Casting pearls before Darwin

A week ago, some nihilist in New Orleans wrote the following on Twitter:

"Morganza stays closed, LSU might flood. Morganza opens, oyster beds might die. I know what I'd prefer. Damn, I'm mean."

As Lisa Loopner might have said three or so decades ago, "That's so funny, I forgot to laugh."

But it's Louisiana, so you know that the ability to eat fresh oysters is more important than pedestrian fare such as higher education, the economy or even survival itself -- if LSU and Baton Rouge went under the muddy waters, you know New Orleans would, too. Again.

SO THIS essay by Ivor van Heerden on the New Orleans news site, The Lens, really didn't surprise, shock, dismay or enrage me at all. And it shouldn't shock you that LSU fired van Heerden more than a year ago amid speculation it feared the professor's criticism of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would cost the university serious federal money.

What LSU didn't see coming was the loss of lots more state money at the hands of Louisiana politicians, who value just about everything more than higher education.

So consider the following and reflect that natural selection isn't just a matter of evolutionary biology. It's a matter of anthropology, too.

Denied an annual dose of sedimentation, coastal wetlands are shriveling. Thousands of square miles have been lost, a problem accelerated by the oil industry as it sliced and diced the coast with canals that invite vegetation-killing salt water.

In the last 30 years there have been calls — first by academics and concerned citizens, more recently by politicians — to set the river free … well, parts of it anyway. The idea is to mimic nature and build new land or at least sustain existing land. This is achieved by cutting “diversions” in the levee walls and letting the muddy water spill out over the surrounding wetlands. An alternative is to use siphons that suck water from the river to the lower wetland side. A number of diversions and siphons have been constructed – notably those at Davis Pond, pictured on The Lens’ home page, and Caernarvon – and have been acclaimed as the beginning of the way forward.

A test run with a different purpose in mind was prompted last year when the deepwater blowout in BP’s Macondo tract threatened to invade Louisiana’s coastal wetlands and coat them with oil. Scientists contacted the Governor’s Office and pushed successfully for the continuous operation of all diversions and siphons. The concept was that the lighter fresh water would act to flush out the oily salt water, and there is ample evidence that it had an impact.

Small wonder, then, that Louisiana is begging for the billions that will be needed – from Congress, or perhaps, the eventual settlement with BP – to create vastly more diversions and siphons in a truly serious campaign to rebuild the coast.

The unusually high and dangerous spring floods of 2011 present a glorious opportunity to demonstrate not only the land-building power of re-sedimentation, but our own resolve to get serious about coastal restoration. But are the diversions and siphons wide open? They are shut tight. Why?

It seems there is another power almost as mighty as the Mississippi: the power of special interests in Louisiana politics – in this case the oyster business. It appears to be a force sufficient to scare Baton Rouge into a state of paralysis that must be causing the rest of America to question the sincerity of our lamentations about land loss and coastal erosion. Why give billions more to a state that won’t work with the coastal-restoration infrastructure already in place?

IT TOOK an asteroid to do in the dinosaurs. Apparently, all it takes to doom Louisiana is an oyster . . . and a culture that's too short-sighted and dysfunctional to survive.

A-hole ideologue of the universe

"What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP,'" Rand [Paul] said in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America." ''I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business."

Paul appeared two days after a landslide primary victory over the Republican establishment's candidate, Trey Grayson. He had spent most of the time since his win laboring to explain remarks suggesting businesses be allowed to deny service to blacks without fear of federal interference. On Friday said he wouldn't seek to repeal civil rights legislation.

On the oil spill, Paul, a libertarian and tea party darling, said he had heard nothing from BP indicating it wouldn't pay for the spill that threatens devastating environmental damage along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

"And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be somebody's fault instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen," Paul said.

The senate candidate referred to a Kentucky coal mine accident that killed two men, saying he had met with the families and he admired the coal miners' courage.

"We had a mining accident that was very tragic. ... Then we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen," he said.

-- The Associated Press

Ve haff veys uff makink you see no evil

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. . . .

And now the Obama Administration is out-Bushing the Bushies with an outright ban on the public -- or the press -- seeing what's going on with . . . anything. No one will be able, under penalty of federal law, to get close enough to clean-up boats or oil booms to see our government at work.

Or not.

FROM A story in Thursday's Times-Picayune in New Orleans:

The Coast Guard has put new restrictions in place across the Gulf Coast that prevent the public - including news photographers and reporters covering the BP oil spill - from coming within 65 feet of any response vessels or booms on the water or on beaches.

According to a news release from the Unified Command, violation of the "safety zone" rules can result in a civil penalty of up to $40,000, and could be classified as a Class D felony. Because booms are often placed more than 40 feet on the outside of islands or marsh grasses, the 65-foot rule could make it difficult to photograph and document the impacts of oil on land and wildlife, media representatives said.

