True odds are often misstated. Proctologists understand this fact well, since so many of their patients, at least on Seinfeld, explain their unfortunate predicaments in the same way: “It was a million to one shot, Doc. Million to one.” So, if a “million to one” means little in a proctologist’s examination room, would it be […]
Posted inEnvironment, Government & Politics, Land Use
Rock 'n Bowl seeks tear-down permits
By Karen Gadbois, The Lens staff writer | To paraphrase the golden oldie: “Rock ‘n Bowl is Here to Stay” – the trendy bowling alley and live music venue, that is. Not only has Rock ‘n Bowl survived its 2009 move to the corner of Carrollton and Earhart, it seems to be taking over the […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Government & Politics, Investigations
Sheriff's eyes bigger than inmates' bellies
With a pricetag now in excess of $80 million, Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman has gone 50 percent over budget to build a kitchen, warehouse and power plant for his new jail complex.
Posted inGovernment & Politics
PAR warns against redistricting abuses
By Naomi Martin, The Lens contributing writer | Louisiana politicians could use their control over the upcoming congressional redistricting process to keep themselves—and their parties—in power for the next decade, according to a new report by the Public Affairs Research Council, an independent non-profit based in Baton Rouge. In the study, PAR repeats its 2009 […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Landrieu wants video to promote recovery
By Karen Gadbois, The Lens staff writer | The New Orleans landscape is dotted with signs boasting about “our recovery in progress,” an effort by former Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration to tout his successes. His successor is taking that idea even further, seeking proposals to spend tax dollars to photograph and videotape the recovery so […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
Recovery projects are progressing, but half are not yet under construction
By Ariella Cohen, The Lens staff writer | In the nine months since Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration took over City Hall, long-delayed capital projects have made steady, if slow, progress. Even so, don’t expect to see too many cranes in the sky just yet. More than half of 210 planned projects remain in pre-construction phases. […]
Posted inOpinion
Formula for recovery: New Orleans needs a population explosion
Eli Ackerman & Alan Williams, The Lens contributing opinion writers | The census numbers are in and they’re troubling, but they suggest New Orleans’ only strategy for full post-Katrina revitalization. We need to grow the city’s population enormously and strategically. New Orleans is now home to 343,829 of us, meaning that close to 100,000 people […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Opinion
Are we still waiting for Superman to corrupt our kids and culture?
Recent events have only confirmed the fears I expressed in my first “Waiting for Superman” post. I warned about the dangers of linking educational reform efforts to the so-called “Superman” character, but nobody listened. No one seems to care that Superman is, at root, a phony. His real name is Kal-El, and he’s an illegal […]
Posted inInvestigations, Land Use
Transplanted medplex houses in need of life support
A $3.2 million effort to preserve houses that once stood at the site of the planned Veterans Affairs hospital has left them open to the elements and shorn of the detail that made them worth saving.
Posted inEnvironment, Land Use
Despite 8 deaths in abandoned warehouse, city has done little new to fight vagrancy
By Ariella Cohen, The Lens staff writer | Six weeks after eight young people were killed by a fire in the fallow 9th Ward warehouse where they were living, the city has not taken new substantive action to reduce vagrancy or shut down unsafe squats. “We just don’t have the manpower,” the city’s newly appointed […]