In today’s Picayune, Nagin tries to clear up the confusion about Ed Blakely and his alleged department of recovery or whatever:
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said Tuesday that he wants his often-criticized recovery director, Ed Blakely, to stay for a third year, even as the mayor introduced a plan to dissolve Blakely’s department by June…
“It’s going to be his call,” Nagin said. “I’d love for him to stay a little longer, but, you know, he’s done his duty.”
Nagin said Blakely’s biggest mistake in fostering criticism was his promise of “cranes on the skyline” by September 2007.
“Here’s the rub: People are saying the recovery’s not moving because they don’t see progress,” Nagin said in an interview Tuesday. “I think if he could take one comment back, it would be ‘cranes in the sky.’ We don’t build high . . . so it’s not as readily available to the naked eye.
Speaking of high…. I mean, seriously dude: put your spokespeople to work and go back to Jamaica or Vegas or wherever you’ve been for the past two or three years.
Whatever. Move on down the page a bit, and you’ll find this curiosity–oddly enough, courtesy of reporter David Hammer, not Nagin:
The newspaper story did note that Blakely was sipping wine at the time, but he had just started on his first cup after an hours-long meeting with federal, state and local recovery officials.
Was Blakely at some kind of Renaissance Faire? Or maybe a very early Carnival parade? ‘Cause those are the only two places I can think of where anybody’d be swilling a “cup” of wine.
In other news, I’m at a hotel in Baton Rouge, where I recently fumbled and lost an entire cup of coffee. Seriously, LOST it: it spilled onto the carpet, and then it was gone. No trace. Rosie Whatsername ain’t got nothing on this low-pile shag.
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THERE’S A PARTY IN NAGIN’S MOUTH, AND WE’RE ALL INVITED! (TO CRINGE!)
Blakely gave an interview last week to The Times-Picayune in which he said he needed to talk with his wife and with the mayor about whether to stay for a third year in New Orleans. Since then, Blakely has alternately called the newspaper story a “false report” and reiterated his intentions to consider his options.
Yesterday, the mayor made his first public comments on the subject, telling television reporters that he thinks Blakely will stay, but confirming that he’d have to discuss it with his aide in December.
Nagin tried to dismiss Blakely’s interview with The Times-Picayune by saying, “I think a reporter sat him down after he had a couple bottles of wine, he got a little too relaxed and started talking about how homesick he was….”
“He has done, in my opinion, a lot of great work. I don’t think this recovery would be where it is today without his great work.”
So not only is Nagin doing that thing again–you know, where he talks out his ass?–but he’s trying to convince his Partner in Asshattery to stick around and screw us over for another couple of years. Neat.
Frankly, I think the happy couple ought to take a pied-a-terre in the Pontalba and invite fellow whackjob Chris Rose over for a few more bottles of hooch. Who knows where things might go–though, in my dreams, all three wake up naked and spent on an iceberg north of the Artic Circle. Maybe Ms. Palin would rescue them and put them to work on her 2012 presidential campaign? Adorbs.
Scenes from Paul Lynde’s (nearly) forgotten Halloween special, with Margaret Hamilton, Florence Henderson, and Kiss
Because posting a video is way easier than writing about politics or religion or why it is so freaking cold in the house. However, it does beg a serious question: WHAT THE HELL WERE TV PRODUCERS SMOKING IN 1976? Also: if they were still smoking it today, would viewers be free from the tyranny of Atlanta/New York/OC housewives and their insipid spawn?
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GOODBYE, FREE TIME
Well, at least for a week.
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OPEN TABS IN MY BROWSER OR, THINGS I AM KINDASORTA LOOKING AT
1. The trailer from Joan Crawford’s Berserk (a movie now being parodied by our friends in Chicago, Hell in a Handbag):
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2. This craftsy watermelon brain–which I’d be way more likely to eat than any garden-variety watermelon plucked from the back of some guy’s truck:
PALIN: Hi folks! Sorry I’m late! I brought caribou burgers.
HILARY: Who the HELL is this?
MCCAIN: It’s cool, she’s with me.
HILARY: No! No, it’s not cool! Every time you bring one of your rodeo-queen girlfriends in here she ends up playing some succubus infiltrator and killing the whole party!
MCCAIN: Now, that is patently untrue.
BIDEN: He has a point. Cindy turned out to be a vampire.
MCCAIN: DUDE. SHUT UP.
GM: You guys, seriously, if you don’t knock it off with the bickering I’m going to start docking XP.
MCCAIN: You know what? Fuck it. I’m suspending the campaign.
GM: You can’t do that! Only I can suspend the campaign! I didn’t suspend it for the 1988 Mountain Dew shortage and I’m not going to suspend it now.
KUCINICH: YOU GUYS I AM TOTALLY CASTING A CANTRIP
MCCAIN: Oh my god, Dennis, shut up, you don’t even count.
