Ron Paul

All i can note are my own personal observations. I have no expertise obviously.

When we were in Austin, i saw a lot of Ron Paul signs in yards and along roads. They were the only political group to stake out a patch of ground in front of the Austin City Limits Festival and proselytize (although i did see a few Obama stickers on backpacks.) I just chalked the signs up to the libertarian technology community in Austin.

It's November and i live in Hammond, Louisiana. The only presidential campaign signs that i've seen up in town are Ron Paul signs. We walk through neighborhoods downtown, and there in front of a lot of well-upkept homes, although i've noticed that they are more prominent in mixed race neighborhoods, which is a little disturbing.

Ron Paul scares the shit out of me. I'm seeing the Clinton and Giuliani match-up as inevitable, but the Ron Paul factor is spooky. He doesn't seem to be part of the predetermined equation between two self-entitled political machines, but he doesn't seem to be a force for good either. Few of the people who are disgusted with the establishment seem to be grasping the danger of Ron Paul though.

Two local blogs, Your Right Hand Thief and Library Chronicles have tackled the Ron Paul phenomenon. Library Chronicles has covered how Paul is making an impact in New Orleans. Paul's Louisiana profile is important to me, as we are a relatively political backwater, so nationally something more powerful must be on the move, but he also nails something that has been coalescing in my head:

My model stars Rudy! Giuliani as the ghoulish authoritarian Nixon, Hillary Clinton as the bumbling centrist Hubert Humphrey, and Paul as the insurgent x-factor George Wallace. In '68 Wallace's run exposed a dangerous fault in the old Democratic "New Deal" coalition splintering the working class populist vote along racial and social lines and ushering in a major political realignment which appears to have peaked with the rise and... perhaps... fall of the Rovian neo-cons currently ruining our Constitution and pretty much blowing up the world.

Again, very fucking scary.

Both blogs point to this Orcinus post.

I don't have much hope for 2008.

Squandered Heritage: factchecking New Orleans' Imminent Danger Demolition List

I should have thrown a link up to the Squandered Heritage blog a few weeks ago. They have been putting up photos of houses slated for demolition by the city of New Orleans, as there are some peculiar shenanigans going on. The city claims that it's only going after houses that are a blight on the neighborhood, mostly ones damaged in Katrina and left abandoned.

If one spends any time going through the photos of the properties that the city has listed on their Imminent Danger List, one can see that this is unadulterated bullshit. Some of the houses have been repaired and are in good condition. A few were never damaged at all, and are inhabited. There are some absolutely necessary demolitions slated, but there is a land grab being cloaked under this work. New Orleans is selling out its citizens for some greedy developers it seems.

The most recent post on Squandered Heritage links to the Flickr photosets of the houses, and links how to appeal one getting one's house off of that Imminent Danger List.

the forgotten jazz landmarks of New Orleans

New Orleans never can do enough to secure its own heritage. Some great citizens are making heroic efforts to document sites relevant to the history of jazz. I hadn't even stopped to think that Jelly Roll Morton's house might still be standing. It is, and someone is hellbent on preserving it. For a city that makes tourism its primary industry, the amount of heritage that gets overlooked and neglected is insane.

Katrina is still fair game

Maybe impeachment is off the table, but it would be pragmatic and appropriate to pursue a probe into the mismanagement of the post-Katrina disaster. It looks like the Democratic-controlled Congress is considering it. I want blood.

Only a couple of weeks ago, i had to walk away from a customer (an upper middle class white woman) at the bookstore because she was insisting that everyone who stayed behind in New Orleans got exactly what they deserved. She wanted a coffee table book of the disaster, but apparently not one with too much human suffering. She just mourned the buildings. I tried to tell her the story of a coworker of mine from the other store, who was stuck on her roof for days with snakes, waded through sewage water and dead bodies, and sexually assaulted... but she was not interested. Monster.