Le Show; 2006-01-08

From deep inside your radio. Yes, it's beepless. Ladies, gentlemen, from the French quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana live. As you know, every edition of this broadcast is a very, very special edition. Much like network television. But this is a very special edition of the show. The program, as I said, is originating in New Orleans, Louisiana. It just occurred to me that there are conversations every night over dinner at parties and on the street where people are discussing in great detail and with great information what's going on in this city. And nobody outside New Orleans is privy to that. Until now, because I've invited three friends, acquaintances, passionate, informed people from various areas of the city to come in today and talk about New Orleans. And there will also be some regular features in the program.

Don't panic. But it's an opportunity for you guys to get in around the country and around the world to get in on what's really going on here as opposed to what Anderson Cooper is emoting about from time to time. And hey, George Bush is coming down too, speaking of emoting. Anyway, our guests in studio B. A. Interesting. So I must be in B. We'll have a meeting about that. Chris Rose, columnist for the New Orleans Times Pick of You and author of the forthcoming One Dead in Attic, available at ChrisRoseBooks.com in a couple of weeks. The plug is out of the way already, Chris. Thank you very much. My pleasure. I guess I can leave now. You can leave. Your car is waiting. Your car is revving. We do both owner, editor, co-owner, editor, and political columnist for Gambit Weekly, and T.I.Lade Martin, restaurant tour, commander's palace, and Cafe Adelaide here in New Orleans. Three people that I know who are, as I say, passionate, committed, and informed on the subject of this city.

Welcome you all. Good to be here. Thanks. Let me tee it off with what's in today's news, which is yesterday former mayor Mark Morial delivered himself of a speech in which he said, everybody from New Orleans should have the right to come back and rebuild where they are, where their house is. And this is in the face of an urban land institute report, which was submitted to the mayor a month and a half ago, saying New Orleans is going to be a smaller city with a smaller footprint. There are some areas that cannot and should not be rebuilt. And apparently there's a report coming to the mayor this week where a noted prominent local developer, Joe Kanazaro, says basically the same thing, smaller footprint. What do you see as the size, the future of New Orleans, the footprint, who can come back, where can they build? Well, I think everybody who wants to come back should be able to come back. This is Clancy Talk.

And, but it's easy, frankly, for someone like Mark Morial, for whom I have a great deal of respect and admiration. But it's easy for him and his comfortable perch now in New York to say, let my people return. He is now head of the Urban League. National Urban League. What have you? The immediate past mayor of New Orleans. But I speak as one whose home was not flooded. So it would be with a little bit of arrogance for me or anyone else to say, you can come back and you can. These neighborhoods should open and these shouldn't. It is a very difficult subject. But the numbers speak for themselves. We used to be a city of 630,000. We shrank to a city of about 462,000 in the year 2000. And now by all estimates in a year or two, we will be a city of between 250 and 300,000. We can certainly open up all the neighborhoods, let everybody come back and two out of every three houses or one out of every two houses will be abandoned and blighted. Is that the kind of city we want?

I think it's kind of interesting to hear Morial saying that because he's not running for office here that we know about. Now our mayor and our council members. Did you say running for running from? That's the case maybe. I think it's kind of counterproductive for our current mayor and folks here to keep trumpeting the notion that we will rebuild every home in every neighborhood. Because even if we did rebuild them all, they're just aren't people who are going to be able to live in them. There's a great number of people that don't want to come back. They're not going to come back. Do you believe them when they say, I mean, it's understandable they say that in the immediate aftermath of the pain and the trauma they've been through. But you think after a year or so of eating Houston food, they still mean that? Got me back quick. Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there's a great number won't come back. I have a lot of friends who are certainly not coming back. They're going for good. And I think there's a lot of folks like that. I think it's kind of counterproductive for our mayor to keep saying we're going to rebuild everywhere. I think it stands in the way of progress.

Logistically, you cannot physically or fiscally rebuild everywhere at once. You will so dilute the dollars that are available that it would take forever to get all of the neighborhoods back at one time. I think it's ridiculous and wimpy to go around as a leader of this city, any of us or anybody to say everybody come back and live wherever the heck you want. I mean, that is ridiculous. Nobody's got the courage to we pay these land institutes, you know, every, every expert, both local and national and international all come in. And they basically all given the exact same prognosis on how to do this, how to make the footprint. And not nobody here from the governor to the mayor to the city council members will embrace what they're telling us, what they're paying them. Every other city where this has happened, and the timespicking unit has covered this and they, in my opinion, are the best newspaper in the United States of America right now, because you cannot wait to wake up every day and get real information every day. And then the news programs have been great too, because it's no longer just a crime report. You get real news now. It's fabulous.

