Library Chronicles

The Incalculable Wrongness of Yellow Blog Football Prognostication or How I Fought Off the Demon and Managed to Save the Day for All of Us (Part 1)

2009-11-12T16:30:00.000-06:00

Note: The first half of the title here is a riff on the title of last week's unpublished football post which would have read "The Incalculable Wrongness of Bob Roesler or Why the Saints are Guaranteed to Lose This Week". As you can see, there's a lot of stuff going on there. We hope to return to the subject of the wrongness of Bob Roesler at a later date. But first, this.

At the beginning of the football season, I wrote:

Depending on how the luck goes, these Saints look like they can win as many as 10 or as few as 5 games. Obviously it would take more than that to win a championship and free the universe from limbo but nobody said that had to happen this year. The other day, my boss pointed out to me that, according to some interpretations of the Mayan calendar, the world isn't actually scheduled to end until 2012. So there's time. Maybe we'll get there but for now let's call it 9-7 with a hopeful toast to the eventual end of the world.

Not to be too much of a "masturblogger" here but I find it necessary to remind everyone that, in that post, I argued that 1) A Saints Superbowl appearance is sort of like the last seal waiting to be broken before the full weight of the apocalypse can be unleashed. 2) 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished... although still an unlikely one for various reasons. Last week, when I more or less guaranteed a Saints loss to Carolina the supporting argument that never saw the light of day was partially football-related but also returned to the cosmic theme stipulated back in September.

The football stuff was pretty straightforward. The Saints had been missing a lot more tackles in recent weeks, their defensive line was banged up, the Panthers run the ball well and seemed to be coming on as of late. Plus there's a different feeling when you're 7-0 trying not to blow it from when you're 3-0 and still trying to prove yourself. This divisional game seemed a perfect time for the Saints to falter.

Meanwhile the Saints, their fans, and random observers were tempting fate in ways that had us wondering if they didn't deserve to pay a hefty karmic fine at some point. Items for your consideration:

3-1 to win it all? At one time, there was at least the possibility of big money to be made in "bucking the trend" and betting on this ridiculous concept. How do these odds help the local economy? They're totally counter to the established idiom.

Ralph Malbrough had some kind of bizarre Lariam dream where he played an entire imaginary football game in his head and described it to us in detail. (Totally wrong result, by the way. I soooo would have imagined that differently)

And then there's this:
A new mouthpiece being used by several New Orleans Saints players this season has been getting much attention since ESPN analyst Jon Gruden praised it during the “Monday Night Football” broadcast.

The Makkar PPM (Pure Power Mouthguard), which retails at $2,000 according to an article in the Los Angeles Times, is touted by its designers as “more than just a mouthguard.”

By custom-fitting the mouthpiece to each player, the goal is to improve balance, strength, flexibility and oxygen flow by better aligning the lower jaw with the neck and the spine.
What? Get the fuck out of here. I know we live in an age when people (particularly athletes) will buy just about any sort of stupid snake oil you put out there, but Saints Hall of Famer Rickey Jackson didn't even need to wear thigh pads for crying out loud. Will someone please tell these little primma donas to suck it up? (It's bad enough that they dress in leotards already) Coach, isn't this your job?
But even some of those skeptics figured it was worth a try when Coach Sean Payton and General Manager Mickey Loomis agreed to let the company make a presentation to the players after researching the product earlier this year. And several players said they’ve been happy with the results.
One question. Was this presentation before or after the one where Rob Couhig and Kevin Houser sold everybody those Wayne Read film studio tax credits? Maybe they were on the same day the Amway guy dropped by.

Anyway, the point is the Saints are building up a lot of bad juju and the payments on that have got to come due at some point, right? Maybe not. Here's a thought. Maybe they've logged just enough agony credit over the years to weather the ever-expanding onslaught of their (and, I guess, our) own nuttiness. In other words, maybe the years and years the Saints have spent building up all that negative absurdity has somehow caused fate to implode upon itself. Like a great black hole of cosmic football improbability, the Saints have forced a reversal of nature. If this is true, then they really are on a path to end life as we know it. Which brings me to this. Will they be allowed to? Consider the following:

More than a year after an explosion of sparks, soot and frigid helium shut it down, the world’s biggest and most expensive physics experiment, known as the Large Hadron Collider, is poised to start up again. In December, if all goes well, protons will start smashing together in an underground racetrack outside Geneva in a search for forces and particles that reigned during the first trillionth of a second of the Big Bang.

