"Guess What?" New Orleans is Still A Mess

"Guess What?" <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />New Orleans is Still A Mess<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
Guess what?
New Orleans is a mess – still!
I know this to be true because Anderson Cooper told me so.  He and his 360 crew were in southern Louisiana last week "keeping them honest."  "Them" being the thousands of workers, both public and private, who are invested with public trust and massive amounts of Federal monies.
Guess what?
Some of it ain't working all that well.
Remember the nearly three billion dollars worth of FEMA-bought trailers moved into New Orleans for temporary housing?  Well, most of them are now pastured on a trailer farm in Jasper, TX, selling on a government website for a dime to a quarter on the dollar.  Cooper's investigators discovered many were not returned in pristine condition.  You'll be glad to know FEMA is not refunding many deposits.  Oops!  They didn't collect any deposits.
Leslie Crocker Snyder, a hard-nosed former New York judge now transplanted in The Big Easy to monitor programs seeking prosecution of criminals in America's most violent and crime-plagued city, told Anderson – guess what? – The system is broken.
Not only can they not prosecute trailer trashers, they can't prosecute murderers.  Last year, at least 162 former residents were killed on the mean streets of New Orleans (they don't count the ones they don't find).  Halfway through 2007, the crack team of prosecutors has three convictions.
Snyder told Cooper that the Police Department struggles writing and processing reports and that witnesses are hard to find after the crime.  Guess what?  Snyder also concluded nepotism may be part of the problem.
No one can be sure the pumps, levees, gates, and operators that separate New Orleans from another catastrophe are finished or functional.  Guess what?  There is a distinct possibility New Orleans is no better off than it was before Katrina. 
My guess is that New Orleans remains New Orleans in all its grand and glorious dysfunctionality.  Why would we expect a little thing like a major hurricane to change the character and behavior of one of the world's craziest cities?
It was nuts then; it's nuts now.  Nothing changes until you do.
Consider what made New Orleans great?  First, it's a city built below sea level in an alligator swamp surrounded by 360 degrees of water (Not news programs!) held back by Silly Putty.  Second, its major attraction is Mardi gras, a celebration of wanton pleasure before lent.  Guess what?  It makes no sense by any moral standard.  Third, its abject poverty gives it an authentic feel of a Third World Country.
I'm not trying to be harsh, just truthful.
New Orleans was weird and dysfunctional before Katrina; it's weird and dysfunctional now.  Billions of dollars of taxpayer's money will not cure dysfunctionality.  It takes something more.
Guess what?  If a hurricane jumped California and smashed Las Vegas (hey, it could happen!), the rebuilt Las Vegas would not be new and improved.  America would be out a trillion dollars without one cent of ethical improvement.
Las Vegas, much like New Orleans, has no moral soul.  Their claims to fame are debauchery and excess.  We ought to consult Sodom and Gomorrah regarding the sustainability of communities which traffic in sin.
Guess what?  Sometimes we expect too much when we expect that which is corrupt and dysfunctional to be transformed without first experiencing an inner change.
Though Anderson Cooper was reporting live from New Orleans, the real story last week unfolded out in Southern California where celebrity-girl-gone-bad Paris Hilton was back in the slammer and threatening to call Arnold if they didn't let her go.
Guess what?  Paris is a lot like New Orleans, not in the fact they both have French connections, but in the undeniable reality both are incredibly dysfunctional and unable and unwilling to respond positively to crisis.
Cooper's reporters in L.A. discovered Paris does in deed have serious medical issues; she is extremely A.D.D. and suffers from acute (as near as I can tell, her only celebrity quality is acute) claustrophobia.  No kidding!
Paris told Barbara Walters on The View that although she used to be silly and stupid, her jail time has changed her.  She has read the Bible and had a spiritual awakening!  She is not going to drink and drive anymore.  She pledges to stop her ridiculous stupidity.
Guess what?  Paris may be on to something.  The only chance any of us have to leave dysfunctionality is to not only have, but sustain, a spiritual awakening.  It's really the only path to change.  It's really the only cure for narcissism.
If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Paris before New Orleans.  At least she recognizes there is a problem: her!  I don't think New Orleans gets it.  They remain a city without a conscience.

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