But wherever else has happened, whether it was Japan or the Netherlands or San Francisco, somebody came in and made hard decisions and said, I don't really care if I'm reelected. Here's the deal folks, and we're going to have to make some decisions, you know, based on just information and reality. And it's no fun, but until somebody does that, we're just going to go along going, well, you know, everybody come back and let's be, it's ridiculous. Okay, but the elephant in this particular living room is race. People are all over the internet saying there is a conspiracy to bleach New Orleans, and the areas that are not going to be rebuilt in the reports that have come out so far are targeted as the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans East, low lying areas, which were predominantly African American. You're forgetting Lakeview, because there's a very. No, I'm just saying what they know even the U.L. I report exclusively cut up cut up. No, it cuts a big hole of Lake out of Lakeview and says, don't rebuild here. It's too low. I have friends in Lakeview whose homes took nine to 11 feet of water. And that's in the part of Lakeview.

Lakeview is a predominantly white upscale, but not super upscale, you know, upper middle class business and professional class neighborhood upscale. Nice. But it's where a lot of white folks live in New Orleans, okay, in the city limits. And there are homes there that got 11 feet of water. And that is part of a footprint that the U.L. I said, don't rebuild here. Right. Turn into green space. It's the housing really has to be addressed. It is the biggest issue in rebuilding. It's hard to decide which of the issues is the biggest, but it's huge in our industry, the hospitality industry. There's nowhere for anybody to live. And so, and that goes across all races. And, but you're right. I know how it's getting characterized. And that's a shame. And it does need to be addressed, but we also just have got to be realistic. Well, the conspiracy notion, it's such a canard. First of all, if the idea is to bleach the African American population out of New Orleans, did anybody inform Baton Rouge in Houston that we were doing this? Because, you know, and you know, the political power structure is African American. The voting power structure is African American. So whose conspiracy is this? I'm guessing it's not George Bush because most of our African American population is wound up in Texas. So I'm guessing it's not him who asked this plan.

That's a very good point. And the only the only the commission that hired the ULI to do the study was appointed by our African American mayor, Ray Nagan. And, you know, the only actually the only support for conspiracy theory that they did in fact bomb the levees to run African Americans out is that it actually ran 200,000 white people out of town too. So failed so miserably. That way I figure it does have FEMA's footprints all over it. Well, you know, the the question is, I'm one of the facts about that area, the Lower Knife Awards specifically that I find amazing as a citizen sometime of another part of the country is among all low income neighborhoods. It stands. I think unique in its rate of home ownership. It's like what 60% about that much owner occupied. And so when you talk about that neighbor, you're talking about telling people you can't come back and rebuild on your own property.

That's correct. Right. And that's that's part of what makes it a really tough decision. But the same you have even higher percentage of home ownership and lake view. And we're in the area where they're telling people you can't rebuild. And then, yeah, half a mile away from the Lower Ninth Ward going in the same direction, which is east. You have St. Bernard Parish. Or we call them parishes, not counties, but St. Bernard Parish, which is overwhelmingly white, which had more water. And there was virtually not a dry square inch in St. Bernard Parish. They had some arrow. They had all kind of spilled oil from Murphy, Murphy refinery. So they only had lots and lots of water. I mean, like 15 to 20 feet in places, but they didn't have Anderson Cooper. God bless them. No, I'm saying they didn't see TV cameras. Yeah, St. Bernard was actually the overlooked, not by the timespicking and not by my paper, but by the national media. St. Bernard was the overlooked stepchild. They had the worst devastation. The entire parish was wiped out.

This is this was an equal opportunity. And a high percentage, a high percentage of home ownership and a lot of those people have already chosen not to come back. And maybe that's the difference. They chose. Yeah. So, you know, you see suggestions that what's really going to happen eventually is that some some mechanism is, mechanism mechanism is going to be put in place where market forces are going to sort of nudge people in the direction of, I guess I can't go back there because you can't buy insurance because there will be flood maps issued by the federal government saying this is a flood plain and this is going to flood again. And so insurance companies won't ensure you and mortgage companies won't lend to you. And the decision will be made that way. Well, it won't be quite market. It'll be a combination of it'll be sort of a government regulated market and that FEMA will issue the flood maps. That's step one. The picking you this morning had a great article very long very in depth and very detail that FEMA will issue these flood maps and that will then start the domino effect that ultimately will become a financial decision because there will be no insurance market.

People will not be able to afford to raise their house and rebuild because it will cost a lot more. And you're right that that could well be what what ultimately happens. Because nobody has as T mentioned the guts to stand up and say look this is not a wise move to try to rebuild here. But we have other parts of town that are going to be rebuilt and they're higher and they have great housing stock and will help you move from that neighborhood to this neighborhood so we can all be kind of closer to each other and in the quote new footprint. We're just going to let those market forces is going to take longer to get to the same result. I just don't understand why everybody doesn't want to live closer to the whole foods anyway why they just don't want to compact everybody towards uptown well let me. Yeah me too me too let's get that back while we're at night the word it's it's 25 minute drive to whole foods. Let me let me conclude this segment by asking a less policy driven question but just a question about the New Orleans that we've known and loved is a more compact city a city where people are living closer together inevitably going to mean the end of a city of shotguns and that's a form of house here as well as anything else.

