The New n' Improved Superdome

So the Saints came marchin' in to their house, to the renovated, rejuvenated, repainted, and hopefully seriously disinfected Superdome this evening. All of the press, all of the man/woman-on-the-street interviews were full of pride, a sense of victory and defiance and all of that we're-not-beaten-down bullshit. I heard idiots half-heartedly (drunkely) yapping some lame football cheers as they tailgated seven hours early for the evening game. Even NPR had some Times-Picayune flack this morning giving a meandering, overall defiant rant about his city and his Dome, talking all about how they're dirty but who cares and how the city has only got half its population but who cares, and the Saints and the Superdome somehow preposterously represent some sense of return to normalcy, the old ways, the life that was gone when time and Nature caught up with NOLA. Sure, friend, whatever level of denial floats your flat-bottomed boat (for use in the next flood).

And the kicker, the thing that actually got me to sit down and write this evening? That was a simple figure I heard in one report, the sum of $144 million dollars in federal funds that was spent to hook up the Superdome.

Let's put that in perspective. Before taxes, it would take me 1,252 years and a couple of months to earn the money to do that. At minimum wage (the lofty sum of $5.15/hour, which Congress recently voted to keep just that way), it would take 13,442 years for some poor working schmuck to make the money that it took to rebuild New Orleans' House of Shame.

Make no mistake, this is no return to normalcy, no pure bleach on the stain of shame. In every report that will ever again be aired about the Superdome, there will be more than a fleeting reference to Katrina and the tens of thousands who were stranded there and left to fend for themselves by the city, state, and federal governments. There will be the reports of the dead bodies inside and outside the building. There will be the reports of the open sewers, the violence, the myths of the bathroom rape and murder, the shoot-to-kill orders (which were carried out), the immediate descent into every-man-for-himself, with the Superdome, its sanctuary roof torn right on off by the storm in the ultimate physical symbol of what it meant for the structure to have been designated an evacuation/collection point in the firs place, right in the very center.

All of the full-of-themselves politicians spun this as some sort of victory, some sort of symbolic return of the old ways, the old days, like nothing had ever happened. How is that realistically possible? How, Kathleen Blanco, can you look yourself in the mirror and smile and tell yourself that you really think that the repair of the Superdome was a victory? You're a politician; of course you can do it. Ray Nagin, I admire the way you tell it like it is, but you were a failure then, and by letting them rebuild this venue you're a failure now. Again, I wonder how you can look yourself in the eye as you shave. Why didn't you stand up and tell the truth that the city would have been better off to tear the thing down and start anew, to spend the money where it was immediately needed? You had your chance, and you let your constituents down.

What could the people of New Orleans have done with that $144 million in federal funds? At a very modest sum of $150,000 per home, they could have built brand-new single-family homes for 960 families. Or they could have spent $20 million to finally dispose of the debris still piled in the streets, with over $120 million left over for a neighborhoodfish-fry. Or they could have given one-time grants of $50,000 apiece to worthy recipients, to 2880 people. They could have rebuilt the demolished churches, schools, libraries, fire stations, police stations, water treatment plants, local government offices, community centers, post offices, something useful like that.

But no, it was about the Superdome, the giant beacon defining the NOLA skyline and now defining a pivotal event in modern American history, when it was proven that our local, municipal, state and federal governments have neither the will nor the capability to assist us in time of true crisis (a specific crisis that has been consistently predicted and known and considered and modeled, by the way, for over 200 years). And Idiot America in New Orleans bought it. I heard not a word of complaint in all of the coverage this morning, this afternoon, or this evening. Where was the outrage at the sum spent on a sports and convention venue? Where was the outrage at spending one hundred and forty-four million dollars on a site that benefits private business interests (sports and associations) and the local government? Where was the angry mob to disrupt the game and demand that the same $144 million be spent on their homes, their places of business and living? Nope, everyone was all about their home team, all finally come home, the 'Aints returned gloriously after a 2005 season of home games on the road, for another losing season, but this time a real homey, welcoming losing season with their stadium all sold out (again, more money for the private business venture that is the ownership of the Saints, more money that the morons in the city should be spending on putting their lives back together).

People are ignorant, self-delusioinal, lazy, self-rationalizing sheep, and the residents of New Orleans are our best current example of that. They built and lived in a city beneath sea level, built it up and kept it going for over two hundred years, and then stayed in the city as a monster hurricane bore down on them, wallowing in their own filth for weeks (even still, really). And now they think that all is well because they've got an NFL team to root for right in their own midst, on Monday Night Football (TM), no less. Absolute fucking morons; they deserve everything that does not come to them.