HumidCity

A Pantagraph photographer caught these pictures of a shootout between an armed robbery suspect and Normal, IL, police.

UPDATE: More details. The suspect had a criminal history dating back to 1996, when he was about 44. And the ultimate odd detail:

Nicole Casey, whose husband is a stepnephew of Robert Sylvester [the suspect], said McLean County State’s Attorney Bill Yoder blocked the family’s wish for organ donation.

“They wanted something good to come out of this,” said Casey.

McLean County Coroner Beth Kimmerling confirmed Yoder’s request to deny organ donation. Yoder would not explain his request to The Pantagraph.

HT: dsbnola, who’s temporarily lost his blog, too.

G Bitch

7pm tonight. If it’s not evil and storming we’ll see y’all there!

-Loki, Founder and Curator of HumidCity

Topics covered in this Citizen Crime Watch letter:

1. We could use some more of that sunshine disinfectant around here.
2. When the police respond to your 911 call, they’re already too late.
3. Strike Against Crime.
4. Police Violence?
5. Remembering Ja’Shawn Powell.

We could use some more of that sunshine disinfectant around here

Lessons learned. Painful lessons learned.

That’s one way to characterize the experience of living in post-Katrina New Orleans.

A vital question we need to ask ourselves here in New Orleans is what we can do to avoid another debacle such as the Nagin administration has been.

Aside from Ray Nagin’s deplorable disengagement in the post-Katrina recovery, a significant problem for citizens is the frustrating process of trying to guess where the recovery is happening, what’s broken in City Hall, and how they can try to fix the problems which impact the recovery and the quality of life in New Orleans.

It was exasperation of this kind which forced Karen Gadbois into the streets to document either ineptness, or corruption, in the city’s demolition process. Selected as one of Gambit Weekly’s New Orleanians of the Year, Gadbois demonstrated decisively that records really do matter. As geeky as that sounds, by painstakingly compiling records from various sources, and then validating those records on the ground, Gadbois and a small crew of activists were able to uncover systemic government malfeasance.

Thank you Karen! No one will ever really know how much time it took to do that work.

We need more citizen activists like Karen Gadbois. In the future, we need to prevent the obfuscation, foot-dragging, and “who, me?” attitudes which characterized Ray Nagin’s response to Gadbois’ revelations.

Fundamentally, we need to take personality out of the picture. Government transparency should no longer be a battle between personalities and political wills. It should be a fact of life, and the very essence of our democracy so that we can make more informed decisions.

There is only one way to create this kind of transparency in the future.

The answer is NolaStat.

NolaStat is a policy approach to governance and citizen engagement — a process — which uses government records — including crime records — published on the Internet in standard, structured formats, to foster greater government efficiency, to create the highest level of transparency possible, and and to empower citizens to use those public records to innovatively identify and solve problems in a community-centered manner.

Yes, this is a revolutionary idea. No, it isn’t unheard of. In fact, the implementation of this kind of “democratizing data” process in Washington, D.C. is being celebrated as “the best example worldwide” of a technological solution to promote greater government efficiency, transparency, and accountability.

The D.C. CapStat model has been so revolutionary, that its proponents are now advising President-elect Obama. New Orleans should strive to join that movement ahead of other cities, by embracing NolaStat, and demonstrating that New Orleans is no longer a backwater of corruption, but is now a shining example to the rest of the country.

Right now, we desperately need someone like D.C.’s Chief Technology Officer, Vivek Kundra, running City Hall’s technology department — someone who doesn’t view citizens as the problem, but as part of the solution — as “co-creators rather than subjects.”

If sunshine is the best disinfectant, as Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis once said, then NolaStat is the window which allows the sunshine in on New Orleans government. And people like Karen Gadbois are the citizens who pull open the curtains.

This is about using technology to empower citizens, and to build new kinds of social networks. This is about change.

Together, yes we can build a better New Orleans, and by our example, we can help to guide the way to building a better nation.

Your opportunity to support the kind of change possible with NolaStat will come up next week, on Thursday, January 15th, when the NolaStat idea will be presented to the City Council’s Government Affairs Committee, thanks to Councilwoman Shelley Midura, and council aide, David Gavlinski. Additional details will be forthcoming. For now, mark your calendars.