And cottages and a city more of town homes pardon the expression god I hope not. I don't think so because a lot of the area in central city which is relatively high has the same architecture fact it's older more historic. No but I mean if you're going to bring more people in you got to put some put no yeah a lot of vacant units there. You need more density is what you're saying yeah but a lot of the plans that I've seen are are are using kind of the best of old architecture and not only old architecture though and trying to do new things to update it to today which is exciting to me. I don't think a lot of people in this town are going to let it just go boom be a row of town homes like you're in Houston. I don't see that happening and let's hope not. There's a lot of really good housing stock in the city for getting Chris go ahead. Yeah I don't know if the idea of for for shrinking the footprint is to to move folks into available housing that's already there all through mid city and gentily is the classic old New Orleans architecture and I don't even really know the name of it but the the Creole cottage is a shotgun houses.

There are still 20 I mean hundreds of thousands of those left I'm not sure whether the the ideas to rebuild new residences for the people where they won't rebuild or to try to relocate into areas where. The houses exist they need work they all took water but it's still there good jobs for roofers Chris. Clancy T standby will continue this conversation but first ladies and gentlemen a copyrighted feature this broadcast. The apologies of the week. Some good wins this week ladies and gentlemen and uncharacteristically humble government Arnold Schwarzenegger of California apologized to the voters of the state Thursday night proposing a series of policies that represented dramatic return to the political center after his ill-fated lurch to the right last year.

It's true I was in too much of a hurry and I've learned my lesson Schwarzenegger said and dressed from the assembly chamber broadcast here state wide I didn't hear the majority of Californians when they were telling me they didn't like I'm not going to do his back. When they told me they didn't like the special election I barreled ahead anyway when I should have listened to my fellow Californians I say quote message received unquote Arnold Schwarzenegger. In almost half of USA today's editions on Wednesday USA today said in editor's note it was reported that 12 of the 13 trapped West Virginia miners had been found alive. The seronious report was based on an associated press story citing an interview with West Virginia governor Joe Manchin. The documentation proved inadequate and fell short of US today USA today's I'll read it correctly now professional standards USA today regrets the errors. In a heavily scripted court appearance Jack Abramoff agreed with US district judge Ellen who Vell when she said he had engaged in a conspiracy involving quote corruption of public officials.

Quote words will never be able to express my sorrow and my profound regret for all my actions and mistakes Abramoff said to the judge I hope I can merit forgiveness from the Almighty and those I've wronged are caused to suffer. He's agreed to make an estimated $25 million in restitution to his victims including an Indian tribe here in Louisiana. Walmart apologized this week after its retail website directed potential buyers of Charlie in the chocolate factory and planet of the apes DVDs to also consider purchasing DVDs with African American themes. The world's largest retailer said in a statement that it was quote heart sick. Meaning Walmart has a heart that can get sick over the operationally offensive grouping and that the site was linking quote seemingly random combinations of titles. Says Mona Williams vice president of corporate communications for Walmart quote it's just simply not working correctly unquote company said it was alerted to the problem after word began spreading among bloggers.

Those damn bloggers. Norway's finance minister Kristen Halverson publicly apologized for her earlier call on citizens to boycott Israeli products. Call drew fierce criticism from Israel wow imagine that Halverson's call was made in a capacity as party leader of one of two parties which formed the government together with the labor party. It has never been and never will be the position of the Norwegian government to advocate any such policy towards Israel says. Foreign minister Jonas Gar store. In other international apologies Canadian liberal leader Paul Martin is apologized for the head tax policy that charged immigrants up to $500 to enter Canada. Do I regret this? Yes. Do I apologize? Yes. He also told a newspaper he felt deep sorrow about the issue. It was a Chinese newspaper.

It's mainly Chinese immigrants that are paying the money. Imagine paying money to get into Canada must be desperate. Baton Rouge Louisiana car dealer who tried to bribe a federal court clerk for documents detailing a secret grand jury investigation into his drug business will spend more than 70 years behind bars. Former superior pre-owned auto sales owner Rodney C Vincent was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison. The judge called his attempt to bribe a federal court clerk a very serious offense. Vincent apologized for his crimes and his sins and said he is ashamed of the person I was before I came to jail. My words are very sincere. I will never buy, sell or be involved with drugs as long as I live. I'll take jail over hell any day. Unquote. And date line Istanbul officials in Turkey apparently did not report the bird flu outbreak there. The village of I'm not going to pronounce the name of this village last month, despite indications that birds and the vicinity had contracted the disease.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended the government's response. Well, you always defend your government's response. But as Justice Minister who also serves as spokesman for the ruling party, Friday apologized for having denied that bird flu had infected a human and for questioning the motives of those issuing the report. If my statement was not satisfactory, said the Justice Minister, I apologize. If there was any imprudence, I apologize. I apologize to my nation. That's an if apology, ladies and gentlemen. It gets only half credit, but it's the apologies of the week. And it is a copyrighted feature of this broadcast. Our guests sitting in studio A, Clancy Dubose, editor and chief political columnist of the Agambit Weekly, Chris Rose, columnist for the New Orleans time pick you. It's more than one time at the pick you and a restaurateur T Martin, T Adelaide Martin, our back in session. And I want to ask you three, just sort of an overall question that might inform people around the country who get this stream of largely inaccurate news about New Orleans. What in your estimations, and we'll start with T and work around to Chris and then Clancy, what's the best thing that's going to happen?

