January 2006 Archives

Interesting concept, Google-bombing the terms Roe v. Wade and abortion so that they present objective information.

Perley A. Thomas streetcar 932, running outbound on S. Carrollton Avenue towards Claiborne Terminal.

The City of Carrollton was one of the first suburbs of New Orleans. Located in one of the turns of the Mississippi River that make New Orleans the "Crescent City," Carrollton was a separate town in 1834, when a group of businessmen decided to begin passenger rail service from downtown to Carrollton via Nyads Street (now St. Charles Avenue). Eventually, the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad Company expanded their operations to what is now Carrollton Avenue, building a car barn on Willow Street.

Today, the neighborhood known as Carrollton is vibrant and bustling. It's part of what radio talkshow host Garland Robinette likes to call the "sliver along the river" that came back fastest a While the 900-series won't be operational back on Carrollton Avenue until the end of this year, RTA is operating bus service to Carrollton via the Freret, Magazine, and St. Charles lines.

This photo is a scene that has repeated itself since the 1920s, when the 900-series started service on St. Charles. 932 is on the outbound leg of the run, which started at Carondelet and Canal, and will end at S. Carrollton and S. Claiborne Avenues. In the background, one of the 400-series Riverfront cars is heading inbound. The "red lady" will make the big left turn at St. Charles Avenue and head to Canal Street. Once there, she'll switch to the center-inbound Canal Street track and go up to the Riverfront trackage.

I don't get it...it seems to me like the screen on a mobile phone is way too small to enjoy watching porn on it:

It may never be quite that easy. But cellphone pornography is a fast-growing business that analysts expect will generate about $2 billion in global revenue by 2009.

And porn-on-the-go was the focus of a two-day Mobile Adult Content Congress that wrapped up in Miami Thursday amid expectations, according to at least some participants, that it will soon catch on in the United States.

Consumers already spend tens of millions of dollars a year on cellphone-based adult content in Europe where companies such as mobile-phone giant Vodafone Group Plc — or "Vodafilth" as it was dubbed by one British newspaper — are among the distributors.

It seems to me that you'd have similar issues as you've got with people watching porn DVDs in cars now. Anyone watchng porn in the backseat of a Suburban or Expedition is entertaining everyone for a block. Can you imagine someone on the T in Boston sitting next to you, watching cellphone porn? And, of course, there's the wingnut factor here in the US:

Leading American cellular carriers have been reluctant to jump onto the bandwagon, however, fearing a backlash from the conservatives and the religious right if they provide U.S. consumers easy access to hand-held X-rated theater.

Verizon says they're not into it:

Jeffrey Nelson of Verizon Wireless, the U.S. cellphone service that Verizon Communications shares with Vodafone, said the company had absolutely no plans to offer adult content on its mobile phones.

"As my grandmother would have said, 'fat chance,"' Nelson said.

"I hear all the same things you do about analysts saying this is a big boom," he said. "We don't think that our customer base wants it."

Notice he doesn't have any problems with it on moral/social grounds, just that he doesn't think it'll sell, therefore it's not profitable.

there was an NOPD officer behind me in line, on his phone. He tells the person on the other end that one of his buddies had a bunch of t-shirts made up that have the NOPD crescent-and-star in dark brown. It says:

Chocolate City PD
We're Bitter

:-)

An aerial view of Greenwood Cemetery, looking from the rear of the cemetery (near the railroad tracks), back to City Park Avenue. Canal Street is in the background, running diagonally on the left. This photo was shot in 1967, three years after the Canal streetcar line was discontinued.

At first glance, many visitors touring the cemeteries don't find Greenwood as interesting as Metairie. This is because, with the exception of the front row of tombs facing City Park Avenue, Greenwood's plots are all 5'x7'. Because of this small size, tombs and graves are tightly bunched together.

