Prix Fixe


And the delicious entree on the Team Bush menu is...shit sandwich.

From Oyster:

A long-delayed Army Corps of Engineers plan for protection against a Category 5 hurricane -- a storm as large as or larger than Hurricane Katrina -- will be delayed until at least June, and maybe longer, the project's manager says.

Further, the final document won't be a plan at all, but rather a menu of about two dozen alternatives for Congress to further study and debate, a recipe for additional delay.

His take:

You can't tell me that the same administration that outspent Lyndon Johnson and spent a trillion dollars in Iraq, a trillion on Medicare, and six trillion in bailouts/stimulus really believes that Cat 5 flood protection for S. Louisiana is "too expensive". Nor can you tell me that Bush gives a fig about "the dictates of science". No. The simple truth is that they don't want us to have Cat 5 (or 4) flood control. Why? I don't know, precisely. Perhaps they're evil dog vulvae. Perhaps they want to punish Louisiana for being Louisiana, or for embarrassing them during Katrina, or for having Governor Blanco, or Senator Landrieu, or for being a Democratic region with an expensive problem.

Just don't try to tell me that the Bushies made an honest effort on the Cat 5 issue. They didn't. And don't tell me these delays aren't by design. They are.

My own belief is that, aside from being essentially tribal in their mindset and outlook, wingnuts tend towards anti--urbanism. There's probably quite a lot that goes into this: racism, anti-intellectualism...anti-Democratic party, etc., and so on. I put a comment in over at YRHT mentioning this and a few other things...like the fact that while the scars of New Orleans might be the most visible, plenty of other cities have been hit hard over the last few generations...and the scars are visible enough, if you take a look.

But instead, the government has turned its back on cities.

In fact, if you look at government, particularly at the federal level, you'll note a distinct anti-urban element built in, via the Electoral College and the Senate.

Perhaps President-elect Obama, choosing to identify as a city-dweller, will at least make an attempt to focus on long-overdue urban maintenance or renewal...and perhaps New Orleans will be high on the list of projects. To be truthful, though, I'm not holding my breath: as to the former, you've got entrenched anti-urban interests, as to the latter, well, sadly, New Orleans was barely mentioned in the course of the election. That said, the city's far more resiliant than most people think, whether or not Team Bush tries to drown it by commission or omission.

I think we'll pass on the shit sandwich.

And--I congratulate Anh Cao and hope he enjoys a single term (to be truthful, I barely followed the race, beyond my normal reading of NOLA blogs)...and I hope William Jefferson has the decency to permanently retire in order to further the interests of his soon-to-be former constituents.