Rich Chocolatey Irony in New Orleans

The same day Austin Bay links to a Houston Chronicle story about New Orleans gang wars transplanted to Houston, we get this from Lou Dobbs tonight:

(scroll down about a 1/3 of the page)
REV. JESSE
JACKSON, RAINBOW-PUSH COALITION: There's a profound population shift. The Latino
population was 3 percent. It's now 20 percent, and it's not just South Central
Latin America. It's also east and Europeans as well.

They have been
trafficked in and their cheap labor has been used while businesses are still
locked out. So you have outside workers displacing New Orleans citizens and
outside no-bid contractors displacing Katrina areas citizens.

DOBBS:
What would you -- at this point, is this a conspiracy of circumstance, the
devastation that the failed New Orleans and the displacement of hundreds of
thousands of New Orleans residents who can't get back? Give us your thought.

JACKSON: Well, number one, these workers are not just coming across the
border, they're being sent for, brought in and hired. They've been trafficked in
often working on the very exposing condition without of course any health
insurance.

A couple points:

The legal day laborers won’t have health insurance either.

Most day labor crews I saw in six weeks there had appropriate personal protective equipment, especially respirators - certainly better than the locals had.

Many "no-bid" contractors had pre-hurricane contracts to provide emergency response to hospitals and hotels. Other hotels arranged no-bid contracts because they hired the first company in the door who promised them a rapid re-build in exchange for letting their laborers stay in the few tenable rooms.

How many bids do you want in the middle of a flood response, by the way? If you’re getting bids while the city floats away, you’re thinking like FEMA.

From what I’ve seen, everyone there is working hard - black, white, Hispanic, etc.

Please remember who is inciting divisiveness.

Can We Avoid Creating a New Political Correctness?

Seems the pro-military right, of which I’m a proud if dissolute member, has decided to make Joel Stein famous - most notably Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin. Why? The few military people I know or am related to will not have their self-esteem dented by this callow 30-something. His Warriors and Wusses column is bound to seem funny to his 10 best friends. Otherwise, it’s just another flat attempt at hip humor.

Stein used to be at Time and on VH1. Now he’s at the LAT. Does this seem like someone whose career you want to help salvage? We might as well get our shorts in a wad about a South Park episode.

By the way, the selling points for South Park and “24” for conservatives has been their refreshing assault on political correctness. Seems to me that we risk creating a new political correctness if we insist on attacking someone as clearly out of his depth as Stein is. If he had said the same thing on Saturday Night Live, we wouldn't even have noticed. Since he's a columnist we're upset.

It’s a cliché, but the best approach is to ignore him.

Or do what American Digest did. Ow.

Would you like chili powder in your chocolate?

Flew from New Orleans to Houston and back today. The Big Queasy is still pretty ragged. Most traffic lights downtown are still not working. Most hospitals are still not open. Overall it’s a little cleaner than before Christmas. Found an open Subway sandwich place that was very busy and the help was friendly.

No doubt New Orleans will be “chocolate” again. I understand that Mexicans drink a LOT of hot chocolate, and I know that’s what Mayor Nagin meant. During my six weeks of consulting in NO I ran into several workers, white and black, complaining about the number of Hispanics in the clean-up work crews. Heh. Get used to it.

Speaking of the mayor, he’s about as “chocolate” as a PayDay bar.

Memo to Department of Homeland Security. If you’re going to wear your official DHS shirts on the jet, don’t ride First Class, or vice versa. It tends to make you look like UN “assessment teams” waiting for the 5-star hotels to open up.

Hollywood's decline might be an urban myth. Let's prove it anyway

I'd like to believe there's a crisis in Hollywood, just because. Roger Ebert says the crisis is an urban myth.

"...that has been tiresomely created by news media recycling one another. By mid-December, according to the Hollywood Reporter, receipts were down between 4 percent and 5 percent from 2004, a record year when the totals were boosted by Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which grossed $370 million. Many of those tickets were sold to people who rarely go to the movies. 2005 will eventually be the second or third best year in box-office history. Industry analyst David Poland at moviecitynews.com has been consistently right about this non-story."