When the police respond to your 911 call, they’re already too late

Question: When did it become acceptable for public officials to ignore citizens?

Answer: When did Mayor Ray Nagin and NOPD Superintendent Warren Riley become (to put it nicely) such ineffectual, peevish public officials?

Both Nagin and Riley have refused to respond to repeated requests to resolve the problem of crime under-reporting.

I don’t wish to be such a nag. I’ve sought cooperation from both Nagin and Riley. I have offered them solutions, and volunteered my assistance. They have rejected these offers, and worse, they have acted in a potentially criminally vindictive manner which does harm to the safety of all citizens.

Former NOPD Superintendent Richard Pennington’s deputy chief, Ronal Serpas, used to say that when the police show up to answer your 911 call, they’re already too late, which is to say, they’ve failed to prevent that crime from happening in the first place.

The first job of the police department should be to properly report all potential threats to public safety. Since the NOPD has done such a really piss-poor job of that, I’ve been arguing that the NOPD should just give up the records so we can do the job ourselves.

Because I found a significant difference between what Riley was reporting as official UCR statistics, and what was being reported on the city’s crime-mapping Web site, Riley decided to remove the records from the Web site.

When you go to the NOPD’s crime-mapping Web site now, you can’t even click on the map icons to get more information. This isn’t just incompetence — it’s egregious, willful negligence, which could place some unsuspecting citizen in the wrong place at the wrong time for lack of information about emerging crime problems.

Warren Riley has demonstrated such a lack of regard for the concerns of citizens, I can only ask why he wants to keep his job. It wouldn’t be hard to explain the challenges of being a police chief in New Orleans — if that were his excuse — and to advocate for reforms to improve the situation.

Instead, Riley has chosen the path of least resistance, leaving us to conclude that — like Nagin — his head is no longer in the game, and he’s just biding time until he can choose to resign at a time when there aren’t any controversies surrounding his leadership.

Strike Against Crime

Silence is Violence has some suggestions for how you can send a message to public officials about how poor their response to the crime problem has been since the 5000-strong March Against Violence to City Hall two years ago. Show your support for an end to violence, and for a serious approach to criminal justice reform. You don’t have to leave work to make a difference. You do, however, have to stand up and be counted.

Police Violence?

Citizens need to be patient in waiting for an independent investigation before drawing their own conclusions about the circumstances surrounding the police shooting and death of Adolph Grimes on New Year’s Day. I have posted my own brief comments on the Citizen Crime Watch blog (here and here).

Another complaint against the NOPD was issued by a Gentilly man who claimed, on WDSU’s Monday 10 p.m. newscast, that police tazed him and choked his wife.

Police officers have a right to defend themselves. That should be foremost in our minds, because they put themselves in harm’s way to deal with the worst kinds of people in order to protect us from harm. We should always be prepared, however, to question the limits of what constitutes protection, and what actions cross the line into abuse of authority. When the police harm citizens, abuse or threaten, it should come as no surprise why witnesses aren’t willing to cooperate with the police to secure prosecutions.

Both of these incidents should be independently reviewed. The shooting incident is being investigated by the FBI. The incidents again underscore the need for the Office of Independent Monitor to be filled as soon as possible.

Moreover, notwithstanding these latest incidents, there are a number of complaints I’ve heard from people in the community about police behavior which raises serious questions about chief Riley’s command control over the department. We were recently reminded of the spectre of rogue cops with Antoinette Frank’s attempt to again appeal her death penalty sentence. If Riley can’t control rogue elements in the police force, then he’s no longer an effective leader, and he should resign.

I am not calling for Riley to resign — necessarily. I have no illusions about how that would be received anyway. I am, however, calling on Riley to remember that the title “chief” in front of his name isn’t just a nice pay grade. I am calling on Riley to act like a leader.