Or what are the best things that are going on in New Orleans right now? And what are the worst things? The single best thing is that the weirdo's are returning, which was a huge fear of mine. The gutter punks? Well, they're there, you know, but really at first everybody looked alike and they look like they were from Texas with cowboy boots or anyway, but not our people. But they're returning people who make this city great, just walking around the corner here today, you know, just a charming older black gentleman with a hat on his bike and, you know, just a character. So they're coming back. But seriously, I think the best thing happening in New Orleans now is citizen leadership that there has not been enough agreement among the political leaders. And honestly, I mean, everybody's in some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, I think, and so you can put it off to that. But we have not had enough leadership. So finally, the citizens have just stood up and coalesced around the most important issues.

I mean, these gals got together and the business council, everybody said, you know what, levees are the most important thing. We've got to fix the levees. No businesses are coming back, et cetera, et cetera. Nobody wants to live here until we do it. And they set out to get 10,000 signatures and got 50,000 in like less than a month. And that issue has really moved forward. Now they're moving on. People are coalescing around the other most important issues. So, and great things have happened in education, et cetera. The citizen leadership has been amazing. And I hope it never stops. And I hope when we look back five or 10 years from now, we will say that is the amazing thing that happened here in this city. Maybe we'll do nine or 10 things right. You know, maybe we'll get it right when it comes to where the housing stock should be and how to be fair about providing that to the different diverse groups. But people who would have never spent any time going to meetings and gathering and doing, they're doing it. And it's working. And, you know, the old definition of a politician is a ban leader who sees which way the ban is going and gets in front. Well, now the politicians are seeing which way the citizens are going and they're coming around to some of what absolutely has to happen.

So, that to me is a glorious, rather new development in New Orleans. I went on the subject of that. I went to the meeting on Thursday of that organization led by those uptown ladies. And I've been to a lot of civic meetings, unfortunately, in my life. And I must say this was the most well organized, focused, clear, and blessed with great brevity civic meeting. I've ever attended. It was four speakers, including Mr. Dubos. A lot of questions from the audience. Not a single one off topic, not a single crazy tangent leading. You know, we have to spend four precious, 40 precious minutes wrestling this tangent to the floor before we can get back to the subject. None of those kind of questions. And you were out in an hour and five minutes ready to do your business. I was very impressed with that. What are the worst things that are going on here now? The opposite of that. You know, the lack of cohesion with the leadership is very disappointing.

Whether it's, you know, trying to get together in Washington, what we need to do or locally. And I know and like a lot of these folks. And I think some of that is coming around. I really do. And I know Mary Landry, for instance, is working very hard on the oil and gas royalties. Things as our gender and bitter and whatnot. So I think a lot of that is coming around. But that has been the worst thing. The oil and gas royalties thing explained that issue a little bit. Sorry, long story short, you know, one third of the oil that goes to the United States comes through Louisiana. And we do not get the amount of oil royalties off of that oil and gas that other states do like Texas. So if we got the same percentage as they do, we wouldn't have to ask the government for money all the time to fix the levies, restore the wetlands. We could take care of ourselves permanently. And it's just the way these things came down over the years as the deals 60 years ago with local politicians. I mean, it's really unfair. We are not looking for a handout. We're looking for a fair shake.

And so people are coalescing around these issues. So the Louisiana can take care of itself with its own money. Let me add one other historical or even current footnote to that. If you drill a well on federal lands and say Wyoming, Wyoming gets 50% of the royalties. If you drill in federal waters off the coast of Louisiana, Louisiana gets almost nothing. In some cases, nothing. And it's a fairness question. If the same well drilled off the coast of Texas brings royalties to Texas and in Mississippi and in Alabama, Louisiana is alone among the Gulf states that gets either nothing or close to nothing from federal offshore drilling. Okay, Chris, the best things are going on here in the world. The best thing going on in New Orleans, I think, right now is the display of the triumph of the individual human spirit. As manifested through creative cultural expression in English, what I mean is that New Orleans sounds and smells like New Orleans again. Almost all of the significant music clubs are up and operating almost all of the significant restaurants in town are up and running again. And they're packed every night.

The community here is supporting it on mass. One reason for that is a lot of people have to go to restaurants because they don't have gas service, they don't have refrigerators, things like that. Conspiracy by the restaurant industry. And the people are going to the music clubs because if you live in this town right now, the notion of watching a rerun of Will and Grace on television is just such a mind-boggling notion. If you listen to David Letterman's monologue at night, it's a disconnect. We're having trouble keeping up with pop culture and what's going on everywhere else. But the music is back very strong and getting stronger every day. The restaurants are here and cooking and we do this not for the tourism trade. We do this because we like it and we support it. But what is so significant about this is this is what everybody else likes to come here to do. And that element is here for now people to come and enjoy. People say we shouldn't try to base our economy on tourism, but I'm pretty sure that's what we've done for the last 50 years.

