GA Russell

Happy Birthday AK!

Yesterday's (Sept. 6) USA Today had an article about TV shows on DVD. It made these points: - TV shows are the fastest-growing segment of the DVD business. - TV DVD accounts for nearly 25% of the entire DVD business. - TV DVD accounts for 13% of Netflix's volume, up from 10% last year.

Hooray! I should find one of my Pete Fountain records to play, to celebrate this.

I'm very sorry to see this. You rang? Oh, it's only you, Maynard.

Jim, you raise a good point. First let me say that to me the question is not whether it will be rebuilt, only to what extent and who will pay for it. If somebody wants to take his insurance money and build a new home on his property, it's perfectly OK with me. I wonder what the Louisiana law is regarding condemnation. Will we see the govt condemn the flooded homes for public health reasons, and allow the property owners to retain ownership? I have no problem with that. I am reminded of the Louisiana politics regarding the casino when you mention a land grab. In that case there was a divison between the state govt and the city govt. I can imagine that not only will those with state and city govt connections vie over a land grab, but also those with federal connections. I can foresee the recent case of Kelo v. New London coming into play here. That was the case whish said that a local govt can use eminent domain when its purpose is to garner more taxes. I can foresee the govt taking people's property against their wishes, and redeveloping New Orleans to the profit of those with political connections.

Congrats!

I have spoken with two high school classmates tonight, and they agree with me that many, perhaps all, of the homes in the flooded areas will have to be razed. We believe that the sewage in the water will permanently damage, perhaps infect with disease, these homes. I don't think the govt should rebuild New Orleans to the extent that it was a week ago. The country needs the port, and I expect the French Quarter will continue to be a tourist attraction. But I see the move of the past week of the population to Baton Rouge to become permanent. I believe that Baton Rouge will become the business as well as the political capital of Louisiana. In answer to your question, if New Orleans were not below sea level and not in the path of hurricanes, I would have a positive attitude toward the govt helping in rebuilding the city. But as it is, I think it would be a mistake to spend the taxpayers' money this way.

Thanks Guy. I just want to point out that my issue with the people of New Orleans does not concern who left and who stayed for Katrina. My opinion is about choosing to live there in the first place. Everyone regardless of economic class, except the children and (I suppose) the disabled and the very elderly, has had the opportunity ever since Hurricane Camille in '69 to do what I did - leave and not look back. That they chose not to move to a safer location (and I imagine almost everywhere in the US is safer than a below-sea level bowl in the path of hurricanes every year) suggests to me that they were not victims in the same way that the World Trade Center deceased were victims. By the way, I don't see the Politics Board, so I don't know what you people have been talking about over there. But my views about my hometown New Orleans have nothing to do with either race or the Bush administration.

OK, I have learned of this site, which may answer my question: http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/

I would like to see the conditions of my old home and those of friends in New Orleans. Would someone please give me a link? My understanding is that you can go somewhere in Google and type in an address, and see that address from the sky. But I haven't found it.

Thanks, Vibes.

Happy Birthday Jim! And thanks for providing the back room!

Wholeheartedly agree, Soul Stream!

Happy Birthday Sidewinder!

Chris, I'm not being heartless. My heart goes out to the poor without a means to escape who had to suffer those days in the heat without food or water, and without the knowledge of when help would arrive. My point is that New Orleanians are not like other people. They truly chose to make a bad bet. They chose to live in harm's way, unprepared. Maybe it's something that a New Yorker like yourself couldn't understand. Maybe you can't imagine that anyone would live like that, could be that foolish. By the way, I am referring to all the people of New Orleans, not just the poor whom we've seen on TV this past week. I just got off the phone with my best friend from high school, who has lived for the past thirty-three years in Ohio. He's more jaded than I am about it all. The incompetence from top to bottom in that city. New Orleanians are not victims of circumstance. They are not victims of an unforseeable disaster. They chose to live there, like I chose to leave. They didn't care that they were running a terrible risk, and now many of them from my old neighborhood have lost everything.

Glad to see Irma Thomas's name on the list. She had been reported as missing.

Ghost and Berrigan, thanks for posting those articles. They both ring true. Everyone in New Orleans, including the poor, understood that hurricanes and the flooding they cause are an annual threat to their homes, their incomes and their way of life including their life itself. As much as I think that the govt at all levels has done an unsatisfactory job, I believe that the ultimate blame should be borne by the people called the victims. They gambled with their eyes wide open, and they lost. Having left New Orleans for good 34 years ago, I have affection and concern for the people who stayed, but not a lot of sympathy for those who chose good times or familiar surroundings over their own safety and the safety of their loved ones.

Congratulations guys! I thought Tower had only one copy to sell.

Ron, someone instructed those people to go to the Convention Center, and that someone opened it up to them, and I suspect that that someone was the New Orleans city govt. There are 90,000 square miles of damage, and the federal govt can't be expected to know what is going on in every one of them if the local officials don't tell them. Someone from New Orleans dropped the ball and forgot to tell the feds, who in the person of Brown are operating out of Baton Rouge. But at least the New Orleans police are doing the best they can. What has the Louisiana state govt done? Not a thing that I am aware of. What contribution the governor has made to this I'm not aware of. At this point I would say that she has been completely useless. And speaking of New Orleans, why didn't they comandeer the school buses and the city buses to start getting people out? The mayor issued an evacuation order knowing that some people didn't have the means to get out on their own, and as far as I can tell he did nothing to help them.

Here's a sobering post from The Interdictor blog mentioned above: Now this is something that requires tact, and I do not have much experience with reporting, but I think the world needs to know how overwhelmed the police are out here: I have reports from 3 different police sources that 2 police officers have committed suicide. Out of respect for their families, I will not name them or go into detail. Truly tragic how bad things are. I sincerely hope I did the right thing in reporting this.

Minew, when it comes to Keystone Kops in govt, a New Orleanian would know one when he sees one!

I see this spammer has posted similarly at AAJ. http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread.php?t=10889

Jazz Kat, I saw him in '68 with Eddie Miller, and Jack Sperling on drums. Great show! I also saw him leading his Half Fast Marching Band down Bourbon Street on Mardi gras about '92.

This is from The Times-Picayune's website at nola.com: Pete Fountain, the world-renown Dixieland clarinetist and New Orleans institution, may be among Katrina’s victims, his sister fears. Dolores Materne of Metairie, who fled her Metairie home for Lafayette, says she hasn’t heard from her 75-year-old brother and his wife Beverly, who have homes in hurricane-flattened Bay St. Louis and on Swan Street near Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, since Katrina turned towards the central gulf coast. She has not been able to reach his three adult children, who live in Metairie and New Orleans. Materne last spoke with Fountain on Thursday Aug. 25, and he said he planned to head to the city on Sunday. She said he sometimes rides out storms at his house on Julia Street and North Beach Boulevard in Bay St. Louis, or at Casino Magic, where he relocated his regular New Orleans gig a few years back. He’s also been known to leave the area when a storm is approaching. “At times over the years he’s gone out of town,” she said. “More or less lately, he seems to be staying closer to home.”

Ron, I agree. That's my point. The New Orleans and Louisiana govts should have informed FEMA of the status quo, and they didn't. It looked to me like Brown did in fact learn of the Convention Center crowd from television. That shouldn't happen. For that matter, the Convention Center crowd apparently gathered two days before the television people began to report about it. Why didn't the TV people know about it? Why did they devote 100% of their reporting to the Super Dome?