Minor Wisdom

We laugh when you’d think we should cry. And we drink.

I’m posting this only because Mr. Cenac has us Orleanians nailed. And because Jon Stewart is, well, Jon Stewart.

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One conservative’s reaction to the BP oil spill ...

... by Petigru’s Ghost at Southern Appeal.

Dr. John prophesies about Danzinger

Unfortunately, Dr. John and the Rev. Goat Carson were onto something when they wrote these lines a couple of years ago:

They tell me “forgive,” they tell me “forget”
Ain’t nobody charged for the murders yet
Half of the story ain’t never been told
All these “drowning victims” full of bullet holes

Mac Rebennack and the Rev. Goat Carson, Say Whut? (from The City That Care Forgot).

What’s your favorite political song?

Here’s something with go-viral potential. The New Statesman has a list of top-20 political songs, as voted by its readers. At First Draft, Athenae responds to the call, as do a dozen (so far) commenters. So what’s your favorite political song? Here’s mine: Political World, by Bob Dylan, recorded in New Orleans.

“When foundations are destroyed ...”*

The synopsis of The Infrastructure Crisis, by Robert L. Reid:

The collapse last summer of the Minneapolis bridge that carried Interstate 35W over the Mississippi trained a spotlight on a long-standing national problem: how years of neglect, underfunding, and a lack of leadership and vision allowed America’s infrastructure to deteriorate. This special report examines the state of the nation’s infrastructure in 15 major categories—as outlined in ASCE’s three “report cards”—as well as the various causes and costs associated with the problem, and explores some possible solutions.

Hat tip to beSpacific.

________

* Psalm 11 verse 3.

Bottled water is a scam

Bottled water is bad for the environment and no better for your health than tap water. That’s the message from this video by The Story of Stuff.

Ee-gor? I thought it was pronounced Eye-gor.

New Orleans is in the midst of an election season. Around here, we elect just about every public servant above the rank of dog catcher. Among the contests (I just learned today) is that for coroner. The incumbent is Dr. Frank Minyard; the challenger is Dr. Dwight McKenna.

Now, the timing of this particular election makes it tough on candidates challenging incumbents. They’re competing with both Carnival and a Super Bowl featuring the Saints. So Dr. McKenna has to figure out how to grab the voters’ attention. I believe he has got this problem solved. (Hat tip to Library Chronicles.)

An unlucky day for Dollar Bill

On Friday the 13th, “Dollar Bill” Jefferson gets 13 years. As John Lennon once sang, “Instant karma’s going to get you.”

You call this “blight”?

If you haven’t already done it, please check out Inside the Footprint. There, Brad V and Curtis P parade the lovely homes in the Mid-City neighborhood that would be destroyed if the LSU-VA Medical Center is built where currently planned.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I watched a DVD of the documentary Faubourg Treme. It’s the story of a vital neighborhood that, for about 150 years, has been hit with one mortal blow after another. Please, let’s learn from our mistakes. Let’s not repeat them.

Science marches on: The Ig Nobel Prize winners for 2009

Everyone’s talking today about President Obama’s receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and wondering what he did to earn it. They should be talking about the Ig Nobel Prizes, awarded a mere eight days ago. For instance:

• The Peace Prize went to Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for conducting experiments to determine whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.
• The Medicine Prize went to Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California. Unger wanted to know whether knuckle cracking causes arthritis. To find out, he spent 60 years cracking his left-hand knuckles daily, while not cracking his right-hand knuckles.
• The Physics Prize went to Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, for their analysis of why pregnant women don’t tip over.
• The Biology Prize went to Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for proving that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from giant pandas’ poop.

For the run-down of all winners’ accomplishments, you know where to click.