So the best thing is that we are beginning to feel like New Orleans again in the areas that are open and dry. The island. It's called the Island Bermuda. Isn't it the same size as Bermuda? It's six miles long, one mile wide just doesn't have the good golf courses. And the worst things are going on right now. I think for me, I see it is mostly an anxiety about two things. I think one is the human element. I think what lies ahead of us are a series of slow, small, rippling effects of foreclosures, bankruptcies, broken marriages, a sort of ripple effect of despondency through the community that I somewhat fear and has manifested itself already our suicide rate is a little off the charts right now. And actually, my biggest fear of all is the FEMA trailer parks, which is an extremely hot button topic here. My biggest problem with them is if you go look at them, they look like prisons.

They're fenced in. The trailers are all piled up one on top of each other. It looks like a recipe for for desolate living conditions. And I don't know whose idea it was to pave over every playground in the city of New Orleans and put the trailer parks there, thereby giving the children the only place for them to go is now in the streets that are filled with garbage and wreckage and sheet rock and abandoned vehicles. I'm not sure whose idea that was, but I don't really think it was a good one. It seems to me that the trailer park should be surrounding the playgrounds. But anyway, my big fear is is what happens when we when we start moving people into these pretty, they're get us. They get us. They put up fences around them and paved it all in and it doesn't look good. I wouldn't want to live there. Clancy, same question.

Last night, Harry, you and I were out in the warehouse ought to district and I think that to me is typical of what Chris and T both talked about the city coming back to life. The first Saturday of every month in New Orleans in the evening, the art galleries downtown in the warehouse ought to district have their new shows and literally thousands of people turn out and just roam from gallery to gallery drinking bad wine and admiring the art. And then we go out to eat at Emeralds and Tommy's and lots of other wonderful places. And last night, I had to wait an hour and a half to get a table and I was thanking God for every minute of it because we were back. And that's a really important cultural practice, if you will. It's an institution really going out to the galleries once a month. The clubs are open, the restaurants, we had some of our fabulous restaurants open just this past week and more and more of them are going to reopen. You know, little bit, little mob and pop businesses are reopening, not just the big ones. And I think that really speaks volumes about the resiliency and it's Chris call it the triumph of the human spirit.

People in New Orleans, we've been through, I heard somebody of a statistic, 27 epidemics in our history, yellow fever and malaria over and over again. You know, this is just one more we'll deal with this. This is the one that's been televised around the world, but we've had more than two dozen prior to this. We've come back before we're going to come back from this and we I see us coming back. And I think that's just wonderful. Okay, and the worst things things are going on. I agree with what teen Chris said that the disconnect between leadership and our political so-called leaders, you know, they're squabbling. Nobody's having the guts to stand up and say, this is what we need to do, you know, make a decision, even if it's wrong, make a dog on decision, and let's rally around it. And that is having a really bad socio-economic effect on New Orleans because it's their indecision is causing this simmering, you know, race and class issue to boil. And they need to just make the decision and we'll all deal with it. And then they can run for reelection, neither win or lose. I think one reason why they're so afraid is because our elections have been delayed. They were supposed to be February 4th with a runoff on March 4th.

They're now going to be we think in April. And so the citywide, the mayor and the city council are trying to just hold their breath and whistle past the graveyard and hope they get past the elections and then make a decision. Isn't it interesting how phrases that have been metaphorical for all of our lives now suddenly have a literal meaning like whistle past the graveyard. And I was going to say and introducing you, Clancy, that this man's such an expert on Louisiana politics. He knows where all the bodies are buried. And then I thought better of it. It's been there's a delegation going over to the Netherlands now led by Senator Mary Landry, taking business leaders and political officials. This is mid January. Anybody who cared about this issue knew about the Netherlands in October. Is this the time lag that's typical of what's going on here that it took a month to January to organize a trip to the Netherlands? Yes.

Okay. Good. It's typical short answer. Yeah. Good. I don't know. I think people even before the storm thought we should have, you know, hash bars in the French quarter. Why were just deciding to emulate. I go Dutch every night, man. I don't know about you. The Dutch culture now. Okay. Let me ask one other. Sorry. We're talking about levies. Yeah. Sorry. I have one other question that I think is on a lot of people's minds outside New Orleans that we should tackle in this segment. Health. Is it healthy to be here? People ask me that all the time. No. Next question. I mean physically. Chris, everybody listening to this across the country does not know that you're nuts and that you're being silly. It's fine to be here. Yes. Yes. They do. They still ask about the water and the whatever. The water is apparently fine. It doesn't taste as good as it used to, but anyway. It's fine to be here. If you hang out with the mold and, you know, ripping out sheet rock, you get the Katrina Crud. But otherwise, it's absolutely fine. The air smells a lot better now than it did in early October. A gorgeous, gorgeous day. But Harry, can I ask you a question?

