). And of course I don't have an issue with him reporting that there were white racists at Algiers point who were targeting African-Americans...that story needs to be told, and those assholes need to be prosecuted. But calling it a "Race War"....that's fucking insane and purposely inflammatory.....it's simply bad journalism.

Update, 12-22: Comments on the video from Varg, who resides on the west bank, and Mr. Clio are here.

I Am A Hostilidays Wuss

Well, it happened. And ultimately, I guess I am to blame for this state of affairs.

I've been giving Dan some day-to-day recaps of the 2008 Hostilidays YouTube Wars, the highlight of which, for him, was Sheckrastos' rude, crude entry. He's actually been telling some people at his workplace about it, which I thought was bad enough...

...but he just couldn't let it go.

How do I know this?

Last night, after putting our darling son to bed and making sure he was fast asleep, Dan did a Google search for some more truly awful videos and he found the mother of 'em all....or, actually, part 2 of the mother of 'em all. He went to get ready for bed while I found parts 1 and 3, and he and I witnessed the whole sordid, socially unacceptable, blasphemous tale. I mean, NOT safe at work, NOT for the kids, GUARANTEED to start a 21st century crusade, that kinda thing...

...best expressed in a comment on the YouTube page for this thing:

well it was hilarious..but ur goin to hell...lol

Once I got out of the fetal position I was curled into and got off the floor, I thought about whether or not I oughta post it on this blog. Could I possibly get away with a "Most Awful Family In Britain" sort of presentation, in which I simply claim that the video is so, so bad, it just can't be shown or linked to at all?

How to share this H-Bomb of a moving picture with those who would be most appreciative of it?

Well, that's one of the ways in which the holiday spirit has triumphed.

I gave this abortive holiday miracle to the NOLA blogpocheh in an email and threw it out there for any of 'em to post, any of 'em at all to share it with the world. And the only one who had the steel ovaries to even throw up a link to it was Morwen.

View it at your own mental risk. Hehhehhehhehhehhehheh....

It is the tip of a massive iceberg, one that has many of us trying to figure it out. It's one of the reasons why, for the first time in this city's history, we have an inspector general in the first place.

Where the hell is the city's money going?

Since this investigation has got to start somewhere, Inspector General Robert Cerasoli begins with the "company cars" and finds that, if the city pares down the current number of cars in its fleet from 273 to 60, the maximum number allowed under city ordinance, then we will be saved a grand total of close to:



Mr Walki...errr...Mayor Nagin, just something to consider:

You know, you can own the most pimped-out vehicle on the market, but with the city's streets being in the condition that they are, why would you want to destroy its suspension like that? And you have the personal use of two late-model vehicles? That's really gonna cost us, the humble city taxpayers, in repairs on that Lincoln and that Expedition.

Please pick your battles more wisely, sir, and sell the Lincoln at least, along with the extra 212 vehicles. The cuts the Council wants to make in the city budget pertaining to fleet purchases and fuel can easily be made up in this way.

You are holding the freaking checkbook...

Mazel tov and yashir koach to Mr Cerasoli on the publishing of his first comprehensive findings concerning the (non)workings of our city's government. Please keep it up, no matter what happens. We all need this.

______________________




Whooo! Hannukah's around the corner...



and no, these are not part of the Hostilidays YouTubes.

But THIS certainly is:

It's the little things that get to you sometimes

Like when cobblestone streets are repaired with patches of scored asphalt:

...or it takes a while for the Sewerage and Water Board to get around to replacing the covers on the water meters, leaving open holes nearly two feet deep in the sidewalk:

Oh, sure, this recovery business is gonna take a while, but isn't it already December 2008?:

Hmmm...aren't there any funds for such basic infrastructure repairs?

Unfortunately, there is no more money in the 2008 budget to make streetlight repairs for the rest of this year, and the 2009 budget that was passed includes only the smallest amount for repairs in 2009, despite Council Member Midura’s efforts to get this infrastructure fund properly funded at the budget meeting.

It is possible your lights are likely to remain out for a while. We will continue our best efforts to provide a remedy to this situation.

Thank you.

More on the budget shortfalls from E here.

An examination of the Walking Id's proposed 2009 budget is here.

What Cliff thinks we oughta do to fill the budget shortfall is here.

We have 75 million dollars in the recovery budget to buy up half of Mid City for a new hospital complex that still don't have the money to build....Would it be legal to take some of that 75 million and put into the regular city budget to make up the shortfall? We should take all of it. Councilwoman Clarkson keeps assuring everybody that the disaster loans that have been the way of balancing the budget will be forgiven as the reason we won't be in crisis for the 2010 budget. When that day comes we can use that revenue to replace the Mid City money if needed. I honestly don't think the federal government is going to give us the money to make this plan happen anyway. We ought to just take what we have now and scale back the plan to fit what we can afford. We shouldn't be holding the money we do have hostage for the state, the federal government and LSU if they can't deliver on their part of the funding.

Would it be possible to move this money or is this another case where guidelines and the city charter give our leaders an excuse to not think outside the box?

Howzabout Cliff for mayor?

_______________________

ANYway, since we ain't got the dough to do much...

well, 'tis the season, right?

Just deck that caution barrel with some candy canes and boughs of faux holly!

We can dress up Jackson Square, sure!

But that hole will still remain,
and that light will still be out.

*Jackson Square photo courtesy of Charlotte

Dan keeps saying that I must counter some of the nastier YouTubes in this bloody hollerday war with some sort of porn. "Naked Christmas! Naked Christmas!" he keeps telling me, with a teensy bit of drool emanating from one corner of his lip.

Well, my neighbor told me of a little something...but it is risque, so click on the link below only when you are not at work and the kids are all safe in their beds.

Then, feel free to live it up with Hot Jewish Chicks.

In somewhat related news, Big Daddy's goes belly-up. Never been in there, but the place still had an effect on me...and on some unsuspecting relatives of mine. After a less-than-stellar dinner at Antoine's (this was before we had our own waiter over there), I took said relatives down that block of Bourbon Street and they were suitably shocked and appalled. "Topless and bottomless!!!" one of 'em exclaimed as she held onto my shirt sleeve for dear life, staring at the mannequin's legs popping in and out of the building as though they were portents of disasters yet to come.

This was pre-8-29, so perhaps she was right...

Some of you might be wondering about the proliferation of Hannukah hip-hop on the interwebs...

...the insane shtick one particular guy brings to the dreidel game in this video holds one possible clue.



Fun fact: my husband actually IS a Hebrew school dropout.

I need to find that shirt.

PLUS: Waaaay too many people got roped into this one:



And this one needs to be seen to be believed. Harvey Fierstein and Bambi do NOT mix.

Dan heard about this atrocity in the Hollerday YouTube Fest and suggested I find:

a)something combining Michael Bolton, Kenny G., and Yanni all at the same time (what, no John Tesh?)
b)something related to a certain holiday for the rest of us.

Soooo, heeeeeeere's b).



Blame Dan first. I can at least use him as a human shield to get a running start on my escape from you meshuganah hordes...

...although Dan does like this one - plug the kids' ears, now: