What's going on at WWOZ?

This looks like a lot of people are jumping ship over there, not just the programming director.

Breashears confirmed his departure comes on the heels of several other longtime employees exiting their roles at the community radio station. By his count, he knows of five others, he said. Breashears' resignation will be effective April 1, he said.

More importantly, how will this affect the Jivewire?

Podcastin'

Oyster (no idea what the deal is with that site redesign) was a guest on the "Liberal Dan Radio" podcast last night talking politics and stuff. You can listen here if you're into that sort of thing.

Call me extortion, maybe

In this week's Gambit Clancy Dubos provides some interesting details about the "dignified" if not entirely open and democratic process by which the City Council decided to appoint Freddie Charbonnet to the interim District E opening resulting from the sudden departure of Councilman Jon Johnson.

Here's what happened:

After Johnson resigned, Clarkson asked the remaining six council members to compile a list of acceptable candidates. Each council member forwarded three names to Clarkson, who listed them in alphabetical order (after removing duplicate nominations) and sent the list back to her colleagues with a request that each select just two names from that list. When she got the second round of nominees back from her colleagues, she again removed the duplicates and — voila! — the list contained only four names.

We have to take Clarkson's word that this was a fair process, because none of it transpired in public, and none of the nominees was publicly identified, let alone publicly vetted, in advance.

At that point, Clarkson says, she intended to let the public speak for and against the finalists. But then a funny thing happened: Two of the four finalists dropped out. One of them, Rashida Ferdinand, a 9th Ward artist, apparently decided at the last minute to focus on her art. Ronald Carrere, a mortgage consultant for Liberty Bank, left for reasons that remain publicly unexplained. What is known is that he was seen walking into the hallway with At-Large Councilwoman Stacy Head minutes before the start of the special meeting. When he returned a few minutes later, he glumly announced his withdrawal from the competition. Suffice it to say Head convinced him not to remain in contention.

This morning, on WBOK radio, host Gerod Stevens asked his guest, Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, about this incident.  WBOK (as far as I can tell) does not publish transcripts of its shows on its website so I'm relaying this from memory, but Stevens' question suggested that "a certain candidate" who I assume to be Carrere, was threatened with the release of supposedly embarrassing information "about his parents."  Stevens' question to Hedge-Morrell was (again, inexact quote but close), "Shouldn't we consider that extortion?"

Cynthia paused for a moment but then offered, "Maybe"

Update: Sorry, forgot the Gambit link when I originally posted this. Fixed now.

"The only Frans I knew were all females"

WWL's greatest minds have something to say to Fran Tarkenton.



Bobby and Spud do a couple of unfortunate things here. For one, they start with the quite defensible proposition that the NFL and national sports media do indeed harbor certain biases against smaller market teams and latent hostility toward New Orleans which we can reasonably expect play a small part in defining the range of possible punishments the Saints will be subjected to over Bountygate... and then quickly run that defensible proposition right off the cliff of dumb drunk conspiracy theory. Thanks for ruining the credibility of our righteous indignation, guys.

Next, they move on to attacking Tarkenton for having an insufficiently masculine first name. And on International Women's Day, no less. Anyway, we're pretty sure Spud and Bobby didn't mean for us to see this and then immediately google up these images because they do, in fact exist.


Spud McConnell in Hairspray


Bobby Hebert in the Buddy D "Dress parade"

So.. you know.. yeah.

Oh and why are they pissed at Fran Tarkenton anyway? Well, Fran Tarkenton is kind of an asshole. I'll give them that.

Update: Thanks to @thecajunboy's ability to quickly amplify the Twitter chatter, this same set of jokes already made it up onto Deadspin.

And a great sadness descends upon the Gulf South media market

WWL radio's Bob DelGiorno Retires

WWL AM-870 and FM-105.3 morning man Bob DelGiorno announced his retirement from the station today after 34 years on the New Orleans radio airwaves. He will be replaced by frequent morning-show fill-in Tommy Tucker, who has hosted the 8 p.m.-to-midnight shift when not subbing for DelGiorno during morning drive.

(Ha! And I bet you thought this was going to be a post about Jim Henderson!)


On the one hand, it's reassuring to know that, in Tucker, WWL has filled the slot with the one radio personality mean and blockheaded enough to actually make the show less informative, if such a thing is even possible. On the other hand, nobody stupids up the morning news like DelGiorno.

I realize it's the general fashion in any corporate news setting to pretend the incomplete or skewed information being presented is actually unbiased, "balanced" reporting but most long time professionals are much smoother at pulling off this act than Bob ever was. If we were ever to see Paul Krugman's famous "Views differ on shape of Earth" caricature frame come to life, Bob would be the man to deliver it. Probably while shouting the words "I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW IF ANYBODY KNOWS!" over the protestations of his guest or caller. It was a lot like listening to an argument where one party would plug his ears and say "Lalalalalala" until the other stopped talking. Here's a perfect example of that from back during the Wisconsin labor protests last year.