Then it will be time to test one of the most bizarre and revolutionary theories in science. I’m not talking about extra dimensions of space-time, dark matter or even black holes that eat the Earth. No, I’m talking about the notion that the troubled collider is being sabotaged by its own future. A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

If the creation of this Higgs boson particle is so catastrophically unlikely that it is capable of extra-temporally preventing its own occurrence, couldn't it at least be theoretically possible to conceive of the cosmic fallout brought about by a Saints Superbowl as a comparable phenomenon? If this is true, then we would expect that as the probability of the Saints destroying the universe increases, so does the countervailing likelihood that this event will have already taken steps to prevent itself from happening. And it was by this reasoning,that I had expected we would see the first manifestation of this paradox in a Saints loss to Carolina on Sunday.

But that was not to be. How was such an elegant theory overthrown? I think I know the answer to that now. What follows, then, in my opinion, for those who are willing to believe in such things, is a first-hand testament to the idea that even the strangest mysteries of fate can be overcome through the triumph of the human will.

Saints vs Panthers (First half highlights)

Oh we've been here before, I know: It has recently been brought to my attention that my mother checks in on this site every now and then so there are two things I'd like to make clear right now. 1)I really don't say "fuck" nearly as often as it may seem. 2) I am not NOT IN ANY WAY a raging alcoholic. I am a functional alcoholic. NO WAIT, MOM, I'm kidding. I'm not at all. I'm way to old for that stuff anymore. However, I am at an age where, on the (increasingly rare) occasions when I do happen to have a few, the results are more and more humorous. And by that I mean disastrous the next morning.

Sunday was a particularly disastrous next morning. Those of you who have experienced these sorts of hangovers before know that there is a kind of staged art to recovery. Typically my challenge involves getting the headache to stop first which eventually helps the nausea to break. I accomplish this by taking 2 aspirin and holding it for as long as I can before throwing up again and then taking more aspirin if I think that I've expelled more than I've absorbed. On a good day, I can regain some semblance of functionality by 1:00 PM. This was not a good day.

By the time 2:30 rolled around, I began to wrestle against a new source of discomfort; panic. It was starting to look like we might miss kickoff. It was bad enough that I'd already missed one home game due to injury this season. If I was going to be out for a second game, let alone a game with a late afternoon start, I don't think that's something I'd ever be able to make right.

It was time to suck it up. I forced myself out of bed and into the shower. An NFL player making a game-time decision to play hurt would likely have a selection of pain killers to choose from. People like me usually have "hair of the dog". But I was still too ill to even consider more liquor. I tried to eat a slice of bread but couldn't finish more than three quarters of it. Aside from whatever aspirin still remained in my system, I was going to have to do this on my own. It was after 3 and the game had already started but I figured we could make it to the Dome by the end of the first quarter. And so we bravely shoved ourselves out the door and stumbled out after the streetcar.

MEANWHILE: As we struggled with our own meekness, the Saints D wasn't looking much better. I seem to recall the faint sound of Jim Henderson's voice keeping me vaguely aware of this.

DeAngelo Williams glides softly across the Superdome floor so as not to wake the sleeping Saints

State of Emergency: I lost my portable radio so, while at the streetcar stop, we had to follow the game via the Tweeter Tube. Interpreting a football game through sms message is an inexact activity. In between the T-P's Jeff Duncan's intermittent descriptions of the action, most of what you get is an emotional sense of what might be happening based on the clustering of curses hurled across the airwaves. Apparently it's not enough to simply scream, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING?" anymore. Sure you still do that, but now you also are required to stop, pull out your phone and type, "WTF R THEY DOIN #whodat #saints" And this is how technology saves us labor.. or something. In any event, given the high volume of "WTF"s tweeting about, things were not going well. And then I read,
WWLTV Gov. Jindal declares a state of emergency as a result of the forecasted conditions of Ida, now a Category-2 storm.

Maybe I should have just stayed in bed.

MEANWHILE: Still not good. More Twitter cursing. Something about a fumble. People going on and on about "Breesus" falling from grace. It's all very muddled.

Maybe I should have just stayed in bed

By the way, where is that freakin' streetcar? A lot of time passes and there's nothing coming down the track. My headache is gone but I'm still more than a little woozy. According to the chirping, the Saints must be down at least two touchdowns. I and many others had been expecting this to be a let down game all week. Maybe I really should have stayed in bed. We're a block away from the house. It would have made perfect sense to just go back, lay on the couch, and let the dreary day unfold. But then I had the classic alcoholic's moment of clarity. I thought, obviously what's going on here is they need us. We had to get to the Superdome before it was too late. "Let's start walking" I groaned still unable to speak clearly. And we started moving downtown on foot.

