Did anyone see John Goodmans rant on "Treme" last night?

[randr]

He nails the antipathy surrounding NOLA.
Is there any source of video from this show on line?

[rudy23]

1. The antipathy was from right wing talking points, and much of the left accepted them.

So frustrating during those days to hear liberals asking "why should we rebuild a city that's under sea level?"

[Warpy]

3. Well, it's partially true

The commercial and industrial center should be built on higher ground. The city itself should be rebuilt as historical preservation, for as long as we can preserve it. Its people should be free to risk their lives in the flood prone old city or live in the safer new one.

The same goes for San Francisco. Some ares of the city will fare reasonably well in the next Big One, the parts that are on bedrock instead of landfill. The city needs to be rebuilt away from the major fault lines, though, and the old city used more as a resort.

That's what was done throughout the ancient world. When a city was found to be built on land that was periodically destroyed, like at the foot of a volcano (Pompeii and Herculaneum) or on top of a very active earthquake fault or frequent flood zone, it was eventually abandoned and relocated.

After all, cities aren't land and buildings. Cities are their people and every city has a different flavor according to those people. Clinging to land is a losing battle. Mother earth reminds us too frequently that we're only passing through and that she's the real owner.

[Cresent City Kid]

5. There isn't much higher ground to choose from

The French Quarter is about 9 feet above sea level, most of the land close to the Mississippi is about 5 feet above. The flooding would have been avoided if the levees were built to the specifications the Corps of Engineers said they were, which we were arguring wasn't enough in the years before the storm.

There's nowhere to put a new New Orleans. The only logistical possibility is renaming Baton Rouge.

[Warpy]

8. Then perhaps Baton Rouge is where the commercial

and industrial center should be. It makes no sense to keep it below sea level.

[rudy23]

14. Sure, they're only 80 miles apart. Why not? You seem to know what you're talking about....

Makes perfect sense.

[Warpy]

18. Actually, I'm talking out of my arse

with only a sketchy knowledge of the region.

However, leaving NOLA full of industry, refineries, chemical plants, financial centers, and shipping doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. It does, however, make sense to keep it a vacation spot.

[rudy23]

20. Then why talk at all? It does more harm than good to hear this callous nonsense. n/t

[Warpy]

21. Callous is leaving the maximum number of people in harm's way

while making sure the maximum amount of environmental damage is done.

Bye.

[GumboYaYa]

42. Not possible.

New Orleans is located where it is because it is the closest livable land adjancet to the portio of the Mississippi river can be accessed by seagoing vessels. The river is not deep enough near Baton Rouge for sea going vessels to port.

Nw Orleans is where it is and what it is because it is the farthest north Caribbean Port city.

[revolution breeze]

9. Much of what is now New Orleans East was wetlands

All kinds of fill material was brought in to make that area buildable. If that area had not been built up back in the 1940s and 1950s, our entire environment would be healthier!

[rudy23]

6. Point proven. n/t

[suzie]

11. True dat.

Didn't they recently have a flood in some city called Nashville?

I recall the statistics for people on the Gulf Coast who didn't have flood insurance, but haven't heard those from Nashville yet.

[Warpy]

19. The Nashville flood was unprecedented

and created a big mess but didn't actually destroy the city.

A lot of people there didn't have flood insurance because they weren't on any known flood plain.

Those people are going to be hurting, bigtime.

[rudy23]

22. Many in New Orleans weren't in flood plains either. n/t

[suzie]

24. Last big Nashville flood was in the 1970s.

Last big hurricane to hit New Orleans was Betsy in 1965.

Lots of people in Nashville who were flooded out in the '70s thought it would never happen to them again, so they didn't buy flood insurance.

But the point is proven once more. New Orleans does not count.

The oil business that goes on in Louisiana--unimportant. But the Grand Ole Opry...

[Warpy]

43. People who were hit in 1970 knew they were in a flood plain

and were at least offered flood insurance. This flood extended far outside that flood plain into areas people had no idea would ever be prone to flooding. They weren't offered flood insurance and didn't go looking for it, and that's the tragedy here.