Hard to argue with his appraisal. If however, there is a crisis, it seems like some of it may be related to the relative freedom of its star actors and directors.

As a father of teenage girls, I'm at least vaguely aware of what's likely to put them in a theater seat. Let's start with Orlando Bloom who caused girlish giggles around the world in his turn as Legolas in the Lord of The Rings trilogy. He came off of those films ready to be a star and was even banking on his sword and sandal resume by starring in "Troy" with Brad Pitt. So what's the best way to market two of the prettiest male stars in the world to the "all-important" teenage demographic? Of course. Put them in an R-rated movie that suburban parents will not willingly allow their 14-year old daughters to see. The old studio system would have never allowed this bone-headed move.

Next let's put Orlando as the lead in ANOTHER R-rated (and dull, although I thought Bloom was very good) sword and sandal epic "Kingdom of Heaven". Finally, now that he's 29 and almost past his expiration date as a teen star, we'll pair him with Kirsten Dunst in the teen-friendly romance he should have made two years ago. His only career moves now are to take over Hugh Grant's honorary simpering light comedy roles or grow some wrinkles fast and start taking "heavy" roles.

How about Jake Gyllenhaal. He was well-known for almost being Spider-Man and for the cult favorite "Donnie Darko" and even got good reviews in the god-awful "Day After Tomorrow". What's next? Of course, gay sheep herder. Would a studio boss allow this?

Mickey Kaus (spoiler alert) says Gyllenhaal is the problem with the movie.

That big Oscar nomination would be for Brokeback Mountain--which would be perverse because Gyllenhaal's the fatal problem with the movie. He doesn't seem to have any particular appealing quality that would cause Heath Ledger to carry a torch for him for decades. Gyllenhaal's early-on attempts to charmingly romp in the wilderness fall flat--it wasn't just Meghan Daum's date who was checking his watch in the first half of the film--and in the second half of the film he starts to whine. Big love for Gyllenhaal is supposed to be the motor that drives the movie, but the motor doesn't turn. The film only comes alive when Gyllenaal is dead, and we're left with Heath Ledger in his trailer. ...

Maybe. Could be that the best possible movie about sheepherders (The Sundowners) has already been made. Could be that a pretty good chick flick about granite-jawed silent types touched by tragedy (The Horse Whisperer) has already been made.

The Passion of Sam Alito

Does it seem like the Senate in general and Dems in particular are incapable of learning anything about their public image?

If you’ve seen Dreyer’s great silent film "The Passion of Joan of Arc" then you might remember some of the opening scenes where Joan’s accusers are filmed - without make-up – bulbous-nosed, hunch-backed, flabby-joweled, and leering at the girl, who looks up at them with angelic peace on her face.










As far back as Ollie North’s appearance at the Iran-Contra hearings we were presented with camera angles that accentuated the hunch-back, flabby-joweled, bulbous-nosed, hairline-enhanced Senators scowling disapprovingly over their schoolmarm reading glasses while they read their carefully scripted questions at someone who appeared, for most viewers, to be a paragon of American manhood. They sat on a high podium which allowed North to be filmed looking up like David at so many decrepit Goliaths, and showing himself to be in fine physical condition, in a neatly pressed uniform with lots of fruit salad, taking his oath. Below is Arthur Liman, chief counsel of the Senate select committee. A nice post on him here.

Jumping ahead 19 years we have John Roberts, open-faced and bright-eyed, a man of some privilege yes, but looking fit, rested, non-alcoholic, and "together". Again he’s looking up at his corrupt inquisitors, small-time Jabba the Huts.

Finally, there’s Samuel Alito. Working class background, nice wife, schlubby haircut but not hairline-enhanced, and not totally weird like Bork’s. Again, he sits like Joan looking up at corrupt inquisitors including Teddy (the Tick) Kennedy.

Democrats continue to portray themselves as the party that beats up on America's best. Time for a new studio setting.

Hitchens describes "the torpid majesty of a Senate proceeding" here where it backfired on Republicans.