Remembering Ja’Shawn Powell

The least we can do to remember two-year-old Ja’Shawn Powell, who was tragically and savagely murdered by his father, is to help his mother provide a proper burial for him, and hope that the criminal justice system doesn’t fail him. A memorial fund at Liberty Bank has been established to receive donations. Go to libertybank.net for listing of locations, or mail your donation to Liberty Bank, P.O. Box 60131, New Orleans, La 70160.

Regards,
Brian Denzer
Founder/Executive Director
New Orleans Citizen Crime Watch
http://citizencrimewatch.org
5721 Magazine Street #205
New Orleans, LA 70115
citizencrimewatch@gmail.com

There were a number of suggestions offered in the last letter for how you can become involved in helping to improve the advocacy and crime-reporting services provided by Citizen Crime Watch. Those needs remain unfulfilled. If you agree with the goals of Citizen Crime Watch, please help.

This letter has also been posted to the Citizen Crime Watch blog under the heading, Citizens as “co-creators rather than subjects.”

The Bush Legacy Booklet(!?).

Seriously, check it out. It’s only fifty pages long with big print and lots of pictures. It even mentions Hurricane Katrina one whole time! It’s the Little Golden Book of Cynicism and Despair.

Frank Rich calls it:

… a booklet recounting “highlights” of the administration’s “accomplishments and results.” With big type, much white space, children’s-book-like trivia boxes titled “Did You Know?” and lots of color photos of the Bushes posing with blacks and troops, its 52 pages require a reading level closer to “My Pet Goat” than “The Stranger.”

This document is the literary correlative to “Mission Accomplished.” Bush kept America safe (provided his presidency began Sept. 12, 2001). He gave America record economic growth (provided his presidency ended December 2007). He vanquished all the leading Qaeda terrorists (if you don’t count the leaders bin Laden and al-Zawahri). He gave Afghanistan a thriving “market economy” (if you count its skyrocketing opium trade) and a “democratically elected president” (presiding over one of the world’s most corrupt governments). He supported elections in Pakistan (after propping up Pervez Musharraf past the point of no return). He “led the world in providing food aid and natural disaster relief” (if you leave out Brownie and Katrina).

If this is the best case that even Bush and his handlers can make for his achievements, you wonder why they bothered. Desperate for padding, they devote four risible pages to portraying our dear leader as a zealous environmentalist.

But the brazenness of Bush’s alternative-reality history is itself revelatory. The audacity of its hype helps clear up the mystery of how someone so slight could inflict so much damage. So do his many print and television exit interviews.

The man who emerges is a narcissist with no self-awareness whatsoever. It’s that arrogance that allowed him to tune out even the most calamitous of realities, freeing him to compound them without missing a step. The president who famously couldn’t name a single mistake of his presidency at a press conference in 2004 still can’t.

- Bigezbear

The St. Roch neighborhood has become known as one of the epicenters of New Orleans alternative art movement, right at ground zero for the St. Claude Art District. At the hub of these local galleries is an old familiar face; The St Roch Tavern, at 1200 St Roch Avenue.

This historic watering hole has become a living room of sorts for local drinkers, by day, and music by night, keeping alive decades of local history, and giving new life blood to the resurgence of this neighborhood and the burgeoning music & art scene that seems to flourishing as nearby as the Sidearm Gallery, right across the street.

All that’s missing, by New Orleans standards, anyway, is something wonderful to eat.
Until now.

The Cafe St. Roch has opened in the Tavern kitchen, and quietly launched itself with a starter menu heavy with seasonal Barataria Oysters. From soup to sandwich, salad to side dish, these guys are kicking ass. And doing it where it counts.

Both guys involved are musicians. Tom Rowsey, who initially took over the kitchen there, is a guitarist, singer song writer, previously of the seminal cow-punk band, The Hickoids, and has played with such outsider luminaries as Johnny Legend.

The ‘Chef du Cusine’, Paul Artigues, who worked previously at another bistro on Magazine Street, has not only been featured on the Food Network’s ‘Diners, drive-ins & Dives’, but plays drums in several local bands, from blues covers to the sonic punk of Die Rotzz.

Having sampled the menu there (more than once, I might add), I was compelled to roll my eyes up into my head with pure pleasure.
The little things, like grilling the french bread before making po-boys, are the ones that make all the difference. The concept of wrapping fresh fried Baratria Oysters in grilled bacon is a stroke (pardon the pun) of pure genius.