But federal officials said the buffer zone is essential to the clean-up effort.

"The safety zone has been put in place to protect members of the response effort, the installation and maintenance of oil containment boom, the operation of response equipment and protection of the environment by limiting access to and through deployed protective boom," the news release said.

The Coast Guard on Tuesday had initially established an even stricter "safety zone" of more than 300 feet, but reduced the distance to 20 meters - 65 feet - on Wednesday. In order to get within the 65-foot limit, media must call the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans, Edwin Stanton, to get permission.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander for the oil spill, said in a press briefing Thursday that it is "not unusual at all" for the Coast Guard to establish such a safety zone, likening it to a safety measure that would be enacted for "marine events" or "fireworks demonstrations" or for "cruise ships going in and out of port."

Allen said BP had not brought up the issue, but that he had received some complaints from county commissioners in Florida and other local elected officials who "thought that there was a chance that somebody would get hurt or they would have a problem with the boom itself."

Associated Press photographer Gerald Herbert, who has been documenting the oil spill, raised concerns about the restrictions within his news organization on Wednesday. He has asked for a sit-down with Coast Guard officials to discuss the new policy - and the penalties - but has not received a response.

SOMEONE NEEDS to explain to President Obama and his enforcers that bad PR starts at the point where you begin to make tea-party paranoiacs' looniest pronouncements begin to look . . . prescient.

Acting like a bunch of thugs while performing official duties like the mayor's incompetent brother-in-law appointee is no way to inspire confidence in the federal government's response to a national environmental catastrophe. As I've said and said, the final crisis coming out of the BPocalypse will be one of governmental legitimacy.

And, ultimately, Obama won't be able to blame that one on George Bush.

'Blah blah blah': the transcript of suffering

Don't listen to what BP or the government say. Watch what they do.

This is what BP does.

BP's f***ing proper f***ing dog-and-pony show

Well, I think I now know more about f***king proper f***ing booming than BP does -- not to mention the media, which pretty much has fired all the f***ing proper f***ing journalists who f***ing know s*** about anything at all.

That's the point of this, er, earthily put video dramatizing a Daily Kos essay from a couple of weeks ago by someone with 30 years of oilfield experience who does know, to use the proper industry terminology, "f***ing proper f***ing booming."

So here you go. Watch and get even more outraged.

Down on the bayou, Boudreaux is f***ed

Hey, y'all! Watch this!

If you were wondering how a British oil giant figures it will get away with this whole "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" thang without its executives having to stockpile Soap on a Rope, read on.

It's nothing shocking, or even unusual by Washington standards, but the following information from CNN Money is well worth going over now and again so it's not too crazy-making to bear when, at long last, Boudreaux gets hung out to dry next to his empty shrimp nets:

The lobbying firms working for BP are among Washington's most influential, including one headed by Ken Duberstein, a chief of staff for President Ronald Reagan, and another led by Tony Podesta, whose brother was President Bill Clinton's chief of staff.

"They are among the biggest of the big. Consistently, year in and year out, they spend millions in federal lobbying efforts," said Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. "How that will change post-oil spill remains to be seen, but it would be hard to believe their numbers would do anything but go up."

During the 2008 election cycle, BP spent $531,000, through its corporate political committee and in contributions to candidates. So far this cycle, it has spent $113,000, with most of the money going to Republicans.

WASHINGTON, you see, is where ugly people go to be high-dollar hookers. (I wonder whether Sarah Palin was sharp enough to know she committed a double entendre when she famously said "Drill, baby! Drill!"?)

God bless America, land of opportunity! Unless, of course, you're Boudreaux and you used to fish the southeast Louisiana coastal waters.

In that case, podna, you're just f***ed.


P.S.: Oh, and there's this, too.

Won't you please hep' me?

My dear Twitter followers and blog readers:

As you know, times are tough. Especially for me.

How tough? More than a decade ago, I gave up on newspapers to go into radio. Bad career move. Slightly worse than staying put, even.

Now I stumble down a career path that -- no doubt -- will lead me to the Open Door Mission. This is a disaster. This is awful.

I WANT MY LIFE BACK! Just like a certain soon-to-be-former BP executive. Yes, I have screwed up badly -- made poor decisions.

Let's not gild the lily: I have f'***ed myself royally. But why should that mean I must suffer? That is sooooo not postmodern!

Like I said, I am hurting here. And I want my life back. And that's where you come in. You can help me. Here's the plan: All I want is the same deal Tony Hayward got. What I need to know is how -- within the sad limits of Twitter and the blogosphere -- I can screw you.

I need to find out how I can really f*** you over. Mess you up. Despoil your environment . . . MAKE YOUR LIFE A LIVING HELL.