Greenwood might not have the big, fancy tombs of "Millionaire's Row" in Metairie Cemetery, but its high density makes it a treasure trove for the local historian and/or geneaologist. There are a lot of folks buried in Greenwood, and that means a lot of personal stories, history, and other facts are jammed into that space.

This charming photo shows Canal Street in the midst of an interesting transition. Looking lakebound from the Clay statue, the photographer captures the block of Canal between St. Charles and Carondelet. A street vendor tends his cart at the left (the predecessor of the modern-day "Lucky Dog" wagon?). Three men stand behind the cart, next to a "starter house" in the neutral ground. The starter houses were small booths at the terminus of various streetcar lines, where supervisors could keep their scheduling and management paperwork. The man in the center in shirtsleeves is probably a streetcar supervisor; his jacket would be in the starter house. The man on the right appears to be a streetcar operator (can't call them "motormen" yet, since the "motor" was a mule). Four of the "bobtail" streetcars are visible on the street. The block between St. Charles and Carondelet saw the convergence of a number of streetcar lines, which is why the area between the tracks is paved. It was much easier for riders to walk on the paved walkways than on the cobblestones of the street.

The building with the round corner tower on the left hand side of the photo is the old Feibelmann's Department Store building, on the corner of Carondelet. A block up, at Decatur Street on the left, the steeple of Christ Church Episcopal is visible.

This was a transitional period for Canal Street, because electrification of the neighborhood had begun, but the wires, poles, and towers that made up the power grid are not yet dominating the street scene. Simple electrical poles are running along the left-hand side of the neutral ground, feeding power to the buildings on the street. One of the gas lamps that illuminated Canal prior to electrification is on the left. In just a few years from this photo, the neutral ground will be full of wires, a large electrical tower will dwarf buildings at the corner of Carondelet, and the mule-drawn bobtails will be replaced by single-truck electric streetcars.

This is what Canal Street looked like when the first Kings of Carnival made their way to Canal Street from the French Quarter. Turning right from Royal onto Canal, the floats of Rex would pass just to the right of the photographer, to excited crowds who very much enjoyed the expansion of Carnival from the single night parade (Comus) to this new, daytime celebration.

CITIZENS URGED TO TAKE MESSAGE DIRECTLY TO CORPS OF ENGINEERS ON SATURDAY, JAN. 21

A rally will be held on Saturday, Jan. 21, at 11 a.m. at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Building on Leake Avenue (River Road) in New Orleans, near the Carrollton/St. Charles Riverbend. THE EVENT WILL LAST 1/2 HOUR. For info, go to www.levees.org

A new citizens group, called Levees for Greater New Orleans, is calling upon citizens to demonstrate in front of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Building in New Orleans to underscore their central participation in the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina and call upon Congress to compensate homeowners, restore wetlands and fund full Levee 5 protections.
“Our city is destroyed and hundreds of people have died because the levees failed. Katrina passed well to the east of New Orleans and we weathered the winds of a Cat 1 storm, yet levees broke all over the metro area. The levees broke because they weren't built right, and the responsibility for designing and building the levees belongs to the US Army Corps of Engineers- a federal agency,” said Director Sandy Rosenthal.
“America needs to understand that our flood protection is a federal program gone wrong. And there is no need to wait a year for an engineering study to tell us the broken levees had engineering flaws. The evidence speaks for themselves,” she added.
The group seeks to raise public awareness that the flooding of large portions of Greater New Orleans was caused by federal engineering failures and call upon Congress to compensate homeowners, restore wetlands, and build Cat 5 flood protection where deemed cost effective.
“Let us make a demonstration on behalf of all those who have lost homes in our city, and in more than 1100 cases, lost their lives because the security we paid for was not there to begin with,” said Russell Henderson, Director, Rebuilding Louisiana Coalition.
Get info at www.levees.org

Everyone who picked on them post-9/11 owes them a huge apology now...

