Clancy DuBos on Jim Bernazzani

Clancy DuBos has an interesting review of the situation involving FBI Special Agent in Charge Jim Bernazzani.

Ray Nagin, Economic Genius

Ray Nagin has positioned himself as a shoe-in for the Nobel Prize in Economics with his latest scholarly work, "Recession: Bad for Everyone Else, Good for the Chocolate City."

Thanks for the Christmas Eve Property Tax Bill

The morons at City Hall think it's a good idea to mail property tax bills right before Christmas. I received my bill on Christmas Eve, as I assume others did. Do the idiots who run the government ever stop to think that perhaps people don't enjoy receiving a big property tax bill that must be largely a waste of money given the crappy condition of our roads, public schools, etc. on the night before Christmas? Would it kill them to send the bill some time other than right before Christmas? Do politicians ever think like normal human beings? Imagine if you had a business with thousands of customers whom you only billed once a year -- don't you think you'd have the common sense to issue that once-a-year bill some time other than Christmas Eve?

It's Time for Eddie Jordan to Resign

Eddie Jordan is a disaster. He needs to resign. He has done the unthinkable -- almost managing to make us forget how incompetent he is at his job, i.e., at prosecuting criminals. His incompetence as a District Attorney has largely been overshadowed this week by the need for taxpayers to pay for his racist employment practices and by his apparent harboring of a fugitive cop killer. We all need to jam the phone lines at the District Attorney's office with calls for his resignation, tell all of our other elected officials they need to publicly call for his resignation, tell our state senators and state house members to impeach him, flood local talk radio with complaints about him, and do anything else you can think of to force him out of office. The Eddie Jordan Should Resign bumper sticker is available here.

Quentin Brown for City Council

Just kidding with the post title. I'm not really endorsing him, but I thought I'd share my experience with local character and perennial City Council candidate Quentin Brown, who is now running for the at large slot that is open after Oliver Thomas' guilty plea and resignation.

During the run-up to the last City Council election, I was outside edging my lawn when Quentin walked by and introduced himself as a candidate for the spot that Stacy Head ultimately won. He was funny. Since I was tending to my lawn, he also offered his lawn care services to me. He gave me two business cards, one for the lawn care and odd jobs business, and for some reason, he gave me a second business card with a business name of "Cash Money, Inc." or something along those lines. I looked it up in the Louisiana Secretary of State corporations database, and it wasn't listed there, so if he really has such a company, it must be registered in another state or offshore.

My lawn guy hadn't returned after Katrina at the time, so I called Quentin for an estimate and ended up using him for months. Many yard men come and go whenever they want, and you never know when they may show up, making it difficult to open locked gates, arrange payment, etc. Quentin was different. He came promptly every two weeks and always called in advance to confirm to make sure he was paid on time.

He was also serious about campaigning, saying that he took three days a week away from his businesses to campaign. His handwritten campaign flyers and signs were classic. His signature catch phrase was "No More B.S." On some signs, he wrote out the word "bull" and abbreviated the "s." On other signs, though, he abbreviated the "b" but spelled out the "s" word. If you're going to abbreviate one of the two words in b.s., who would abbreviate the first word but not the second?

I ended up parting ways with Quentin and his lawn service for two reasons. My pre-Katrina yard man returned to the area, and I wanted to support him since he flooded. Also, Quentin pushed his car detailing business as an add-on service he could provide, and I had him detail one of my cars. When he and his assistant were done, the loose change in my console was missing.

Weak Field Running for City Council At-Large

So far, a weak field of candidates has signed up to run in the October 20 special election to replace criminal Oliver Thomas. Diana Bajoie, Jackie Clarkson, Cynthis Willard-Lewis, Gail Masters Reimonenq (a cousin of Stan Pampy Barre) and Dyan French have entered the race, and Tommie Vassel is expected to declare today. This is not a stellar group, and none of these candidates seems likely to change anything for the better. We need to do better than this.

New Poll About Crime's Impact on City's Brand

On the right, you'll see a new poll on the impact of increased crime on the New Orleans brand.

Will One of the Cynthias with a Hyphenated Last Name be Next to Plead Guilty?

Dambala thinks so.

Magazine Street Reopens After More Than Two Years

After a disgraceful two years plus being closed, Magazine Street has finally reopened. What a failure of leadership. In any other city, you would never have even the most obscure cul de sac street closed for that long, much less a major retail, restaurant and commuting thoroughfare.

My Trip to City Hall

I had the unfortunate experience of going to City Hall yesterday to turn in a homestead exemption. Before I reached the building, I passed through the green space next to City Hall. It is called Duncan Plaza and has a large gazebo in the middle of it. As soon as I reached the plaza, I was hit with the smell of human waste, which no doubt comes from the bums who choose to live in the gazebo. In other cities, the City Hall is a place of pride for the community to admire and enjoy. Not here, where it is a disgrace. I hope our elected officials are proud to bring visiting Congressmen and other dignitaries to our City Hall through a gauntlet of vagrants and urine.