I deserve mine -- "mine" being my life back . . . with certain accoutrements, of course. (Hey! I've had it rough, pally!)

SO . . . how I can f*** you up enough that you -- and everyone else online -- will pay me $900,000 a year (and then some) to go the hell away? What are you willing to pay me -- and, as I say, I'm not a cheap quitter -- to leave you the f*** alone?

I. WANT. MY. LIFE. BACK. And I will mess you up good to get it back. And you will pay me well to take it back -- and to go away ASAP.

That's my proposition . How can I Twibuse you -- and blogbuse you -- so you'll pay me off to get off your back?

After all, I deserve it. Because I'm special! Just like BP's top dog.

Playing with sugar daddy's money

Once upon a time, Grand Isle, La., was your average, everyday, sleepy Gulf Coast fishing mecca and tourist trap.

No more. BP changed that in a heartbeat.

Or . . . could it be that the BPocalypse -- this stress-inducing gumbo of lawyers, guns and money (and a big, big oil spill) -- merely has broken down inhibitions enough, just like extreme stress or extreme drink can do to people, so that now it's just more of what it already was beneath a carefully constructed facade?

This is the kind of question we'll be pondering all across the Gulf for a long, long time as klepto-capitalism rides the waves, crying "Havoc!"

IF YOU'VE NOT been regularly reading the oil-spill dispatches of Mother Jones' Mac McClelland already, now would be a good time to start:

I hear about the race riot at Daddy's Money almost as soon as I arrive on Grand Isle, Louisiana. My friend and I are going to the bar tonight to catch the "female oil wrestling" oil-spill cleanup workers have been packing in to see on Saturday nights. When we stop by the office of the island's biggest seafood distributor, he tells us that two days ago a bunch of black guys and a bunch of white guys got into a big fight at the bar. It spilled out all over the street and had to be broken up by a ton of cops.

According to the Census, 1,541 people live in this slow Southern resort town. An estimated 2.9 of them are black. That was before the spill. The seafood guy gestures in the direction of the floating barracks being built on barges in the bay to house the lower-skilled cleanup workers, and says that people think the barracks will keep those workers—who are mostly black—from "jumping off" onto dry land and causing trouble.

That night, dozens of men in race-segregated packs crowd around to watch strippers dance around and then tussle inside the bouncy inflatable ring set up inside Daddy's Money. Female oil wrestlers need, obviously, to be oiled. Plastic cups full of baby oil are being auctioned off, along with the right to rub their contents all over one of the thong-bikinied gals. "I hope there's no dispersant in that oil!" someone quips. The bidding before the first match starts at $10; it ends pretty quickly when some kid offers $100.

"He outbid me!" the guy next to me yells. His name is Cortez. He bid $80. He has dollar bills tucked all the way around under the brim of his hat, and piles of them in his fist. He has spent $200 of his $1,000 paycheck already tonight. "I am coming here every Saturday from now on," he says. He gestures expansively at the scene—writhing women; hollering, money-throwing men. "Sponsored by BP!" he yells, laughing, then throws his arms around me and grabs my ass.

Upstairs, on the open-air deck, the supervisors and professional contractors drink. One comes over to talk; he calls me a Yankee when I don't get that when he says "animals" he means black guys. Another tells us about the crime-prone "monkeys." I have already stopped counting how many times I've heard the n-word on Grand Isle today.

THE LONGER I live away from Louisiana, the more I think I'd consider it a badge of honor to be called a Yankee by some good ol' boy.

That said, chances are, Grand Isle -- and the rest of the eroding, subsiding Louisiana coast -- will sink into the toxic sea before the spill-induced societal Armageddon has run its course there, giving way to the everyday, ordinary Louisiana pathologies that have proven so resistant to enlightenment.

"We'll be here as long as oil keeps washing up," the contractor says.

"So..." I laugh sort of helplessly. "A year?"

"Three years..." he says. "Five years..."

"Hopefully forever," the guy next to him says. "I need this job if I can't work offshore anymore." Last week, the emcee that accompanies the oil wrestlers yelled into the microphone, "Let that oil gush! Let that money flow!" The workers -— part of the new Grand Isle scenery of helicopters, Hummers, and National Guardsmen, serious people in uniforms and coveralls and work boots -- the workers around the wrestling ring, drunk and blowing cash from jobs that might kill them, cheered.

THE HUMAN CONDITION can be an ugly thing. And leave it to a titty bar in some oil-soiled backwater of a too-poor, too-ignorant and too-hateful Southern state to "kick it up a notch."

Dear Britain, I think you have a problem

Big protest against BP today in New Orleans. Among the sights there was this, as captured by The Times-Picayune.

