Why the concern? Nothing much, just the decision to ok continued outsourcing of the operation of the six ports above to a company called Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. This company is being acquired by Dubai Ports World, a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Arab Emirates. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has so far declined to conduct a full 45-day investigation. To that end, a group of congressmen and senators have asked Treasury Secretary John Snow to direct them to conduct such an investigation.

Among their concerns are the questionable ties of the UAE to nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Additionally, they point out that currently “only one in 20 shipping containers entering the U.S. is physically inspected. A single terrorist incident could shut down our system of container transportation, affecting our entire economy, as well as facilities relied on by the DOD as military load-out ports.”

I’m not anti-commerce, anti-trade, anti-foreign investment. I do, however, feel that the administration should be taking a more cautious approach to national security in this instance, especially since the President himself feels that National Security is so threatened that he is justified in ignoring the constitutional limits of his office so that he can conduct illegal surveillance on U.S. soil. The problem here is not that it’s a foreign company who will be running these ports, but that it is essentially a foreign company owned by and answering to a foreign government.

The last thing New Orleans needs is a terrorist incident involving our port. As the Senators and Representative calling on Secretary Snow to investigate point out, “only one in 20 shipping containers entering the U.S. is physically inspected. A single terrorist incident could shut down our system of container transportation, affecting our entire economy, as well as facilities relied on by the DOD as military load-out ports.

Two GOP governors (Pataki of New York and Ehrlich of Maryland) are concerned enough about the implications of the deal that they are considering attempts to cancel lease arrangements at ports in their states.

Look, there’s nothing that I would rather do than pile on a Bush Presidency plagued by moral and intellectual deficiencies. But simply trotting out a few Yes Men and a normal administration critic to state their belief that the administration has done its due diligence homework is not enough. When you’re in charge of an administration of not-to-be-trusted fuck-ups, you don’t get to avoid scrutiny just by claiming that you made the company agree to certain super-secret conditions to ensure national security.

Especially since you haven’t done a great job at securing our ports to begin with. Not when a news organization can sneak depleted uranium into the country under the noses of port security. If I were conspiracy minded, I might think that an administration as morally deficient as this one might agree to this just so that they would have an excuse and a scapegoat if there were a terrorist incident involving a major port.

At a time when Louisiana is begging for a fair share of oil and gas royalties from the federal government, everyone’s favorite President, Giant W. Douche George W. Douche Bush is apparently considering waiving $7 billion in royalty payments by oil companies drilling in federal waters over the next five years.

What this means is that up to $65 billion of oil and natural gas will use our infrastructure and erode our shores without contributing a dime for wear and tear. As some of you may already know, Louisiana, thanks to a POS named Leander Perez, has already being screwed out of billions of dollars of oil and gas royalty payments by the federal government. Much more so than any other state. To add insult to injury, more oil and natural gas flows through Louisiana than any other state.

Baker Bill? “No thank you,” says GWB. Fair oil and gas royalties? “No, can’t support that, the federal government needs that revenue” says GWB. Comprehensive coastal restoration plan? “Uh, no, we need more science.”

And yet, there’s $7 billion (half of the proposed coastal restoration plan) that this douche can scrape up to give to cronies in the oil business.

Happy Valentine’s Day, indeed. I don’t really expect more from the boil on the ass of reason that Louisiana residents voted for TWICE. After all, he can’t get elected again unless he invents another unconstitutional “war power.” But his oil buddies, they’ll be in a much better position to write Douche’s $5 million appearance fee checks with an extra $7 billion in their pockets.

Sen. Reggie Dupre leans in close, waving his finger over the aide’s notebook: “Tell them we want a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would allow the state to take private land for hurricane-protection projects, and we pay only fair market value for it.”

Dupre, who has been involved with most of the constitutional amendments related to natural waterways over the past five years, says he would base his new proposal on the 2003 model — only this time, it would apply to hurricane-protection projects, such as levees, seawalls and floodgates.

In short, such a proposal could translate into fewer dollars for landowners standing in the way of hurricane-protection projects. Legally, the measure would alter the way courts are allowed to compute the value of lands that are seized.

The “2003 model’ refers to the last alteration of eminent domain in Louisiana, in which fair market value was adopted as the standard for figuring payouts for coastal restoration projects.

My initial reaction is to reject such proposals, because the concept of private property is such a vital plank in our democracy. But one quote from the article gives me pause.

