Levees Not War

“What is a conservative after all but one who conserves, one who is committed to protecting and holding close the things by which we live?” 

—Ronald Reagan, 1984

“Louisiana’s voters must find, nominate and elect conservatives (aka, Republicans) who understand there’s no contradiction in being pro-life, pro-gun, pro-fiscal responsibility and pro-environment. Unless that happens soon, I’m afraid we’ll be moving coastal communities within the next decade.” 

—Bob Marshall, Times-Picayune

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Put the ‘Conserve’ in Conservative

Our friends at LaCoastPost call our attention to a strong, well-reasoned piece by Bob Marshall (below), Pulitzer Prize–winning environmental and outdoors reporter for the Times-Picayune, imploring the Republicans who control Louisiana’s state capital and congressional delegation in Washington to do some conserving of the lower one-third of the Pelican State before it’s too damn late.

We have noted before that “self-proclaimed ‘conservatives’ are far from the root meaning of conserve, as in conservation, preservation” referred to by President Reagan above. Now Bob Marshall, also a winner of the prestigious John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, eloquently elaborates on a point he emphasized at Rising Tide 6 in New Orleans in August (see his remarks at the 11:45 environmental panel “Re-Capping the Well”). We take the liberty of reprinting Mr. Marshall’s column in full because we could not find a sentence that did not bear repeating and acting upon.

Listen up, Baton Rouge and Washington: Stop playing games. Time is running out.

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The Conservative Case for Saving the Coast

By Bob Marshall  |  The Times-Picayune  |  Sunday, October 2, 2011

The water keeps rising, the coast keeps sinking and the nation still ignores us. So, not surprisingly, I keep getting this question: What needs to happen for the country to finally realize Southeast Louisiana is running out of time? There’s no getting around one of the answers:

Louisiana’s voters must find, nominate and elect conservatives (aka, Republicans) who understand there’s no contradiction in being pro-life, pro-gun, pro-fiscal responsibility and pro-environment.

Unless that happens soon, I’m afraid we’ll be moving coastal communities within the next decade.

This is not a partisan attack on the Republican Party. It’s a matter of the record.

Louisiana is a Republican state. Six of our seven House members—including two of the three that represent Southeast Louisiana—are from the GOP, as is one of our two senators. It’s unlikely that will change anytime soon.

Yet that party has blocked initiatives that could help this coast while pushing others that will only speed its death. And Louisiana’s GOP delegation has been loyal foot soldiers in most of those efforts.

For example, earlier this year the House GOP took President Obama’s already meager request for $35.5 million to fund vital coastal restoration projects and whittled it down to $1 million. Only 20 Republicans voted for the whole package—and one of the “no” votes was from a Louisiana GOP member, Rep. John Fleming of Minden.

When that $1 million chump change was tossed our way you might have seen headlines calling the action “A win for the coast” because any future requests can no longer be put in the category of “new starts” by budget cutters.

Please. That’s like calling Waterloo a win for France because Napoleon escaped. That’s because the House was making a clear statement with its vote: In times of tight budgets, saving what’s left of the most productive estuary in the United States, the ecosystem that protects millions of people and billions in economic infrastructure, is not a priority. The fiscal ideologues running the party insist on making deep cuts in anything considered “discretionary” spending, which is obviously where they place the future of Southeast Louisiana.

And if they didn’t think we were a big enough priority for a measly $35 million—the tax bill of a few billionaires—imagine what they’ll say when we ask for the $100 billion a real fix is estimated to cost. It’s certainly not as important to them as the oil industry. While they were putting Louisiana’s coast in jeopardy to save $35 million, they didn’t touch the $45 billion in tax subsidies for oil and gas companies over the next 10 years.

It would be bad enough if the GOP just left us alone, but they’re actually taking steps to make our situation worse.

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A conference on the future of New Orleans

Xavier University, New Orleans

Tune in to webcast here. Rising Tide 6 main web site here, and RT6 blog here. Photos here, here, and here.

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Usually we worry that Rising Tide might be disrupted by a hurricane—after all, it’s held each year on the anniversary of Katrina. Ironically, this year, while Hurricane Irene is lashing at the East Coast and New York City is evacating some 250,000 people from low-lying areas, the weather in New Orleans is warm (okay, hot), clear, calm. At the conference some of us are scratching our heads and asking of the millions who live along the East Coast, susceptible as it is to hurricanes, Why do they live there? 

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Dedra Johnson of The G-Bitch Spot Blog Wins 2011 Ashley Award 

Congratulations to Dedra Johnson of The G-Bitch Spot—a blog that doesn’t just have a great name, but shines with clear, independent thinking and sharp, sassy writing—in which “a mad black woman rants about New Orleans, insomnia, teaching, education, and ‘education,’ various -isms and anything involving a bitch, a spot or the letter g.”

4:30 Presentation of the Ashley Award 2011

Presented by Mark Moseley of The Lens and Your Right Hand Thief and Leigh Checkman of Liprap’s Lament.

The Ashley Morris award was established in 2008 to honor and remember the late Dr. Ashley Morris, one of the founding members of Rising Tide and still a guiding spirit. The award is given each year to someone who embodies Ashley’s fierce passionate defense of New Orleans, its people and culture. And the winner is . . . Dedra Johnson (see above).

3:05 Panel Discussion: New Orleans Food: Continuity and Change

Chris DeBarr, chef at Green Goddess, longtime N.O. blogger as “excitable chef”; Alex del Castillo, chef and owner of Taceaux Loceaux; Adolfo Garcia, chef and owner of RioMar, LaBoca, etc.; Rene Louapre, food columnist at Offbeat magazine; and Todd Price, freelance writer.

2:00 David Simon, featured speaker

Creator of HBO’s celebrated TV show Treme, set in post-Katrina New Orleans, and of HBO’s The Wire.

An argument against “standing.” Not clear at first what Simon means by “standing.” Sounds like a synonym for legitimacy, credentials.

Began as a reporter in Baltimore, covering police beat in a mainly African-American neighborhood. As a young reporter it struck me how few reporters would not want to ask questions to which they did not already know the answer. But I would ask anyone anything. Tells the story of a former Pulitzer Prize–winning Herald Tribune reporter who asks so many questions that an Esso executive complained to the editor why did you send this idiot to interview me? He didn’t know anything; I had to explain everything to him.

As I approached New Orleanians to make the show Treme with Eric Overmeyer, I decided to hire local people, and determined to be very deferential to the people in this city who had suffered through such a terrible trauma. There are no rules. Standing is the lamest way of judging quality, authenticity. I don’t believe standing matters.

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