KUCINICH: YOU GUYS ARE DICKS
BIDEN: Where are the Cheetos?
RON PAUL: Wait. What happen to tiny Mormon Man?
GM: You find Mitt’s lifeless, drained corpse has been stuffed in the broom closet.
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5. Also on the nerd/annoyance front: do-nothing Asshat-At-Large Ed Blakely may soon step down as “recovery director” for New Orleans. You know, since his work here is done and everything.
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6. This vaguely illuminating piece about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that led to Palin being selected as GOP veep candy. It appears for realz in this Sunday’s New York Times; here’s an interesting excerpt:
The following night, after McCain’s speech brought the convention to a close, one of the campaign’s senior advisers stayed up late at the Hilton bar savoring the triumphant narrative arc. I asked him a rather basic question: “Leaving aside her actual experience, do you know how informed Governor Palin is about the issues of the day?”
The senior adviser thought for a moment. Then he looked up from his beer. “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t know.”
Sen. McCain was cut short when his office door swung rapidly open, hitting the wall with a crash and Sarah Palin strode angrily into the room….
“I’ve been listening,” she began, “I’ve heard every word.”
She continued:
Take your pen back to Dole and McConnell. They are irrelevant, now. The Party is irrelevant. John McClain is irrelevant. This campaign is about my return in 2012, when I redeem the Party and the nation and usher in an era of Biblically-based free-market-oriented governance.
But the Party must die first. It must be purged of those who gave us that ancient pile of festering anger you came to depose. It must also be cleansed of the Giulianis and Romneys and others who worship at the false alters of idolatry.
That is what this election is about. That is what this election will be, the Republican Party’s apocalypse. I will return after
the cleansing and preside over a rapture of the righteous, raising up the most worthy to lead a new Republican Party into victory.
Will you be among those I rapture, General?
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8. And as if all that weren’t enough to think about, the creationists are back. They’ve lost the battle of the brain, but they’re still aiming to win the war over the soul. Argh, I say.
[Most of that nonsense via BB, BONO, and my own ADD]
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Reigning Miss Louisiana Teen USA Lindsey Evans has been stripped of her crown after being arrested for marijuana possession and skipping out on a restaurant tab….
Evans, 18, and three of her friends walked out on a $46.07 bill at the Posados Café in Bossier City, La., on Saturday night. But Evans made a crucial misstep — she left her purse behind.
Police were called, and according to them, they found not only her driver’s license, but also a bag of marijuana in her purse.
Evans and her friends — Jordan James, 18, Jennifer Martin, 22, and Morgan Goleman, 18 — returned to the restaurant to retrieve the purse, just as officers were about to leave the scene….
[T]he women admitted that they purposely left without paying their bill, though at least one of the women blamed the restaurant.
“The service was so slow, we just said, ‘Screw it,’ and left,” Martin told the New York Post….
Helen Lovejoy Is Alive and Well and Living in Montana
The Lewis and Clark Public Library in Helena, Mont., has voted to keep on the shelves a book about gay sex.
The book is titled “The Joy of Gay Sex.” Board chairwoman Carole Byrnes acknowledges the book includes graphic pictures and descriptions but said she views it as an instructional, education manual that shouldn’t be censored.
Helena resident Paul Cohen requested that the book be removed. He described it as “pornographic” and said the library was negligent in providing a “safe place” for children and adolescents….
Unless it were wrapped in razor blades and poisoned scarves, I fail to understand how The Joy of Gay Sex could make a library “dangerous”. If anything, I think it’d make the place safer–especially for GLBT youth. It might also make things duller. (I mean, have you seen the book? It’s written by Snoozy Kurtz.)
And more importantly: since when do libraries have to be “safe places”? They’re not halfway houses (despite homeless folks’ fondness for free computers and restrooms). You want safe places? Funnel more government dollars into schools and the social service sector, bitch.
FYI, a fuller version of the story was posted at The Missoulian, but has since been taken down, leaving us with the mere slip-of-a-girl piece at Fox “News”. What gives?
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GAH! ARGH!
I am having a Francine Fishpaw kind of week: I’d drink gasoline if it were in a bottle. Stay tuned for details.
I mean, sure, Sarah Palin already knew that she was “a cold political calculation”, but does McCain really think that undecided ladyvoters will enjoy hearing her described as “a direct counterpoint to the liberal feminist agenda”?
I think something in that square, square head done snapped, y’all.
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Color me 100% jealous: tonight, Jonno begins his annual spate of pre-birthday celebrations by attending the Girl Talk show at House of Blues–a show which is 100% sold-out.
No, that’s okay, I’ll be fine. I’ll just sit here watching Stacy and Clinton do their predictable empire-waisted thing while you go off and watch some genius hotass nutjob perform his brilliant album, which has been the only thing I’ve listened to for, like, the past squillion months. No, I’ll be fine.
