[A]fter tasting life elsewhere, they are returning with tales of public schools that actually supply textbooks published after the Reagan era, of public housing developments that look like suburban enclaves, of government workers who are not routinely dragged off to prison after pocketing bribes.
Local leaders have realized for weeks that they must reckon with widespread anger over how they handled the relief effort. But it is dawning on them that they are also going to have to contend with demands from residents who grew accustomed, however briefly, to the virtues of other communities....
"What's wrong with our school system, and what's wrong with the people running our school board?" asked Tess Blanks, who had lived here all her life before fleeing with her husband, Horace, to the Houston area, where they discovered that the public schools for their two children were significantly better. "Our children fell right into the swing of things in Texas. So guess what? It isn't the children. It's the people running our school system."
November 20, 2005
A new dimension of post-Katrina anger.
There is the suffering that Hurricane Katrina caused for the people of New Orleans, but there is also the enlightenment Katrina brought about how much they suffered before the hurricane:
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Starless, huntin' without a license ain't corruption. Being on the take from drug dealers is corruption. Extorting 'protection' is corruption. Swapping semen for pus is corruption.
""What's wrong with our school system, and what's wrong with the people running our school board?" asked Tess Blanks,""
That is the question that “No Child Left Behind” is supposed to force every parent to ask. When they do ask that question, parents will wrestle their schools back from the death grip of the left and the teachers' unions.
Nagin and Blanco are also worried that their safe Democratic base will never return. I think we will see lots of media like this article to spur reconstruction and return of the base.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1132780,00.html
I would say it's a golden moment for the Reps, whose tack is to challenge black people to name what the Dems have done for them except to keep them down.
If it helps convince the people of New Orleans (and Louisiana in general) that corruption is not amusing and a fact of life, but unacceptable, well, that'll be a silver lining I guess.
To be surprised at political corruption in New Orleans (much of the South, actually)
Well, "much" is a little unfair. Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, especially Louisiana, are MUCH worse than anywhere else in the South. Louisiana, at least four years ago, had its last FOUR insurance commissioners all in federal prison for bribery. Is it any wonder that those states are still lagging behind (in population and wealth) while other Southern states have made such strides.
It's not just the local school board in Louisiana...it's the whole state body politic.
Congressman Billy Tauzin once said of his state: "One half of Louisiana is under water and the other half is under indictment."
I was wondering when we were going to be hearing these sort of stories. I've always wanted to visit N.O. but never had the chance. From friends who had passed through, other then the party the is Mardi Gras, they were unimpressed. Essentially the way they relayed it, it was a pit.
New Orleans is not a pit. Your friends must not have made much of an effort to see anything off the beaten path. New Orleans politics is not the substance and be-all of the place. If you've actually spent some time there yourself, then by all means, your opinion would have credibility, but a snotty "my friends say it's a pit" is just snide, and ignorant.
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