Who: New Orleans Museum of Art

What: Grand Re-Opening Volunteer Meeting. NOMA needs help from the community when it re-opens its doors to the public for the first time since Katrina with a tribute to the Arts: The HEART of New Orleanswill spotlight all aspects of art including the visual, performing, literary and culinary arts. The Mid-City Art Marketwill be participating in the festivities with over 60 local and regional artists.

When: Meeting: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 at 10:00 a.m.

Where: New Orleans Museum of Art Auditorium

Why: Nations are destroyed, or flourish, in proportion as their poetry, painting,
and music are destroyed or flourish! William Blake
The re-opening of the Museum, which will be free to the public, will be a success with your assistance. Help us bring back the HEART of New Orleans.

A lot of Lakeview folks are upset that, five months after the storm, they're still having trouble getting power to their streets. The problem, of course, is very simple: Entergy doesn't want to spend the money to fix their neighborhoods.

The solution is quite complex, in spite of how clear the problem is. Shortly after the storm, Entergy New Orleans (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Entergy Corporation) filed for bankruptcy protection in federal court. They claim they're not merely broke, but severely in debt. This is indeed the case, on paper, but the entity that's bankrupt has a parent corporation that has more than enough cash to begin the power restoration process. That parent corporation quite clearly does not want to spend the money.

Now, when a corporation refuses to spend capital, it usually means a) they don't see the investment as being profitable, or b) they think someone else will do it for them. Sometimes it's both reasons. In the case of Entergy, it's a bit of both. The company has always had a rocky relationship with the city of New Orleans, going back to when they were New Orleans Railway and Light Company, then NOPSI. The governmental body that regulates Entergy is the City Council. Going bankrupt was the opportunity of a lifetime for Entergy. Bankruptcy gives them a chance to re-negotiate a number of points with the city. If they can get rate and tax concessions from the city, the investment becomes more profitable. In the meantime, they're holding Lakeview and Da Nint' hostage.

Of course, there's no reaason to spend your own money if you think somoene else will do it for you. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, Jay Batt, councilman for Lakeview and Uptown, wasn't going to civic association meetings and working with residents. No, he was walking the halls of Washington, DC. He was with lobbyists and executives of Entergy Corporation, trying to negotiate a federal bail-out of the utility's New Orleans subsidiary. Obviously, his efforts haven't been very successful. It's hard to say why. Is it that Entergy is unpopular on the Hill? Does Batt wear a nasty cologne? Do the Republicans in Congress not want to support Entergy until it's clear that the Evil Coloreds are totally out of the picture? Whatever the reason, it's just not happening.

So, five months after the storm, people in Lakeview with houses valued at $200K+ can't even put FEMA trailers on their lawns because there's no electricity. And just what are Councilman Batt, Rep. Jindal, Sen. Vitter, and the other Republicans these residents love so much doing?

Nothing.

Clearly they haven't taken any action to motivate either Entergy or the feds, otherwise there would be trucks all over Lakeview restoring service. The Lakeview Republicans can't pin this one on Nagin or Blanco. The city's regulatory authority extends only to Entergy New Orleans. Control of the rest of Entergy's interests in Louisiana lies with the Public Service Commission, a body solidly in Republican hands. Federal regulation of utilities in general is in the hands of Republicans. Yet none of these politicians are willing to lift a finger to help their supporters from Lakeview.

You'd almost think Republicans didn't want Lakeview residents to rebuild, wouldn't you?

This is worth a listen. Franklin explains and defends Clinton's "plantation" reference. On Nagin, he explains, but he's clearly not impressed with Nagin.

Understanding MLK Day's Controversial Comments

All Things Considered, January 18, 2006   Commentator Robert Franklin is a professor of theology at Emory University in Atlanta. He explains some controversial statements with racial overtones made by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on Martin Luther King.