It's not a terribly long walk. Usually it takes about 45 minutes to get to the Dome from our place on foot but our weakened condition made the going rougher than it needed to be. As the body exercises, the increased blood flow reawakens the poison still within. You feel at turns euphoric, and then nauseous, and then there's a bit of a chill before you level out. The physical difficulty combined with the persistent absence of any streetcars on the line, I took as evidence that something (the Higgs boson itself, perhaps?) was working against me in this. I wasn't giving up. We were going to make it to this damn game.

We'd struggled as far as Euterpe Street. when suddenly not one but FIVE FREAKING STREETCARS IN A ROW came rumbling toward us. I knew they had bunched up like that specifically to taunt us but there wasn't any time to waste. We boarded the first of the five that had any free space with the hope that there was still time to make a difference.

MEANWHILE: More cries of distress coming from the Tweeter Tube. People are losing their shit from the sound of it. Brees throws a pick inside the Carolina 10 killing the Saints first real threat of the game.

That's 5 Ints in 3 games fro Brees, BTW

The Fool on The Hill As we ascended the eerily quiet Superdome ramp up from Poydras Street we passed an angry-looking older couple on their way back down. "17-3 Hope you have fun," the man grunted at me. But I had already made up my mind about things. "It's okay, we're gonna get 'em" Maybe I was still drunk or something but I was quite confident by this point. The Saints had to come back. It's the only way I'd be able to justify the journey.

Up, we went, almost at a run now, toward the gate when, at the top of the incline, we spotted r standing in front of Gate C looking strangely pleased with herself. In her left hand she held a plastic water bottle which she had filled with (and by this point nearly emptied of) her customary vodka, cranberry and whatever concoction. Apparently security had been a bit more on-the-ball today. "The guy told me, 'You gotta get rid of that liquor, baby' So I've been getting rid of it... into my belly" I couldn't believe it. The whole time I had been struggling against the deteriorating weather, my own physical decrepitude, and the freakin' RTA convinced I was on a mission to rescue my fading Saints, there she was just sitting outside drinking vodka.

"Dude, we gotta get in there. I think they need us."

"Eh I'm not worried."

We watched her down the rest of her drink and headed inside to put things right.

Here we come to save the day! The results were immediate. We reached our seats with less than two minutes to play in the half. No sooner than had I put my umbrella down Brees hit Colston down the right sideline for 45 yards. 3 plays later, John Carney made it an 11 point game at the half. I told all the people on the Tweeter Tube to settle the fuck down. The hard part was over. We had done our job.

I am told it's a bit of a faux-pas to write too far past the bottom of the sidebar

Which is why we're breaking this post into two parts. Second half observations will be up tomorrow.

More analysis of the GNOCDC housing report

2009-11-12T15:55:00.001-06:00

We are pleased to refer you to The Lens

Bye, Byron

2009-11-12T13:29:00.002-06:00

You'd think they would have taken care of this a few months back when it could have done some good.

Sophisiticating up the corruption: Baltimore edition

2009-11-12T10:09:00.007-06:00

It was over two years ago now when Robert Cerasoli told us our corruption wasn't "sophisticated" enough.

“Corruption in other cities is so sophisticated (because of their rules) you wouldn’t find briberies. It’s very unusual you’d find someone passing money in an office somewhere.”

And it was only 5 days ago that Brian Denzer told us to look to Baltimore as a model for sophisticating up our governmental reform process.

As any fan of the TV series "The Wire" knows, New Orleans is in some ways remarkably similar to Baltimore. It's no surprise that producer David Simon's next TV project is based in New Orleans. Both are historic, demographically diverse port cities, but both have also suffered through economic disinvestment and underperforming schools, while competing with one another over the years for the ignoble title of murder capital.

Right now, what separates New Orleans from Baltimore is 1,000 miles -- and 10 years of government reform.

If you're reading NOLA.com this morning, you might find yourself asking, are they 10 years ahead of us or behind? Because this doesn't seem very sophisticated at all.

Attorneys will today deliver their opening statements at the trial of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon. Dixon is accused of stealing gift cards donated for needy families and would be removed from office if convicted. A jury of nine women and three men will decide her fate.

