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11/16/09
Ray Nagin finally had something to say about Ed Blakely’s slandering of New Orleans –– sort of. Confronted at Dooky Chase restaurant, Nagin, according to the Times-Picayune, called Blakely’s prediction of race riots in the city "foolishness." The mayor, however, added that Blakely is "entitled to his own opinion" and then revealed that his former "recovery czar" never felt comfortable here. Nagin is quoted in the article, written by David Hammer, saying the following: "I talked to him when I was in Sydney, Australia -- we kind of got quiet, one-on-one -- and he was really still a little hurt. He said this was a tough city for him to live in, so he never felt totally welcome."
Let’s examine the...
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11/09/09
If I were mayor of New Orleans, even if my very best friend said something publicly about the city that was hurtful, untrue and damaging to its reputation, I would denounce my best friend and stand up for the city.
Mayor Ray Nagin needs to stand up for his city.
After comments made by Nagin’s handpicked former “recovery czar,” Ed Blakely, were reported last week, Nagin should have been the first person to issue a statement rejecting Blakely’s statements.
Among Blakely’s utterances was that white people were waiting to be at the throats of blacks to regain political power and that would lead to race riots. He also proclaimed, while conceding that he was never very interested in his New Orleans job, that the city...
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11/02/09
As LSU prepares to play rival University of Alabama next Saturday, I am reminded of my brush with former LSU coach Nick Saban last year.
My timing was bad. I was driving from New Orleans to Marksville. Heading west along Interstate 10, the traffic was moving smoothly but began to build up around Gramercy.
I was aware that this was the day that LSU would be playing Alabama in Baton Rouge, and even if I had not been, certainly all the passing SUVs with tiger tails attached to their antennas would have been a reminder. I just had not expected the traffic to be building up so early. I thought I would be going through Baton Rouge within the window of time...
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10/26/09
A local weekly newspaper recently had a headline that said, “Louisiana Judge Refuses to Marry Mixed Race Couple.” A letter to the editor in last Saturday’s Times-Picayune had the headline “Justice Casts a Poor Light on La.” The letter, which was in response to an earlier Picayune article headlined “Couple Sue Tangipahoa Justice,” moaned that the decision by Tangipahoa Parish Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell not to marry the couple was causing the state to be ridiculed in the national media, including CNN.com, which was “having a field day, saying that this shows how ‘primitive’ Louisiana is.”
By...
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10/19/09
Still stunned by the Saints win, I would rather cherish the moment than write about it.
My attention turns to the city’s other football team.
I have been to two Tulane football games this year. I paid my way into both games. I am not an alumnus of the university. So, as a ticket-buying, graduate-neutral fan, I guess I have some right to respond to Tulane Head Coach Bob Toledo’s frustration about poor attendance at the games.
Some thoughts:
• I feel for the coach, but we all know what the problem is — losing. There is not a person alive today who has witnessed a continuous winning tradition at Tulane. Oh, there have been some good years, even an undefeated season — and a couple of upsets over mighty LSU...
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10/12/09
For New Orleanians the experience is untested, but we can imagine the benefits of being the home of a Super Bowl champion: pride, morale, a boost in visitors, a push for the economy, a certain swagger — walkin’ a walk that we have never walked before.
There is, however, one more big advantage that could not be experienced by any other team in any other year but the Saints this season.
Consider this:
Next year is the fifth anniversary of Katrina. Imagine if the Saints go into the 2010 season as defending champions. Think back how far the team will have come from the horrid 2005 season. Remember the Alamo –– more specifically, San Antonio, the team’s home base that season? Remember that city’s mayor popping off...
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10/05/09
Here’s a tip: The next time a general comes riding through your town with an army marching behind him, do not fix him an omelette. That, according to legend, is what the people of Bessières, France, learned when Napoleon Bonaparte showed up on his way to another conquest. The little general was hungry, so a local innkeeper served him a concoction in which he mixed several eggs together, threw in some spices and called it an omelette. Napoleon liked what he ate, so much that he ordered all the town’s people to gather their eggs and prepare an omelette large enough to, literally, feed an army.
Although the people of Bessières were apparently left eggless, there was some benefit from the experience. The idea of fixing...
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09/28/09
Listed in ascending order
7. Sept. 17, 1967. Opening Day.
That the NFL’s newest franchise was going to be something special was immediately evident on the season’s opening day as the Saints played their first regular season game ever. Eighty-thousand fans, already euphoric just because the city finally had a team, would have blown the roof off Tulane Stadium had it had a dome when, on the Saints’ very first play, rookie John Gilliam fielded the opening kick and ran 94 yards past puffing Los Angeles Rams for a touchdown. With the game only a few seconds old, the Saints led 7-0. Fans were in a frenzy. Was this first-year team Super Bowl-bound? Could the Saints be stopped? Were...
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09/21/09
to the argument, “Why do whites want reform now that blacks are in power, yet they never worried about it when they were in power?”
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09/14/09
I got quite a reaction to my blog a couple of weeks ago about a scam incident I faced in a supermarket parking lot when a woman holding a baby tried to claim that she was hit by my car while it was stalled in traffic. (The original article is here.)
Here are some updates:
• To date, I have not heard from the woman. I did explain the situation to my insurance agent, who said he thought I had little to worry about since we did not exchange numbers. “These things usually end with a letter to the insurance company making a claim,” my agent said, “but when they don’t know who the carrier is, it’s like finding a...
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Errol Laborde holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of New Orleans and is the Editor in Chief of Renaissance Publishing. In that capacity he serves as Editor/Associate Publisher of New Orleans Magazine and Editor/ Publisher of Louisiana Life Magazine. 
