Friends of New Atlantis

After months of breathing toxic fumes emanating from the thousands of refrigerators lined up on the neutral grounds and sidewalks of the Crescent City, city leaders are flying high and dreaming big as they put together a blueprint for its rebirth in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, considering such audacious ideas as re-creating a long-gone jazz district, building a network of bike paths and commuter rail lines, and establishing a top-flight school system.

A commission appointed by Mayor Ray Nagin unveiled a collection of ideas that could become part of the master plan for rebuilding this devastated city.

At the heart of the proposals is one critical, and controversial, recommendation: All parts of the city -- even the devastated Lower Ninth Ward and other neighborhoods that were submerged to their rooftops -- should be given a chance to rebuild.

At times the meeting became acrimonious, with one angry Lower Ninth Ward resident, pointing his finger at members of the Bring New Orleans Back Commission and accusing Joseph Canizaro, the urban planning committee chairman and a prominent New Orleans developer, of plotting to take land from people.

Another resident said: "I don't think it's right that you take our properties. Over your dead body."

The Urban Land Institute caused a stir late last year when it issued a report urging the city to put its resources into rebuilding areas that were not flooded. The institute warned that if New Orleans tried to rebuild everything, the city would be condemned to a slow, patchwork recovery.

New Orleanians, never known from listening to anybody’s logical advice, were elated to hear the City Council’s solution to bring protection from flooding to the hardest hit areas of the city. Effective June 1, which is the beginning of hurricane season, the Lower Ninth Ward will be officially known as the Higher Ninth Ward. Central City will be renamed Central City Heights, and East New Orleans will become the Upper East Side of New Orleans.

Another idea is to use tax credits to re-create Storyville, the city-backed red-light district that operated for 20 years until it was shut down in 1917.

The idea, of course, is not to bring back the sex trade in its original form. Instead the idea is to make the area into a musical district with recording studios, perhaps a jazz museum and live music venues. Special projects will be set aside where the Conservative Wing of the Republican Party, The Religious Right and FEMA will take care of screwing the proud dwellers who call this third world slum home. Storyville, which was next to the French Quarter, was razed after it fell into disrepair. Arata, the music and film subcommittee chairman said, “New Orleanians have always fallen for a good song and dance.”

"Screw this! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat cats that are drowning you will do it again and again and again… and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they push your kids under. I say, kick' ‘em in the ass and take your rightful share!"
--Huey Long, 1927

SHOULD WE DECLARE?

by Jack Moss
He handles the spread and political analysis for www.NOLAFugees.com . His series on secession continues next issue.

The questions still abound: Why devote the tax dollars of hard-working Americans to rebuild a city that lies below sea-level, a city which will inevitably be demolished again by the next storm? Why should America help a citizenry that won'’t help itself, a citizenry who, for the most part, prefers to spend its days on stoops or porches doing nothing, or in barrooms imbibing spirits, rather than being industrious and contributing to the American GDP?
Why should Congress appropriate funds to a place that has almost nothing in common with the rest of the country, instead of, say, Iraq, where officials are elected by the people, fair and square, out in the open, not by a handful of men in some fancy suite in the Fairmont Hotel or some smoky back room at Ruth’s Chris?

As New Orleanians, we scarcely have good answers to such questions. Sure, our city is mostly below sea-level and will likely be destroyed again in similar circumstances. And of course many of us would rather not work, and so don'’t. GDP? Unless that’'s an acronym for Garden District Pussy, we don'’t give a drowned puppy'’s ass about it.) And, indubitably, New Orleans is not like anyother place in America.

New Orleans is America’s kinky-haired stepchild. More aptly, New Orleans is America’'s refrigerator, a fridge left without electricity for weeks, one now teeming with hundreds of thousands of squealing, squirming maggots— one which its owner would sooner haul to the curb and forget about before soiling itshands to clean and restore it.

Face it, New Orleans: America no longer wants you.

Finally, the sentiment is mutual. New Orleans must now do what it has been meaning to do for centuries —secede.

Imagine it: the smiling face of Louis Armstrong on our one dollar bill, or rather, our one Orléans (“Or-lay-awnh”) bill and Jean Lafitte on our one Orléans coin; a Michalopoulos-designed flag flying high above our capitol building, the Cabildo; foreign dignitaries, at state dinners, eating food
prepared by Paul Prudhomme and being entertained by Ingrid Lucia; our first monarch, Edwin Edwards, who'’s always had the support of a majority of New Orleanians, with crown and scepter by Mignon Faget, parading down Canal Street on a gilded float built by Blaine Kern, proceeded by St. Aug’'s Marching 100, en route to the Superdome to preside over weekly gladiatorial contests between rival ward gangs; Kermit Ruffins performing our national anthem, which he wrote in conjunction with the Cash Money Millionaires.

But how will the Principality of New Orleans fare in the burgeoning global economy? Quite well, in fact. New Orleans would be a mix of all the best aspects of itself, Singapore, Monaco, and Amsterdam. For starters, every cargo of goods that passes in or out of the mouth of the Mississippi River would be taxed. We would also keep the hundreds of billions in revenue from oil production and refining that we used to send to Washington. In addition, unlike the United States, we would garner trade agreements with Cuba and Venezuela.
Like Panama and Switzerland, we would also encourage international banks to open branch institutions here. And, getting back to our roots, we would legalize and regulate all forms of gambling and narcotics, as well as prostitution; these activities would not only provide more tax revenue to the newly-formed nation, but would also secure its place as the most popular
international tourist destination, yuh heard.

