HumidCity

HumidCity is once more proud to bring you Missives From Matt McBride. This episode is in response to a rather obnoxious column that includes a revelation concerning what a certain former Mayoral candidate (and then Nagin supporter) truly thinks of our efforts to bring our city back. -Loki

Source Article Here

“Will America’s breadbasket be fixed faster than America’s party town, brought to its knees by water-overwhelmed levees in August 2005?

Rob Couhig, 59, thinks it will, partly because of Midwestern self-reliance. He thinks they’re not about to sit around, wringing their hands, waiting for the government to bail them out, which, he says, sadly, was what his beloved home town did - and still does.

A no-nonsense corporate lawyer in an open-collar white shirt, Couhig is a commissioner on the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, and is thought by some to be one of the smartest men in town.”

“Talk-show host Robinette, a Cajun who devoted countless on-air hours to the danger of flooding before and after it happened, says that the city’s high ground, which was spared the flooding, exactly matched the boundaries of the original city. “If the engineers of 200 years ago knew those areas, you shouldn’t build there.”

This came in response to me asking if it is wise to rebuild the entire city.

To the same question, lawyer Couhig gave me an answer as long as a Ryan Howard home run, but didn’t directly answer.

“You’re saying ‘no,’ aren’t you?” I asked.

Couhig didn’t reply, but he smiled. I guess there are some things that you don’t want to be quoted as passing through your lips.”

The columnist gets things wrong too, assumedly from his chat with Garland Robinette:

“One who believes this to be true is 65-year-old Garland Robinette, a former TV anchor and now popular talk-show host on WWL-AM, which earned its bones by remaining on the air with emergency information after the TV stations drowned and the local paper couldn’t get delivered.”

In fact, the T-P stayed on line the whole time and was publishing within a couple of days. WWL-TV stayed on air continuously. Both won the most prestigious prizes in their respective fields for those feats; the T-P got a Pulitzer in 2006 and WWL-TV got a Columbia-DuPont prize in 2007.

Rob Couhig can be emailed at: couhigre@couhigpartners.com

Garland Robinette can be emailed at: grobinette@entercom.com

You can email the column’s author, Stu Bykofsky at stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977, which is his direct line.

This column came out of a columnists conference held last week in New Orleans. Lt. Gov. Landrieu and Mayor Nagin spoke to the assembled ink-stained wretches. The organization that put it on, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, has high hopes for lots of columns to come out of the conference:

http://www.columnists.com/index.php?ID=2

“Since New Orleans’ attempt to recover from being virtually destroyed by Hurricane Katrina is one of the most dramatic stories of our generation, we’re expecting some great columns to come out of the conference.

“We plan on collecting these columns (with permission, of course) and assembling them in an attractive book. Current plans call for proceeds from the sale of the book to go to help the recovery effort, which still needs help almost three years after the storm and flood.“

If the rest of the columns are like this one, it’ll be a pretty thin book.

Matt McBride

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” - John Adams

You know, um…I used to think that it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.

– Marcus Cole, Babylon 5

“You know, um…I used to think that it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.” – Marcus Cole, Babylon 5

This content is syndicated from the email by Matt McBride, formerly at the helm of Fix The Pumps. -Loki

Dear New Orleanians,

The Corps has released the preliminary version of their category 5 study:

http://lacpr.usace.army.mil/default.aspx

or the direct link:

http://lacpr.usace.army.mil/default.aspx?p=LACPR_Draft_Technical_Report

They had promised this to the public (after missing their 12/31/07 deadline) on February 8th, as seen here:

http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/Video/WLAE_Col_Lee_080115.wmv

I went and checked on March 7th, and it hadn’t yet appeared on the LaCPR site. But it’s there now.

By the way, the study doesn’t actually make any recommendations. In fact, here’s an excerpt from the end of the report:

“Efforts to date do not point to a single effective risk reduction strategy. No single strategy for comprehensive hurricane damage risk reduction, other than entirely abandoning communities in South Louisiana, will guarantee safety for the population along the coast.”

Basically, what this study has done is just collect all the alternatives, so that more meetings can be held. The Corps has placed a paragraph in the report meant to blunt criticism that the public was expecting recommendations from this report, and there are none (and, yes, I am aware that was reported earlier, but that doesn’t mean that every member of the public in South Louisiana will remember or care about it):

“Congress also directed a technical report rather than a reconnaissance or feasibility report as described by normal USACE policy. The technical report will contain many of the same components as a reconnaissance or feasibility report, such as presenting the results of the formulation and evaluation of alternatives. As outlined by the Congressional direction, the technical report will contain a ‘comprehensive hurricane protection analysis and design…to develop and present a full range of flood control, coastal restoration, and hurricane protection measures…for comprehensive Category 5 protection.’”

Expect to see that argument when people start asking, “why are there no recommendations other than, ‘have more meetings?’”

Matt

Mel Brooks - “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”

Neil Gaiman, as usual, says it far better than I ever could:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and
good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who
thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make
some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And
I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

This is what he wrote in 2001, and has reposted in both ‘04 and this year. I can easily see why, it’s the best statement of everything a new year should bring, distilled down to three potent sentences.

May the above be true for everyone this year!

Powered by ScribeFire.

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

When I dispair, I remember that all through history the way of Truth and Love has always won. There have been Tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail; Think of it… ALWAYS.”

- Mahatma Gandhi

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. I had hoped that liberal and enlightened thought would have reconciled the Christians so that their religious fights would not endanger the peace of Society.

~ George Washington in a Letter to Sir Edward Newenham, June 22, 1792

Just seemed pertinent to modern life.