{"id":962,"date":"2006-05-21T20:40:48","date_gmt":"2006-05-22T01:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/big-sleazy\/"},"modified":"2006-05-27T07:39:58","modified_gmt":"2006-05-27T12:39:58","slug":"big-sleazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/big-sleazy","title":{"rendered":"Big Sleazy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Going into this weekend, I wasn’t sure if the re-election of Ray Nagin as mayor of New Orleans would be tantamount to Marion Barry’s re-election in Washington, DC after being caught smoking crack cocaine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then the city’s member of the House of Representatives got caught on video taking $100,000 in cash<\/a> to facilitate bribing Nigerian officials for an internet venture (evidently not this one<\/a>), and I thought, “Well, at least Nagin’s not part of the political establishment.”<\/p>\n

Will Collier at Vodkapundit has a good take on the need to revamp politics<\/a> in New Orleans and Louisiana:<\/p>\n

Louisianans in general and New Orleanians in particular made too many bad choices for too long. They acquiesced to governmental corruption and incompetence with a shrug and the inevitable, “that’s just Louisiana.” They allowed an unfettered criminal class to fester and thrive, until it literally took over the city. They put too much trust in luck and “the great elsewhere,” as local author Chris Rose puts it, to bail them out when things were at their worst.<\/p>\n

And so they lived and died with those choices.<\/p>\n

Now it’s time for them to choose again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole shebang<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Going into this weekend, I wasn’t sure if the re-election of Ray Nagin as mayor of New Orleans would be tantamount to Marion Barry’s re-election in Washington, DC after being caught smoking crack cocaine. Then the city’s member of the House of Representatives got caught on video taking $100,000 in cash to facilitate bribing Nigerian … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Big Sleazy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,17,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-orleans","category-politics-explicit","category-urban-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-fw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2455,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/new-orleans-beijing-same-difference","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":0},"title":"New Orleans, Beijing: Same Difference","author":"Gil","date":"September 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Nicolai Ouroussoff: still here, still batshit-crazy. He asks why, if China could make a major architectural statement out of Beijing, the U.S. won't do the same in . . . New Orleans. No, really. Somehow, he misses the points that Beijing is the capital of a burgeoning world power, while\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Orleans"","block_context":{"text":"New Orleans","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-orleans"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":952,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/flood-the-zone","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":1},"title":"Flood the zone","author":"Gil","date":"May 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"When you compare the Army Corps of Engineers to the Catholic church, you're hitting below the belt. If you're interested in the policy that led to the flooding of New Orleans, you need to read this article by Michael Grunwald.","rel":"","context":"In "New Orleans"","block_context":{"text":"New Orleans","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-orleans"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9832,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-181-chris-rose","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":2},"title":"Episode 181 – Chris Rose","author":"Gil","date":"August 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show #181: Chris Rose \"After Katrina, I looked around and saw we had reporters out covering the destruction, but ain't nobody looking around and what's left. So that's what I started to do to. I drove my car around the city until I ran out of gas. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"28616519840_08efd997a9_z","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/28616519840_08efd997a9_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5743,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-111510","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":3},"title":"What It Is: 11\/15\/10","author":"Gil","date":"November 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: The Odyssey. What I'm listening to: The Lady Killer, The Point of It All, and some gorgeous jazz music, courtesy of my old pal Paul Longstreth, who was playing the club at the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon St. last night (btw: I'm in New Orleans this week)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/music"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=006124418X","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":494,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/new-orleans","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":4},"title":"New Orleans","author":"Gil","date":"March 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"As I mentioned a few posts ago, I took some pix down in Louisiana last weekend. I meant to post them earlier, but my flight trouble Monday\/Tuesday, combined with the official VM Mom's flight delays yesterday, left me with no time or energy to get to processing them.Without further ado:Here's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Orleans"","block_context":{"text":"New Orleans","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-orleans"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":779,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/new-orleans-pictures","url_meta":{"origin":962,"position":5},"title":"New Orleans pictures","author":"Gil","date":"December 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I promised I'd post the New Orleans pix from last week, including the Katrina Ridge Christmas display, and here they are: Pictures from Katrina Ridge Pictures from the French Quarter Enjoy!","rel":"","context":"In "New Orleans"","block_context":{"text":"New Orleans","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-orleans"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}