Would you repeat what you were saying to me the other night when we were having a little cocktail that there is a double message that New Orleans has to give about, you know what I'm talking about? About itself. Yeah. You mean that we're here and we're back and you can come. And there's great fun things to do. And it's gorgeous here today. And then there's still a lot of devastation and both things are true. And most news stories aren't able to cover more than even one half of that. I think that's the big button on the Mardi Gras issue. We want to have Mardi Gras. We want to embrace our traditions, embrace our history, announce to the world that we are still here. We're alive. And we want to embrace our cultural touchdown. And I guess everybody's worried that Anderson Cooper and everyone else are going to say, hey, look, they're fighting over plastic beads in the streets and flashing in the streets. Mission accomplished. Mission accomplished. But it's a necessary evil. We do have to send two messages on one hand. We do have to be on our knees before Congress and corporations and anyone else who can help us to say, hey, we're beat up.

I think, you know, maybe even going back to the first segment on the show, I'm not sure just to to let the listeners know I don't think you announced the statistic. Am I correct? 80% of our housing stock is destroyed or no adversely or or or profoundly affected to the point where you cannot live there. And I think you were speaking about our population before the storm. We probably had 460,000 people sleeping here on typical night. Prior to Christmas holidays, we had about 60,000. I think that's probably doubled over the holidays as schools are reopening this month. We had a big influx of people, but we're still missing 75% of our homes and and probably 60 to 75% of our people, which is a profound notion. Anybody looked out the window of their town right now and looked up and down the street and thought if 75% of it all went away, now a lot of people might like that idea in the communities, but the indiscriminate devastation here is mind-boggling. We do need people to know that, but we do need to let them know that we're not rolling over.

We could talk about Mardi Gras a little bit because I was thinking about this. I want to give a disclaimer. I'm on the board of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. I'm not in the hospitality industry, but I do sit on that on the CVB board and there are CVBs all over the country that do the same thing that we do. We promote the idea that you should come to our town and visit and enjoy yourself and spend a lot of money. The message that we send with Mardi Gras has to be very carefully articulated and that is that we are a city that has endured hardship throughout our history. That's why we have Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is not just an orgy or a drunk. It is actually a celebration of life. It has its roots in paganism as well as Christianity. It is a celebration of life over death and you can attach as little or as much spiritual significance to that as you want, but it is a statement about the human spirit and the New Orleans spirit. Now more than ever, I think it is very important for New Orleans to celebrate life, to celebrate its life.

And yes, the devastation is all around us. It was here today. It is going to be there for a few more months, but in the meantime, we are going to celebrate the fact that at least those of us who are here are here and we are alive and we are not giving up. That is the message of this year's Mardi Gras. All right, I want to get more into cultural matters and if you will, the future of the soul of New Orleans, T Martin, Clancy Dubos and Chris Rose take a break, get some diet coke into you, and we will continue the broadcast with another copyrighted feature. News from outside the bubble. Not quite outside the bubble, but just as good as you're watching TV. A report by Congress's research arm concluded this week that the administration's justification for warrantless eavesdropping conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments. That is the Congressional Research Services report.

Rebutting the central assertions made by Bush and his attorney general about the president's authority to conduct warrantless wiretaps. But even more interestingly, when President Bush signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, ladies and gentlemen, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law, the law that he was signing under his powers as Commander-in-Chief. After approving the bill, Bush issued a signing statement, an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a law declaring that he'll view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers. To protect national security, this means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said. Three Republican senators condemned that assertion. John Warner, a Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee Senator John McCain, issued a joint statement rejecting this assertion that he can waive the restrictions on cruel inhuman and degrading treatment against detainees. The White House did not return calls asking about the senators opposition to the signing statement, which I don't know. Me, it sounds like the kind of policy, you know, I'll go along with this, but I'll issue a clarification saying that I won't.

It just sounds like a policy that we can all adopt in troublesome areas of our lives, don't you think? Tarture is Tarture no more. The ceiling is now on the floor. It's amazing what you can do if you don't mind the cost, just as long as your fingers are crossed. The law is the law so they say it was true right up through today. You can mess with the salad once it's been tossed.

The lesson your fingers are crossed. When life tries to stand in your way and hostility lingers, just pretend to give in. Keep on crossing your fingers. A man's got to do what he can. Our evil will succeed in its plan.

My oath was that freedom will never be lost. Just remember, my fingers were crossed. When your troops are attacked, the comics, the writers, the singers, it's the time when the strong and the truth start crossing their fingers. Tarture is Tarture no more. The ceiling is now on the floor. It's amazing what you can do if you don't mind the cost. Just as long as your fingers are crossed.

This is Lesho from New Orleans and some good news, ladies and gentlemen, the real cost of the United States of the war in Iraq is likely to be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, up to 10 times more than previously thought. The study expanded on traditional estimates by including such costs as lifetime disability and health care for troops injured in the conflict, impact on the American economy, including the US government is continuing to underestimate the cost of the war. This is in the British newspaper, the Guardian. Of course, it's appeared on all of our media in this country because it's important.