Sorry you're consistently misreading.

[randr]

4. Truth

One aspect of American culture is that there is a place called "the other side of the tracks" in all communities and apparently now Nationally. There is no political distinction surrounding this. Both leftist and rightists would like to see our "problems" relegated to some imaginary zone that doesn't exist in our everyday lives.
Goodman's rant last night mentioned the fact that Holland protects an enormous amount of land that is ,in fact, below the levels of the North Sea and that NOLA is NOT, in fact, below sea level.
My deepest concerns now rest with the expanded issue of the oil spill and how we could choose to ignore it.
I fear that the spill will have to reach the lily white beaches of Florida and possibly the Eastern Shore before we take this as serious as needed.

[EFerrari]

10. Is the term "environmental discrimination"?

Not only nationally but globally -- ask all the "third world" nations who were shafted at Copenhagen.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. Is that a left or right question?

This is a new country, and a lot of our cities were established by people who didn't know those places were not viable for cities.

At one time the top trading port on the Mississippi was at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, about halfway between Memphis and St Louis - till it was wiped out by the New Madrid quakes of 1811-12. The people got the message and there is no major city there today.

Ancient Troy no longer exists - supposedly destroyed by the Greeks. But archeology shows it was actually leveled by earthquakes no less than 5 times. After the last one, they stopped building there.

The ancient Phonecian port of Gades no longer exists. It is in the middle of the Bay of Cadiz, Spain, and the city of Cadiz has replaced it, on higher ground.

There are hundreds of examples of cities that were built in the wrong place, which were subsequently abandoned. Why would you expect that to not happen here?

[rudy23]

13. B/c the mouth of the Miss. is not the "wrong place" to build a city. Letting wetland & levee

protection crumble under the hands of corrupt businessmen and politicians was the wrong thing to happen to that place, but it was not built in the wrong place.

I would not expect it to happen here b/c I thought people had at least an elementary school level understanding of why New Orleans is where it is, and why it's such an important city to our country's well-being.

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. Anyplace where you have to build levees is a 'wrong place'.

And building between swamps and a huge lake (and much on NO does lie below the water level of the lake, so the "not below sea level" is a bullshit distraction from the facts) is even wronger.

It might have been fine in the days of sailing ships with low draft, and a population that could all fit on the high ground, but it is decidedly wrong for a port and population its current size.

Just as LA cannot sustain itself on the barren foothills of southern CA without draining the Colorado River, and the excellent port of San Francisco will continue to be shaken to pieces until people give up on it after the 'big one', NO is NOT viable as a modern city. Any place that depends on human intervention to keep the majority of the land as viable habitat will eventually succumb to the natural forces that threaten it.

One day it WILL be abandoned. Possibly within our lifetimes, though not likely (not in mine, at least). But it is pretty much a sure bet that whatever is there in 250 years is not going to be the city that is there today, which will probably be above Lake Pontchartrain.

[suzie]

25. Since 2005, I've watched on my TV as dams and levees have broken all over the country.

And watched all kinds of other natural disasters, with no suggestion that the surrounding areas be abandoned.

But there's a certain level of enmity that seems to be reserved for the hardworking folks of South Louisiana that is completely disgusting--and shocking when I see it on a forum with "Democratic" in the headline.

Not to mention the amazing NIMBYism that allows people to once again chastize those South Louisiana folks that deal with the 1/3 of the nation's oil production--while living in an area where it's prohibited.

[RaleighNCDUer]

29. Did you even read my post?

I have no enmity for anyone there - and it is one of MANY places which I think should be given up on.

As sea levels rise, and hurricanes get stronger, due to warming what happened in NO in 2005 will happen more and more often. After paying for rebuilding low lying areas a half-dozen times in the next 30 years, the city WILL prohibit people living and working in those areas - the cost in lives and money will make it prohibitive to do otherwise. It is SOP - every city has streams that flood, and the stream beds are turned into greenways where people can't build due to the danger of flooding. It happens that in NO nearly half the city lies below Lake Pontchartrain's water level, making it not a matter of 'if' but of 'when' the next flood comes.