I don't know why NOLA.com chose to run the Dixon story a few days after the Denzer op-ed. They've been mixing in a greater volume of irrelevant to NOLA sensationalism lately so I'm sure that's some of what's going on. I think the juxtaposition is helpful though. It advances the argument that operational reforms like Denzer's NolaStat proposals can improve municipal effectiveness even as the political leadership engages in the inevitable clownishness.

If, on the other hand, all you want is a highly politicized department of slaying all the dragons (which is what the IG was always going to be), you just end up running in place.

Jefferson Parish Carnival Krewes do not think very creatively

2009-11-12T09:31:00.003-06:00

I don't see what the problem is here.

Not wanting to compete with the biggest game in football, and potentially the biggest game in New Orleans Saints history, Metairie’s Krewe of Rhea has canceled its 2010 Carnival parade on Feb. 7, Super Bowl Sunday.

Nobody knows how to multi-task anymore. Luckily we've already been through this drill in Orleans and know what to do.

Ray Nagin's laissez-faire recovery in progress

2009-11-11T22:33:00.002-06:00

Are they still paying big-time wages at Gene's Po-boy's?

There is a glut of vacant apartments in New Orleans but the people who need them can't afford them, according to a study released today by a pair of research organizations.

The study estimates that by next year, the city will have a surplus of at least 6,582 market-rate apartments but a need for 13,429 affordable apartments or housing subsidies that could make higher-rate apartments affordable.

The report was prepared by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center and the Urban Institute's Center on Metropolitan Housing and Communities.

"This is a problem that the market can't fix," said Allison Plyer, director of the Data Center. "You can't just bring down rents like crazy. And our economy is not paying workers enough for them to pay high post-Katrina rents."

Rents are unlikely to go down, because landlords have been burdened with markedly higher costs for utilities, insurance, construction and taxes since Hurricane Katrina. But renters in the city's largely low-wage, tourism-industry workforce aren't likely to make enough money to afford current market-rate rents in New Orleans, which rose 44 percent between 2004 and 2007, according to the Data Center.

Of course it could be that people are still making poor career choices. We all can't work at Gene's. If only there were something else we could all do.

"Politics in New Orleans is the dominant industry, so I decided to get in," (Nagin) said. "Besides tourism, politics dominates everything. I just think it's part of our legacy and our history. Politics is definitely a sport and something that the citizens pay attention to."

Well okay there is always that. 2010 will be the year everybody runs for office. It's the only growth industry left in town.

Feel free to do it again

2009-11-11T22:29:00.001-06:00

Sternly worded letter passes expiration date.

Two-and-a-half years after putting Tulane University on its blacklist for post-Hurricane Katrina personnel actions, a national organization of professors has lifted its censure because, an official said Tuesday, it approves of what Tulane has done to correct the situation.

In other words, they just got bored and forgot about it.

Sleepy Town Daily

2009-11-11T20:56:00.004-06:00

I'm so old I can remember when there was room at the T-P for Angus Lind and Chris Rose. You got one slice-of-life New Orleans column for (mostly boomer) natives and one in a similar vein for transplant faux-hipster douchebags. I wasn't a Rose fan but I will say the opportunity to complain about him was definitely part of what sold that paper to me. Nobody wins if he just up and goes away.

The New Orleans daily paper no longer has a Food Section, or a bona-fide "local color" column. I guess there's just nothing to do in this town anymore.

High comedy

2009-11-11T19:30:00.002-06:00

I'm listening to the Les Miles Show while I'm cooking right now. Every caller wants to beat up on the game officials from Saturday's game. Les doesn't want to get fined for agreeing with them. Very entertaining.

Um... I think you just did

2009-11-10T12:23:00.002-06:00

Former Enron executive and Mayoral candidate Troy Henry on why his business-reform background doesn't make him another Ray Nagin:

"People judge you for who you are," he said. "Nobody says (campaign opponent and state Sen.) Ed Murray is a crook because Bill Jefferson is going to jail. I think voters can take an honest look at all the candidates and not pre-judge them."

See what he did there? That was cute.

It's hard to hold a candle...

2009-11-08T19:41:00.002-06:00

Well this is neat. Whoever heard of a hurricane in mid-November? But then whoever heard of an 8-0 Saints team?

I promise to post about this game. It was a fun one.

There's a reason the SEC imposes heavy fines for criticizing the officials

2009-11-07T18:06:00.001-06:00

They are horrible. I know I'm saying this at the end of an LSU loss that can be directly laid on at least 4 major blown calls but this applies to SEC officials this entire season. They are horrible. The SEC has decided the way to solve the problem of horrible officiating is to muzzle the coaches when they point out how horrible it is. That's pretty sad.