The starter menu offerings include: Poboy’s with fries or slaw, bacon wrapped fried oysters, smoked boudin sausage, Chaurice hot sausage, oyster stew, italian salad, and caesar salads…
… Lunch is served from noon ’til three pm, and dinner from five until nine or so… on the weekends, they often take that adventure even later…

Please take the time to enjoy these basic pleasures of living in New Orleans;

*Original Art made by local artists.
*Local music in an intimate pub setting.
*Food so good your eyes will roll up in to your head.

After all, is there really any other way to go?

Lord David
Skull Club
New Orleans

“Heart of my heart, Love will never die.” - “Willow”

Our friends at Silence is Violence have asked for a call to action to make the point that New Orleanians are tired of the inaction when it comes to making our city streets a safer place to enjoy. Here is NoLA Rising’s response to Sileve is Violence in their call to action:  We are surrounded by violence and little seems to be happening to ensure public safety. There are many culprits in why this systemic failure continues to occur and while we’d like to point fingers at all of the particular leaders who day after day do nothing, it would get us no further. In the spirit of NoLA Rising, we plan to take action through art!

NoLA Rising is honored to announce a Paint Party at the house of Susan “Willow” Schroeder, who tragically lost her son to murder in 2001. To lift her out of her grief, she painted a work of love in dedication to her son David, making her home a beautiful expression of the love she felt for him. Sadly, Willow’s tale is like so many other New Orleans crime tales, where no one has even been arrested in the shooting death of her son.

The tragedy doesn’t end there, however. Willow and her partner Feather, have had to endure discrimination for all of the emotions that have been painted out. One neighbor has tried consistently to have the house cited and actively researches ways to fine them. Quoted in the Times-Picayune, the neighbor questioned: “Does a grieving mother have the right to deface public property because her son died?” because she painted the sidewalk immediately in front of her house. New Orleans is a city that welcomes unique forms of expression and NoLA Rising believes that this is a house worthy of such expression.

Long keeping in the philosophy that “Art can heal the wounded soul!”, NoLA Rising sees the individual struggle of a loving mother a perfect place to host a paint party against the senseless acts of violence in New Orleans. It’s a way to create something beautiful out of tragedy and I can think of no other way to voice opposition to the lackluster response of those responsible for maintaining public safety. We will also be joined by our friends at United For Peace who will also be creating artwork for a fundraiser to build a center for mothers and families of those lost to tragic violence.

Please, honor a fallen son and a fallen brother by joining NoLA Rising and United for Peace at David’s House in the 3000 block of St. Peter around noon, Saturday, January 10th (2009) for a paint party. Bring your paints and prepare to make artwork that can proudly be displayed outside of homes across this city. Make artwork that inspires change! Let your voice be heard through artistic expression. Let the leaders of the city know that you will no longer tolerate the scourge of violence that plagues New Orleans. Paint the change you wish to see!

Flyer for download on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolarisingproject/3160225134/

Times-Picayune article on Jan 2, 2009
http://blog.nola.com/updates/2009/01/mothers_colorful_memorial_to_h.html

http://davidshouse.wordpress.com/

‘If you can locate, there is also a WDSU video on YouTube about their house.

Thanks everyone, re-post if you like, and we hope to see y’all out there January 10th

ReX
NoLA Rising

 I’ve written before about the 5th district station outside my window. The cars (personal & official) that drive the wrong way out the one way street in to St Claude traffic, the loud music blasting from personal cars in the parking lot, the groups of cops (military & NOPD) who stand around chatting in the back parking lot…

The first act they commited after having an Open House for the neighbors, was to ticket half the cars in the neighborhood. The ticket on my car (legally parked in front of my house) had my vin # and plate number, but showed an address several blocks away. The next day my car radio was stolen in broad daylight as the ‘parking lot party’ was in full swing. Then beat cops walked around for a few days and gave up, showing the Fight Against Crime was over. I rode my bicycle up next to police cars whose drivers didn’t notice me, being completley focused on their laptops. As many as half a dozen cars at a time would park behind my building, jamming up my WiFi by stealing my signal, until I encrypted it.