Mr. Cameron, I think your UK-headquartered oil company may have presented you with a bit of a sticky wicket, public-relationswise.

Trust me, as BP continues to make the Gulf into a massive dead zone and wipe out entire cultures, you will find this display of outrage is only the "tip of the spear," so to speak.

Meet BP's new CEO

Or the federal government's new "oil-spill czar."

Soon-to-be-former American League umpire Jim Joyce is still mulling his future career plans after screwing the Detroit Tigers' Armando Galarraga out of a perfect game after 8 2/3 innings.

HIS CHOICE apparently has come down to the two jobs that perfectly match his skill set -- he can be the new Barney Fife of BP, where he can continue the royal screwing of the people of Louisiana and the Gulf coast . . . or he can become the new Gomer Pyle of the federal response, where he can perpetuate the royal screwing of the people of Louisiana and the Gulf coast.

Decisions, decisions. . . .

They hang genocidal maniacs, don't they?

Well, this should be just about it for my home state, Louisiana.

You just don't get this stuff out of the marsh. And this stuff -- crude oil, courtesy of BP -- will kill the marsh, and what's in it.

And then it all will erode away, and whole stretches of coastline will sink into the Gulf of Mexico.


GOODBYE, fishing industry. Goodbye coastline. Goodbye to what's left of the last protection New Orleans and other coastal cities have from the sea -- and the hurricanes that roll in off of it.

Goodbye to a massive chunk of the Louisiana economy. Goodbye not only to people's livelihoods, but also to their way of life. What their daddies did, and their granddaddies did, and their great- and great-great-granddaddies did before that, they no longer will do.

Does the U.S. code cover murder of an economy? Cultural genocide?

Look at these photos from National Geographic. Can executives of BP, Halliburton and Transocean be rounded up and put on trial at The Hague?

I know, when pigs fly. At least in this day and age.

BUT AS WE WAIT for porkers to get airborne . . . as a matter of financial expediency for whatever cleanup is possible in this catastrophic mess, can President Obama at least invoke whatever emergency powers are necessary to immediately seize every U.S. asset of every company responsible here?

Justice demands it. And God knows we are going to need the cash.

Sign of the times

No, the oil spill never was funny. But whoever was behind the "BP cleanup crew" Twitter feed helped to keep us sane as we were hit with daily deluges of tragedy.

And now the BPocalypse claims another victim -- our sense of humor.

I concur with the above sentiments concerning BP. Rat-bastard genocide mongers.

'Are you f***ing happy? Are you f***ing happy?'

The sailor . . . was on the ship's bridge when Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell, a top employee of rig owner Transocean, was speaking with someone in Houston via satellite phone. Buzbee told Mother Jones that, according to this witness account, Harrell was screaming, "Are you f***ing happy? Are you f***ng happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."

Whoever was on the other end of the line was apparently trying to calm Harrell down. "I am f***ing calm," he went on, according to Buzbee. "You realize the rig is burning?"

THIS . . . is the latest from Mother Jones' indispensable coverage of the BPocalypse.

There is no part of hell hot enough for the vile, corner-cutting, avaricious sons of bitches responsible for this thing. And for federal "regulators" whose real business was the business of enabling bad behavior by business?

Their route to les feux d'infer ought to involve being keelhauled through every bit of the oil slick left by their former buddies at BP.

Genocide. Always remember this is the bottom line of what has happened here.

If what passes for civilization in these parts, in these times, is to somehow endure, it's really, really important that consequences fit the crime.

Today's horror feature: Children of the Red Stick

Where I come from, old times there are not forgotten.

But at least -- once in a blue moon -- official Baton Rouge can be persuaded to look away, look away, look away from backwardness.

That's something, I guess.

Of course, after reading the following story in this morning's Advocate, I'm thinking that the city's white-flighty northern suburbs might benefit from the resumption of Radical Reconstruction after a 130-odd year hiatus.

I WONDER whether we could get BP to pay for it?

The Metro Council voted Wednesday to rezone a 52-acre site near Zachary so a residential program for troubled youths can be operated on the site.

The 8-3 vote to rezone the property for Heritage Ranch Christian Children’s Home on Tucker Road came over the objections of Councilman Trae Welch, who represents the area, and dozens of residents who packed the council’s chambers.

They complained the site isn’t suitable and said they fear for their safety because the operators have no experience running a residential program of this type.

(snip)

While the project has support from influential business and community leaders in Baton Rouge, it drew intense opposition from people who live in the area.

“I’ve never received so many e-mails and calls about a zoning case,” councilwoman Alison Cascio said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s been incredible.”

The vote to rezone the property from rural to Planned Unit Development followed nearly three hours of impassioned debate.

YES, all this over plans to build a facility to help troubled, underprivileged kids. And not even the worst of the troubled, underprivileged kids.

