Thanks, New Orleans

I laughed til I cried at Markus’ latest West Bank Guide blog entry. Consider it a type of Mohammed-cartoon for New Orleans. If you don’t find something that offends you personally, or you can’t laugh at yourself yet, be sure to drop Mark a note; no doubt he’ll be glad to lampoon your group or area specifically.

For instance:

The bridges will no longer be called the Crescent City Connection, but will revert to the proper name, even though there are now two of them. If you don’t like the fact that New Orleans [is] in the name, why do you tell everyone when you’re out of town that you’re from New Orleans? You are not. You are from Marrero.

Yes indeed, Markus – I’m with you. I stumble all the time with that CCC thing. I suspect, however, that Gretna has finally managed to put themselves on the map. They should have no trouble at all these days with name recognition.

The King of the Ferries will greet every boat and bus arriving from the West Bank, and be empowered to conduct full strip and cavity searches of everyone arriving from over there, to make sure they are not the wrong sort of element.

I wanted to see if Markus would make an exception for Algiers with that strip and cavity search, but when I read this in NOLA.com this morning, I decided he probably had it right:

Algiers residents will hold a rally today to protest plans to establish a trailer park in their neighborhood that would house emergency officials and other residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Between Algiers' NIMBY-mania, Jim Tucker's stance on the levee board unification, and Jeff Arnold's support for the traditional bajillion (sp?) assessors, Algiers isn't standing up well to the scrutiny. (Since I'm having a lot of trouble laughing at that just now, I'm hopeful Markus can come up with something...)

And finally - I think the suggestion for the School Board has real merit. They’d end up with an enormous cash surplus for a change, since there’s NO chance they’d ever agree on how to split it up amongst themselves.

The Orleans Parish School Board will be relieved of its responsibilities for public education, but the board members and all of their family member formerly employed by the school system will hold the rights to the concessions at all future Hornets games. They can divvy up the takings from the popcorn and cokes and beers anyway they like.

Thanks, Markus, for the laugh. I was having a lot of trouble finding anything “fun” out there in the world this morning…

Oh! And on behalf of Houston, I'd like to acknowledge your generous offering of those one-way bus tickets. I can’t promise, though, that we won’t reciprocate by sharing some of our own, locally-grown talent. Consider it a well-meaning cultural exchange that could have some real economic benefit.

Given the size of the Houston market, I'm thinking we could make up some "Thanks, New Orleans" bumper stickers, and donate a percentage of the proceeds to the police departments in both cities. Outta be good for millions of $!

[smile]

Polimom said this @ 8:46 AM