Cliff's Crib

When you add it all up it's been a good weekend. I purposely didn't say anything about the Panthers game out of fear of angering Steve Smith and feeling his wrath. It's been a long time since Saints fans didn't go home with visions of #89 ripping their hearts out. We finally beat the Panthers at home and we are not 8-0. I can do without the slow starts but it seems like every week another player is stepping up. This week is was Robert Meachem who made a few big catches and Anthony Hardgrove on defense. They had a good games but neither one of them is my MVP.

My MVP is congressman Joseph Cao who has the distinction of being the one politician that actually voted yes for a health care plan that would benefit the majority of his district. The reality is that he's representing a district that was not created for a man like him to serve. The majority of the people in the district didn't know him before he was elected and it's likely that he won't win re-election no matter what he does. He was a lame duck the day he was sworn in and has nothing to lose. Since he knows this too he could have voted against the bill and fell in line with the rest of his party but instead he voted based on the needs and wishes of the people in his district. That's the reason why Congressman Cao gets the game ball for this week. I think the people he voted yes for need to be on alert this week because the right wing media machine is going to let him have it. Just like the Saints got lucky and found Pierre Thomas, Marques Colston, and Mike Bell maybe our district got lucky and found Joseph Cao.

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It doesn’t matter about the race or ethnicity of a person when news breaks of a corruption indictment in New Orleans. My reaction is always the same. I get sad because I think of what we could have done with whatever money or opportunity that was wasted to pull off whatever the scam was. Did we even need crime cameras in the first place? What could the Recreation Department have done with at least half of that money? I guess it’s too late to worry about that. I still think that any news story concerning crime that comes out of this city does damage because no one sees it as a clean up. Everyone sees it as a reminder of just how crooked we are. With that in mind, I feel like it’s time to go ahead and point out that the current face of corruption in New Orleans just so happens to be white.

I realize Nagin is the mayor and he is famous for making the Chocolate City comment that stirred up so much emotion. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to corruption and dealing under the table the city is more of a vanilla and chocolate swirl. Maybe this case will make corruption just a New Orleans issue instead of a black against white issue. Maybe this will make Jim Letten look fair because I happen to be one person that wants him to stay in office as a warning to potential hustlers. Maybe Mr. Meffert will turn over some evidence against the mayor and satisfy the blood thirsty mob that won’t sleep until they see him get arrested. Maybe he won’t because he doesn’t have anything and the only thing Mayor Nagin is guilty of is falling asleep at the wheel while his boy got paid. Whatever happens we need to look at this as tying up lose ends of the past so we can move forward.

Now, there is one thing that can bring the race card back into play. A 63 count indictment is nothing to sneeze at. Mr. Meffert and his wife got hundreds of thousands of dollars from this plan. I’m thinking that if Oliver Thomas has been in prison for since 2007 and serving 37 months for only 15,000, then if Greg Meffert is found guilty he has to at least get a sentence five times that amount. If Oliver Thomas does three years and Greg Meffert gets probation or any kind of soft treatment then I am going to pull out my race card and throw it on the table because that will be the right card to play in my opinion. I don’t think I will have to do that because I believe Mr. Letten is going to set an example with this case. That’s going to be a great thing if it can stop everyone from trying this kind of thing again.

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I don’t discussing stuff like what happened at Fort Hood yesterday because sometimes all the coverage takes away from the real story which is that innocent people lost their lives. There were two things I took away from watching the news yesterday. The first thing is that the media is too quick to report facts before they are sure. It started out as multiple gunmen. Then, it was only one shooter who was killed during the incident. It turns out that this guy was still alive in stable condition the whole time. Sometimes we need to calm down and wait until we get the official word. The second thing I took away from what happen is that you never know when one person is going to snap. We are in the era of people saying anything and everything to get the public to their side of a debate. I’m not just talking about Republicans and talk radio either.

