Ray Nagin; Guess who's Moved to Dallas?!?
Even as President Bush steps forward and states: "The Buck stops here", even as the Governor (Blanco) steps forward and says "The Buck stops here", Nagin throw up his smoke screens and defends his part in this disaster to Larry King and anyone willing to listen. Nagin still taking the stand that the fact the folks sheltered in the various New Orleans locations did not have provisions because the city is so poor. Where is all the tax revenue from the New Orleans night life? Where is the revenue from the tourist trade? Pocketed by someone. The state of Louisiana, and The Big Easy have endured many scandals of organized crime and fund misappropriations during their histories.
Before the citizens of the town take Nagin's word on everything, they need to look very hard at their 'leader'. He is still pointing fingers at everyone but himself. He is trying to inflame the people with his racist comments and speeches. He knows how effective the race-card can be in such stressful times and is cunning enough to think he can hide behind it. This ploy some reason, put me in mind of the invisible cape from Harry Potter. Nagin thinks if he holds that 'card' up his responsibilities and his failings for his people will not be seen...
Steve Subludowsky in the BayouBuzz.com says,"What’s going on with Mayor Nagin of New Orleans?
The Mayor who has been color blind for three years is doing terrible post-Katrina damage." he adds,"Guess what? What the good honorable mayor is doing is creating a living hell for those who want him to take specific responsibility for what he is now doing to the City of New Orleans—blaming race and not class—especially at a time when he should be blaming himself for certain pre and post Katrina events over the past few weeks of this hurricane nuclear horror."
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments
1 - Cerulean
Yes, he's just about useless as a mayor. People gave him little credibility before the storm when they didn't evacuate or after when he told the holdouts to get out (unnecessarily, I thought), then changed his mind and said they could stay, after they were badgered and presumably not given food and water for days. Most of his estimates have been way off, like the amount of time it would take to drain the city. Even I could eyeball it from the CNN footage and give a much better estimate. He's in way over his head. He's just a bad mayor, lazy, ineffective and not up to the job. The sooner they get rid of him, the better. Buy him a one way ticket to Dallas. There's a woman I saw on the news, I think her name is June Watson. She is running around bringing people food and water and holding their hands all on her own. Make her the mayor.
I can't believe Nagin bought a house in Dallas but Dallas' loss is New Orleans gain.
I'm sure that race had something to do with it but the white governor and president were incompetent too. It has to do with the presentation, with the posturing.
I went to black junior college in a black area, although I'm white. The student loan office was screwed up and probably crooked. They would finally get you your check after the semester. When you tried to get it through to them that that was wrong, there was a kind of front put up, like, I'm black, I get to work in this office and be king of this domain and don't even complain to me, performance is irrelevant. The whole problem was manufactured because other schools didn't do that. The guy running it wore a bow tie and carried himself like with the self-importance of a preacher and his whole department was a total boondoggle. I was reminded of that watching the news about New Orleans.
2 - RJ
Blanco needs to get some blame, yes. And Bush has already gotten a lot of the blame. But Nagin is perhaps the most blame-worthy of the three.
3 - Jewels
Cerulean, In the Dallas area we have a school district, called Wilmer-Hutchins. The entire district has gone belly-up. City of Dallas has had to absorb the students, which must be bussed from their district area. SO the kids have to endure the longer bus rides and more crowded classrooms, not to mention the loss of their area schools, their althetics, everything. It is in an area predominantly African- American, with the school board members and officials also predominantly African-American. Granted it is in a less than affluent part of the metroplex but that is not the problem, the problem lies with the misappropriation of school district funds to a magnitude never before seen in Dallas. Accusations ranging from the teaching staff taking home the school computers and television sets to the state misappropriating funds, to the school principal not getting repairs done over the Summer months and pocketing the funds...The dust has yet to settle. Sad to see.
RJ, and isn't it just really not funny that he isn't get hit hard about any culpability from the reporters he has been interviewed by - well, yes, they have been of the CNN variety.
We're just busting at the seams with excitement he has chosen Dallas. I'm giddy.
4 - Cerulean
My junior college had systemic problems too. The public school system where I live is run by a minority basically, almost all teachers and administrators are of this same race. It is so bad that they send their own kids to private school. Whites could not get hired there when I was young and it might still be true. Race isn't the only issue but there's a widespread sentiment that if you had real standards that non-white kids (who are the majority here) could not cut it, which I do not agree with. I think all kids need standards. So the whole public school system is run without standards, consequences, or discipline. Everyone who can afford it, including many teachers, pay to send their kids to schools that have standards, discipline and consquences. Like what should be coming down on Roy Nagin right now, but which something tells me never ever has.
