We Could Be Famous' "We Can" Weekend Roundup

There were a lot of stories that piqued my interest over the weekend.
There were some absolute nuggets of wisdom that I just have to briefly lasso together:


The Saturday T-P had a number of interesting articles.

1. The weekly New Orleans politics segment routinely makes my Saturday. I've canceled my TP subscription for a lot of different reasons but I still buy the Saturday paper, mostly just for this article. This weekend's piece elaborated on the Mayor's absolutely hilarious wisecrack about kicking all of the homeless people out of town.

"I'm not suggesting that they were dumped here, but we have a lot of people from a lot of different places around the country, and you may be helping one of your citizens," the mayor said.

"Maybe we can even find some bus tickets. We'll see," Nagin said, drawing uneasy laughter from parts of a crowded ballroom at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel. "One way."

Since I've never given my thoughts on those comments, I'll just say that the reason they are offensive is because Mayor Nagin has, at times, been openly hostile to concrete solutions for combating chronic homelessness. They are offensive because Nagin has routinely deflected the homelessness issue by blaming to "outsiders" when he himself continues to support policies that exacerbate rather than alleviate the affordable housing crisis. To contextualize the quote, Mayor Nagin was just kidding, his substantive answer to the question on helping the homeless was to donate to Unity or the Mission. This doesn't help matters much because the Mayor has generally been hostile to Unity's proven approach. As you'll recall, the Mayor's solution earlier this year was to round up the homeless into a giant barracks at the New Orleans Mission. This policy was seen as so reactive that the Bush administration sent an official to try to convince the Mayor to reconsider a more humane approach.

2. There was a second pearl from Nagin in that same TP article:

At other points, Nagin displayed his lighter side, responding to a question about whether local leaders trust the science of polling.

Referring to a recent poll by researcher Verne Kennedy showing that nearly one in four New Orleans voters think the city is "moving in the right direction," Nagin said he has faith in such positive results.

"We like these polls that say 23 percent of people think the city is headed in the right direction," he said. "Y'all keep these coming. We'll pay good money for them."

While I can believe that local poll numbers might be unreliable, I'm afraid that the percentage of people that think the city is headed in the right direction may be lower. If there's one measure of the city's recovery that is more important than any other, it is the one that represents how the residents of New Orleans themselves feel about the direction of their city. If New Orleans residents do not feel as if the city is heading in the right direction than the city is not heading in the right direction - period. This cavalier attitude toward his own unpopularity reminds me of that of another totally unaccountable and unapologetic golden god:




New Orleans residents don't think their needs are being met? So?

It is the job of historians to evaluate what a tragedy your Mayoral administration has been.

3. Also from the TP: Recovery School District behind in its bills

State Superintendent Paul Pastorek estimated that the district is delinquent in paying 10 to 20 vendors. The district did pay out more than $30 million to vendors during the past 60 days, he said, paying off every vendor who was owed $20,000 or less in full.

Yet as the school year draws to a close, officials say finances still remain one of the thorniest problems facing district Superintendent Paul Vallas and his team.

"I don't think anybody, including me, anticipated the difficulties of not having a cash reserve account," Pastorek said.

Well done Paul and Paul. Want to know who anticipated the difficulties?

The Times Picayune did. From the same article:

Recovery District officials have not responded to repeated inquiries over the last month as to which vendors have outstanding, overdue bills.
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The district did not respond to a specific question asking what their 10 largest overdue bills are. It also did not respond to an April open-records request for copies of all invoices marked overdue.

So in other words, it was such a surprise that you spent weeks stalling out public records requests beyond the legally permissible three day wait?

No kidding. Know who else thought the RSD might run into some "surprise" budget issues?

Know who else gets routinely stonewalled by the RSD legal team on public records requests?

He has a blog.


4. Sad.

Over the weekend, our fearless President went to Saudi Arabia to plead with King Abdullah to make more oil. President Bush reads the internets and has heard that gas prices are too high so he went over to ride horses with the King and beg him to help US consumers buy more consumer electronics by reducing oil prices. King Abdullah said no.

Earlier in the week, Saida Mohammed Afrah left her children for two hours to scavenge for food and water. When she returned, her two babies had starved to death. High gas prices contributing to high food prices have exacerbated the effects of a drought in East Africa. Famine is upon Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan. It approaches Kenya.

Our President's crawling on his knees routine with the Saudis is an embarrassment on so many levels. While it was very nice of the man to go to bat to Americans under legitimate pressure from high gas prices, it is so insulting to go begging the Saudis for help as US oil corporations reap windfall profits as a direct result of the high prices that are literally killing people in Africa.

Tougher Than Hell

So I was watching the Daily Show the other day and caught an interesting interview with Fareed Zakaria, who writes for Newsweek. He'll also soon have a show on CNN. He's an interesting character politically. Some might say that he comes from a neoconservative background. He's a big supporter of free trade and globalization. Well, anyways, you can wikipedia him. Whether or not you disagree with some of the underlying ideological assumptions, he is incredibly learned and has a fascinating perspective.



Here, he discusses the decline of the United States as the world's sole economic superpower. Generally, Zakaria tends to paint a rosier picture of our overall outlook than that which seems to be depicted on the television but his characterization of our power sent chills down my spine.