Two things you have to realize about my hometown. One, the real problem here is that most of these "underserved" kids are likely to be black, and be from Baton Rouge, and the main selling point for the suburbs in question is they are neither.

Second, the folks up there really, really hate Baton Rouge. It's psychotic, actually -- depending on the "big city" for jobs and services at the same time you want nothing more than to escape it, then fiscally starve it to death.

Central and Zachary are where bond issues that benefit Baton Rouge go to die.

And during Wednesday's council session, you have to wonder whether the only folks holding down the fort in Central and Zachary were Mrs. Ashley Wilkes and Mrs. Frank Kennedy, waiting and knitting with Doc Meade's wife while reading aloud from David Copperfield.

YOU SEE, everybody else went off to a "political meeting."

Opponents, including Bill Waters, who lives across the street from the project, were disappointed.

“We were out lobbied by the big money and the power brokers of Baton Rouge,” Waters said.

Welch had urged the council to reject the rezoning request, noting that everyone in the neighboring area was opposed to it.

He said 350 residents signed a petition opposing the rezoning.

Several opponents noted that the supporters speaking in favor of the rezoning don’t live in the area.

“Every single person lives in Baton Rouge,” Jennifer Patterson said of the supporters. “Not one lives in my community.”

They also talked about the impact young people with behavioral issues could have on the schools, and noted that similar programs operate on much larger sites in more-remote areas.

“We know what their vision is and what they hope Heritage Ranch will be,” Waters said, “but they simply do not have the expertise to do what they say they want to do.”

THIS WAS persuasive for Big Sam, played Wednesday by Ulysses "Bones" Addison, who voted against the facility. Despite the likelihood that some of the kids helped by the facility would come from his impoverished council district.

Of course, Big Sam never asked where opponents thought kids with behavioral problems are now, if not in public schools. Or asked whether some of the public-school kids with behavioral problems just might be their own.

Furthermore, the granddaddy of all "similar programs" isn't in a "more-remote" area at all -- it's an adjacent suburb of Omaha. Maybe you've heard of it; it's called Boys Town.

Capt. Rhett Butler could not be reached for comment.

Louisiana: The state it's in

Here's some good ol' Cajun cooking for you.

It's a popular dish where I come from, and it's taken from the perennial cookbook, Louisiana: Recipe for Disaster. And here's how you make Endemic Toxic Stew:

-- Take 300 years of a deviant civic culture out of the bayous of Louisiana. Check to make sure the tolerance of corruption and the get-rich-quick scheme has ripened sufficiently.

-- Add a significantly uneducated and compliant population.

-- Make a roux with BP crude oil and contaminated sediments.

-- Simmer in a cracked pot for many generations in befouled water over tropical heat.

-- Add oil- and dispersant-contaminated seafood. (If you desire, add a number of Louisiana state deadheads for a more robust flavor.)

-- Season to taste with complacency, corrupt politicians, waste, incompetent government and a Gallic shrug.

-- Serve with dirty rice, cancer sticks and too much booze.

(Makes enough to serve as many legislators' brothers-in-law as possible. Serves fewer "unconnected" citizens every year. Eat at your own risk.)

Submitted by WVUE television in New Orleans

3 Chords & the Truth: Listen or else!

You heard me.

Listen to this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth -- it's right here -- or Tony Hayward gets it.

I'm serious.

Really, I'll do it! Listen to this week's episode of the Big Show, or the CEO of BP gets it. And then we'll throw what's left of him into the oil slick.

I mean it!

C'mon, people. Listen to the show.

WHY WON'T you listen to the show?

What?

Oh.

I'm not messing with you people anymore. Either listen to 3 Chords & the Truth -- which really is a fine show this week and every week -- or we let Tony Hayward, CEO of British Polluters, go home to London unscathed!

He'll make it back without a scratch on him. Unless you listen to the program right now.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Don't bite the hand that . . . strangles you?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

"What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. . . .

"And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be somebody's fault instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen."

-- Tea-party asshat and GOP
Senate candidate Rand Paul

The cleanup worker is a WHAT?

I imagine many of us figured this would be coming down the pike at some point in Oil Spill Nation.

The scene: Our intrepid MSNBC.com reporter makes her way to Grand Isle, La., where, amid the oil, she finds cleanup workers. Most of them black. Plopped down amid seething, resentful locals in a small town in the Deep South.

Can you imagine what happens?

ACTUALLY, it doesn't take much imagination at all:

To hear it from permanent residents of this tiny town at the southernmost edge of the bayou, the community is under siege. Not only did the massive oil spill in the Gulf force an abrupt halt to age-old routines dictated mainly by fishing, but the cleanup up effort has brought an army of workers from "outside."