 Citizens came forward and identified the driver of a visicous hit & run, only to be told they’d have to identify him in front of his ‘crew’ so he could be issued a mere ticket. No suggestion was made about how to deal with this group of thugs after pointing the finger, except to ‘trust the department’.

 Now Billy Southern, a guest columnist at the TP, tells his story of getting robbed outside Mimi’s Bar, a well known and busy Marigny hot spot, and trying to turn valuable clues as to the identity of the robbers over to police at the 5th district station.

 “Hours passed without any word, so I drove downtown to the 5th District. I was barely able to hold the attention of the police officer at the desk as I explained the evidence that I had discovered and suggested that, so long as the phone was on, maybe they could even locate the user. She took a message but again, no one called me. I called again and again over the following days and left messages for the detective assigned to the case and even called the district lieutenant when those went unanswered. As of this writing, no one has called me to follow up on the calls made from the phone or, as far as I know, made any efforts to investigate the two potentially lethal armed robberies that occurred that night.”

Read the entire story HERE.

It’s time again to call these people out in public.

“All that is required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
 - Edmund Burke

Lord David
Skull Club
New Orleans

If you plan to attending the 2008 Mid-City Bonfire on New Year’s Eve, please read the Guidelines here, and especially keep in mind that if anyone throws fireworks into the bonfire, the NOFD will extinguish it immediately. Please help us preserve the tradition.

And please think of us standing assembled outside on the neutral ground and do not fire guns at midnight.

Hardly seems like Christmas when you plan to grill most of your dinner outside. I never dream of white Christmases anyway.

In The Family Bitch, thoguh we have no religious beliefs, we have a Christmas tree and presents and a vegan Christmas dinner and peace and joy sans any of my relatives. [I've blocked out enough holiday memories and need no more.] There were things I liked about Roman Catholic Christmas, like Advent calendars. I liked the ritualized and deliberate marking of time passing. I can’t remember any other impressions or feelings anymore, not after the Advent calendar scenes in Bad Santa. [One of many favorite moments in Bad Santa--"Fuck me, Santa, fuck me, Santa, fuck me, Santa."] And I can’t help still liking many Christmas songs—The Little Drummer Boy, especially in sweet boy choir voices, Silent Night, What Child Is This, and others still send a minor chill up the backs of my arms. The Girl and I, though, end up having long conversations in the car about these songs and the Christ story, which is always amazing to her since she hasn’t been indoctrinated or force-fed. The big innovation this year for The Girl, now nearing puberty, was buying gifts for others in our small family. It’s the first year she’s been old enough to really care about giving and had enough money to not borrow—as she said, it’s crazy to borrow money from someone to buy that person a present. So I took her shopping this year, letting her choose all the gifts, except for a little advice on her father’s gifts (he got 3 while the others got 2), from her Post-It note list, while I wandered and finished what little shopping I do. Since she was only buying presents for 3 people and I am one of the three people, I knew right way which gifts were mine even though we never discussed it openly—when we talked about the gifts or her list, we mentioned her father, her grandmother…and then just called the other gifts The Other Presents, if we called them anything at all. She showed them to me in the store and said, Aren’t these pretty? Isn’t that a nice __? She wasn’t asking for approval or my input—she had already decided that’s what she would give. When it came time to wrap, and I love to wrap a present, I helped her, and again there were presents for her father, presents for her grandmother and The Other Presents. I helped her wrap one of my gifts and we never discussed who it belonged to though only an idiot couldn’t tell. And this morning, I happily opened my presents and gave her a big smile. She gave others their presents before tearing into hers. And made her grandmother very, very happy.

Merry Xmas. Hope for peace. Experience some joy.

[The Spot will return in the new year. Things should move quickly after the holidays. At least, I hope they do.]

I wrote this little penny dreadful in one furious draft one night last week. This is a work of fiction. Any perceived resemblance to persons living or dead should be discussed with your therapist at your next session.

