In the early morning darkness the only light in the room came from the clock-radio and the flashing VCR that hasn't been reset since Katrina. I stumbled down to the basement and clipped the headlight onto the handlebars for a ride in the dark. With a meeting scheduled for 8 a.m., it was going to have to be an early ride for me, and I'd have to be back home well before the usual Tuesday levee ride group even made it to the turnaround. Riding up the bike path from Oak Street, I spotted a flashing headlight up above me, and by the time I got onto the levee he already had about twenty seconds on me. It was still pitch black, but the reflective strips on his jersey reflected the flashing of my headlight. I wasn't gaining on him. Suddenly, somewhere before the playground, he stopped to text-message someone else who was supposed to be riding early and I caught up. It was Justin, and I was glad to have the company. Despite the darkness, we held a good pace all the way out to the parish line. The western sky ahead of us still pretty dark, but when we turned around we were greeted by a beautiful orange dawn reflecting off of a calm Mississippi River. I thought "red sky at morning, sailors take warning." We returned a little bit more slowly, finally crossing paths with the 6:15 Tuesday group a mile or two from the playground. I was glad I had ridden. It would have been easy to have blown off the ride, considering.
After dropping The Wife off downtown and then sitting through a long meeting of minimal consequence, I finally got back to the office around 11:00. There was a lot going on, none of it good. The medical school faculty were in a bit of an uproar following the layoffs and then the sudden resignation over the weekend of the Dean of the Medical School. Meanwhile, on the legislative front, Congress has been content to sit back and fiddle while the city's economy struggles. The universities are getting the cold shoulder, as is the city. I guess it's more important to rebuild Bagdad than New Orleans. Various groups are trying to formulate a thoughtful recovery plan, but there is still not a unified voice, and as we know, they are easily confused.
So in a weak moment while trying to distract myself from the problems I think I volunteered to redesign the office of research's website. There is a story on it on the WWL website, though. There are probably a lot of somewhat disappointed lawyers.
The Corps extracted some of the sheet piling from the 17th street canal floodwall near the point where it failed because some researchers from LSU used some sort of ground-penetrating sonar system earlier and claimed that the sheet piles that were used were about ten feet shorter than the specification. As it turned out, the researchers were wrong and the sheet piles measured out to the correct lengths. Oops. I'll bet that story doesn't make it onto the front page of CNN.
Looks like warmer weather tomorrow ahead of the next cold front and its associated rain.
Got an email from Gina V yesterday. Her new Diet Cheerwine team had an announcement in CyclingNews. It should be a fun season for them.
3 comments:
You say, "I guess it's more important to rebuild Bagdad than New Orleans"
I would argue they're both "important" in there own right, and are not mutually exclusive! Framing the argument as such only politicizes it and does very little to advance the cause.
Well Jeff, the point is that the whole issue is already politicized. More so than you probably imagine. In the government affairs office, I am slapped in the face with that ugly fact on a daily basis, especially now that the congressional session is about to end without a meaningful committment. I do not imply that rebuilding Bagdad and rebuilding New Orleans are mutually exclusive. In the former case, Congress acted promptly, with little actual cost information, to fund the rebuilding. Here at home it's been over three months and we have a city that is essentially bankrupt, a power company that has declared bankruptcy, a state in serious fiscal trouble, a couple hundred thousand people who have lost everything including their homes, their jobs, their dignity, and in some cases their family members, and a Congress that cannot make a committment to a city that is located where it is not because it is a nice place to live, but because it is strategically important on a number of levels.
Roadrider-
It's obvious the situation "is already politicized" that is why I was suggesting that throwing more fuel on the fire, may not be the best approach. Maybe I'm wrong but between the Bagdad comment and the comment in your "Cuts and Bleeding" post of Dec 8th. "...The university is bleeding, the city is bleeding, the state is bleeding, and the Federal government is responding with about the same level of urgency we saw when the levees failed.", there appears to be a pattern of "it's all the FEDS fault"!
While I freely admit the feds made there share of mistakes, I think the Local and State government deserve a hard look and that perhaps decades of inept, incompetent, and corrupt leadership finally caught up to New Orleans and the State.
While I can appreciate your frustration as a New Orleanian, knowing that the vast majority of the country is clueless to the magnitude of the situation, the wheels of big government always turn slowly. My guess is that the people living and stationed in Iraq don't view the response to their needs quite as rosy and prompt as you imagine it.
For example: To the guy in the car wreck bleeding in the ditch, the ambulance's response-time is always to slow.
The assistance is needed and no one can provide it but the Feds, the fact that they may want some assurances that the money is spent properly shouldn't come as a shock.
The Mayor's and Governor's stance of throw us $250,000,000,000 and trust us to do the right thing - is asking for a little much.
By all means, the Feds should fix the levees and rebuild the infrastructure of the city - I don't think it's Government's responsibility to replace individual property.
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