It is not viable, as is. Part of the city will likely always be there (at least by human reckoning, not geological - say, a thousand years). The old city, built on the high ground, will remain. But eventually, the rest will vanish.

Just like, after the Big One, and we lose 80,000 people killed in San Francisco, they will prohibit building on fill. The population will drop by 75%, because people will not move TO a place with that kind of history.

And when insurance companies refuse to cover fires in So Cal, people will stop building on the hills of Los Angeles.

It is natural in the dispersion of humans to try to settle every place, but not every place can be successfully settled. Why do you think there are so few major cities in the mid-west? Bitter winters, blazing summers, and ever present threats of tornadoes limit how big the cities will get. Even the big cities, KC, OKC, Omaha, St. Louis, are small compared to cities in Europe with proven durability.

Eventually, the US will settle in with its major cities, just as Europe and Asia have. The places that have long-term viability will grow. Those that don't will shrivel and may disappear completely. Pay attention to world history and archeology - you'll find it is not a new story at all.

[suzie]

33. Which major cities?

New York should have been abandoned long ago, and it's been propped up with federal funds over and over.

The rustbelt and Northeastern cities that ceased to function long ago and survive unbearable winters because we unrealistically subsidize oil which should really cost them about $500 a barrel?

Dallas--a city which grew to its wonderfully right-wing status as a banking, insurance and defense contractor community based on nothing geographical except government subsidy.

The Gulf Coast states will likely suffer great economic hardship from the oil spills and the fact that the NIMBYists all over the country are happy with TX, AL, MS, LA, putting up with oil drilling--just as long as it doesn't bother their beaches in CA, NC, SC, VA.

So, my suggestion would be that we assist those states in the coming years by moving all those government funded research facilities out of your state and into the states surrounding the Gulf, where there's really a better climate AND more potential for the alternative energy solutions that will be required by the increased scarcity of oil.

I'd say the same for moving out all the military bases in North Carolina. There's really longer term viability for those in the Gulf Coast states than in your area. Especially with the damage already done to marine life.

So, I'm agreeing with you. Let's change the government subsidies around and watch which places have long-term viability.

But, if I were from a federal tobacco subsidized, military industrial complex subsidized state like North Carolina, I'd be a little less arrogant about lecturing others on "paying attention to world history and archaeology".

[rudy23]

35. Brilliant post! You've just topped Goodman's character as my new hero. n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

37. You've got that all bass ackwards. I oppose drilling off shore of NC

BECAUSE I oppose drilling in the Gulf - BECAUSE I oppose the petrochemical industry being the foundation of our society. The Gulf is an irreplaceable natural resource which is already dealing with agricultural poison (which is itself largely petrochemical to begin with) creating huge dead zones, making great swaths of the gulf inimical to marine life - fish, turtles, aquatic mammals that have been historically huge economic resources, both for themselves and as part of a booming tourist industry, will be driven to extinction so that I can carry my groceries home in a plastic bag.

A self-renewing resource like the gulf wildlife could provide for generations - and is being sacrificed for tar. I am NOT saying "poison the gulf all you want, just not here" - I'm saying stop the poisoning EVERYWHERE.

And it is not about FUNDING that makes a place viable - it is the natural conditions of the place. It is about not building your fucking house on sand.

I would never build on a barrier island. I would never build on the slope of a volcano. I would never build on a fault line. And I would never build in areas that lie lower than the surrounding water.

That's just plain common sense.

ON EDIT: In case nobody has explained it to you, NIMBY means 'Not In My Back Yard'. My position is 'Not In ANYONE'S Back Yard'. There is a difference.

[rudy23]

26. Well, we can't expect to be like the Dutch. After all, we're just Americans.

From Goodman's lips to God's ears.

[RaleighNCDUer]

31. OK, speaking of Holland -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953

What is notable about this?

With 1800+ deaths in the Netherlands, there is no mention of entire cities being flooded. Why? Because they DON'T BUILD THEIR CITIES UNDERWATER. The areas that were flooded were individual houses and businesses, small communities. Not Amsterdam. Not Utrecht. Not Rotterdam. The areas that were flooded were primarily agricultural. 10,000 buildings were destroyed, and 30,000 livestock animals killed.