It seems to be the norm to say something sensational to make your point. Just this week someone predicted there would be a race riot in New Orleans soon. Rational people who feel stable watch this stuff and pass it off as either foolishness or political posturing. They are right about that but not everyone is as stable as you to hear words of anger and fear all day and not do something crazy. I don’t know what goes on with a soldier during times of war. You can talk to people that have been there but I think it’s something to you have to live for yourself to fully understand. I don’t know who or what are made Major Hasan do what he did yesterday. I do know however that it didn’t take a few hundred Al Qaeda commandos to shut down the largest military base in the country. All it took was one paranoid American with the wrong mindset to do it. The next time you listen to a discussion on an hear about how the government wants to take our freedom and send us to Nazi camps you think about those people that got shot yesterday and remember that someone is taking this stuff literally and you don’t know what they are capable of.

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Last year this time I was sitting on my sofa watching election results as Barack Obama defeated John McCain to become president of the United States. I felt like things were looking up in spite of a potential stock market crash and depression on the way. So far during his short time in office there has been a lot going on. Last night there were gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia. The Republican candidate won both of them and now the media and political pundits say that this was an indicator of the country feels about Barack Obama’s policies. I don’t think that is true. I think it may be more a case that so far he hasn’t done anything to keep the people who came out and voted for him energized for change.

Barack Obama won because of young voters and independents. I think he needs to realize one day that those people voted for him and not necessarily the Democratic Party. The country didn’t actually convert over to Democrats. They just felt that he could lay the groundwork for some real changes. It’s not like the Democratic approval ratings were that high last year. That’s one of the reasons why he was able to climb to the top and win. He didn’t have the baggage and shouldn’t have added any baggage to himself either.

I knew he was going to have a little trouble when he appointed the same financial gurus to fix a system they helped to break. Sure, they probably understood how the system works more than anyone else but the people didn’t care. They had to be somebody in this country no associated with Wall Street that could have come in and handled that crisis. That one move alone may have been enough for some to say that everything in Washington is still the same. That opinion is helped along by the way everyone seems to be fighting and getting nothing accomplished. Old school Republicans and Democrats are not that ready to shake up the system and work together for the people. That bi-partisanship is cool but sometimes you when are the new management in charge you have to make an example out of some older employees just to let the rest know that the old days are gone before you can become the good guy that works with everybody.

I personally think that he would be feeling pretty good about everything if he would have bullied the House and Senate to pass the health care bill he wanted with a public option. You can’t have a better example of change where the people benefit more than that. Even the ones that get mad about know we need it deep down. Instead I think we are about to get this lobbyist influenced bill that is going to say reform and not really change the game for anyone. One of his advisers needs to tell the president that it’s okay to throw his weight around a little and to stop making everybody happy. That’s what we want him to do.

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One of my favorite new things on the web is watching The Young Turks on YouTube. They are a progressive group but they cover a wide range of topics and are very entertaining. I am one of the few people in this area that really don't care about David Vitter. He's going to win again because enough people in his district like the way he thinks. Nevertheless I thought I would post this clip from their channel because it says a lot about the image of our leadership. The lady in this video was pissed.

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You should go to the Just a Song blog and check out my latest post. I think it's pretty good. All of the post are good actually. I just a brief Kanye moment. I promised I would write about a song that was made after I was born instead of all the old stuff I usually do. I dedicate that post to my people from the Lower Nine because I drove down there today and decided to pick this song.

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There is a news story about an interview with Ed Blakely. In the interview he had a lot of negative things to say about the city. He basically said the natives were dumb and lazy, black people didn’t like taking orders from white people and white people wanted to seize political power. He says that we paid him all that money because we didn’t want to fix our own city and was just hoping someone like him would do it for us. He also said that if the next mayor wasn’t a clever person there would be a race riot in the city. There were enough harsh words to go around for everyone. He’s probably sitting somewhere spending one of those New Orleans paychecks right now.

When I first read it I was mad at Mr. Blakely and I wanted to call him all kinds of names. I am sure he deserves a few of those names but I thought about it for a minute and realized that he didn’t really say anything that I don’t hear from different people living right here in the city. I even wrote myself last week how we keep wasting money because of our incompetence. The truth of the matter is that we live in a city where black leadership doesn’t have a good image because of the current state of the city. White leadership doesn’t either because too many black people think everything they do is personal and they don’t do anything to prove that theory wrong. Most of us spend our day fussing about some aspect of city government or some demographic that bothers us. Outside of pulling for the Saints, you would be hard pressed to find anything that people in this city rally together for. I can’t be too mad at Ed Blakely for saying what he did. His biggest sin was breaking the local code of putting our personal business in the street. We prefer to keep our problems secret so we don’t scare off the tourists. There are a lot of people that feel like Ed Blakely does but they have to live here and make money so they channel those feelings into being concerned about the conditions of the natives that can’t help themselves.