Too much to do

2009-11-07T11:32:00.002-06:00

I'm not going to waste this day finishing the Saints reporting. There's too much going on out there. This week's post was turning out to be more about Bob Roesler and mercury denaturing and xbox and Higgs boson particles than actual football anyway. I'll just fold all that bullshit into the re-cap of the Caronlina game (which I am thoroughly convinced the Saints will lose, btw).

Anyway I'm outta here for now.

Wait

2009-11-06T22:43:00.004-06:00

I just got in. There was a debate tonight? I thought there were still like 70 more candidates waiting to declare.

Update: Just going by Kevin Allman's notes in that post, I'd say Murray wins that one.

Also... (sigh)

Perry, ever-wired into the Facebook/Twitter Zeitgeist, managed to squeeze out one Tweet from the dais while someone else was speaking.

Okay okay I gotta know. Wait a sec. Okay, hang on... rooting around the Tweeter Tube now.. and.. ok this is it. It... oh... Oh God

I'm debating 3 mayoral candidates right now at the Crimefightes debate. I can feel the swell of support in the Room

I'm beginning to wonder if the whole James Perry campaign isn't actually some elaborate prank. Or maybe it's someone's Social Media Marketing thesis project. Does he know anything about organic pizza, by any chance?

Yes there's one of those long rambling football posts sitting in the drafts folder

2009-11-06T16:54:00.004-06:00

But I'm going to see Dave Eggers speak at NOCCA tonight so I'll just have to waste part of my Saturday finishing it up... or maybe I'll make next week another two-fer. But that would suck since half of this week's post is about why the Saints are guaranteed to lose Sunday. Maybe we'll get there in time. Maybe.

A Good Circuitry Soldier

2009-11-06T16:13:00.002-06:00

Sometimes the way will have an eye on them
Other times the ass will snatch the morsel
Clive licks the eyes of the lonely ones
Here at the time when the mission kicks the tribe
The commission takes the bribe

The schadenfreude portion of the Dragonslaying process is usually where I begin to lose interest but HOLY SHIT 63 counts is an awful lot.

Suing for libel is the new black

2009-11-06T12:15:00.001-06:00

Former Public Service Commission member John Schwegmann calls columns libelous

Greg Meffert: “The Times-Picayune is the biggest bully in town.”

Doing it wrong

2009-11-06T11:17:00.005-06:00

Krugman:

Back in the first few months of the current administration, when I was writing piece after piece urging the new administration to adopt a more aggressive economic policy, what I had very much in my mind — and wrote about on a few occasions — was the possibility of a sort of political economy trap. If unemployment continued to rise, I feared, Congress wouldn’t draw the right conclusion — that we needed more stimulus. Instead, the verdict would be that Obama’s economic policies weren’t working, so we needed to do less. And high unemployment would also lead to Democratic electoral losses, further undermining the ability to act (since the fact is that today’s GOP is the party of economic ignorance). The result would be a persistently depressed economy, and a fading out of Obama’s promise.

And the same thing is happening with health care.

Liberals have such low expectations these days that they're actually celebrating a health care reform bill that might include a "public option" ...but probably one with "triggers" or an "opt-out" clause. Either way Harry Reid's bill looks pretty darn crappy but liberals are somehow ecstatic.

Even if health reform passes with some form of "public option" most of us are still looking at insufficient coverage, and increasing costs for the forseeable future all to the continued benefit of the goulish death-profiteers in an insurance industry left largely intact.

The result of this is that we're going to end up with a health reform that not only doesn't do what it needs to do but also discredits the whole idea of health care reform for another generation. And all of this is because Obama has been doing it wrong from day one. And doing it wrong is worse than not doing it at all.

News is not news Learn something old every day

2009-11-05T23:01:00.002-06:00

Some guy came into the library the other day handing out these fliers.

At first I didn't think much of it. We get a lot of freaks in there. But then the same thing turns up on every freaking channel and I'm beginning to think it's either really bad spam or it might be... you know... a thing. Anyway, they say there's free beer so, hey.

Ed Blakely, red tape, and "locking people in cages"

2009-11-05T14:24:00.004-06:00

Please read what Karen posted yesterday morning.