The below is an excerpt. You can read the entire tale at Toulouse Street - Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans

…The bus slowly rumbled down a Canal Street empty and dark. “No one knows where the fire started, but it was a dry storm with very little rain, and with several feet of water in the streets of Mid-City this section mostly burned,” the spirit said. Scrouge measured their progress through the dark by noting the intersections where the bus stopped, although there was no cross traffic and no one got on or off: first narrow Galvez, then wider Broad and finally the open expanse of Jeff Davis. Here and there in the dark were bright islands of light, illuminating rows of identical white trailers on city blocks covered with white clam shell and surrounded by metal fences. “They built these parks for the workers they need to keep the tourist industry going.”

“I don’t understand. After the flood….” “The first flood,” the spirit corrected him. Scrouge stared straight ahead and through the empty bus for a moment, then down at his hands again and resumed. “After the flood, we all came back. We worked so hard. How could it they let it all happen again?” Scrouge looked not at the hooded spirit but up at the roof of the bus. “How could it happen again? How could it all turn out so wrong? ” sounding like a child who had just been told there would be no Christmas. The hoodie continued to contemplate the dark outside it’s window, ignoring Scrouge’s question. The bus rumbled on and Scrouge turned the other way and likewise stared into the darkness that surrounded him.

The bus pulled up to Carrollton, and the driver announced, “Cemeteries. End of the line,” as he set the brake, opened the door and stepped out and lit a cigarette. He headed off toward a portable toilet set on the neutral ground. The hoodie stood up and waited for Scrouge to do the same. He rose up and walked unsteadily down the aisle toward the door, grasping the railings at the stairs until his hands turned white, unwilling to step out. “Out,” the voice behind him said, and its bony hand gave him a push.

He stepped out into the single bright street light that stood over the driver’s toilet and looked into the darkness. Moonlight glinted off the rows of white metal boxes that marched off into the distance on the lakeside of Carrollton. “Why isn’t this trailer park lit up?” Scrouge turned toward the hoodie and asked. “Because it’s not a trailer park,” it answered. “It’s what the driver said: Cemeteries.”…

Read the full story here on Toulouse Street — Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans.

The New Orleans Fire Department told NOLA.Com it had agreed to a bonfire in Mid-City on New Years Eve with restrictions, but Mid-City neighborhood sources indicated that the agreement still required a response from the New Orleans Police Department.

In an email to participants in a meeting held Tuesday morning in Mid-City to prepare a proposal to present to city officials, an agreement was reached with the NOFD contingent on the NOPD providing barricades and closing the north side of Orleans Avenue to traffic for fire personnel assigned to the event. There was no reported response from the NOPD as of this evening.

Story continued on SaveTheBonfire.blogspot.com

Mark Folse (aka WetBankGuy)
Toulouse Street — Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans

Your WetBankGuy has set up a site on Blogspot to track the efforts of Mid-City residents to save their tradition from efforts by agencies of city government to shut it down. There was an information meeting last night with the NOFD, NOPD and members of the city council, which led to a smaller group meeting at the Bean Gallery this morning.

This smaller group has sent a delegation to meet with city officials through an offer by Councilmember Shelly Midura to organize such a meeting, to see if the bonfire can be saved.  If we are going to preserve this tradition, it is important that we let people who attend the bonfire from outside our community know some of the groundrules we are trying to see enforced in order to pacify the NOFD, NOPD and other officials.

I don’t speak on behalf of anyone other than myself, but if you wish to see the bonfire continue:

• Do not throw fireworks or other foreign matter into the fire.
• Respect the directions of fire fighters and police, and identified bonfire marshals.
• Keep your clothes on (this is a family event; we bring our kids)
• Do not get dangerously close to the fire, and respect any barricades that may be erected.

If we put some reasonable accomodations for the city’s concerns, including perhaps limits on the number of trees/size of the fire, and consider alternate Mid-City locations, we can help save the bonfire, but we will need the help of people on social media networks to help spread our requests for how guests in Mid-City should expect to behave at any future bonfire.

Please help spread this message through the city by word of mouth and any social media you participate in (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

For updates on this, please bookmark SaveTheBonfire.blogspot.com, follow the Facebook page,  and follow @SaveThebonfire on Twitter.