"It’s a drastic change for us, especially in our marinas. It’s all workers," said Sheriff Euris DuBois. "The biggest change is we don’t know them. They are a different nature."

Grand Isle has only about 1,500 permanent residents, most born here, said DuBois. They are accustomed to a large influx of families who own the cottages – or "camps" that line the beachfront. But this year, with the beaches off limits and fishing shut down, most of these perennial tourists have stayed away.

Instead there are an estimated 5,000 cleanup workers – from Texas, New Jersey, Alabama and elsewhere. The workers are all male, and the vast majority are black.

That alone is a shock here. The town has only one black permanent resident, said DuBois, and no black tourists that he can recall.

"And they congregate!" a waitress named Jane told diners from out of town as she described the situation, repeating rumors that there was also a rash of theft and violence. "It’s bad to where our pastor on Sunday warned the congregation to lock their doors."

Some black workers report they have had a cool reception.

"I don’t go out here. I am not welcome," said a worker from Houston who only gave his first name, John. Asked why he felt unwelcome, he said wryly, "uh, just a teeny bit of racism."

A co-worker chimed in: "They gouge us (on rent). They don’t want us here," he said. "But we just do the work cleaning up their environment."

IT WOULD SEEM that Tony Hayward isn't the only one around with no public-relations sense. Then again, the BP chief isn't the one with his hand out here.

"They don’t like any of us," said a captain from New Jersey who is running a boat in the cleanup.

"It's not just blacks. It’s Yankees, and everybody who is not from Grand Isle," he said, giving only his first name, Mike.

SMALL TOWNS can be something else. Small towns in the recesses of the Gret Stet of Loosiana can be something else even by "something else" standards.

And In the Heat of the Night is always playing somewhere. Well, that or Blazing Saddles.

Straight outta Compton Louisiana

The problem with Louisiana is it's in the 'hood.

Hell, it is the 'hood. Historical ironies abound.

If a whole country of 300 million can have a 'hood, Louisiana fills the bill. It's got poverty problems. It's got crime problems. It's got health problems. It, Lord knows, has education problems.

It even has had not only a Marion Barry -- the former ethically and chemical-dependency challenged mayor of Washington, D.C. -- but several Marion Barrys in its "colorful" political history. Note that when one speaks of "colorful" government, this is not a synonym for "effective" or even "minimally competent."

America's 'hood also suffers from an economy too reliant on just a few things. One of the few things on which Louisiana is overreliant happens to be the petrochemical industry -- this bad neighborhood of poor folks and problem cases is where we stick all the industries we depend upon . . . but don't want in the "nice" part of town.

It's where we put all the offshore oil rigs -- like the Deepwater Horizon -- we rely on for our daily petroleum fix but don't want anywhere near, say, Malibu. Or Martha's Vineyard. Or Miami Beach.

And if something goes BOOM! in the night, it's just blowing up people -- whole cultures, even -- whose main qualification for the honor is being unlike "people like us."

And if the thing that's just gone BOOM! in the night starts to soil Boudreaux's marsh and Thibodeaux's oyster beds, we'll leave the cleanup to the negligent screw-ups who caused the mess in the first place, because . . . who cares? It's the 'hood!

WE HAVE good reasons for maintaining a 'hood. This is just one.

Of course, we have other reasons for having national 'hoods, just like our local ones. For one thing, it makes it easier to find people to exploit -- from your local streetwalker to your low-paid service- and hospitality workers, who provide services and hospitality somewhat different from that of low-wage hookers on the corner.

For another, the 'hood provides a convenient focus for the attention of "progressives" striving for "solidarity" with someone . . . anyone. And for hipsters, it provides a handy place to seek "authenticity" in all manner of things -- food, music, culture, "expression."

How very quaint to possess the charms of the rustic . . . or the dispossessed.

Charm and "authenticity" are not enough, however, to save you from toxic emissions, failing infrastructure, a poor education or even a big-ass oil spill that eventually will destroy all the Stuff White People Like about you.

If you're the 'hood we call Louisiana, note well the stuff people like about you, which is different from actually liking you. Because they don't.

There is no place on earth with more "authenticity" in music, food, culture and all other manner of expression than New Orleans. The place is chockablock with Stuff White People Like. Was that sufficient for the American people to safeguard all this authentic goodness by preserving robust wetlands and building Category 5 hurricane-protection levees?

Please.

It's the 'hood, for God's sake.

What's hailed as "colorful" culture and politics in south Louisiana, is a clear case of "Edna! Call 911!" if it makes its way to Our Town. That or occasion to urgently convene an anti-corruption task force, depending.

Don't get caught in Uncle Sam's neighborhood after dark. We're going to want to know how you got that nice car you're driving.