5 - Shark
From the swampy shit-hole of New Orleans to the cement shit-hole of Dallas?
How appropriate!
And the Moron Mayor WILL FIT RIGHT IN.
[I predict he'll be elected to the Dallas City Council by next election.]
6 - Jewels
Shark, he'd fit right in with the likes of some of the other members of the current Dallas city council.
Happy times.
7 - v
y'all just looooove telling half the story, the half you like, and omitting the rest:
On September 13, nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed that New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has "totally left town" and "has moved to Texas ... where his kids are enrolled in school." While the New Orleans Times-Picayune did report on September 10 that "Nagin has purchased a home for his family in Dallas and enrolled his young daughter in school there," the paper added that Nagin "said he will remain in the Crescent City [New Orleans] while his family lives for the next six months in Dallas, making occasional visits to his family when possible."
On September 12, The Dallas Morning News cited the Times-Picayune article and correctly noted that Nagin said he would remain in New Orleans while his family lives temporarily in Dallas.
8 - v
an interesting counter to your constant ravings about nagin (while you somehow forget about how incompetent bush and his league - no pun intended were) can be found at this site: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/news/2005/09/16/Opinion/Assigning.Responsibility-987626.shtml
and remember, many many hurricanes have headed toward new orleans only to veer off as you read this, so i can imagine how you'd be crowing about nagin's alarmist behavior and waste of government money had he evacuated the entire city only to have the hurricane never materialize.
comparisons have been drawn between him and guiliani, who was responsible for cleaning up the x-rated 42nd street even as he boinked his mistress (hmm!). not so much comparisons actually as differences actually. (you'd think nagin would be getting more action than guiliani since he is a BABE after all and ...well...look at guiliani). but they do have one thing in common! both their cities suffered the consequences of federal negligence. don't you feel safe america?
9 - Jewels
He bought the house, not rented it my dear v., and it is my story. Write one of your own about your beloved "Negligent". Your devotion is very sweet...my lil' something extra friend.
10 - Cerulean
Nagin's a "babe"?
Well, you have a point about the many hurricanes that veered off causing a false sense of security.
11 - generation 1
People in New Orleans need to get real. As a child of Vietnam war survivors- my mother actually saw her brother die by the viet cong- I realize how much Americans take for granted. My parents have NEVER complained about being displaced from their homes, living in refugee camps for months, almost dying b/c of the conditions, or being shipped off to foreign lands and not seeing some family members for 20 years. In fact, they do not talk about it without being questioned. Furthermore, my family did not stay on welfare more than 6 months after arriving here, although my parents they barely spoke the English language. My mother was always grateful her and my father survived (they left when she was only 17 and newly married) and worked very hard at 2 jobs for over 20 years to give her children a life that she never had. A life of peace, possibility of wealth, and as little heartbreak as possible. Katrina victims, please stop complaining about the horrid conditions at the superdome-my parents stayed at a mayalsian refugee camp for over 3 months. Please stop complaining about the lack of food, water, luxuries of american culture- Vietnamese people do not have a/c or constant electricity. I'm just tired of hearing about it.
12 - Phillip Winn
Jewels, there's a bit more to the Wilmer-Hutchins school district deal than is generally floated in the papers around here. Somebody on the city council is thinking that the area could be a huge tax base in the future, and is gambling a little now that it will pay off later.
13 - Salena Moffat
I've posted about this now on my blog as well. I've been calling Nagin "The Cowardly Lion," on a massive quest for a wizard to give him courage ;) Seems his quest has taken him to Dallas. Hey, maybe the hurricanes are following him? (I'm not serious, I'm definitely being sarcastic. It's just that libs blame Bush, why can't we blame Nagin?)
14 - Jewels
Phillip, I have heard the rumors to that effect but it doesn't lessen the impact of the mismanagement of the district by the folks supposedly in charge of the schools affected.
Salena,
I think too, his encouraging people to move back into the city and surrounding areas last week points once again to his lack of foresight and judgement. Right after he is on national news to encourage the folks to 'come on back', he retracts his statements and has to tell them to 'get on out'! Levees are not in sufficient repair, electric and water still in progress, I called it the "Yo-Yo" Nagin effect. :)
15 - Phillip Winn
Jewels, there is also some defense of the W-H administrators based on the very, very low property tax revenues for that area. Without much money to go around, the reasoning goes, it is no wonder things fell into dramatic disrepair.
