Best Of New Orleans Blog

Civil Court Clerk Dale Atkins has made it official: she is not running for DA later this year. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I finalized it this past weekend,” Atkins tells GAMBIT WEEKLY.

She cited the demands of raising a 13-year-old child as her main reason for not running. Atkins is raising the daughter of her sister, who was killed years ago in a drive-by shooting. Another factor, she said, is her legislative mandate to oversee the merger of the city’s mortgage, conveyance and notarial archives offices into her clerk’s office at the end of this year. “I had to prepare an implementation plan by Jan. 1 of this year,” Atkins says. “I put a lot of time, along with others, into developing that plan. … After that, I just decided that the opportunity to be a part of this major change in the civil justice system, and to be able to fashion that plan in a manner that gives the public one-stop shopping with regard to property records, along with the chance to make some significant technical upgrades, is a challenge I want to complete.”

While New Orleans will elect a new DA in the fall, the next election for clerk doesn’t come up until February 2010 — the same time as the next mayor’s race. Moreover, the civil and criminal clerks offices will merge in May 2010.

Atkins’ decision no doubt prompted interim DA Keva Landrum-Johnson to announce last week that she might make the race after all — despite a widely reported commitment she was said to have made not to run in exchange for her interim appointment. No doubt Landrum-Johnson’s take on that alleged commitment will be the stuff of campaign fodder if she runs.

Meanwhile, Atkins’ decision also increases speculation that state appellate court Judge Leon Cannizzaro will make the race. Unlike announced candidate Ralph Capitelli, a former first assistant DA, and Landrum-Johnson, Cannizzaro cannot announce for a non-judicial office without first resigning his judgeship. He is expected to make a decision soon.

Other potential candidates are said to be veteran federal prosecutor Linda Bizzarro and former ad-hoc judge Jason Williams.

It’s not often you get the chance to reflect on one of the worst meals you’ve ever had in the Croissant City. Allow me to spare anyone else the experience.

Having worked in a handful of the city’s finer restaurants for four years, perhaps I should’ve known better than to visit Mayas Restaurant & Bar (located on a restaurant-starved strip of Magazine Street in the Lower Garden District) within its first few months of existence. That said, I’m not sure any amount of repetition will cure what ails the fledgling Latin American eatery.

Mayas’ first impressions certainly don’t presage an impending culinary disaster. The shotgun space is clad in eclectic, if somewhat kitschy, decorations: native masks, natural wood and colorful art. The tables are dressed in crisp linens and the flatware feels substantial. Our server couldn’t have been sweeter. And then the food came.

A delicious-sounding appetizer sampler that promised tastes of the restaurant’s signature frito starters — spring rolls, croquetas, soft-shell crab, tostones, et al. — more closely resembled an assortment of freezer-burned relics. (Imagine shelling out $16 for a fossilized Hot Pocket and a year-old box of Jeno’s pizza rolls.) They were served with a trio of unidentified dipping ramekins, and while I’m no saucier, I’ll take a stab: Chinese-takeout duck, garlicky vinaigrette and coagulated ranch. As in Hidden Valley.

Despite this flubbed handshake, we were still optimistically onboard awaiting our entrée selections. After all, how can you screw up ropa vieja and paella? Here’s one way: boil your shredded beef until it takes on the texture of the old clothes for which it was named and bog down your butter-drenched arroz with bulk-rate seafood — wedding shrimp, chewy mussels and shriveled clams — that smells like a wetsuit left out in the sun. Then charge $45 for them. (To Mayas’ credit, they removed the largely untouched latter from the check.)

We quickly paid the bill and left, in the process forsaking flan and pastel de tres leches, a personal kryptonite. A mile up the road, La Divina’s tongue-numbing gelato beckoned louder.  

The local filmmakers Court 13 Pictures premiere their new film Glory at Sea on Thursday (March 6) at the Prytania Theatre before taking it to the film festival portion of SXSW in Austin. The story is a post-Katrina take on the Orpheus myth. Mourners join a man cast out of Hades to build a boat from the hurricane debris and rescue their loved ones from the bottom of the ocean. Director Benh Zeitlin shot the film at locations throughout the New Orleans area and assembled Katrina debris to create the vessel.

Court 13 includes Zeitlin, whose film Egg won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Animated Short at the Slamdance Film Festival, and production designer Ray Tintori, who won a Sundance Film Festival award for the short film Death to the Tinman.

The screening is at 7:30 p.m. at the Prytania (5339 Prytania St.). Admission is $3.

by Sam Winston

A double standard when it comes to covering the Republicans and their association with the religious right?

Barack Obama was questioned at Tuesday night’s debate by Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton about repudiating Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement — which Obama said was unsolicited — in the strongest terms possible. He was repeatedly badgered by Russert, and was forced to disown Farrakhan over and over again.

The very next day, John McCain appeared onstage in Texas with Pastor John Hagee, an influential activist in the Christian Zionist movement. Hagee’s comments about world affairs can make Farrakhan seem pedestrian at times: He eagerly awaits the Armageddon, considers the Catholic Church to be the Anti-Christ, and has said that Jews brought their own persecution upon themselves.” - TPM

The book on John Hagee goes way deeper in terms of racially-charged, radical statements. Here’s what John Hagee had to say about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. (more…)