After making my way past the bums, I entered City Hall where hundreds of people were waiting to see their assessor. The metal detectors went off as I passed through them with my cell phone, keys, etc., but the policewoman did not care. I could have had guns and hand grenades in my pockets for all she cared. She rudely asked what I was doing there, and I told her I only wanted to drop off a piece of paper at the assessor's office and that I did not need to speak to anyone or otherwise cut in line. She said that I had to wait in line behind hundreds of people to drop off the piece of paper. I asked if there was an interoffice mail box where I could leave it, and she looked clueless. I asked another of New Orleans' finest if I could go to the fourth floor. He told me to come back tomorrow, but eventually I convinced him to allow me the privilege of taking the elevator up to turn in my form, which I did without taking one second of the assessor's time (they have a drop box for the forms).

I assume the bulk of the people sitting there in line for hours live in Nancy Marshall's district. To those who voted for her, you only have yourselves to blame because she's doing exactly what she promised to do, i.e., raising your assessments.

Oliver Thomas' Guilty Plea

Here is a link to the court documents in the Oliver Thomas case, including the bill of information and the factual basis for the plea. He stipulated to the factual basis on July 18, 2007, so he and the government kept this quiet for a while. He admits to taking $19,000. I hope he's happy that he threw away his career, reputation and freedom for a lousy $19,000.

Hopefully Pampy Barre and now Oliver Thomas will continue to rat out others who plundered our taxpayer money during the Morial administration and heads will continue to roll. Marc Morial is probably having a little trouble sleeping these days as he waits out the statute of limitations for his crimes in exile in New York.

I shouldn't have to say this, but folks, please don't vote for Thomas for Mayor in 2010 if for some reason he is legally able to run and does run. It shouldn't be necessary to recommend that people not vote for criminals (or incompetents), but the left's track record on this isn't very good.

Oliver Thomas Resigns and Pleads Guilty

Oliver Thomas has resigned from the City Council and pled guilty to demanding illegal payments from a parking lot operator with a City contract. Stan "Pampy" Barre rolled over on Thomas in an attempt to lessen his own sentence for a fraudulent energy savings contract signed by Marc Morial. Who will Barre turn on next? Lefties had big hopes for Thomas to become Mayor in 2010.

The Essential Hurricane Katrina Nonfiction Reading List

Today's Times-Picayune has a story on nonfiction Katrina books, focusing on a second wave of more recent works. (I couldn't find the link on the T-P's website. They really need to improve their site.) I've read some of the books and generally liked them. Here is the list:

1. 1 Dead in Attic -- After Katrinaby Chris Rose. This is a new, expanded edition of his original bestseller (link here), including coverage up to January 2007.
2. City Adrift: New Orleans Before & After Katrinaby Jenni Bergal, Sara Shipley Hiles, Frank Koughan, John McQuaid and Jim Morris.
3. Code Blue: A Katrina Physician's Memoirby Dr. Richard Deichmann, chief of medicine at Memorial Medical Center.
4. Down in New Orleans: Reflections from a Drowned Cityby Billy Sothern.
5. Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in its Disaster Zone, A MemoirbyJoshua Clark. A portrait of people in the Quarter banding together for survival in the aftermath of the storm.
6. Hurricane Almanac: The Essential Guide to Storms Past, Present and Futureby Bryan Norcross, a meteorologist.
7. Hurricane Season: A Coach, His Team and Their Triumph in the Season of Katrinaby Neal Anderson. How parents, teachers and students at John Curtis came together for their most challenging football season.
8. Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember, photography by Melody Golding, edited by Sally Pfister. Photographs and narratives of women's experiences during and after the storm.
9. Katrinaville Chronicles: Images and Observations from a New Orleans Photographerby David Spielman.
10. No Ordinary Heroes: 8 Doctors, 30 Nurses, 7,000 Prisoners and a Category 5 Hurricaneby Dr. Demaree Inglese with Diana G. Gallagher. An account by the medical director of the Orleans Parish Prison.
11. Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics and the Battle Over Global Warmingby Chris Mooney, looks at the scientific debate over whether global warming has caused larger, more intense storms or whether this is the result of ordinary cyclical changes.
12. Sugarcane Academy: How a New Orleans Teacher and his Storm-Struck Students Created a School to Rememberby Michael Tisserand. The former Gambit editor recounts how Lusher first grade teacher Paul Reynaud created a one-room schoolhouse in New Iberia for displaced children.
13. What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race, and the State of the Nationedited by the South End Press Collective.
14. Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Securityby Wall Street Journal reporters Chris Cooper (formerly of the Times-Picayune) and Robert Block.
15. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coastby Douglas Brinkley.
16. The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Citiesby Mike Tidwell.
17. The Storm -- What Went Wrong and Why -- The Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientistby Ivor van Heerden with Mike Bryan.
    