We have the biggest military in the world, by far. One of the things I think has happened . . . is that we look at every problem now really through the prism of the military because we're so damn good at it. So you look at what's going on in Africa and you say 'there's Islamic extremism there.' So we say 'well, let's set up Africom. You know, a command center, US military, four-star general.'

Wait a minute, is the answer to the spread, the rise of Islamic fanaticism to set up a kind of US neocolonial military presence in these countries and start having American troops go around there beating people up? I'm not so sure.

*Note, Jon sort of gives the rub to Tulane University at the end of the interview

The biggest military in the world. Every problem through the prism of the military. A neocolonial military presence.

And Mr. Zakaria should know, because he was at least one meeting with Paul Wolfowitz in November of 2001.

Another person who should know is former Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, who since leaving his post as commander of the coalition troops in Iraq, has roasted the Bush administration's reckless consideration of American and civilian lives and their constant nods to political considerations over military objectives:

Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez joined the White House videoconference on the second day of house-to-house fighting between 2,000 Marines and entrenched guerrillas in Fallujah.

Crafted in Washington as a brass-knuckles response to the gruesome deaths of four Blackwater security guards killed the week before and strung up on a bridge, the battle had the full support of President Bush.

Sanchez, in a memoir to be released Tuesday, said Bush “launched into what I considered a kind of confused pep talk” about the battle for Fallujah and an upcoming campaign to kill or capture radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and cripple his militia.

“Kick ass!” Bush said. “If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell!”

Fueled by images beamed by the Al-Jazeera television network, the administration quickly reversed course, stopping Operation Vigilant Resolve. Soon after, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer dropped plans to capture or kill al-Sadr, even though the president had said during the April 7, 2003, meeting, “It is essential he be wiped out,” according to the memoir.

Kick ass. If someone tries to stop the march to democracy we will seek them out and kill them. That's the mindset. Real classy. Never mind the fact that the President withdrew the orders because he thought it might hurt his reelection campaign.

Meanwhile, let us travel to the present, to Red Square in Moscow, where new Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and new Russian President Vladmir Putin put on a display of military might not seen since the days of the USSR.

The Kremlin’s decision to parade its military hardware has been a subject of competing interpretations, viewed variously as symbolic confirmation of Russia’s pride, or aggressiveness, as a marketing show of Russian arms, and as a nationalistic festival ordered by Mr. Putin, for Mr. Putin.

Mr. Putin insisted earlier in the week that the parade should not be viewed as “saber rattling.” “It is not a warlike gesture,” he said. “Russia is not threatening anyone.”

But it followed a year during which the Kremlin asserted its case against what it regarded as reckless American foreign policies. Mr. Putin has strongly protested an American-led plan to install a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. As tensions rose, Russia’s aging strategic bombers conducted international patrols, entered British airspace and approached American carrier groups on the high seas.

The United States' response?

Let's just speculate for a moment before I share it with you.

Remember, President Bush was very close with President Putin, he explained that he trusted Mr. Putin not to entrench himself as an autocrat because he "looked the man in the eyes" and was able "to get a sense of the man's soul." So, though Bush likely doesn't appreciate Russia's opposition to the missile defense project or Russia's incursions into former Soviet republic elections, President Bush probably doesn't want to aggravate Russia further. The administration will probably want to through a wet blanket on media attempts to fan flames. The President's policy toward Mr. Putin already looks abominable, might as well minimize damage, play off the significance of the military demonstration by talking up US-Russian friendship.

Well, here is the US reaction:

“If they wish to take out their old equipment and take it for a spin and check it out,” said the spokesman, Geoff Morrell, “they’re more than welcome to do so.”

WOW!

So the official United States reaction to Soviet-style military escalation by the Russians is to backhand them in the face, insult their might, and challenge them to spend more money on their military.

You know, the Bush administration, for years, has insisted that we all have to adopt "a post-9/11 mindset." Reliance on diplomacy and the United Nations was naive in the face of the dangerous new world landscape. The United States needed to act more unilaterally to protect its interests, the argument was.

But, you know what, you know who never adopted a post-9/11 mindset?

The Bush administration.

Because they're still very clearly living in the midst of the Cold War.

We've dictated a foreign policy marinated in the same juices as the Domino Theory. If we can just use our guns and our planes to carve out spheres of influence in the Middle East, the terrorists and the unfriendly states will topple over in turn.

On the count of three, arms race: one.... two.....

Stock Prices Fall

There's something special about a global financial crisis.



All across the planet, different people have the same pained reaction. It is the worst financial day since Rudy Giuliani, 2001.

From Bloomberg:

"It's the worst I've ever seen,'' said Johan Stein, who helps manage the equivalent of about $14 billion at Nordea Asset Management in Stockholm. "The financial system is in terrible shape, and no one knows where this will end.''
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"This is a stock-market crisis,'' said Alberto Roldan, head of research at Inverseguros SVB in Madrid. "Investors believe that neither a government package nor a huge rate cut is going to help evade a recession in the U.S.''
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The current lead story on foxnews.com is about a missing college coed.

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Everything is fine.