The first thing that pops into my mind when I read that the Jefferson Parish Council has voted $400K for a consulting study is who is connected to whom that they got that much cash. Given that it's a study to second-guess the US Army Corp of Engineers, however, I'm not as cynical:

Councilwoman Jennifer Sneed says the corps has promised only limited pumping capacity from Hoey's Basin, much of it in her district, while the canal remains closed. While Pump Station No. 6 on the canal can move more than 10,000 cubic feet of water per second, Sneed says the temporary pumps proposed by the corps can handle only one-tenth of that.

"When the corps said it was going to gate off the 17th Street Canal to protect residents from a potential storm surge, it immediately begged the question: What about rainfall?" Sneed said. "How would those neighborhoods be drained of rainwater during a hurricane if the canal is closed?

"I understand we have vulnerability with the weakness of the canal, and we must be protected from the storm surge. But most tropical storms and hurricanes are rain events. We cannot have an either/or scenario here," she said. "The residents of this area deserve both hurricane protection and drainage for rainwater."

In our on-going effort to help the poor struggling Times-Picayune, here's the diagram for this story they didn't put on the website:

That's one of the things that scares me most about the Corps: they tend not to follow the fall of the dominos to the end when they implement a plan.

So, I don't have a problem with the study, but the political connections make me wonder if $400K is excessive:

The company was founded by the parish's former drainage director, Ken Brown, and is well-connected in Jefferson political circles. It donated $8,500 during the 2003 election cycle to council members and Parish President Aaron Broussard, and Brown personally donated $2,500 each to Sneed and Councilman Byron Lee, and $1,000 to Councilman Elton Lagasse.

People who have lined Aaron Broussard's pockets don't inspire a lot of confidence, even when compared to the Corps.

A bit of a then-and-now this week at the Chalmette National Cemetery. Many people think that the cemetery is connected to the Battle of New Orleans, but the only link is location.

The cemetery was created in 1864, when the Union forces controlling New Orleans designated the eastern strip of the site of the Battle of New Orleans as a cemetery for Union troops who died in the Gulf Coast region.

When the cemetery was built, the entrance was located on River Road. The Grand Army of the Republic monument, above, marked the entrance. In 1911, the length of the cemetery was extended all the way to St. Bernard Highway (LA 46). The River Road entrance was closed and a new main gate constructed at the other end. So, now the monument is the "back" of the cemetery:

The cemetery sustained damage from the storm. The entire area was covered in mud and muck that is clearing away on its own to a large extent. The buildings in the cemetery were damaged, and some remains were exposed when trees were uprooted, but the NPS responded quickly and has been working on both the cemetery and the battlefield. They expect to re-open the sites in the summer.

ever.

CNN reportedly hires radio host Glenn Beck

On Hurricane Katrina survivors who remained in New Orleans: "And that's all we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones that we're seeing on television are the scumbags -- and again, it's not all the people in New Orleans. Most of the people in New Orleans got out! It's just a small percentage of those who were left in New Orleans, or who decided to stay in New Orleans, and they're getting all the attention."

On filmmaker Michael Moore: "Hang on, let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong?"

I'm going to start forwarding these to CNN to remind them why I'm no longer a viewer.

Four 900-series Perley A. Thomas streetcars at the French Market terminal. Prior to the storm, the French Market was the downriver terminus for the Riverfront and Canal lines. Since the storm severely damaged all but one of the "red ladies," the 400- and 2000-series red-painted streetcars that operated on Riverfront and Canal, the vintage 900-series streetcars have been operating a hybrid line that includes Canal Street in the CBD and the Riverfront line.

The green-painted Perley Thomas streetcars will likely work the hybrid line for as much as two years, while the "red ladies" are being repaired. Their regular home, the St. Charles line, won't be back operational until October of this year. Fortunately for the city, RTA had already started a renovation project on St. Charles to repair and upgrade the overhead wiring and other components of the electrical system. Instead of the original renovation specs, however, the crews jumped in and began an all-out repair effort.