OF COURSE, the underprivileged now and again take extreme umbrage at some slight, real or perceived, and they start to "act out." This has to be carefully managed. Usually, you can head things off by putting the ringleaders and "troublemakers" swiftly in their place.

Here's how the mayor and "civic leaders" handled things in 1963 when "the Negroes" started to get out of hand in Omaha:

Billy Nungesser, the president of Plaquemines Parish whose frustrations about the federal government response have been featured prominently on TV in the past few weeks, told ABC News that in the private meeting the president had with local leaders here today, President Obama "chewed me out."

Nungesser, a Republican, told ABC News that President Obama "told me that we need to communicate."

He said that he told President Obama that after his first visit to the region a few weeks ago, "We got the jack-up boats done cause of you. And you spent more time with us than any other president. But since then, it was a bottleneck. Things weren't getting done. All of it was sitting in the marsh."

Nungesser said the president told him, "'Well you know, if you can't get it done through the chain of command' -- and he's made some changes; we've got a guy on the ground now that can make decisions -- he said, 'you pick up the phone and call the White House. And, if you can't get me on the phone, then you can go blast me.'"

DAMN. I seem to have put up the wrong clip. Let's try this one:

And I will make one last point -- and I said this to every leader who is here: If something is not going right down here, then they need to talk to Thad Allen. And if they’re not getting satisfaction from Thad Allen, then they can talk to me. There’s nobody here who can’t get in touch with me directly if there is an idea, a suggestion, or a logjam that needs to be dealt with.

So we’re in this together. And it’s going to be a difficult time, and obviously the folks down here are going to be feeling the brunt of it, but we’re going to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to get this solved as quickly as possible.

S***. Third time's the charm, right?

Last May, the Rev. Mr. Jones and several other young ministers formed the 4CL, or Citizens' Coordinating Committee for Civil Liberties. "They barged into my office," angrily recalls Mayor Dworak, "with a series of outrageous demands. I offered to appoint one of them, the Rev. Rudolph McNair, to my biracial citizens' committee. Apparently, that wasn't enough, because they picketed the very first meeting of the committee. We won't stand for that here in Omaha."

Made up of Omaha's most influential citizens, the Mayor's Bi-racial Committee claims it is carefully laying the groundwork for the correction of Negro complaints. Says Morris E. Jacobs, a prosperous Omaha businessman and one of the leaders of the committee, "We're trying to set up an ideal that can serve as an example for the whole United States. And what happens? They picket! I got wind of it beforehand, and phoned Reverend McNair. I said. 'We didn't know about your grievances. Now that you've made them known, give us a chance to settle things and redeem ourselves with dignity — don't crowd us.'

Look magazine, Dec. 17, 1963

THIS IS the formula for dealing with the 'hood. Sometimes, it backfires and you get a big riot or something, but it's still the "industry best practice" for dealing with "those people."

Let's review: First, those running the show must sound reasonable so that the troublemakers sound like . . . unreasonable troublemakers. Second, it's important to be intimidating. Never, ever should a mayor, governor, civic leader . . . or president . . . show fear.

It's like dealing with the wild kingdom -- some species can sense fear, and that will not go well for the power elite.

Third, it helps to be condescending. This is related to intimidation. Highly effective with low-class people, who may harbor inferiority complexes you can exploit.

Finally, if those in charge want to stay in charge, they must always voice their sincere intention to work on the issues that so aggrieve the restless hordes. They must stress this over and over. Likewise, they must implore the aggrieved to be "reasonable" and "calm," emphasizing that people must "work through the system."

See, "Call center, BP."

In all this, sincerity is the key. If governmental and civic leaders can fake that, they've got it made.

Of course, the needed resources never seem to materialize. It's the 'hood, after all, and Americans don't do 'hood. Nothing ever seems to be done; nothing ever seems to change, and we like it that way.

Because it's the 'hood. Republican or Democrat, the consistent policy is "out of sight, out of mind." The 'hood is not like us. For the most part, we're quite content to let it -- and everyone in it -- die.

Though we'd just as soon not see or hear about it. See, "Gag rules, clean-up worker" and "Restrictions, press."

WHEN IT COMES right down to it, this is the moment I have been writing about for almost four years now. Every time I've written about Louisiana and its political and cultural challenges, this is what I was getting at.

I didn't know how it would happen, but I knew Louisiana's existential crisis would come -- in many ways, had come -- and that when it did . . . the 'hood wasn't any place you'd want to be. But there Louisiana is.

In the 'hood. With all the bad things, few of the good things, and with "les Americains" probably figuring they're better off with Louisiana dead. If you want to survive, Boudreaux, go chain yourself to an oil pipeline now. We'll take care of those, probably.