But I think my favorite Bob moment was this bizarre conversation he had with Charlie Melancon during the Health Care debate. Bob continued to insist that the bill was unavailable for him to read while ignoring Melancon's continued attempts to explain (very very poorly) that it was in fact available on the internet... which neither man appeared to know how to use very well. But Melancon could have been Tim Berners-Lee up there and it wouldn't have mattered. There is not a single set of facts that Bob DelGiorno could not nullify through the sheer force of his aggressive willful ignorance. He will be sorely missed.

Obviously we need more DUI checkpoints

I wasn't on Bourbon Street last night but if the usual set-up was in place, these shootings couldn't have occurred more than a block away from one of those collapsible surveillance towers NOPD brings out during special events. Can't believe that didn't help.

The rest of the response is pretty routine. As always happens in these circumstances, consensus opinion will determine the problem is everyone has too much freedom right now. Serpas will tell us "the data shows" we need more checkpoints and heavier curfew enforcement. City Council will be even more aggressive in their zeal for stripping liquor licenses. There's a 50/50 chance Bacchanal will be raided again.

Just this morning I heard Bob DelGiorno talking about these shootings on his WWL radio show when he wandered into this thought. Quoting from memory so not exact but close. "What about all these 1% protesters? How long do you let the civil disobedience go? How long before they start deciding that they want some of what you have and want to come into your house to get it? I'm telling you it's a bad idea not to have a gun in this town."

So I guess we have to break up #Occupy NOLA now too. Makes perfect sense too. After all, we just got finished scattering 115 homeless people out from under the Calliope Street overpass. Just think of how many more people could have been shot last night if we hadn't been proactive there!

And if all that fails, the ace up our collective sleeve is we can always put together another city-wide crime march. It won't stop the murders, but it might make super-awesome Treme episode one day.

Garland went all Rudy on us this morning

His whole first segment was a strange announcement I can paraphrase from memory as "I would really love to talk about this but because of an agreement I made I'm not going to." And so then, naturally, he talked about it for about five minutes saying, in essence, "I did not have sex with that woman" or something like it. And then that was the end of it.

Next he brought in some "terrorism expert" for a segment that was basically "Hey, look over there! 9-11 9-11 9-11!" And then I had to turn it off and go.

Luckily Dambala listened long enough to preserve a nugget for us.

11:11 - Talking about the decline of the US Post Office, a caller got through and said, "Hi Garland, I think what the Post Office needs is a $250,000 loan with no interest!" Garland, "Alright...he's gone."

What a clown act. I'm not so naive as not to understand that commercial talk radio isn't really about informing people. On the other hand I am perhaps just naive enough as to think that maybe it should be. Or, in the very least, WWL radio probably shouldn't be a 50,000 watt torch for broadcasting paid advocacy disguised as public affairs programing.

Also, FYI, the online FCC complaint form is accessible here.

So is Garland going on the air tomorrow?

Maybe he can lecture us all about how social media destroys "trust" again.

Meanwhile Oyster has a mind to begin tracking the follow-up on this payola story. Will his list of 10 potential "Editorials, Opinion pieces and Letters to the Editor" be filled? Or will the T-P let this story drop as their late Friday release of it indicates they intend to do? Moreover, who else was on River Birch's list of "lobbyists" Paul Rioux's story alluded to? Which other local media figures did Fred Heebe at least attempt to put on the payroll? Maybe we can start that list over here ourselves.

1. Garland
2. Gordon Russell
3. ?

Note: We say "attempt to put on the payroll" in reference to what we take to be Heebe's intentions though without necessarily impugning the objects of his payoffs. Like I said the other day, I don't see any evidence that Russell is in the wrong, for example.

Thunk Tanked

So I think this story about Garland Robinette's $250,000 bribe from River Birch Landfill owner Fred Heebe gets really interesting right about here.

At one point, Robinette visited the newspaper to warn editors of the environmental dangers the landfills posed. Robinette met with editors Jim Amoss and Peter Kovacs and told them he was passing along his concerns because the newspaper employs reporters while he, as a radio talk show host, did not have the wherewithal to practice investigative journalism. Amoss and Kovacs said they found it unusual for a representative of one news organization to pass on a tip to a competitor. Both said they did not act on Robinette's visit because The Times-Picayune's reporters were already covering the landfill issues.