The 900-series are still configured as they were after the major renovation/rebuild they received in the 1980s. Prior to that, the streetcars were a hodgepodge of designs ranging from close to factory original to experiements with PCC windows and other parts. When RTA took over transit operations in the mid-1980s, the crew at Carrollton Station was given money to renovate the entire fleet and restore them to their style from the 1930s-1940s.

nice touch...

A lot of folks active in on-line forums for the Lakeview neighborhood outright freaked out when they heard that "light rail" was proposed for Lakeview. The BNOB's Urban Planning committee proposes to extend the Canal streetcar line from the Cemeteries to Robert E. Lee Blvd., via Canal Blvd. It's a good idea in theory, but making it a reality will be a tough challenge.

The code-word racists of Lakeview don't like the idea just at the mention of "light rail." Sad.

While I have no qualms with Yglesias slapping Marshall Whtiman around for wankery on the subject of electronic intelligence gathering, it's important that we don't overreach when smacking wingnuts. Yglesias writes:

One should also note that, despite our allegedly "hobbled" HUMINT capabilities, we won the Cold War just fine. Nor is there any real reason to believe that a paucity of data points has been the source of any serious intelligence failings in recent history. Rather, the limiting factor is the ability of the intelligence apparatus to process and analyze the data it already has. Now it may well be the case that the NSA has invented something that it ought to be allowed to use but that FISA prohibits. If that's the case, then the administration ought to be able to lay the argument out to Congress (in closed session, if appropriate) and get the law changed. But the administration seems to believe that whatever it is they wanted to do wouldn't have been able to pass Congress, even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, which makes me suspect that it's not actually such a hot idea. It would be nice to have a more definitive judgment on the policy question, but I don't have codeword clearance, and unlike the program's defenders in the punditocracy I don't feel like using my "pretend I know stuff I don't" clearance to obtain the relevant details.

We "won" the Cold War not so much because of the quality level of HUMINT, but rather because we literally spent the USSR into starvation, starting with the Space Race and ending with Reagan's 600-warship navy. HUMINT was severely hobbled, but not by liberal fears of an out-of-control Nixon. No, HUMINT was hobbled by Bush 41 (in his role as CIA director under Ford) and the other Republican technocrats of the early 1970s. Herbert Hoover Bush and his cohorts believed that ELINT was the ticket, and that they could monitor the bad guys from listening posts, submarines, and satellites. There was no need for that nasty "spy-vs-spy" stuff anymore. They were the precursors of today's PNAC mentality, that we can sit back and manipulate chess pieces cleanly.

Go back and read Beckwith's and Marcinko's descriptions of the mess that was the Iran Hostage Crisis. The extent to which they bemoan the lack of on-the-ground data clearly points to the need for better HUMINT in 1980. Twenty-five years later, it's hard to say if things have improved. If one subscribes to Clancy's belief that CIA goes to great lengths to portray themeslves as screw-ups, it's possible that things have improved. The coordination breakdown that led to 9/11 was certainly not all CIA's fault, but taking the hit the way they have is certainly a page from the agency's Cold War playbook.

I have a friend who is an Engineering prof at Rose Hullman University in Indiana. He regularly tries to recruit my teen (who has applied to MIT, GaTech, and Texas A&M). It's shit like this that makes me glad I he's not considering any school in Indiana:

(Terre Haute, Indiana) Police in Terre Haute are investigating death threats against the manager and program director at KWBF-TV after the station decided to run the NBC series "The Book of Daniel".

Executives at the station have been given security, and guards are posted at the studios.

Terre Haute's NBC affiliate refused to air the show's premiere Friday after pressure from the American Family Association and area pastors. KWBF, a WB affiliate then agreed to run the series. (story)

Threats to the station began pouring in shortly after it made the announcement. They continued after the show aired and police were called in.

The great irony of this is that "Book of Daniel" isn't really that good of a show. If NBC airs a full season, I'll be surprised.