“This is a major concern,” [Newman Trowbridge, Jr., a Lafayette-based attorney and general counsel to the Louisiana Landowners Association] says of the proposal, which is still in its conceptual stage. “Hurricane protection levees are often placed in areas that are economically developable. In a lot of instances, this is very valuable land that could be income-producing for the owner.”

I tend to agree, with a caveat: without the hurricane protection levees, this isn’t very valuable land. So where do you draw the line? No matter where that line is, someone is going to get screwed, and, under the current situation, someone is going to enjoy a nice windfall on otherwise worthless property.

The problem with the current system is this: property owners in marginal areas have an incentive to be willing victims in order to collect that windfall. Whereas, in a scenario that lacks an artificially large payout, the locations of hurricane protection systems are likely to be based on logic and not political pull, which means that fewer landowners will likely ultimately be screwed by potential graft.

With a very narrow focus, I’m inclined to agree that a change resulting in lower payouts for seized land is probably more beneficial to Southeast Louisiana than it is harmful to landowners who will lose land that likely would remain worthless otherwise. Which isn’t to say that those landowners could not be compensated with other land seized by default within the confines of the levee system. Because there will surely be properties that are defaulted on that the state will seize. Which brings me to the next article.

The ever-so-Louisiana-loving White House has decided that it will NOT support the Baker plan. I know, what a shocker. The administration that dismissed a comprehensive coastal restoration project and rejected a fair revision of oil and gas payouts to Louisiana (which, ironically enough, were negotiated by politicians for their own gain way back when — remember my cynical comment about trying to collect that windfall and screwing other landowners above?) raises their middle finger in the general direction of New Orleans yet again.

The article explains how the failure of the Baker bill might impact the New Orleans area and why there might be property within the hurricane protection system with which to compensate landowners whose property is seized in the improvement of that system. Here’s the money quote:

But to accomplish the dual goals of creating population density and safer redevelopment of some low-lying parts of the city, a buyout of some property owners is seen as inevitable. A voluntary buyout program is viewed as needed to help homeowners who are willing to move to higher ground but otherwise will be forced to renovate their flooded properties where they sit, or walk away and face foreclosure, due to the limits of their flood insurance payouts.

Sadly, I think that the misery quotient in the metro area still has room to climb before it begins to drop. A failure to revise eminent domain payouts for hurricane protection systems, coupled with an administration that is happy to pay lip service to the value of the City and people of the region while lighting flaming bags of poo at their doorsteps, is going to seriously hinder the recovery and protection efforts.

Yes, it would make for a better world faster if black people could somehow overlook the need to organize on the basis of race. But I have some understanding about why there remains a need for them to do so. And I’m inclined to be indulgent in a way that I’m not to posters who go by names like “nagin is a racist.” I don’t believe that black people are inherently lazy, but I do believe that they’ve been somewhat conditioned to believe (by their own leaders as well as current reality) that they’re still getting the short end of the stick. Some people, faced with that perception of reality, react by trying to prove the perception wrong. Others react by succumbing to the apathy that perception can generate.

Eventually, we will conquer every form of bigotry, of that I have no doubt. People of my generation may even now be raising the generation that definitively rejects racism, sexism, homophobia, and every other major form of bigotry. Or we may be raising the generation that raises the generation that does that. But it’s going to happen, and it’s going to be a change for the better.

I would like to say that I’m free of bigotry, but the reality is that I’m not. I grew up without the exposure to other races and cultures necessary to think in a post-bigotry language, much less live a post-bigotry life. Because while I wouldn’t necessarily preclude dating a black man, or an asian man, or a person of faith (any organized religion), I would always be translating, so to speak, in my head from the way I was raised to the way I want to live. Because translate is all I can do.

More after the break…

In the same way that I never “got” foreign languages in school, in the same way that I just couldn’t think in german or spanish or latin, I know deep down that I don’t really think in a post-bigotry language. I think my bigoted thoughts and I chastise myself and then I say the things I want to say and live the way I want to live…but it’s something I have to do consciously. It’s a continuing effort, like reading or writing or speaking a foreign language is. I think in English and I think in bigot. And then I translate.

I’ve said before that I’m selfish. And that is absolutely true. I want to exist in that post-bigotry world. This…this is only words on a screen; they’re meaningless if, in my real life, I did nothing to make them a reality. But if I didn’t, they wouldn’t even exist, because how could I value them enough to write them down? And so I work to overcome my own limitations, my own prejudices, and my own bigotry, all of which I possess in abundance.