In effect, what I've been trying to argue -- poorly -- is that if Louisiana were a TV show, it would be Sanford and Son, and it probably would earn a nice write up in Better Homes & Ghettos. Now, America thought ol' Fred G. Sanford was funny and all -- "colorful" and "authentic," no doubt -- but there's no way we'd want the real-life version of the irascible junk man in our neighborhood.

What I also have been arguing for these past few years -- poorly -- is that Louisiana's survival hinged on its somehow transforming itself into a higher class of (ahem) "ethnic" program, say The Cosby Show. The Huxtables, they had it goin' on.

America loved Cliff and Clair Huxtable -- the doctor and the lawyer. America loved their bright and adorable kids. America welcomed the Huxtables into their homes every week, and they would have welcomed them into their neighborhood, too.

There's plenty percentage in being like the Huxtables. America would do anything for Cliff and Clair, and even if they didn't, the Huxtables could shift for themselves just fine in the modern world.

Unlike Louisiana. Alas.

Is all this right? No. Are all men created equal? In the eyes of God, at least.

But aren't we all Americans? Equal under the law? E pluribus unum, and all that?

In theory, yes. But theory is just another word for marketing, and marketing always takes liberties with the unvarnished truth.

The unvarnished truth is that this is a fallen world we inhabit, a true vail of tears. In such a place -- in such a country as even this -- it's a hell of a thing to have "always depended on the kindness of strangers."

Blanche DuBois. Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire."

Set in New Orleans.

Go figure.

What goes around . . . (oil-spill edition)

Folks in Louisiana lately have been doing a lot of bitching and moaning about being treated as second-class citizens in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

If that thing had blown up off the coast of Martha's Vineyard or Malibu, the argument goes, the federal government would be moving heaven and earth to protect those locales from the toxic black gook rolling in from the sea.

I agree. Louisianians are second-class citizens, and if BP had committed its BPocalypse off a trendier coastline, s*** would get done. Yesterday.

On the other hand, I cannot tell you how bad it looks when people whining about their second-class citizenry -- and, after all, the Gret Stet is America's ghetto -- cry about how they are not neither "wogs" as they go about acting like wogs, governing like wogs, mangling the King's English like wogs . . . then turn away from the microphone to shovel a heapin' helpin' of down-home Whoop-Ass on people even woggier than themselves.

Well, dat's Louisiana for you.

APPARENTLY, some government officials in a state now obsessed with its lack of civil rights (for lack of a better term) never got the memo from the Big Guy -- and I'm not talking Barack Obama -- about the whole "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" thing.

For example, here's what happens when a non-profit group wants to open a Christian camp for underprivileged kids in the northern suburbs of Baton Rouge, otherwise known as Places White People Like. J.R. Ball, the Baton Rouge Business Report's executive editor, picks up the story from here:

Citizens of East Baton Rouge—thanks to a little thing called “democracy”—are free to call and e-mail their elected representatives to express support or opposition to matters that will come before the Metro Council. This week’s rezoning request is no exception. Numerous constituents have sent e-mails to council members asking that they grant the Heritage Ranch’s rezoning request.

Disturbingly moronic are the responses from our so-called elected leaders. More troublesome, sadly, is that such replies are far too frequent.

[Trae] Welch, in whose district the proposed project would be built, was quick to weigh in with his opposition, writing that while he had no problem with Heritage Ranch, he did have a problem with “where the project is to be placed.” Who says the term NIMBY is reserved solely for neighborhood association members? Apparently, life for residents along Tucker Road would be destroyed if there was a facility that provided guidance and hope while instilling moral values in the underserved youth of Baton Rouge.

It’s a pair of retorts, however, from council member Bones Addison that leaves me crazier than that bird chasing Cocoa Puffs.

On June 9, at 10:28 a.m., Addison responded to e-mailers with this: “This matter is in Mr. Welch’s district. I will be seeking advice regarding this re-zoning [sic] from the member who [sic] district it impacts. I have suggested to others who have sent me the e-mail blast that they contact Mr. Welch because he is elected to represent the citizens of that neighborhood.”

He closes with this: “Be size [sic], I don’t even know where Tucker Road is.”

Addison, four hours later, fires off this e-mail to a group of residents and two fellow council members: “Hey, why don’t everybody stop e-mailing me on it, [sic] its [sic] not in my district. I would great [sic] appreciate that.”

MONDAY NIGHT, as I was writing my post about how Louisiana's real problem is that it's America's 'hood, I resisted the temptation to use the phrase "What goes around, comes around" in reference to the state's historical internal struggles over equality, class and race. I thought it would be gratuitous and mean.

Suddenly, it's not a problem anymore. Louisiana keeps making my point for me . . . even when I hold back from making it.

Why bother trying not to stick a shiv in people hell-bent on committing hara-kiri anyway?

As I said, historical ironies abound.