The Gospel According to Governor Smug

I went to Tunica, MS, this week for the Third Annual Meeting of the Delta Regional Authority. I had attended a meeting of theirs (held in conjunction with the Southern Technology Council) in January '06 in Jackson, MS. At that meeting, sewerage backed into the hotel, the Health Department shut down the kitchen between breakfast and lunch and Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi addressed the gathering.

He was back on the agenda in Tunica and, in talking about the new Toyota plant his state just won (in the Tupelo area), Barbour blamed New Orleans' response to Katrina (at least as compared to Mississippi's) with helping the state win the manufacturing plant.

Barbour told the 250 or so people gathered for the DRA luncheon that Mississippi had borne the brunt of a great natural disaster, but "the people on the coast did not complain, did not seek to blame anyone; they just picked themselves up and went to work helping each other."

Barbour said that he'd heard people wonder why the media wasn't covering the Mississippi coast as it was New Orleans. He gave this explanation: "The media does not cover the story of a plane landing safely on time." He added that the media were attracted to New Orleans because of the slow recovery there.

Barbour said his wife had been down to the coast "on about 50 of the first 90 days after the storm hit, serving as my eyes and ears." Apparently, only photo ops with the President could draw the Governor down there.

The Governor's smug attitude about Mississippi's recovery versus that in New Orleans conveniently (for him) overlooks several relevant facts that he may or may not know.

First, the disaster in New Orleans was turned into a catastrophe through the combined actions and inactions of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the people who built the defective levees that failed the city) and FEMA was was infested by the kind of rank cronyism that has come to be recognized as the hallmark of the Bush administration.

Second, for almost 60 days after Katrina hit, water that entered the city through those breached levees stood in the streets of New Orleans (about as many days that Barbour could get his wife to go to Gulf Coast, only consecutively).

Third, Louisiana's recovery effort was being deliberately sabotaged because of the fact that we have a Democratic governor (that fact was revealed in emails between the White House and FEMA and in testimony by former FEMA head Michael Brown). This is a particularly relevant fact in the wake off the revelations about the partisan nature in which the Justice Department has been run. Add to that the fact that Barbour is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the whiff of crony-driven favoritism enters into gagging range.

Pete Johnson, federal co-chair of the DRA, called Barbour "the best governor this state has ever had." If so, no wonder Mississippi is such a mess.

This is a governor who has twice vetoed legislation over the past two years that would have raised the tax on cigarattes while eliminating in whole or in part the sales tax on food in a state that ranks among the poorest in the country. Did I mention that Barbour was a lobbyist for the tobacco industry between the time he ran the RNC and the time he was elected governor of Mississippi. One has to ask if he's still being paid by them or has been promised a job by them once he leaves office to veto legislation that is so clearly in the interests of a large segment of his state's population.

So, this smug defender of corporate interests at the expense of the health of the people he allegedly serves thinks Toyota is going to his state because the people on the Gulf Coast didn't complain after Katrina. Well, perhaps if the Governor would have gone down there, he'd have heard the outrage about the insurance companies not paying on losses. Imagine how mad they'd have been and how loudly they would have complained if the federal government in the form of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had failed them like they failed New Orleans.

No doubt if Barbour would have been around during the flood of 1927 he'd have 'tutt-tutted' the folks in his state who lost property, prosperity and lives when the Corps' levees failed on the Mississippi. Governor Barbour's attitude exemplifies the arrogance of ignorance that typifies so much of the conventional wisdom about New Orleans and Katrina. He's got his story and he's sticking to it, let the facts be damned.

Ironically, Barbour's comments preceded an address by Tom Piazza, author of the book "Why New Orleans Matters." Tellingly, Barbour did not stay to hear Piazza's speech.

Fox News Louisiana: Cog in the Republican Slime Machine

Well, isn't that convenient?

Fox stations across Louisiana have suddenly decided to get into the 'news' business just as Louisiana gets set to enter its statewide election cycle.

It's particularly interesting here in Lafayette where the Fox affiliate has been mired in bankruptcy proceedings but somehow managed to add the cost of a news bureau to its balance sheet.

The parent of these efforts — Fox News — has proven itself to be a propaganda machine that has no credibility as a news organization.

Guess it's just a coincidence that Fox decides to launch a news operation across the state at the same time that other national Republican organizations have targeted Louisiana as fertile ground for takeover.

Yep. Just a coincidence. Sort of like all those emails of Karl Rove being erased from the Republican National Committee's servers, no?

X Fest in Baton Rouge

Saturday, I took my daughter and a friend of her's to Baton Rouge to "X-Fest" — a six-band concert promoted by a Baton Rouge radio station (104.5/104.9 "The X") at the River Center (formerly The Centroplex).

The bands we saw were: Sayosin, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Pappa Roach, Jet, AFI (A Fire Inside), and The Killers.

The sound system was tuned for The Killers, but the only band among the opening bands that was even a bit interesting was Jet. The sound was too muddy to make a real assessment of what Jet show might sound like, though they are heavy on guitars, use a keyboard player sparingly, and generally know how to play.

The rest of the bands (except The Killers, which I'll get to in a minute) seemed to be covering ground between speed metal and, well, speed funk metal (like they might try to sound like Red Chili Peppers if only they knew how to play better).

I was familiar with at least one song from every band that played, because I listen to KLSU and to The X stations when I'm in the Baton Rouge area, which is frequently.

Very little dynamics in the music, but the kids (and there were a lot of them there, parents in tow) loved them, equating aerobic stamina with energy and skill. I tried explaining to my daughter and her friend how the bands were good in their own ways, but that — for the most part — they weren't good musicians. I didn't think they could play anything but what they were playing. I tried explaining this a couple of different ways and, I think, they kind of got it after the second (or maybe it was the third) try.

The Killers, though, are for real! I have a couple of their songs from "Sam's Town" and have heard a good bit of them on the radio. They can play AND they put on a good show. Light on the aerobics though. They had a five-piece lineup. The lead singer plays a little bit of keyboards (primarily some synthesizer, with a couple of piano intros and segments on a couple of songs). He also played bass on one song. The primary bass player played guitar on the song that the singer played bass on. There was a drummer and a lead guitarist, plus a guy who played guitar and keyboards, but hung back in the shadows.

I don't think I've ever heard/felt as much low end as I did over the seven-plus hours (uh-huh!) we were there. It was loud, but not painfully loud, primarily because so much of the power was in the low end and thanks in part to the fact that no one played really piercing guitar solos. It would have been interesting to have been outside the arena to see if it sounded like it felt — like being inside one of those cars with the massive sub-woofers rattling hood ornaments and dental bridges within a multi-vehicle/multi-lane range.

It was an interesting evening from a sociological standpoint as the age mix at the event was pretty broad. Clearly, the younger kids like the neo-headbanger stuff and their parents didn't want to send them off on their own to a concert on their own for what amounted to a full day. I know that's how I ended up being there for the entire show.

But, I would pay to see The Killers again and would encourage you gents to do so if you have the chance. I think they're going to be around for a while (at least by industry standards).

The Baton Rouge Advocate had a story on the concert, but I don't have that link.