pyanfar_chanur ([info]pyanfar_chanur) wrote,
@ 2006-01-18 02:42:00
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Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Experience
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060116/ap_on_re_us/katrina_nagin

I'm thinking somebody kicked off their holiday with a big fat bag of crack, my friends...if you can catch video footage of this, it's fun to pay attention to the people crowded around him. They have this stern, "My mind is somewhere else" look on their face. It's that wonderful thing only adults seem to be able to do: the thoughful furrowed brow, the expression of deep concentration that says, "Please tell me he didn't really just say New Orleans isn't 'chocolate' enough. And while you're at it? Please also tell me he didn't just say New Orleans was meant to be chocolate, because that would just be throwing gasoline on the fire. Oh, and while we're at it? Tell me not a single one of those cameras contains any film...and that I'm dreaming. And when I wake up, I'll have a magical pony of my very own."

And in a follow-up that says, "No, really: quit while you're ahead,"

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4622038.stm)

I loved this bit:


"You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about..."

Bizarre, funny, but also a shame, really: I'm sure he's probably a pretty nice guy. And the media can eviscerate faster than you can say, "Internet". But chances are, that just moved the 15-minute clock for him out to 14:59 and holding...

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[info]phaid
2006-01-18 01:50 pm UTC (link)
Ray Nagin is a classic example of promotion to ineptitude. Or in his case, election to ineptitude. When I lived an hour's drive away in south Mississippi in the late 80s and early 90s, New Orleans in general and its police force in particular were legendary for mismanagement and corruption. Then in 1994, the same year I moved to New Orleans, Mark Morial was elected mayor. He managed to get the city government under control, and hired Richard Pennington from Washington DC as chief of police to fix the cops. Pennington got rid of a lot of the old "traditions" in the department -- basically an intricate system of bribes and payoffs -- and even though he ruffled a lot of feathers, he made the department an effective force again. By 2000, the city had turned completely around.

Unfortunately, term limits prevented Morial from running again, so in the 2002 election, Pennington decided to run for Mayor. The opposition candidate was Ray Nagin, who at the time was... general manager of the Cox Cable franchise in New Orleans. Even though Nagin came out of nowhere and had no experience, he talked a good talk, and he was better liked than Pennington by a lot of the local fat cats because he was an insider. So in the end he won the race, Pennington resigned as chief of police, and then Nagin turned around and hired one of the worst of the old school cops as the new Chief.

The results of that kind of speak for themselves. By late summer of 2005, race relations in the city were at their lowest point in decades, mostly due to the total incompetence of the police force. There was no discipline in the ranks, and the cops' rules for hurricane preparedness basically gave them free reign to commandeer anything they wanted and imposed no restrictions on time off to get families to safety (Pennington had allowed 24 hours off to secure their families, but they had to be back 24 hours before the projected impact of the hurricane. He specifically prohibited any commandeering of civilian property whatsoever in the event of a hurricane). So, when Katrina struck, a third of the cops were absent, and another third ran around taking over luxury SUV's and holing up in abandoned bars.

And this complete breakdown in discipline made recovery much harder. The police had no communications, which pretty much meant the mayor didn't either. So FEMA, the military, all kinds of federal and state agencies, cops from other cities, private security firms, etc, came in and had no idea what to do. The resources to coordinate all of this were in the city and could have been used, but because the police didn't secure them they were unavailable. Things eventually did get sorted out, mostly by the military, but it took far longer and allowed far more damage to occur than ever should have.

So now this idiot, who after all the progress of the 90s allowed the city to degenerate back to what it had been in the 80s, and pretty much allowed it to be destroyed by a near miss from a hurricane, is going to make everything all right again?


(I hasten to add that I am in no way taking the Feds' side in the ridiculous local vs federal debate that happened after the hurricane, where it seemed that conservatives blamed Louisiana and liberals blamed FEMA. The whole thing was a mess on both sides. But the cascade of failures started with Nagin -- the city government imploded, and FEMA's failure was that they were too incompetent to take up the city's slack. If Nagin and the police had been properly prepared, FEMA's incompetence wouldn't have been as much of a problem).

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I still can't get over this
[info]pyanfar_chanur
2006-03-06 12:28 am UTC (link)
I read this again.

Things have changed drastically in my own state government circle. Part of the reason I've posted so little on my blog is because no one wants to hear yet another "I hate work" rant...but the buddy system seems to run rampant like this in government: in the private sector, you have to produce or you're out. I'm working with people who have told me in nasty tones that they could care less about healthcare and by the way shut up about asking me to do anything after 4:30.

Some of us pulled a lot of long hours in Kentucky in order to do our part to help this disaster. A lot of us got screwed for someone else's photo op.

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[info]kaitmoon
2006-01-18 03:21 pm UTC (link)
oh mah gawd!

totally unreal.

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[info]kiltedlunatic
2006-01-18 06:27 pm UTC (link)
It's hardly a local phenominon relegated to nola. We're having to deal with that idiot Serpas, who was a nola cop. Violent crime is up 63% since he came on board, but hey, speeding ticket revenue is up 150%. My new record is being stopped 4 times in my 20 minute drive home. If I didn't work where I do I'd be out a licence.

I was doing less than 2 over all four times, by the by.

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One Step Away
[info]pyanfar_chanur
2006-03-06 12:32 am UTC (link)
Sounds like pretty soon you'll be seeing those "commandeered" vehicles, like they've done in LA for years. I'm sure you've heard about that: they pull some schmuck over 'cause they like his car, impound it, and it's never seen again.

I'll remember not to drive through there in anything but a rental.

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