Or, “Do You Mean to Tell Me Every Time I Blow Another Dude’s Wood, a Tree Falls in the Forest?”

Dear Il Papa, courting irrelevancy to both the present and the future, is making news again, oh boy.

Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

He explained that defending God’s creation is not limited to saving the environment, but also protecting man from self-destruction.

The pope was delivering his end-of-year address to senior Vatican staff.

His words, later released to the media, emphasized his total rejection of gender theory.

Hm, sounds like the beginnings of a blue print for a final solution.

Later, in an attempt to prove he could still “git down”, the pope criticized “the tendency to depict the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day, which he attended in Sydney earlier this year, as mere spectacle”.

He stressed that the event should not be considered a “variant of modern youth culture, as a kind of ecclesiastical rock festival with the Pope as the star,” but as the fruition of a “long exterior and interior path”.

No doubt he got all misty-eyed, remembering those long-ago rallies of his own youth.

Meanwhile, on the local front, a little gossip …

You ready? Okay.

What diminutive Prince of the Church was recently overheard asking a certain (ecclesiastically-acceptable homosexual) member of the musicians’ union if he would talk to a (certain) well-known local songstress/diva/star about covering up her massive rack of bazooms for the annual Caroling in the Square? Seems said (well-known) boobies were becoming too much of an attraction - I mean, a distraction - to the menfolk, keeping them from a proper edification of the cabbage-patch birth of baby Jesus, who, being the Son of God, certainly had no need of Mary’s immaculate breasts.

I wonder, did Jewish ladies have pumps back then?

Oh, well, I guess there really are two classes of people in the world. Those who can have their cake and eat it, too, and the rest of us who can’t.

Good night for now.

* Oops, I almost forgot … That title up there, “Vittoriosa, Salve!” Sounds pretty, no? It’s Italian for “Sieg Heil”.

- Bigezbear

Since Chaunukah begins today I figured I woul add one more salvo of wicked video to the ongoing NOLABlogger Hostilidays just for HumidCity’s very own jewish mother, Liprap. Yes, more HP Lovecraft humor, deal with it.

Loki, HumidCity Founder and Curator

I forgot to add on a list of prior entries in this year’s Hostilidays when I made my own post about it yesterday. Since I think that all of you should suffer the way I have here is a consolidated list of the reckless offenders so far. Embrace your inner masochist, go check ‘em out.

Oyster, Maitri, Varg, Greg, Leigh, Loki (me), Adrastos, Mark, Tim, Howie, and Gentilly Girl (who is currently in the lead with the sickest and most obnoxiously offensive one yet in many people’s view).

All I can offer in the wake of all that is this video of my favorite twisted Xmas Carol, a duet between Tom Waits and Peter Murphy. Just think, Xmas is Wednesday and all of these hideous salvos of sick video will be over.

At least until Greg Peters starts them all rolling again next December….

-Loki, HumidCity Founder and Curator

Last year I declined paricipating in the annual NOLA Blogosphere Hostilidays, a barrage of holiday oriented YouTube videos of dubious origin and questionable taste. This year, being a huge fan of the works of H.P. Lovecraft, I have the perfect entry: The Carol of the Old Ones. Warning- sick sense of humor required.

Loki, humidCity Founder and Curator

Read this interesting article in Slate.com entitled Political Corruption Smackdown: Which state is the most crooked—Illinois or Louisiana?

Don’t be fooled by the delicate academic sensibilities of the article’s author. Louisiana wins this competition without breaking a sweat. Illinois seems impressive because they keep getting caught and keep going to jail. In Louisiana, our “impressive stats” are just the tip of the iceberg. For every conviction, we’ve got at least 1,000 unprosecuted cases of corruption. That’s because our guys are PROS! Illiniois is amateur hour.

We’re number one, baby! Geaux team!
- Louis Maistros

*
The Sound of Building Coffins by Louis Maistros is available for pre-order at Amazon.com and other fine online booksellers.

The Queen is dead; Long live the Queen.

