Dear Senator Edwards,
When I learned of your affair with Rielle Hunter and all things hiding under that dirty umbrella, I took it more personally than, say, someone in Kansas City or Oakland--barring that someone in Kansas City or Oakland with a terminal illness whose husband also cheated on her. She has me beat for parallel situations.
My insult to injury is purely political and geographical rather than emotional or psychological.
If you remember, the same year you were having your affair with Ms. Hunter and carting your sick wife around as a totem, you came to New Orleans to start your Poverty Tour and used us as a totem. Frankly, I began disliking you then. I made fun of your “give money to my campaign and win a trip to New Orleans to help rebuild” ploy. It seemed insincere and superficial and didn‘t make much strategic sense. You must understand that by the time you concocted this scheme it was a year and a half past the tragedy and I was already tired of seeing the Ninth Ward utilized as the primary backdrop for seemingly every story about New Orleans, from Anderson Cooper to Brad Pitt. I became embarrassed that the rest of the country saw us only as victims and you sure weren‘t helping. Your kicking off a Poverty Tour here just added another nail to that coffin. Poor New Orleans! Let’s start here in the saddest and most needy place…representative of all failed American…fill in the blank.
But it wasn’t just you. McCain used it to spout his “never again” mantra and attack Bush, and Obama and Clinton also made pit stops here. By then I‘d had two-plus years of drive-bys and drop-ins from politicians and celebrities and had rolled my eyes at most of them. Sure, they kept the spotlight on us. Sure, some did real work and contributed real things. Sure, many were sincere and listened and learned.
But no one used us quite like you did, John. You take the cake on that.
So now I can’t help but make a parallel that even you might find distasteful. New Orleans may not be your wife and may not have a terminal illness, but we are a sick city and I’m not sure we benefited from your use of us as a backdrop for your campaign, just as I’m not sure Elizabeth benefited from you, although maybe that’s just naive. Maybe she did benefit from you because she felt heroic and purposeful, and maybe some New Orleanians and others who came to help you here also felt the same.
Maybe I’m just another angry female cynic.
So forget the sick part. How about this: New Orleans was one of your mistresses. You stopped in when you needed us, you used us temporarily, you broke up with us, and you moved on. Now that you’ve dropped out of the campaign, i.e. ended the affair, have you called, have you written? I think not.
Back to your original reason for coming to New Orleans. If you were sincere about helping people get out of poverty, one thing you might consider focusing on is responsible fatherhood. That’s a fine place to start. Maybe you ought to come back to New Orleans and talk about personal responsibility, family values, and taking care of the messes you made. We could all learn a little from you, from the Army Corps of Engineers to City Hall to our citizens.
This time, though--will you get down on your knees and propose, at least? We’re gonna need more of a commitment this time.
We’ve all done it. Said “maybe” instead of “no, I’m not going to attend your barbeque because I don’t like your kids and your wife gives me dirty looks if we try to leave early.” Sometimes, the guilt eats at us and after six ignored “Evites” and peppy and sassy reminders from the host (“there will be a water slide for the kids! and endless margaritas for the adults! Bring your sombreros, amigos!), we bend to their party people pressure and meekly show up, embarrassed by the “oh, I’m soo glad you could make it!” greetings from the hosts after receiving your lame “we’ll try to make it...lots of yardwork piled up and Susie seems to be fighting a cold” email. In the end, you actually have a pretty good time and wonder why you hate these things so much. Still, you vow never to go to another barbeque again. At least not one of theirs.
But we’re not the Mayor and we’re not being “invited” to a City Council barbeque requiring a sacrifice of our Saturday afternoon. We’re not being given a window of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and asked to show up at some point to report on something that’s been in the headlines for the past week.
So the fact that Mayor Ray Nagin thought it was appropriate to tell the press and the City Council that he “might” attend today’s City Council meeting about the latest and greatest scandal so far of his recovery leadership (regarding NOAH, New Orleans Affordable Homeownership—summary: they received money for work done primarily by volunteers), to say arrogantly that he’s checking his schedule, then to say that he probably wouldn’t be able to attend—all of this wavering and posturing is even more rude than the white lie excuses we make up to get out of baby showers and work parties we just don’t feel like attending for one small reason or another.
To not attend a Council meeting for political rather than personal avoidance reasons is another matter entirely. To say you have a “scheduling conflict” is just a slap in the face.
Okay, when we get that dreaded invitation to attend a going-away party for a coworker we barely know, we’re probably not being asked to give information about a home remediation program that basically stole money from taxpayers. We’re probably not going to be asked why and how our brother-in-law came to be one of the contractors for the now poisoned program. The worst that may happen is that we have to eat cheap cake and drink non-alcoholic beverages on company property.
But then, let me remind you, we are not the Mayor of a city suffering like New Orleans. We’re just people trying to make our lives a little less hectic. That two hours spent at the party might better be spent doing nothing but laundry or napping or working out at the gym, but it’s our personal time, and we covet it.
The Mayor has no such luxury. His priority should be the city, especially when it’s in a perpetual crisis like ours. At a time like this and with a meeting so obviously geared towards solving a problem he helped create (NOAH was a core piece of pride in his 2007 budget), it’s just plain old-fashioned rudeness.
To make matters worse than they needed to be, City Council had to get all pissy with him and send him a letter admonishing him for not attending, which then resulted him into attending. Again, we’ve been there in our personal life. We tell a family member we can’t be at a wedding or a graduation party because of a “scheduling conflict” and all hell breaks loose. After two phone calls from your aunt, a letter from your Grandmother, and seven emails from your sister noting all of the things she’s attended for you over the years, you drag your sorry ass to the event and get treated like the heel that you are.