If we WERE like the Dutch, New Orleans would not be where New Orleans is.

[rudy23]

34. WE DIDN'T BUILD OUR CITY UNDERWATER EITHER!

But what's the point of "educating" people like you?

I wish Goodman had added Raleigh to his list. Any city's inhabitants can be subhumanized like you're doing to us. That was the point the show was trying to make with Goodman's rant, besides being historically accurate.

[RaleighNCDUer]

36. I haven't seen his 'rant' and i don't need to. I know physics.

Water flows down. If NO was built above water it would have STAYED above water.

It is simple physics.

There would be no need for pumps to drain the city. The water would simply flow away. The fact that it didn't means, obviously, that large parts of the city lie lower than the water level around it.

Or have you figured out some way for water to flow uphill?

[suzie]

38. Those who built the City didn't build the MrGO canal, what they call "The Hurricane Highway"

that funneled the storm up the Mississippi and into the City of New Orleans.

That was built by the Corps of Engineers with the opposition of people in Louisiana. Like many of the other canals built for the oil industry, it contributed to the destruction of the marshes and left the City more vulnerable.

Perhaps the levees could have been repaired with some of the money funneled into North Carolina to subsidize its part of the military industrial complex as that state lost jobs from the offshoring of the textile industry and the decline in Federal tobacco susbidies.

[RaleighNCDUer]

41. Well, those who originally built the city built a much smaller city on

high ground. That's why the old city stayed high and dry.

When it became necessary to build levees, that was when the building should have stopped. Nothing protected by any levee will ever be safe. Only a little safer, with luck. You can't fight mother nature.

Of course the Corp of Engineers made things worse - they usually do. But you just can't have large parts of the city sitting lower than Lake Pontchatrain. Water flows downhill. Always has, always will.

And I would be happy to get rid of the bases here, but am not so evil as to wish them on you.

[revolution breeze]

40. In 1718, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville

founded the city of New Orleans at the highest point at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The lower areas on the outskirts of the city were ideal for growing corn, cotton, rice, and other crops which could tolerate the wetter ground. It was too marshy and had too many pests to be used for housing. As more and more people poured into the city, there was no high ground to build on so instead, fill material was brought in and marsh and wetlands were filled in. Man attempted to re-route the Mississippi River and its estuaries. People then built on this built-up area. These areas are man made, not the wetlands necessary to protect the higher ground. The native soil in southern Louisiana is not red clay, but you dig six inches in many areas and that is what you find.

[suzie]

44. You seem to do a great job of picking and choosing your examples about cities and regions to

reinforce your own biases about what should have happened to New Orleans.

Tornadoes in the Midwest have kept Kansas City, Omaha, Oklahoma City from growing as the major subsidized places like Boston, Erie, Buffalo, Pittsburgh? Such ignorance is really rather appalling.

I've lived in the Midwest and the times that Omaha or Kansas City have been hit by tornadoes as devastating as the flood that hit Nashville or the last hurricane to hit your state are not even within memory, because they're such rare and relatively small events. None of them compare to the cost of subsidizing your rustbelt, Northeastern cities which should be allowed to shrivel away.

The most devastating event in OKC was a man-made disaster.

IF we WERE like the Dutch, we would have spent the billions of $$$ in funds for the Big Dig so that people could move more easily about the City of Boston, which should be allowed to shrivel away, on protecting New Orleans. The NOLA port provides a venue for actual exports of American goods and services. One of the few ports in the U.S. where we actually EXPORT stuff. And for the oil industry, which continues to subsidize the existence of people in those cities of the Northeast and rustbelt that should have begun to be abandoned during the energy crises of the 1970s.

Instead, we built the MrGO Canal to greatly reduce the protection for the City. Unlike the Dutch, who spent 45 years working on their flood protection systems.

And that stuff about the viability of the cities of Europe? I've traveled in some of the agricultural regions of Europe--the backwaters in which the Parisians hold the locals in the same contempt as you do the residents of New Orleans. Your "viable cities" have the same problems--they're largely just closer to their agricultural heartlands than in the U.S.

