Best Of New Orleans Blog

Thousands might have waited with baited breath for the liar’s latest release

B. DALTON BOOKSELLERS, EVERYWHERE, USA— Today, thousands — er, probably tens — of people may have waited in line to receive their copy of James Frey’s newest big fat lie, Bright Shiny Morning — scheduled to be released today. (I don’t really know; I wouldn’t be caught dead in that line.) In an attempt to redeem himself in the eyes of the 30-to-35-year-old male skateboarders and potheads who listed A Million Tiny Pieces — a lame-ass story about drug addiction recovery that he later admitted was bogus — on their myspace profile under their book “interests,” the author has written a new “novel,” using the word “shiny” as a nifty substitute for what us average readers would normally read as Bright “Sunny” Morning.

Poets and Writers magazine reports that “Neither [the agent] nor the publisher wanted the book to be reviewed online months before publication,” according to Frey’s agent. “This strategy is not an embargo,” the director of publicity at HarperCollins told PW. But perhaps it’s a new strategy wherein they’re hoping sheer suspense will compel his handful of devoted fans to buy the book without any information about the plot or context of the novel whatsoever ahead of time. If you care, the book is available online at Amazon.com. It’s apparently so great people already bought and posted several used copies online so others can enjoy Bright Shiny Morning even faster, and cheaper. Janet Maslin even wrote a review of the book for the New York Times in a baby voice so his fans could understand how truly important his bright shining moment really is.

By: Jeremy Alford

The actual dying part isn’t the only way to get screwed in death. That’s why Sen. Eric LaFleur, a Ville Platte Democrat, is pushing legislation that would require an itemized list of all merchandise and services for which consumers pay funeral directors. Senate Bill 806 calls for funeral contracts to include detailed casket descriptions to prevent unscrupulous “bait and switch” tactics. (more…)

By: Jeremy Alford

Senate President Joel Chaisson, a Destrehan Democrat, wants to make sure Louisiana’s “Good Samaritan” law protects certain hurricane recovery workers. So far, lawmakers agree; Senate Bill 330 is moving swiftly toward final passage. Chaisson told the Senate last week that the state should protect medical personnel who, in good faith, stay behind after a storm to help out, whether they’re getting paid or not. That means protections from civil damages and any other penalties if an unintended misstep occurs. (more…)

By: Allen Johnson  

Almost three years after Katrina, New Orleans may have a lot of traumatized cops trying to control a lot of traumatized juveniles, according to Tulane University historian Lance Hill, who has been surveying mental health literature on the long-term effects of the storm. Most NOPD officers were affected by “direct trauma,” losing their homes and witnessing widespread death and destruction. (more…)

By: Allen Johnson

The 100-member Holy Cross Neighborhood Association in the Lower Ninth Ward has picked up a major ally in its petition drive asking Gov. Bobby Jindal to extend deployment of 300 National Guard troops in New Orleans. Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, an influential post-Katrina grassroots organization, has joined the drive to get 100,000 signatures to Jindal before the Guard phase-out begins next month, says Ariane Wiltse, an organizer for the Holy Cross neighborhood group and an occasional contributor to Gambit Weekly. Citizens for 1 has posted the petition on its Web sitehttp://cgno.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=National_Guard.

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By: Allen Johnson

Mayor Ray Nagin, Police Chief Warren Riley, and tourism industry officials last week kicked off a $1 million police recruiting drive to offset the phased withdrawal of 300 National Guard troops from New Orleans beginning next month. “We want to get to 1,600 officers as quickly as possible,” Riley says, optimally by mid-2009. (more…)

By: Clancy DuBos

The field of potential candidates posturing to run for Leon Cannizzaro’s just-vacated seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal is growing almost by the day. So far, those eyeing the race include several sitting judges — Ron Sholes and Paul Bonin of Traffic Court, and David Bell of Juvenile Court — and former Civil Court Clerk Dan Foley. Sholes, a partner at the Adams and Reese law firm, already has a billboard at the corner of Poydras and South Rampart streets asking voters to “promote” him to the appellate court. (more…)

By: Jeremy Alford

Despite campaign hoopla to the contrary, pet local projects and “slush” still make their way into the state budget — to the tune of more than $77 million as of last week. These days, they’re called NGOs, or nongovernmental organizations, and lawmakers can direct state funds to them via the state’s operating budget. The ostensible purposes range from economic development to drug treatment, and recipient groups vary from religious organizations to social services outfits. (more…)

By: Clancy Dubos

The New Orleans City Council, in a rebuff of the Nagin Administration and its city attorney’s office, has hired the local law firm of Herman, Herman, Katz & Cotlar to be the council’s legal advisor. The firm is well known in plaintiff law circles, having played a major role in class action suits, including the recent $4.85 billion settlement of Vioxx cases. (more…)

By: Allen Johnson

New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast apparently have a common problem — unruly “Katrina kids.” A new study by the University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg examined the records of 17,000 Mississippi students and found that hurricane-displaced youths were more apt to get in trouble than nondisplaced students, especially those who were already struggling academically and who came from underprivileged backgrounds. “The increased incidence of disciplinary problems suggests that psychological issues for some students have not diminished in the time following the storm, and in fact may have intensified,” says USM researcher Dr. Mike Ward, a former North Carolina State Superintendent of Public Instruction. “We have always had a few that were daring enough at a very young age, but it seems to be more now than in the past,” Police Chief Warren Riley said recently, after a rash of armed robberies by children as young as 12. (more…)

A recent survey of New Orleans voters shows Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu easily winning the next mayor’s race, which is still 21 months and a presidential election away. Landrieu, however, is not getting overly excited about the numbers — for several reasons.

