I Prefer Mocha Espresso Chip

Has Ray Nagin lost his mind? Or does he just see "the handwriting on the wall"? (or maybe he’s getting “a piece of the action”…)

I’d heard about his most recent remarks about rebuilding New Orleans, which I hate to admit is problematic all by itself because Bushco refuses to support a plan to restore the area in a way that would better protect it from future hurricanes.

Well, I just went to Brandoland and read the latest from Brendan on this, and he urges all “Google monkeys” to go to work and find out more on Joseph C. Canizaro. This is important because of the following excerpt from the L.A. Times:

Despite Nagin's effort to ease tensions, residents across racial and class lines lashed out Wednesday at what they considered a land grab engineered by the city's elite.

Much of their ire was heaped on New Orleans developer Joseph C. Canizaro, a key architect of the plan, whose name elicited boos from the standing-room-only auditorium crowd.

"How many people from my backyard are up there?" Harvey Bender, a laid-off city maintenance worker from eastern New Orleans, yelled at the officials. "I'm ready to rebuild and I'm not letting you take mine," he said. "I'm going to fight, whatever it takes, to rebuild my property. It's going to be baby Iraq for Joe Canizaro."

Under the plan — which can go forward with Nagin's approval — New Orleans would impose a moratorium Jan. 20 on building permits in the areas hardest hit by Katrina's floodwaters.

To accelerate the process, Nagin's commission is asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to release updated flood plain maps, which could effectively make the decision for many homeowners by raising home insurance rates and setting other new financial barriers to redevelopment.

Neighborhoods that failed to meet the critical-mass test would be shrunk or eliminated altogether; a new city agency called the Crescent City Redevelopment Corp. then would buy out residents OR SEIZE THEIR PROPERTIES THROUGH EMINENT DOMAIN (Brendan's emphasis).

Oh, goody.

I tried not to lift everything from Brendan’s great post, but only to provide context. There’s other stuff that he points out about how the residents of “chocolate city” (and by the way, how far would a Caucasian get if he or she said something like that?) would get compensated for, at best, 60 percent of the pre-Katrina value of their property without the right to negotiate a deal for themselves.

Update 1/18: OK Ray, I'll cut you some slack for now.

I made a joke the other day about Pat Robertson going back to NoLA after it’s rebuilt and having buildings collapse on him because Halliburton didn’t construct them properly (and make no mistake, they’ll make out on this through KBR, their subsidiary), but after reading this, I almost would like to see that happen to the “have mores” who would stand to make out on this.

Well, getting back to Canizaro, I feel almost embarrassed to point this out because it was too easy to find, but after doing my “Google monkey” thing, guess what I came up with?

Canizaro is A MEMBER OF DUBYA’s PIONEER CLUB!

Here’s more on Canizaro (and Sue Ellen? What about Jock and J.R.?)

(…dated ‘80s reference – sorry.)

Another thing…can we have a moratorium on people invoking God for a little while (C. Ray, that means you, along with Wingnut Pat and everyone else)? She just gave me a call because she wants everybody to knock it off :- )