Certainly, the easy part for most New Orleanians will be seceding from the Union; the harder part will be seceding from Louisiana —well, South Louisiana, anyway, as we scarcely relate to those Louisianans who call anywhere north ofOpelousas home. Many of our family, friends, and kindred spirits live there.

So what do we do? The answer, of course, is to offer the rest of South Louisiana, should it also secede, the opportunity to become a vassal state. The relationship would be symbiotic: to the vassal would go a portion of the large financial product churned out by the great economic machine New Orleans will become; in return, New Orleans would receive any surplus of the vassal’s agricultural production, as well as its surplus of labor. The upside for South Louisiana would be huge, the downside negligible. The alternative—remaining economically challenged and still a part of a country that doesn'’t want it either —would be grim at best.

We shouldn'’t forget, though, that the nation which cannot protect itself from foreign invasion is no nation at all. Again, adhering to the Swiss example, our mission would be to defend ourselves and only ourselves: there’'d be no training to fight in deserts or the Arctic, no heavy equipment devoted to razing jungles and boring into caves. Along with our small but agile navy of airboats, piloted by shoot-anything-that-moves bayou boys, we would install a couple of surface-to-air missiles under the Crescent City Connection and a few on top of One Shell Square and call it a day. Or better yet, if the shit hits the fan, we'’ll follow the example of our wise countrymen in Audubon Place and contract Israeli mercenaries.

All that’'d be left would be normalizing relations with the United States. Sure, it'’ll be nasty at first, but eventually we'’d find that special someone, that perfect ambassador who both speaks the American military-industrial-banking complex’s language but still unambiguously represents New Orleans. If we give much of New Orleans East to banker and real estate mogul Joe Cannizaro to do with as he pleases, odds are, he’ll take the job.

So then, shall we declare?

08:52 AM CST on Sunday, January 1, 2006
Tom Planchet / WWLTV.com
Online at: http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWL010106tpeverything.34cd9384.html

WWL-TV studios are being evacuated:

When I first heard those words Tuesday morning – the day after Katrina, I realized that things might never be the same.

As I recall, though my memory of everything that happened is about as foggy as New Orleans was Saturday night, our job in Baton Rouge was over. The makeshift newsroom on the LSU campus was to pack up and head back on Tuesday with our base of operations returning to Rampart Street.

The hardy souls who had braved the night in the Hyatt Hotel were ready to resume WWL-TV’s operations and we would soon join them.

In the immediate wake of the storm, the words I had heard most were “dodged a bullet,” and “could have been worse.”

All of the reports weren’t in of course, Slidell, Biloxi, Plaquemines and St. Bernard – we knew they were bad, we just didn’t know how bad.

But New Orleans, the center of commerce for the region was “good to go,” ready to roll up its sleeves and become the center for rebuilding.

That’s when the word came to Baton Rouge. WWL-TV is evacuating, water is rising, you guys need to continue to run the show for now.

It wasn’t until five weeks later that WWL-TV returned to our operations on Rampart Street full-time.

LSU, then WLPB were our homes and the hosts were incredibly gracious.

New words were now being used – some would be come to be used in vain, many were preceded or followed by obscenities – FEMA, blue-roof, normalcy, forbearance, evacuee, refugee, survivor, limited menu, sheet piles, breach.

The canvass for much frustration was the normally harmless but now lethal white refrigerator and the poet in everyone became readily apparent.

Looking back now, it doesn’t seem real, but it hits home everytime I drive through Lakeview, or the Ninth Ward, or Gentilly. Home after home, block after block of grey, mud-covered homes with debris piled in front. No children running around, no old men playing checkers, no neighborhood gossips talking about everyone else’s business.

You have to plan each trip. You can’t just pull over at the closest neighborhood po-boy shop to get something to eat. The odds are it isn’t open and if it is, you can expect a long wait.

I believe it was the Times-Picayune’s Chris Rose who said we didn’t have a September here in New Orleans. I don’t recall October, November or December either. Was there a Halloween? For the first time in 15 years I didn’t celebrate it with my oldest daughter.

Everything was muted…and it seems now everything is on hold.

Rebuild, don’t rebuild; Move or stay? Raise your home or roll the dice?

Many want to return. Perhaps moreso than in any other metropolitan area, people want to return. If this wasn’t New Orleans, I doubt it would have survived. The city has a pull on people, yet many just can’t bear trying to rebuild and fearing this will happen again.

For some the memories are already beginning to fade, but even my 12-year-old daughter summed up the anxiety next hurricane season is likely to bring.

We were driving through the neighborhood where I grew up – an especially hard hit area near the London Avenue Canal breach.

My street, Chamberlain Drive, had about 8-10 feet of rushing water run through it. We saw one home out of about 30 on my old block with a FEMA trailer in front of it. One home that appeared ready to move on and move back.

I commented to my daughters that many people wouldn’t return for fear that they would spend so much time, money and energy rebuilding and then worrying that this would happen again next year.

My 12-year-old blurted out with a hint of fear in her voice, something she hadn’t previously considered, “You mean this is going to happen again next year?”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell her no.