The Times-Picayune reporter covering the dispute, Gordon Russell, said he regularly received tips and information about the landfills from Heebe and Rick Michaels, an environmental consultant for Heebe. At one point, Russell said, he and a photographer flew over the landfills with Michaels in a helicopter River Birch's owners chartered. Russell told Michaels to bill the newspaper for its share of the helicopter ride, but the newspaper's records do not indicate that an invoice was ever issued. Russell also visited Heebe's home to pick up documents, and when Heebe asked him to stay for lunch, he accepted.

Russell, now the newspaper's city editor, said federal investigators told him that his name was on the list of River Birch lobbyists seized in the raid. Ciolono confirmed Robinette was on the list as well, but he said the talk show host had never been a lobbyist for the company.

It seems pretty clear that Heebe intended to buy people through these transactions. Just going by the facts presented in this story I can't say Russell did anything inappropriate. Garland, on the other hand.. well he would be dumb enough.

Anyway all of this begs the question of who else Heebe bought. And, well, that's where we take off down the rabbit hole. Right now it's late and I'm about to turn in but if you're looking for where this is going, a good place to start is here where we learn about Heebe's contributions, bribes, and helicopter rides given out to environmental advocates, state administrators, various lawmakers and lobbyists... well pretty much everybody, in other words.

Fred Heebe and Ward engaged heavy hitters in the lobbying industry as River Birch sought tax incentives for its methane gas collection business and hunted for ways to navigate the federal bureaucracy after President George W. Bush declared Katrina's aftermath a major disaster, records show. The company counted former U.S. Rep. Bob Livingston, R-Metairie, and Joe Allbaugh, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Bush administration, among its consultants.

Livingston's shop, The Livingston Group, signed on in 2005 primarily to focus on landfill gas collection legislation, a firm representative said. After paying the firm $820,000, River Birch ended the arrangement in 2010, records show.

The Allbaugh Co., came aboard in 2006 after David Dewhurst, the Texas lieutenant governor, introduced Allbaugh and Heebe, Allbaugh said. His firm helped River Birch deal with the various federal agencies involved in Katrina clean-up.

"Because if they were just shooting in the dark, then they weren't navigating the federal bureaucracy so well," Allbaugh said.

For its work, which ended in January 2008, the Allbaugh Co. was paid $160,000 records show.

I like that Allbaugh didn't pull down as much money as Garland somehow. And then there are the political contributions which also seem to touch everybody in sight.

Beyond hiring consultants, Heebe and Ward have long been involved in state and federal politics. Heebe sent $438,013 to candidates from 1999 to 2010. His wife, former Jefferson Parish Council member Jennifer Sneed, donated $159,716 to others' campaigns, plus $186,000 to pay debts from her own political career.

Donations to state and parish campaigns also were made through River Birch as well as Willow Inc. and Shadowlake Management Co., companies associated with Ward and Heebe, to the tune of $83,350 since 1999, records show.

As major donors in GOP circles, Heebe and Sneed gave a total of $125,000 between 2008 and 2009 to the Republican Party of Louisiana.

"They really didn't ask for anything special," state GOP Chairman Roger Villere said. "Just really supportive of our efforts."

In contrast, Ward and Heebe's sister, Adrea, tended to favor Democratic candidates and causes, records show. Ward donated $3,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee between 2006 and 2010, and another $12,400 to the Democratic National Committee between 2004 and 2010, records show. Adrea Heebe contributed $12,000 between 2006 and 2009 to the March for Progress, a political action committee associated with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

Heebe, Ward and their wives, along with Heebe's sister, all donated to U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who took an active role in trying to close the Old Gentilly Landfill after Katrina and was one of the 17 senators targeted by Mouton's letter-writing campaign against the dump. They contributed $27,800 to Vitter's campaigns between 2000 and 2010, records show, and Vitter argued publicly against reopening Old Gentilly.

Are you starting to see how big this is? Oh and those of you who don't like to read the NOLA.com comments, you'd be surprised at the stuff you can miss that way. Here's comment number 2 under that article.

Jennifer Sneed's sister Emily Sneed is Mayor Mitch Landrieu's Deputy Mayor, Mike Foster's chief of staff Andy Kopplin is Mitch Landrieu's CAO chief of staff, Mitch Landrieu hired two additional people who spoke out against the Old Gentilly Landfill (Nannette Jolivette and Ann Duplessis), and Mitch Landrieu also received tons of campaign money from Ward, Heebe and River Birch related relatives and entities . Somewhere, somehow it would be good to see the TP do a final tally on just how much.

And oh yeah: the ONE sanitation contract out of four NOT renegotiated by the Landrieu administration? River Birch.