The owner, editor, political columnist of the Gambit Weekly in New Orleans and Chris Rose columnist for the New Orleans Times Picky Un, it seems to me that it's almost inevitable in a period like this. New Orleans is a place. It's exciting. It's not dangerous in the sense of the crime that we had before, but it's, you know, you drive down the streets and there's still an awful lot of debris and awful lot of stuff you have to avoid. There are a lot of potholes, there are wires dangling down in certain areas that you have to... It's a challenging urban environment. Let's put it that way. And it seems to me that the city might be attracting, in addition to those who are coming home, a certain group of folks who want to come into a challenging and opportunity-filled urban environment. Is there a danger that we're going to have a population in two or three years that doesn't know how things are done in New Orleans? You know what I mean?

I at least, one of the things I love about this city is the sense that there is a meaning to almost every day here. And there's a way things are done, not just in terms of politics, hopefully that's changing. Can you change that and retain this sense of, here's how we do things in this city that's different from every other city in the country. Anybody want to grapple with that? That sounds like a crisp question. Chris, it's your question. I'm not sure exactly what you mean on a couple points. I mean, I don't know what the influx of people is going to be into this town, but I can tell you right now, they're going to need money. Because one of our biggest problems is there's no affordable housing stock here. You would think that this environment might attract poets and artists and musicians who might want to come be a part of certainly what stands to be the most exciting and challenging urban revitalization project. What did I say? Rebuilding. Rebuilding. But as for people coming in, you need a lot of money right now. Rents have gone up. There's not a lot of places to live. As far as changing ways, I don't know. I think we're almost impervious to change and have proven so for a long time.

I think any restaurant that ever tried to feature red beans and rice as they're lunch special on Tuesday instead of Monday was out of business within six weeks. If it took that long to tag on to what Christian said, I think the type of quote new people who come here will be coming here looking for what New Orleans has traditionally offered. They will want to become part of how we do things and they will learn it. They will contribute to it. It's resistant to change, but it does evolve over time with each successive wave of immigrants that we've had here, whether it's the Irish, the Italians, Africans, Caribbean, whoever, Mediterranean. There is a way of doing things here and I don't think it will change. I think the type of new folks who come, maybe I'm being naive, but I think the urban pioneers will want to come here because they're attracted to at least the idea of New Orleans.

When they get here, they'll get a dose of the reality and they leave the stay and adapt. Well, they'll leave, which is what has happened for eons. That's it. The understanding, Harry, is that we change you. You can't change us. Even even for the better. The city is like a character in your life, you know, unlike other cities where you could live in Kansas or Houston. I mean, I don't mean to criticize. We have a wonderful business and never has a city. One city been better to another city than Houston was to New Orleans. I feel during this and. And Baton Rouge and Lake Charles, people have amazing amazing, but people don't feel about those cities the way people who live here and want to live here and like you Harry come and then decide you just have to have a home here, you know, feel about it. It's self is like another member of your family. And I've always felt that, you know, people talk about why is New Orleans so unique in the food, the architecture, the music, of course, but it is really a way of life. A way of thinking about life in that I think the thing that we've been kind of ahead of the rest of the country on is that we understand that life is meant to be lived.

You don't just, you're not just here existing. You are meant to enjoy this life. And New Orleans do that more than most people day in and day out, I feel like. And so if you come from some, you know, overly hard working place and come here, we'll fix that in you right away. Well, I guess I'm asking because, you know, part of what we're seeing now, certainly from the national government, such as it is, is a call for a change in the political culture of this state and this city. And certainly a lot of people, the Uptown ladies are leading that movement we were talking about earlier T. I heard words get applause at that meeting on Thursday that I never would have dreamed would have gotten applause in New Orleans words like transparency in government. Can you change one part of the culture without changing the rest of the culture will New Orleans inevitably become more American as, as this thing plays out?

Let me talk to the political aspect of the Harry. I've always bristled when people say, oh, you know, you can't really change it because it's part of our culture. Bologna, you know, gumbo is still going to be made the same way if we have honesty in government. Wait a minute, Bologna gumbo. Well, okay, maybe not Bologna period pause gumbo our gumbo. It's big and Milwaukee. T is not going to change any of her recipes if she can go down a city hall and get the permit in one stop to open up as opposed to, you know, having the host of fundraiser for some city council member or whatever, you know, we got to separate the political culture from the real culture. So my take is, you know, we're going to be a city with a great soul and a great sound and a great smell and all the great things about it and we can have we can have honest government and I do think that's changing. By the way, the committee that we all keep talking about is called the committee for one greater New Orleans and their focus has been getting one levy board for all of Southeast Louisiana as opposed to each parish or sub parish having its own levy district and vulcanizing the whole regional needs.

For a flood protection and they are very focused and my talk that I gave to them was don't stop at the levies go fix everything else once you do that and I think there is a real. It gets back to what T said earlier there's a real. Activism sense of new found civic activism among people in New Orleans taking control of things and leading let them having the politicians follow I think. I think our political culture can change I think the seeds of change are there right now I think the city elections will go part of the way towards that but it needs it's a process that needs to go on for maybe 10 or 20 years. This is I used to say New Orleans is probably the only city in the United States would have that would have elected its local ahead of its local cable system to dog catch our little on mayor. Now I think it's probably the only city in the United States that's praying for local elections.