I have problems with that, because I have a background in private education, and I'm constantly amazed at how much private schools and home-schoolers manage to accomplish with a small fraction of the money spent by public schools. (And yes, I mean after accounting for special ed and so on.)
Nevertheless, it's a defense, and one that could be said to similarly apply to New Orleans. The suburbs are generally in better shape than the city itself, and they also had much higher tax revenue.
That said, when the Admiral (or whomever) was saying that it wasn't safe for people to return to New Orleans, and the Mayor was saying it was, it didn't take much digging to hear Mayor Nagin listing as one of his reasons why it was safe that "we need the tax revenue." The Admiral, in an interview with NPR, said that the litmus test should be whether you would send your own family back into the city, and stated that he wouldn't send his. NPR pointed out that Mayor Nagin's family was sitting comfortably in Dallas while the Mayor encouraged residents of New Orleans to return.
Hmm.
NPR also had a series of tapes of which they played excerpts this morning; tapes from government conference calls leading up to the disaster. It'll be interesting to see who's the biggest fool based on those. In the brief parts I heard, Nagin actually sounded semi-reasonable, and FEMA didn't come off so well.
16 - Jewels
Regarding FEMA, with who was handling the situation (Brown) there may be good reason Nagin is coming across as more reasonable.
Vice Adm Thad Allen is the guy your're referring to and he has a point! As the article comments on, even if the businesses open, there are few folks around to purchase products and do business with, so meanwhile they move back in, open their doors, and have to evacuate again.
Lt General Russell Honore, now he is a strong leader! click to read
As we have just witnessed on the news, the city is experiencing flooding again, because the levees are not fixed, just patched.
Regarding the educational spending, a great deal of the honesty and competance of the district depends on demography it seems. Some areas are more easily manipulated than others, but it is true that even in the more fiscally sound districts, much could be done to improve the cost ratios in all areas to benefit the children in their districts.
17 - Howard McCullough
Mayor Ray Nagin does'nt need to be let off of the hook. As mentioned before, he continues to refuse to accept any blame for the Katrina/New Orleans fiasco. How can anyone say that race was a factor? The process of evacuation STARTS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL. Who better to implement a local evacuation plan than the mayor of a city. How can Mayor Nagin scream about sending numerous Greyhound buses to evacuate New Orleans citizens when he failed to utilize 200-300+ school buses that he said he didn't have drivers for. Nice evacuation plan Mayor Nagin. This has nothing to do with race. This was a failure on Mayor Nagin's part to understand the evacuation process and to provide for ALL citizens of New Orleans. Mayor Nagin is not a leader and the citizens of New Orleans need to find someone who is.
18 - gerrard
I've been thinking about unsubbing from blogcritics for a while now, but this post and the ignorant comments attached will be the proverbial straw for me.
Hmm, an organization that had mostly black employees performed poorly...and that reminded you of New Orleans? This country is being run incredibly poorly, mainly by white folks, should I draw some sort of conclusion about that when the next natural disaster occurs in a mainly white area? Of course not, the poor performance of some white people says nothing about white people in general. Even if the people in question are silly enough to bring race into the equation as an excuse for their poor performance, it takes some deep down personal bigotry to draw those kind of conclusions. Ugh.
The vietnam comment was also particularly distasteful...let me get this straight, if I have only one leg I can't complain because there are people with no legs in the world? I can't even bring myself to address how empty an argument that is. "Don't worry about being raped, I was gang-raped! Stop complaining!"
I remember once, seems like ages ago, I used to come to blogcritics for interesting insights. I read lots of posts I disagreed with 100%, but still managed to learn something most of the time. What happened? Did the site get infected with spyware or sold to News Corp?
19 - gerrard
Maybe you should just play your guitar Drunk When You Met Me, you seem happy doing this, not bad! Nice tune.
If the post and comments irritate or insult your immense intellect why bother even commenting?
You apparently have such an elevated opinion of yourself perhaps that is the very thing you should do. Maybe you are too smart for any of us.
20 - Walchung
Remember the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. Castro dumped his un-wanted on the U.S. Looks like Nagin just did the same thing to the states that took his refugees. How many of the poor and unemployed will choose to stay in their host state, which surely have better welfare and social programs than Louisiana? Maybe Nagin isn't as dumb as he seems.
21 - Burkee
Because Ray Nagin made the comment about New Orleans rebuilding into a Chocalate city, most major companies refused to resettle back in New Orleans. They did not want to become part of the racial issue which Nagin created. The 9th ward was an undesirable part of New Orleans and that's why it was not considered for rebuilding. Armed guards had to be hired to assist the mailman on his route.