Third World and Sad

There's a tongue-in-cheek bumper sticker you see on some cars around here that at once proclaimed the distinct and independent spirit of New Orleans while also displaying the racism that undergirds so many of the euphemisms here. It read: "New Orleans: Third World and Proud."

Well, today on an airplane trip into New Orleans I was reminded of how much truer that bumper sticker has become. Our plane was filled the brim with kids in a Christian youth mission. They've come down here to save us (they're t-shirts said something like "Rebuild, Renew, Blah, Blah, Blah). Now don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see folks coming to New Orleans: to see what happened, to help, to spend their money, to tell their friends and family and congresspeople and president about what they've seen and what they haven't seen. But I fear, like much of this kind of mission tourism, that their sense of their own good works excuses the larger forces at play and the reasons why their efforts are needed. The U.S. federal government should be sending down people (and employing locals): workers, builders, bureaucrats, the whole nine yards. They broke the city, they should pay for it. And that's the problem with so much of the mission work is happening in New Orleans and in the rest of the world: it obscures the larger social, economic, and political story behind a much more palatable one about charity.

So to the missions: Thanks. We need the help. But don't forget to let the dirt bags know what's what. To go home and ignore what has happened and just tell folks, "Oh those poor people; but at least we helped" is actually just turning a blind eye. Keep your eyes open.

So thick, you can't cut it with a knife

What is it? Red tape! And we're so tied up in it here along the Gulf Coast that we can barely move. It's as if the good folks in Congress and the White House never thought through what a real disaster would be like: overwhelming destruction, otherworldly costs, and almost no local funding. How is New Orleans supposed to put up 10% matching costs toward rebuilding when we tax revenue was a trickle? How are we supposed to do the audits and unbelievable paperwork required for rebuilding projects when we've had to cut back on city staff and budgets?

Accountability is a good thing and should be built into the rebuilding projects, but we need help at every level and we need help navigating the labyrinthine bowels of FEMA and other federal agencies.

(And if I hear one more FEMA official say, "Oh, well, we can work around [insert bureaucratic problem]. All you had to do was ask," I'm gonna smack 'em. People down here have been busting their butts to improve things. If FEMA would just remember that it's their responsibility to help us out of something the federal government got us into, things would get moving in the right direction.)

The kids are all right

Whoda thunkit, but MTV News just published one of the most cogent presentations of New Orleans's difficulties and promise to be found in the mainstream media. Still, the kids have shown themselves to be pretty apathetic at the ballot box (and forget the barricades), so I'm not holding my breath that this will change much. But it's still nice to see someone's giving the story a proper perspective.

Apparently New Orleans got the wrong kind of surge

An AP story by Andrew Taylor reports that "The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, and the total for Iraq alone is nearing a half-trillion dollar." $12 billion a month! For a failed war based on fabrications and incompetence. Take note, Louisiana politicians, if you really want to learn the game of lying and corruption, this is how the big boys do it.

Get out of the way

Katy Reckdahl has another great story in the Times-Picayune, this time on the disparity between rebuilding of public and parochial schools in Lakeview. Private institutions are generally more nimble than government ones, but still the state-run Recovery School District and FEMA have taken a bad situation and allowed it to get worse. Sadder still is that hard-working, caring parents have been turned away from volunteering. Once again, local folks show their ability to lead, to imagine and to create, only to be stymied by politicians and bureaucrats. Hopefully new Superintendent Paul Vallas will do the right thing.

Road kill

The Road Home program has been a disaster from the beginning. Governor Kathleen Blanco deserves a lot of the blame, but ICF, the organization that's been contracted to run it has really screwed it up, and screwed New Orleanians trying to rebuild their homes and their lives. It would be one thing, however, if they were just incompetent. But as events from last Saturday (June 30) suggest to disrespect and willful neglect. As the Times-Picayune reported, Road Home tried to do a mass closing at a hotel, but left people in long lines, out in the boiling midday sun. Worse, however, was that ICF officials only bothered to bring the lines of people into the hotel when media photographers showed up. Until then, nobody seemed to care.

For some follow-up, check out today's T-P editorial and the op-ed piece by staff photographer, John McCusker, who photographed the lines outside the hotel and was so sadly reminded of the lines at the Superdome.