In the moments we have left we've been talking about levy boards and this gets to I think the what I still think despite the heroic efforts of the times picking you in a lot of other journalists in this town is the great untold story of New Orleans which is it was not a natural disaster. Thank you. It was a man made disaster and I'm interested in in first why New Orleans politicians don't stand up and Louisiana politicians don't stand up as one and say that to the federal government. You've got to fix us and to can you explain the what responsibility either the fractionated or the United levy boards has vis-a-vis the flood walls that breached anybody wants to tackle that well first of all it needs to be repeated this was not a man not a natural disaster it was a man made disaster it was made by Congress and their Army Corps of Engineers Congress by not appropriating enough money and the Corps of Engineers by the by their defective design and construction. Of the flood walls they've taken after our local levy boards and look there I've done it it's not even very sporting it's like fish in a barrel.

But let me say this they're good eating those one one flood wall that did not breach is the flood wall along a street called Marconi there's a drainage canal there called the Orleans outfall canal it's one of three or four major drainage canals that go from the heart of the city Northwood into Lake Pontchartrain. That flood wall was designed and built by the Orleans levy board with what's called a tea wall. The Orleans levy boards engineer was fired because he told the core you shouldn't put an eye wall ironically named eye wall for the flood walls along the 17th street canal and the London Avenue connect which are supposedly less robust right there are less really strong yeah and they fired him. And they in the eye walls designed and built by the Corps of Engineers broke. And the tea wall designed and built by the levy boards former engineer held in other words the locally engineered ones held and the ones that the federal government is responsible for we made it through the hurricane just fine. It was then the then the levy's broke the ones maintain the federal government levies didn't break the flood walls that's another key point the earth and levies which is what we really need held the water did not go over the levies in most of the city it went over the levies in the far eastern part of New Orleans thanks to another U.S. Army Corps engineers project mr. go mr.

Why is it been so difficult to get that message out to the nation as a whole message has gotten out it just hasn't been listened to by Congress. You think you think the meat you think people outside New Orleans understand that this was a man made disaster no they do not I think that also the magnitude of the disaster I think a lot of people and here I think there's a delusional sense here in New Orleans that we took the hit and we're going to be fine look the garden district made it the French quarter make it we took the hit we didn't take the hit this was a category three storm that made landfall and Mississippi. I'm not sure a lot of people realize coastal Mississippi. Yeah we didn't take anything close to the hit and this storm was north of Jackson Mississippi when people started dying here. You know that that being the man made portion there the storm didn't kill anyone in New Orleans unless they were standing on a rooftop and got knocked off but the fatalities began racking up when that storm was was was way up in Mississippi.

Okay just just as we're closing why why are no I don't think I can recall one instance even when the mayor and the governor both went up to Washington to testify where any. The local Lee or state elected official just stood up and said you broke us you got to fix this is not a pity date this is this is for real you always. We sure wish they would do that and I like the way you phrase it Harry but the country they don't they don't get it and they don't really understand the magnitude of it they do not. They don't want to get it because then it means they got to they got to put up a big check to fix us and the Congress doesn't want to do that and not to defend our politicians but I think the governor blanco and mayor niggand tried to get that message out but when they got there it was a congressional hearing. For for all these congressmen and senators and other parts of the country to get on their soap boxes and point their fingers at us and say why didn't you evacuate faster well you know what the evacuation would have been totally unnecessary if the federal federally designed levies I'm sorry federally designed flood walls had held.

It didn't matter we could have all stayed home except for far eastern New Orleans and safe and art parish if they had just built the dog on flood walls correctly. Chris any closing thoughts on this. Well after all this guys it doesn't have to be on this just closing thoughts because we're almost out of time closing thoughts you know anyone is listening. Save up some money come visit us come down here tip generously. Take public transportation read the paper read the paper you know by all the paper there's my closing talk can I do this real quick the media has you know I'm going to give the give the salutations to the media even though two two of us in here are part of the room. I think we've carried the day I think it's it's strange times in the city that the media who people like to pick on are the only voices of reason.

That are resonating through this community while our political political leaders. Flounder it is interesting times here know the dot com which is the times pickings website. In the 10 days after the storm was averaging 30 million hits a day. For people getting information and that's more than Jenna Jamison gets you know when when a newspaper websites getting more than porn. The world has turned upside down turn. A good thought to end on Chris Rose author of one dead and attic available Chris Rose books dot com very soon. Clancy Dubos of the gambit weekly and T. Adelaide Martin of commanders palace and cafe Adelaide. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and your passion for this great city. Thank you. Thank you. I conclude this week's edition of the show the program returns next week at the same time over these same stations. The show comes to you from New Orleans Louisiana today and my thanks to Bob Dunn a tip of the show shoppo to the San Diego and Pittsburgh desks. The show playlist when we play lists available at harry cheerer dot com.

The show comes to you from century of progress productions and originates through the facilities of KCRW Santa Monica community recognized around the world as the home of the homeless. So long from New Orleans.