Bettie Page, notorious pin-up model of the Cold War Era and beyond died yesterday at the age of 85 as the snow melted from the streets of New Orleans. She suffered a heart attack nine days ago and never regained conciousness. She died peacefully in a Los Angeles hospital.

Reposer en Paix, Mamselle Page.

While I normally do not hold much with rebroadcasting City releases, in this case I believe it is warranted.

-Loki, Founder and Curator of HumidCity

***WEATHER ADVISORY FROM THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS***

City Freeze Plan In Effect December 11 and 12

Advisory:

The City of New Orleans Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness reports weather forecasts that indicate the temperature or wind chill factor in Metro New Orleans is expected to reach 38 degrees or below during the next 48-hour period. The City’s Freeze Plan has been activated to provide temporary shelter for homeless citizens tonight and Friday night.

All citizens should take appropriate precautions to protect themselves from the potentially dangerous effects of this weather.  Exposure to temperatures near freezing, combined with strong winds for an extended period of time, can cause medical complications.  Weather conditions for the next two days will require all individuals to seek appropriate shelter.

Persons needing shelter will be accepted at the following locations under the following conditions:

• The Ozanam Inn, 843 Camp St. - accepting men only beginning at 7:00 p.m.
• The Covenant House, 611 N. Rampart St. - accepting women, between the ages 16-21, and families starting at 9 p.m.
• The New Orleans Mission, 1130 Oreatha C. Haley Blvd., - accepting men and women, starting at 7:00 p.m.
• The Salvation Army, 4500 South Claiborne Ave. – accepting men and women, beginning at 4:30 p.m.
• The Bridge House, 1160 Camp St. – accepting men and women that may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol beginning at 9:30 p.m.

All shelters will be opened free of charge to persons seeking shelter during this period of inclement weather.

I’ve been following the happenings/chaos in Greece through the MSM and through Teacher Dude’s Grill and BBQ, a blog I found through the Devious Diva, my usual source of inside-Greece news. [You must read DD's series on the Roma.] Teacher Dude is in Thessaloniki and has pictures. He was recently interviewed by BBC looking for some local color–I mean, reaction. He’s been posting regularly. The government may not survive this crisis.

G Bitch

Holy corruption, ratman, it’s snowing outside!

The last time this happened was Xmas before Hurricane Katrina…

Going to go take pictures now, buh-bye!

-Loki, HumidCity Founder and Curator

Question: Why the chicken crosses the road?

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a change!
The chicken wanted change! The chicken needed change! CHANGE!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he
recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the
chickens on the other side of the road…

SARAH PALIN: BECAUSE, PRAISE JESUS, I WAS GONNA SHOOT HIS SORRY LIBERAL ASS OFF
FOR BLOCKING MY VIEW OF RUSSIA !

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little
chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to
ensure right from Day One that every chicken in this country gets the chance it
deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn’t about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just
want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not.
The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY: Where’s my gun? Read the rest of this entry »

 While I’m sure that there are some out there who will cry “wimp!” at this latest turn of the Justice Screw (Our favorite reader, Dave the Hater, comes to mind), I am staggered that these same mercenaries were sent to New Orleans during the Katrina Flood Occupation, without so much as a howdy-do to anyone living here.
They stayed for almost three years and continued to patrol in unmarked vehicles, without badges or insignia, while still heavily armed. Their encampment at Rampart & Esplanade was a regular reminder of what our Neo-Con Masters were capable of.

 I sincerely hope that the latest news is indicative of another way of getting things done, and a sobering reminder to the Facist Elements of our fair nation, that eventually, Evil is found out. Even if it’s a billionaire right wing fundamentalist playing shadowy puppet master.

I hope these guys all rat you out for anything they can think of, Mister Eric Prince, Blackwater Owner.

And I hope you and your cronies go down like villians in a James Bond movie, trapped in your secret headquarters, as you blow yourselves sky high.

 BLACKWATER USED MACHINE GUNS ON UNARMED CITIZENS

BLACKWATER KILLS OWN EMPLOYEES IN IRAQ

Lord David
Pirate & Artist
Skull Club
New Orleans