But, as I said, we’re not the Mayor. And we’re not dissing the City Council.
Only friends and family can be the recipients of our lame excuses. To make the citizens, press, and City Council kick and scream and insult and question your “maybe I’ll attend” and in this very angry manner, essentially beg for your attendance to a meeting that should unquestionably have been a “yes I’ll be there” response from the beginning, just makes us all distrust you that much more. It makes us that much more bitter.
And quite frankly, it hurts our feelings. Should we ever be invited to your going-away party, you can be sure we won’t attend. Or maybe we’ll just say “maybe”.
Last week there was an article in the local paper outlining efforts for a public-private economic development initiative in New Orleans. Basically, they intend to remove the responsibility from City Hall and place it in the hands of a private entity; not a sure recipe for success either, but hey, something’s gotta give, since the past 30 years of economic development efforts led by city offices have been, as the article under-states, “inept”. In presenting this new approach, they actually used the phrase ‘paradigm shift’ quoting local councilman James Carter. Since that is not a phrase used often in these parts, this signals something, I think.
Most notable in the article was the suggested list of industries that New Orleans should focus on as our strengths. They were listed in this order (Source: Rand Corp. report):
1. Port
2. Oil and gas
3. Tourism
4. Biomedicine
5. Arts and entertainment
6. Food processing
7. Information technology
Now when I look at that list in the wake of the barge accident on the Mississippi, this is how I read the same list:
1. Oil Spill!
2. Oil Spill!
4. Tourist headaches!
5. Biomedicine: help!
6. Arts and entertainment: Please!!! Distract us!
4. Food processing: More bottled water!
5. Information Technology: How is it that we don’t have an advanced travel-control system at our port??
All jokes aside, that last point is the most disconcerting and the one that needs immediate addressing. Despite being the fifth largest port in the United States, we don’t have a system that is akin to an air traffic control system that allows the Coast Guard to monitor all vessels. This is particularly reprehensible when a quick online search shows that 10 years ago, we discontinued our traffic system in an “economizing move”. After the Exxon-Valdez spill in March 1989 and “as a result of one spill on the Mississippi River near New Orleans last September, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended June 14 that the Coast Guard reopen its traffic services at that port and in New York Harbor.”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE4DD1339F935A15755C0A96F948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Alas, a week prior to that article, written in June 1989, Congress had appropriated money to reopen the New York Harbor System, but not ours. Why not?
Old black water, keep on rollin
Mississippi moon, wont you keep on shinin on me
Yeah, keep on shinin your light
The accident happened on the morning of July 23rd when the moon was in its waning gibbous phase, which means it appeared nearly full. Were the unlicensed tugboat operators listening to some Doobie Brothers and thinking the almost full moon would light their way?
Gonna make everything, pretty mama
Gonna make everything all right
And I aint got no worries
cause I aint in no hurry at all.
As I write this, only 3% of the sludge is cleaned up. We do have some worries, and we are in a hurry. But as usual, there’s a familiar lack of urgency around here. Same old, same old.
But maybe this disaster inspired or will inspire some just like Katrina did. In addition to the legislators who were here from all over the country at the time of the spill, over 100 young professionals also descended upon our fine city to talk about attracting more talent to New Orleans. “I can’t think of a better place to have this conference than in New Orleans, which has become a mecca for young people wanting to change the city,” said Carol Coletta, chief executive of CEOs for Cities, who organized the gathering with the local nonprofit NOLA YURP (Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals).
(http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2008/07/attracting_young_professionals.html)
Any chance you youngins can stay in town for another week and help us with our Sisyphusian ways? Just as we get to the peak of the metaphorical levees we’ve built to prove we are worthy of productive and positive newcomers like yourselves, the boulder of ineptitude rolls back down, right over us. Can you help us with your youthful, strong backs, to roll it back uphill?
Clean-up has become our middle name here in New Orleans. But cleaning up crime and cleaning up the river can’t be done by young urban professionals with an idealistic spark in their eyes. They are here to contribute to our overall joie de vivre and add substance to our sinking quality of life. They can bring their brains and their energy and new ideas but not necessarily the particular kind of expertise that can get us out of these large, sticky, messes. For that, we need leaders with a vision who will stay here. Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas will likely heading back to his hometown of Chicago next year, and who knows how long other highly paid, esteemed leaders brought here in our giddy recovery stages will stay for the long haul. While we may be receiving a wave of talented people in their twenties who may become the next generation of leaders, right now, we need deliberate and focused action by people who can commit to a decade of clean-up. Long after this particular spill is mopped up, we’ll be cleaning up various messes and we need sustainable and realistic solutions.
Ol mississippi, shes callin my name
Catfish are jumpin
That paddle wheel thumpin
Black water keeps rollin on past just the same.
The river will keep on moving, but will we and can we keep on moving in the new direction of change everyone promised post-Katrina? The barge accident is yet another wake-up call for a place that can no longer be saved by mere nostalgia for its past and hope for its future.
The Rand Corporation put the Port of New Orleans first on its list of focus areas for economic development. Let’s start there, and once our most crucial component to the City’s health is stabilized, then maybe we can return to feeling as laissez faire as the Doobie Brothers once did:
Well, if it rains, I dont care
Dont make no difference to me
Just take that street car thats goin up town
Yeah, Id like to hear some funky dixieland
And dance a honky tonk
And Ill be buyin evrybody drinks all roun.
Let’s wait to buy that round of drinks till it’s truly deserved.
© 2008