The results remind me of statewide post-Katrina polls showing Bobby Jindal easily beating Kathleen Blanco in a rematch of their 2003 gubernatorial runoff, which Blanco narrowly won.

In the case of Blanco and Jindal, it was a massive case of post-Katrina buyer’s remorse. Reading the recent survey of New Orleans voters, one is tempted to reach the same conclusion with regard to Landrieu and Mayor Ray Nagin, who narrowly defeated the lieutenant governor in a May 2006 runoff. (more…)

If you’re interested in the present state of health care — more and more Americans are concerned with the current state of affairs  — the Kaiser Family Foundation Web site is a solid point of reference. The foundation is a non-profit, private operation that focuses a health care issues facing the U.S. KFF isn’t a cheerleader, nor is it interested in merely positing opinions. Instead, as their mission statement points out, “Our product is information, always provided free of charge – from the most sophisticated policy research, to basic facts and numbers, to information young people can use to improve their health or elderly people can use to understand their Medicare benefits.”

That’s what voters need in this upcoming presidential election: well-researched info that takes a macro and micro view on the subject of healthcare.

Speaking of politics, as the country inches closer and closer to only two candidates, and a number of upcoming congressional elections, the question will become: will health care coverage and costs remain a concern and will newly elected officials do anything about it?  Drew Altman, president and CEO of KFF, doesn’t necessarily answer that question in his “Pulling It Together” section but he does illuminate the issues and provides the potential scenarios for health care reform, or the lack thereof.

Did you know that a Southern Sea Otter eats five meals a day? Well, one who resides at Audubon Aquarium does, anyway. That can add up to more than 20 pounds of seafood a day, according to the Audubon Institute’s Web Site. The otters’ snack of choice is an ice-cold seafood popsicle that comes as part of a specialized diet planned by their nutritionists at the Institute. They are just a few of the more than 15,000 animals living at Audubon, all of whom are fed according to meal plans designed especially for them.

It takes more than $60,000 to foot just part of the animals’ monthly grocery bill, the Web site says, with that amount spent just on grain and hay for the Zoo animals alone. Imagine the dent you’d put in your pocketbook if you had a 20 to 50 pound per day appetite in addition to the rising cost of fuel and grain shortages that are already inflating the cost of groceries. And imagine if you had to rely on somebody else to procure that sustenance for you. A trip to the grocery on the way home from work for a $6.99 gallon of milk doesn’t sound so bad anymore does it? (more…)

by Sam Winston

An in-depth look at how the internet giants and New Orleans teamed up to challenge the very status quo of presidential debates. And what their chances are of succeeding.

“Their invitation had the distinct aura of something that had not been fumigated by the relevant authorities; in the increasingly big business of televised presidential debates, it was not an invitation at all, but a challenge—to the candidates, the major television networks, and to that man behind the curtain, the Washington-based nonprofit called the Commission on Presidential Debates.”- New York Observer

Former appeals court Judge Leon Cannizzaro has made the first TV ad buy in the campaign for district attorney in New Orleans. Cannizzaro formally announced his candidacy last Wednesday (April 30), and now he has upped the ante in the race by going on TV less than a week later.

Cannizzaro kept politicos guessing for months as to whether he would quit his judgeship (as required by state law when judges run for any non-judicial post) to run for DA. Once it became clear that he was indeed going to run, the speculation immediately switched to whether Cannizzaro could raise the money to match his most visible announced opponent, former first assistant DA Ralph Capitelli. Capitelli, who announced his own candidacy months ago, has raised approximately $450,000 so far and spent about $100,000 — none of it yet on TV. Cannizzaro’s opening buy sends a message that the former judge has no intention of being out-spent. (more…)

 by Sam Winston

Editor of the Weekly Standard and New York Times Columnist William Kristol, also a well-known neo-conservative pundit, has this column up today titled “McCain-Jindal?“

The speculation on Jindal, initially only a Rush Limbaugh-driven rumor, just won’t seem to die as John McCain keeps waiting to make his pick for a vice-president running-mate. This despite that most commentators have premised their mention of Jindal by saying he was probably too inexperienced. Jindal himself tried to quell the rumors but that was three months ago before Kristol’s column today in which Kristol cites at least 4 McCain aides informally mentioning Jindal for consideration and before McCain came to New Orleans and met with Jindal personally. For Kristol’s quotes on Jindal and further speculation on why Jindal’s name keeps getting mention, see below the fold. (more…)