Post Gustav Ed Blakely did his best to show a strong show of force, and in some ways it would seem that Gustav was Blakely’s perfect storm. One that did little damage but emptied out the City of pesky residents. In fact one of the first times I met Dr. Blakely he was crowing about his suspending council meetings in Oakland after the fire. His assertion was that he could cut through the red tape if it just didn’t exist. Employing the same logic post Gustav he worked with the Mayor to craft an Executive Order to cut through that red tape and ultimately tread on constitutional rights.

The "emergency" period following the Gustav evacuation isn't discussed as often as it probably ought to be. During this time the Nagin administration assumed and abused extraordinary powers to deny citizens access to their homes for days after the emergency had passed even going so far as to unilaterally design a staged reentry program based on socio-economic caste. It maintained these extraordinary powers for weeks afterward in order to expedite questionable property demolitions outside of the legally established review process. Recently, when Ray Nagin expressed his admiration for the emergency management capabilities of totalitarian government, he wasn't just blowing funny cigar smoke at us. He was speaking quite deliberately and informed by the policies and experiences of his own administration.

In an August 2007 interview with Gambit, Ed Blakely described in detail his and Nagin's preference for governing by emergency dictate. I wrote a longer post about it at the time which you can read here if you like but what I wanted most to point out was that Blakely wasn't talking about some theoretical (although I would still say debatable) need of "emergency" governmental powers to move people out of harm's way. Rather he was more interested in longer term subversion of standards for public input or procedural transparency in the distribution of things like construction contracts. While by this point it is nothing novel to state that New Orleans under Nagin and Blakely has been an exercise in classic Bush era "Disaster Capitalism", I think it is worth noting the Gustav event as a particularly symptomatic moment in this regard.

Furthermore, Nagin's candid expression of Cuba envy underscores just how profoundly anti-democratic and dangerous the means by which we are ruled have become in these times. I'm going to share some excerpts from a recent interview between Bill Moyers and Glenn Greenwald. Moyers and Greenwald are talking about abuses of the Constitution, of the Freedom of Information Act, and of basic human dignity perpetrated by the Bush and Obama Administrations under the now familiar excuse that such abuses are "protecting" us from one or another "emergency". The entire interview is available to view online here. Take the time to watch it. It is instructive of the larger conceptual political context in which the Nagin-Blakely era in New Orleans has operated.

BILL MOYERS: No one wrote earlier or more powerfully about the claims, the extra legal claims that the Bush and Cheney Administration made after 9/11. Doing many of the things you just described, because they invoked national security and the fact that to fight terrorism you often have to use the terrorists own tactics.

To what extent has President Obama begun to deconstruct that extra-legal apparatus, the excessive secrecy, the use of extra-constitutional means of interrogation? To what extent is he undoing the infrastructure of excessive government claims that you wrote about during those last eight years?

GLENN GREENWALD: Very little. And not only is it the case that he is deconstructing that framework in only symbolic and inconsequential ways, but he's doing the reverse. Which is he is finding new and often more effective ways to embrace many of those same instruments, and to institutionalize them further. It's not the case that Obama is the equivalent of Bush and Cheney, in this regard--

[Exchange regarding the President's willingness to compromise principal in the pursuit of maintaining power]

BILL MOYERS: For example?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, one of the principle controversies of the Bush Administration, one of the defining aspects of their radicalism, was the idea that we can take human beings who we don't capture on a battlefield, who we simply abduct and pick up, who we suspect of engaging in terrorism and put them into cages for years or decades without having to charge them with any crime.

That — simply based on executive authority — the ability to point to someone and say, "This is a terrorist," then justifies the elimination of all due process and putting them into prison forever. Obama, several months ago, said that he not only believes in that power, but wanted Congress to enact a statute that would permanently enshrine this theory of law into Presidential power.

He gave up on that because there was going to be difficulty in terms of getting the bill that he wanted passed through the Congress. So, instead what he did was he embraced the Bush/Cheney justification as to why the President can do that, which is that the Congress implicitly authorized it.

And so, we're continuing our scheme of indefinite lawless detention, free of due process, free of any charges of any kind. Where we can pick up people anywhere around the world and put them into cages. He's actively defending that power in Afghanistan, by saying that people who we abduct far away from the battlefield, far away from Afghanistan, and then ship to Afghanistan and imprison at Bagram have no rights even to habeas corpus, which the Supreme Court said at least that Guantanamo detainees have.