Morial Ducks Questions About His Crimes

Former Mayor Marc Morial, who generally stays away from New Orleans while he waits in New York for the statute of limitations to run on all of the crimes he committed as Mayor, made a rare New Orleans appearance this week. Speaking at the Essence Festival, he recklessly compared the government's multibillion dollar response to Hurricane Katrina to the worst civil rights incidents of the 1960s. Then he talked about the non-issue of the "right to return." Last time I checked, there weren't any barbed wire fences and armed guards at the parish line preventing anyone, black or white, from returning to town. Typical lefty hack speech, nothing new there.

The only interesting part was his ducking of questions about his looting of the city treasury:

"I don't want to say anything positive or negative about any of it," he said. "I am proud of what we did when I served as mayor of this city. I'm very, very proud.

"I'm proud of the work and the record that we have. When I'm prepared to give a more thorough sort of post-analysis of my administration, I'd be happy to talk to you. But I'm not prepared to do that."

Asked when that might be, Morial said: "I'm not certain."

Update on Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Mostly Cajun weighs in on Mayor Nagin's decision to pay Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to help us all achieve harmony, stress management and clarity of mind. He doesn't think it's a good idea.

Nagin Hires Spiritual Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Just when you think Ray Nagin can't get any nuttier, he goes and hires an Indian spiritual guru to heal the City's problems. His holiness' name is Ravi Shankar, but he prefers to be called Sri Sri, which is apparently some term of respect among leaders of this sort. Reminds me of "the Maestro" on Seinfeld, only this isn't a sitcom, this is our actual Mayor throwing taxpayer money down the toilet.

Sri Sri Ravi's central message is that humans are like bananas, nourished by spiritual values common to all world religions and most individual spiritual paths, while the symbols and practices of these religions are like the banana's skin. I am not making this up. His aim is to foster a secularized, humanized, non-exclusive spirituality that will help people recognize the good in every human being.

Perhaps if things don't work out with his holiness Sri Sri, Nagin can ask the Church of Scientology to help us out. God help us all.

A Day in the Life of Mose Jefferson

This week, news of another Jefferson family bribe surfaced, this time involving Orleans Parish School Board member Ellenese Brooks-Simms' guilty plea to charges that she accepted more than $100,000 in bribes from Mose Jefferson, indicted Congressman Bill Jefferson's brother, in exchange for supporting a multi-million dollar contract for math improvement software. It makes you wonder what Mose does with himself all day. Bill has a job in Congress and sometimes is distracted from all the bribes by official business, fundraisers, rubber chicken dinners and the like, and he probably can't accept suitcases of illegal cash when he has to be in the Capitol itself. Moses, on the other hand, seems to be free to conduct his bribes full time, all day every day. I wonder how he divides his time. He has to service existing bribes. Then there's that delightful Jefferson family tradition of increasing their take every year. If the Jeffersons land you a prime government contract, they may only force you to pay 10% of your profits to one of their family businesses during the first year, but you know the percentage is going to go up every year, and someone has to negotiate those increases. Then, like any business, he has to solicit new bribes - can't exactly run a commercial on tv for that. Mose probably leads a very busy life servicing existing bribes, increasing the family's take on existing bribes and soliciting new bribes.

Morial Buddy Sentenced to 9 Years for Fraud

Former Mayor Marc Morial's top aide Kerry DeCay has been sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in the City's fraudulent energy savings contract. Morial declined comment for the story, as he continues to hide out in New York until the statute of limitations for his crimes expires.

"Justice for Jefferson" is a Joke

A local group calling itself "Justice for Jefferson" is fighting for Congressman Bill Jefferson. It issued a lengthy statement that makes no sense (full text here) and argues for "justice" for Dollar Bill. When most of us think of justice for Bill Jefferson, we envision him wearing an orange jumpsuit in a cell in a federal penitentiary somewhere. Not this group, which is led by the head of the local NAACP, Danatus King. Black leadership in New Orleans is nonexistent.

Nagin for Governor or U.S. House?

Recent speculation has focused on Mayor Ray Nagin's interest in running for Governor. Given the timing of Rep. Jefferson's indictment, will he run for Jefferson's post if Jefferson resigns or is removed from office? I think it's unlikely that Jefferson will do the honorable thing and resign, or that the Democrats in control of Congress will force him out, so he may be stuck as a lame duck do-nothing legislator until he is convicted, which will take some time. Nagin may not want to wait that long before making his move.