I'll stand by my NIMBY observations. The good people of Massachusetts seem quite content for our Gulf to be befouled to provide fuel for their horrendous winters--but they couldn't stand to have their picturesque views obstructed by wind turbines.

[rudy23]

27. People tend to settle near water. Has to do with shipping and jobs and stuff. n/t

[suzie]

28. Funny, how the people who live in states where oil drilling is prohibited from touching their

pristine beaches are so self-righteous about the folks in South Louisiana, who live with the ins and outs of the petrochemical industry--including destruction of the marshlands that protect the coast from hurricanes.

[RaleighNCDUer]

30. I don't get what you are saying.

Drill baby drill?

I don't live with the petrochemical industry destroying the livelihood of millions of people - and you shouldn't have to either. Are you DEFENDING BP?

And what has that got to do with NO's viability with the coming eco-disaster of global warming (other than the obvious)? I said nothing about the spill - I was talking only about the city existing where it is, and how it will, eventually, grow to occupy the land above the lake, while most the land below the lake will revert back to swamp.

In a couple hundred years, I promise, NO will be north of the lake, and the communities currently there will be neighborhoods within the city.

EDIT:
But by all means, stand up for the oil companies.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8305708

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8305626

[revolution breeze]

32. The area between New Orleans and the lake

was filled in during the 1950s and 1960s in order to build the Michoud Test Facility as well as a Disney theme park which never happened(ever see the interstate exit to nowhere between Bayou Sauvage and Irish Bayou?). They began filling in more and more of the marshland to create housing in New Orleans East and more and more people moved to the east to get out of "urban blight". The more people moving to the east, the more marshland was destroyed, which naturally protected New Orleans as it had for two centuries. Now the North Shore is being threatened by the oil spill, if the oil gets into the Rigolets, we lose more of our precious wetlands and Lake Pontchartrain will once again be poisoned.

[RaleighNCDUer]

39. The Army Corp of Engineers has a long history of 'fixing' things

and making them worse. Straightening the river and building levees made flooding worse on the river, not better. The whole 'drain the swamp' ideology was created without any understanding of the benefits of wetlands, how they protect the ecology and mitigate flooding. We are living in the 21st century with the consequences of 19th century ideology.

I do hope I get the chance to spend some time in NO - but it certainly won't be until after I retire. Just need to hold out for a few more years. There are few places in the country that I really WANT to get to know, and NO and Boston are at the top of the list. NO first - Boston doesn't live under the threat of imminent destruction. I just hope we don't ruin it before then. (Indeed, I hope we don't ruin it at all, but knowing people as I do, I don't hold out much hope.)

[suzie]

45. I'm not standing up for the oil companies, I'm one of the biggest proponents of

alternative energy production around. But it's difficult to separate the flooding that occurs in all of South Louisiana, not just New Orleans, from the environmental degradation caused by the oil industry.

Frankly, it's difficult to grasp what you're talking about. "Land above the lake?" You envision building a port on the North Shore of Lake Ponchartrain?

[kentuck]

2. I recorded it.

Just the part where he was making a you-tube video. It was great!

[rudy23]

7. Who among us did not go on a good rant or two in '05/'06?

I so strongly relate to the Goodman character and his daughter.

[Crabby Appleton]

15. Goodman's character was "inspired by" the late Ashley Morris

http://ashleymorris.typepad.com/ashley_morris_the_blog/2005/11/fuck_you_you_fu.html

R.I.P. Ashley

[KamaAina]

16. I was just about to go to Ash's archives

to see if I could find this rant; the one in the first episode was taken directly from a classic Ashley blog post!

Creighton Barrette has, though, done some very un-Ash-like things, like shrugging his shoulders when his daughter complained about Tulane taking over Fortier High School for a high school campus for its own charter, not to mention drinking wine instead of beer, mojitos, or Jameson. :-)

[KamaAina]

17. Ash's colleagues in the NOLA blogosphere are blogging the show

led by long-ago DUer markus.

http://backoftown.wordpress.com