And so, that's just one example where for years liberals yelled and screamed vehemently that Bush was subverting the Constitution and degrading the American culture, political culture, by asserting this power. And yet, here you have Barack Obama not just refusing or taking his time undoing it, but himself actively defending and advocating it. And there's very little outcry. And that repeats itself in terms of the state secrets privilege. And the effort to block accountability for torture victims. And a whole variety of other powers that Bush and Cheney asserted to great controversy.

Here we have seen these themes brought to bear on a local level. Sure, petty corruption and arrogant officiousness exist in other parts of Imperial America. But when the arrogant petty criminals who run this town talk about making decisions according to the direction and needs of an elite "coterie of people" with little or no public accountability, it stings more acutely. Why? Well, in part, because the abuses here have been about more than just the meting out of cash by the "coterie". Here we really have been putting people into cages or "disappearing" them or.. worse.

In Zeitoun, Dave Eggers relays the story of local painter and contractor Abdulrahman Zeitoun who stayed behind during the Federal Flood to watch over his home and some of the properties he owned around town. Zeitoun spent the first few days after the storm traveling the city in a canoe, rescuing people from flooded buildings, and feeding abandoned animals until he (along with three other men) was abducted from his own building by armed security personnel and locked up at the "Camp Greyhound" temporary prison constructed in the Union Passenger Terminal.

When I read Zeitoun this summer, it made me very angry. But, like Clio, I was grateful to see this story told so well by Eggers. Zetioun stands among a very small number of "Katrina" books that manage to tell a real story about real people without falling back on ornamental cliches or guilt-driven defensive rationalizations about "Why New Orleans Matters". Instead, Zeitoun simply assumes the reader will understand that the people here "matter" because they are people. The fact that the events reported upon constitute a violation of that assumption makes the horror of it all that much more poignant. This week, Gambit's David Winkler-Schmit interviewed the author. Here's a quick bit of that.

When Zeitoun is arrested, he's brought to Camp Greyhound. The jail was constructed after the storm and was a fairly extensive project. What does this tell you about the government's priorities after the levee failures?

I started doing a lot of research into [Camp Greyhound] and it had been fairly well documented in those weeks after the hurricane, but it wasn't widely known outside of New Orleans. (Zeitoun) had figured out some math when he was locked up there about just how quickly they had assembled this outdoor prison in the wake of the storm. It has been confirmed that while people were dying in attics, struggling to eat or find water, yearning for help on rooftops and the government couldn't get anything right on a national level and was still bungling in so many ways, at the same time, there was a very efficient operation happening at the Greyhound Station. [Prisoners from Dixon Correctional Institute] and trustees from Angola were bused down along with a vast amount of materials to erect a very shiny and well-built prison. That contrast struck me and it felt very emblematic of Bush-era priorities, where it's command and control over any sort of humanitarian concerns.

What prompted this collapse of the criminal justice system, where people were arrested with little or no provocation, no investigations were made and then suspects weren't allowed to contact anyone on the outside?

It was very hard to have land lines working at Greyhound, or so they say — and if we grant them that it would be very difficult to make calls, but in lieu of that, there has to be other systems in place. It also doesn't excuse the fact that after they evacuated from Greyhound (to) Hunt (Correctional Facility in St. Gabriel, La.), they were still not given phone calls. But there was a lot of that left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing, because once a prisoner was processed through Greyhound and sent to one of the many longer-term prisons throughout the state, they were lost in the system for weeks, if not months, when no one really knew where they were. Records weren't being kept. Lawyers and human rights advocates think that what was done was an evacuation via incarceration — where they wanted to clear out the city, so anybody found within it was accused of looting or some other trumped-up charge and thrown in prison.

I was also struck by the efficiency with which "Camp Greyhound" had been constructed compared to the numerous other failures of emergency response happening concurrently. It's a fact that moves one off the point of criticizing the competence of the government in these situations and on to its priorities.

One of the most insulting things Blakely did in his Berkley interview was to lay blame for his ineffectual tenure in New Orleans at the feet of a "lazy" and "illiterate" population. It is remarkable that a man who spends as much time as he does seeking ways to belittle and subvert citizen involvement in civic affairs would be so disapproving of a supposedly disengaged citizenry. But Blakely is a two-bit carpetbagger so it's folly to take much of what he says at face value.

On the other hand, something must explain why a supposedly free people allow themselves to be ruled and misused this way; why we arrive at a government that can't deliver water to stranded citizens but can build a mini-GITMO in less than five days. Moyers asked Greenwald to speculate on it and I think he came close to hitting on something here.