Here’s my favorite story from last week: a guy I know, who owned a coffee house, sent me text message telling me that I was cool as shit, thanking me for doing karaoke at his coffee house (for no pay) and helping him stay in business longer than he would have if I hadn’t, and telling me that he hoped karma would repay me. But in reality, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to do something that I love and give people that I love the opportunity to do something that they enjoyed. But if it weren’t for this one guy putting his neck on the line to open this business, I wouldn’t have dozens of people to love, and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity or the desire to give them something in thanks for taking a stranger from someplace else and making him feel alive, welcome and cared about.

I look at New Orleans post-K and think that there’s an opportunity for a whole lot of that sort of mutually beneficial exchange. And it’s happening all over the Gulf Coast right now. You don’t have to look hard to find it. I hope it sticks, and that people look at one another with just a little more respect and a little less cynicism than they used to, and that everyone is just a little more sympathetic to the way that other people might experience the subtle and not-so-subtle prejudices and realities that negatively impact their lives, and that they react to each other with a little bit more empathy and compassion.

I wasn’t too bothered by the chocolate comments myself, I found the “God’s punishment” language much more troubling. Perhaps because this isn’t the first time that “chocolate” has been used to describe the racial makeup of the city. If I remember correctly, way back in October or late September someone (perhaps even Ray himself) used it to say something to the effect of “New Orleans isn’t a black city or a white city, it’s a chocolate city.” That’s not the exact quote, of course. And, after searching Google I haven’t come up with it.

I’m of the opinion that the divide in New Orleans is not racial per se, but economic. Given the high correlation between the two, it’s understandable that many people fail to make the distinction. Everyone can bitch all they want about not wanting this or that “element” back in town, but markets are self-correcting. My prediction: not only will any attempt to artificially skew the population of a city the size of New Orleans fail, it will fail miserably and will bring about all sorts of unintended negative consequences.

Our punishments are self-imposed. We need to stop blaming vengeful magic sky people and realize that if things suck, it’s because we allow them to suck. If we don’t want a high crime rate, then we need to not kill each other, and we need to be hard-asses to the people who kill each other. If we want effective leadership, then we need to vote for real leaders, not just those whose daddy or brother or husband was in politics once upon a time. If we want an educated populace or effective levees, then we need to build school and levee systems that aren’t controlled by morons that are incapable of doing the job we elected them to do.

In Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen. But they damn sure happen here. If they’re a tragedy, it’s only because we care so little about ourselves that we allow them to be.

If the Klan’s hatred of minorities were but a small portion of their doctrine, they would still be morally repugnant. It’s difficult to imagine how gay Roman Catholic priests can endorse Church doctrine and still look at themselves in the mirror every morning, especially when better moral options for serving their faith exist. If their faith is so tied to Catholicism that they cannot abandon it for a healthier option, then faith, for them, becomes little more than the practice of a fetish. A fetish that is as unhealthy as any other and which has the potential to negatively affect other people more than most fetishes.

One problem with Blanco’s plan is that it is deliberately constructed to sidestep Louisiana’s open meetings law: “Blanco acknowledged she wanted to keep the attendance at the meetings small in order to sidestep Louisiana’s open-meetings law.” This, I don’t think, is smart government. Closed meetings breed mistrust and apathy in the general population, and on a topic like this, the public deserves to know what their representatives are thinking as they try to hammer out a solution.

My solution is simple: allow everyone who is able to accommodate a trailer on their property to put a trailer on their property. Allow access to larger parks on public green spaces only to people who can demonstrate that their property cannot accommodate a trailer. Limit access to trailer spaces to those who are actively renovating and rebuilding. No building permit = no trailer on public green space.

As for vetoes by council members: if the proposed site is in your district and it’s going to be used by residents of your district, then using your self-given veto power is just a good indicator to voters that you’re not doing your job. Every district should be able to come up with enough space to house its own residents. Tax breaks to businesses that allow portions of their property to be used to temporarily house trailers would probably insure that is the case.

In addition to attempting to remain neutral, Blanco has also offered security, although I’m not sure how she’d be providing it.

The shooting still seems to be justified, insofar as the person shot was holding knife and did move towards an officer. But the inability of police to do anything other than shoot him is still disturbing. Especially since they can get more than 16 officers to the scene within 3 minutes.

Here are a couple of my questions: Pepper spray didn’t work, but nobody had a taser or any other form of non-lethal weapon, like a beanbag shotgun? Especially since the encounter went on long enough for more than a dozen police officers to respond? Bulletproof vests don’t stop knife blades? A dozen+ police officers vs. one fat guy with a pocket knife and nobody has the training to disarm him?