The men and women running for mayor should save a copy of Mr. Blakely’s interview and watch it several times a day because whether we like it or not it’s how people view the city. We have no one to blame for that but ourselves and we are the only ones that are going to change that. I say we all agree that the first candidate who spends all of their time trying to tell us what we suck at instead of how we can be better they should be forced to shut their campaign down immediately. I’m tired of paying people all this money for things we can do for ourselves and having them look down on us. When is all that local pride we say we have going to kick in for real progress.

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After a game like tonight all you can do is take a shower, finish off your game liquor and go to sleep. Before I go to sleep I have a few things to say to some of the players.

To Jabari Greer and Darren Sharper: Thank you for coming to our city. You two may be the key to going to Miami.

To Marques Colston : I was wrong. You might be the real deal.

To Jeremy Shockey: Please see what I said about Marques Colston

To Mike Bell: Please see what I said about Greer and Sharper.

To Will Smith: Sorry for all the things I said to my boys about you.

To all my peeps who thought I was being negative earlier: when I was five years old I had a white am radio alarm clock and was listening to Saints games in my room crying because they were so sad. Back then you had to listen to the radio because they were so sad that they never sold out. We couldn’t afford a ticket at my house but I listened on that radio like I was there. If I don’t go to the game I am still doing the same thing today. I have been through Dick Nolan, Bum Phillips, Mike Ditka, Jim Mora, Jim Haslett and Sean Payton. I am battle tested and I want to go to the Superbowl. Let’s get it done!

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There is nothing that brings me more pleasure in sports than when the Saints beat Atlanta. There's also not another team that reminds me of how rough it's been over the last 30 + years of following this team. These Saints/Falcons games are personal. I like being undefeated but this media attention after only 6 games is starting to bother me a little. It would be one thing if our team was used to it but they are not. I like flying under the radar and keeping the routine close to the same. Peyton Manning and the Colts figure out how to do this every year in spite of all the commercials he does. The national media acts like the Saints are the best team in the league. Most of these folks had the team going 8-8 but now they can't stop raving about us. I don't like that because it takes away our edge. I don't want to be kissed up to until we are in the Superbowl. Then and only then will all of that admiration be legitimate.

If you just started following the team since Katrina you won't understand what I am saying. Just remember I told you that the first lost or rough stretch of games that all teams have we are going to be pushed aside like a flash in the pan. They all really want Brett Favre or Tony Romo to play in the Superbowl anyway. They don't want New Orleans to win and kill their ratings and promotion. If you want to know why I am talking so negative about the team being popular instead of holding parades in their honor this early in the season, it's because I can sense a little changing of attitudes on the team. They look a little too cheerful to me to only be 6-0. They could end up 6-10 and all this was just a brief moment of happiness for nothing. They need to stay hungry and come out like the same team no one thought had a chance. They are playing the pre-season favorites who will be fighting for a chance to win the division tonight because if we win it will be hard to come back from three games down with our schedule. They will give it all they have and we need to match that. I hope the first half of the Miami game was a wake up call. You are not going to come out flat like that and come back against NFL teams that often.

With all that being said.................Saints 35 Falcons 17. This isn't the week that the bandwagon breaks down.

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Ladies and Gentlemen,

This will be my last blog entry until next week. I hope everyone has a safe Halloween and enjoys whatever they do if they celebrate. Please buy some good candy to give to the kids. Now&Laters or Sugar Daddies are nice. You probably don't need that much since kids don't really walk the streets like they used to. All of this controlled trick or treating is stupid.

The only acceptable costumes for adult females are cat suits or anything that requires heels.

Men are not allowed to dress up. Masks are okay if you have kids or going to a party and that is the only way to get in.

R. Kelly is coming to New Orleans tomorrow and I hope the power goes out so no one can enjoy his concert because we should be boycotting.

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