GLENN GREENWALD: I think there's several aspects to it. But I think the principle one is — and interestingly, Barack Obama actually talked about this in his Presidential campaign, quite eloquently and insightfully — that there gets to be a point where citizens look at the government, and they look at both political parties, and they conclude that the system itself is so radically corrupt and the political parties are so fundamentally nonresponsive that no matter what it is that they do, they aren't going to be able to achieve any change. They feel a sense of learned helplessness. And they essentially accept whatever it is that's done to them and simply hope that it's not too bad. And I think that's the population. It's not that they're apathetic. It's that they've come to believe in their own impotence. And I think that's actually sadder and-- and more dangerous.

Like I said, I think he's close. I think there actually are a lot of justifiably angry people out there. But so many of them are so misled or so misinformed that their anger manifests in such ways as to further discourage the rest of us. I'm not sure I understand it fully but I do know it creates the sort of environment where Nagins and Blakelys of the world can flourish at our expense. But now, Blakely is gone and Nagin is on the way out. Given that Obama hasn't been much of an improvement over Bush I suppose the best we can do about the upcoming municipal elections is continue to hope that whatever comes next isn't too bad.

Note: Dave Eggers will be discussing his book at the NOCCA institute (2800 Chartres St.) on Friday at 8:00 PM. Tickets are $10.00 Click here for more information.

I've been too nice to Gambit lately

2009-11-04T23:25:00.002-06:00

In fact, my next post will recommend two items from that paper. So it's only fair for me to say here that I could not possibly give less of a fuck about 40 social-climbing Yurps. Please can we do away with this annual embarrassment to everyone involved?

Saints teaser post

2009-11-03T11:50:00.002-06:00

As many of the regular readers are aware, when I go to the Saints games I bring with me 1) a cell phone for posting comments to the Tweeter Tube and 2) a flask full of liquor for mixing with my eight dollar soda. The combination makes for increasingly fun stupidity as the game wears on... not to mention some cringe-worthy moments upon review of the game-time Tweeter Tubings come the following morning. For example, it appears that the last thing tweeted last evening somewhere around midnight reads:

Thank God the Saints won because FUCK ED BLAKELY

Worse still, I seem to have been so proud of that one that I decided to copy and paste it to Facebook where it reads:

hank God the Saints won because FUCK ED BLAKELY

And so let us all give hanks to God this morning. The Saints are 7-0.

More to come... hopefully before week's end.

It's the little details about the universe that help us make sense of the void

2009-11-02T16:25:00.001-06:00

For example, 8/29 is also the day most of us met Sarah Palin. Ponder on that for a while.

Should have known

2009-11-02T15:31:00.002-06:00

It was Brees' fault.

Brees works teammates with the autocracy of a corporate CEO. He printed up T-shirts in the preseason with mission statements like "Smell Greatness, " "Finish, " "Be Special" and Super Bowl 44" on them. To emphasize the need to finish games, he bought wristbands and the book "212: The Extra Degree" for players.

And then there's this

The hottest local T-shirt in the city displays a football in the shape of Greek Ichthys, the fish brandishing a fleur-de-lis instead of an eye. The inscription: Breesus.

Seriously, folks we are O.D.ing on stupid here. Almost makes you wonder if we don't deserve to lose this one just to shut some of this crap down. But then something tells me that wouldn't do any good anyway.

Tragic hero recounts the tragedy of his heroism

2009-11-02T12:41:00.002-06:00

That tragedy, of course, being that he realized too late what the rest of us knew from the beginning.

"I should have left a little earlier, for two reasons: One, my health wasn't good. Secondly, I had other things I wanted to do, and administering a recovery is not one of them."

Adding: We really are in trouble around here when we've got the head of the Corps and the (ex) (titular) head of the "recovery" sharing the same nihilistic view of our future.

Blakely also played climatologist, saying New Orleans "isn't likely" to be around 100 years from now. He said the Mississippi River and another storm would probably conspire to "wipe New Orleans off the map."

Look, I'm not very big on the concept of "leadership" myself but you'd at least think the bare minimum requirement would be that the leader thinks the damn job is worth doing. Unless this whole business of "recovery" really has been one big rush to steal whatever rubble left over after the disaster had any decent resale value. In that case, these are exactly the kind of leaders you might want.

Previously I had called this sort of thing the very definition of "carbetbagging" but the sensitive types have found this term lacking in decorum as of late. I guess I'll never share in Dr. Blakely's enlightened approach to sensitive racial discourse but I can dream.