All this money going to lobbyists, bureaucrats, politicians at all levels, political activists, and at least two major media outlets. I'd say maybe somebody should pay some attention to Fred Heebe. Well you'll be happy to know that our friends at Slabbed actually have been doing just that for some time now. I'm going to link you over to there now so you can do some browsing.

What's disgusting? Bob Delgiorno

Like a lot of people in New Orleans, I was a bit out of sorts yesterday and so I'm only just this morning reading Athenae's account of Sunday in Madison.

Protesters were fighting to retain the rights of organized labor everywhere, now under siege by the newly elected governor and Republican legislature. Democratic state senators fled the state, avoiding a quorum call on the governor's budget bill, and in their absence the citizens of the state decided to move in. Some carried instruments, a flute, a drum. Others pounded on plastic buckets. A child banged a pot lid and sleigh bell together. "What's disgusting?" they called out during a lull in the music.

"UNION BUSTING!"

Also here's a pretty okay column from Paul Krugman which at least makes the crucial point.

Some background: Wisconsin is indeed facing a budget crunch, although its difficulties are less severe than those facing many other states. Revenue has fallen in the face of a weak economy, while stimulus funds, which helped close the gap in 2009 and 2010, have faded away.

In this situation, it makes sense to call for shared sacrifice, including monetary concessions from state workers. And union leaders have signaled that they are, in fact, willing to make such concessions.

But Mr. Walker isn’t interested in making a deal. Partly that’s because he doesn’t want to share the sacrifice: even as he proclaims that Wisconsin faces a terrible fiscal crisis, he has been pushing through tax cuts that make the deficit worse. Mainly, however, he has made it clear that rather than bargaining with workers, he wants to end workers’ ability to bargain.

This morning, WWL radio's Bob Delgiorno was being as unhelpful as ever for listeners tuning in in search of informative discussion. All of WWL's hosts are bad but when it comes to ignoring facts and talking over and around his guests and callers, nobody does it quite like Bob. A phone conversation this morning with Louisiana AFL-CIO Vice President Robert "Tiger" Hammond went like this, for example. (paraphrased)

Delgiorno: Walker is saying times are tough and everybody's got to make sacrifices to fix this budget. And these public workers have got to be willing to give some things up.

Hammond: But, Bob, the unions have already made these kinds of concessions. But Walker is telling them that's not enough and that they need to give up their collective bargaining...

Delgiorno: (Immediately changes subject to "taxpayer supported union dues" and then moments later returns to) Walker is saying times are tough and everybody's got to make sacrifices to fix this budget.

And this circle was repeated several more times. And it's what DelGiorno does every day. When we allow a shouting doofus like this to serve as a professional information conduit for our community, is it any wonder we have difficulty keeping informed?

"And the reason for it, sir, is we do get a lot of misinformation."

Congressman Melancon shows Bob Delgiorno how to claim the Nigerian Prince's fortune while signing up for free cell phone service and enhancing his man parts all in one tweet.


This morning on WWL radio, Bob DelGiorno hosted Congressman Charlie Melancon for a discussion about the state of health care reform legislation currently before Congress. Melancon is a member of the Blue Dog coalition who recently voted against part of the legislation in committee. Delgiorno is a loud clown of a man who has made a career of throwing his unabashed ignorance into competition with his faux outrage to see which one can generate the biggest brightest stupidnova of any given morning.

I've transcribed a few highlights of the conversation between the two men, one a news and information professional and the other a U.S. Congressmen, as they grappled with the complexities of accessing pending legislation. (Audio here. Transcribed conversation picks up around minute 37:00)

Bob: Do you have this bill HR 3200 in nice binding... all thousands of pages or so? Why can't the general public get access? I went to Housegov.com [ EDITOR'S NOTE: "housegov.com" is not an actual website] I clicked on bills. I went to HR 3200. I went to the American Affordable Health Choices Act 2009 and I got ring-around-the-rosie. I had to put all this information together to go -- go to committees and comments... why can't we look at that bill? WHY CAN'T THE TAXPAYERS LOOK AT THAT BILL?

Melancon: Bob, as far as I know you can.

Bob: How?

Melancon: Well I'd have to ask my staff. I don't get on the computer all day. As a matter of fact I'm never by my computer all day. But they can get copies and know were to go and what...

Bob: But WE DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GO! And we want to find out where we can look at it.

Melancon: That's what I want to do for you.

Bob: And the reason for it, sir, is we do get a lot of misinformation.

Melancon: Sure and one of the things and please give this out.

[Melancon recommends "www.politifacts.com" (yes he spelled it out) as a "non-partisan web site" that sorts out "myths and facts" It is not.]*

Bob: But still back to the question, why can't we get on the internet and get HR 3200? Tell me how to do it! How do we do it?

Melancon: I don't know. I'll get my staff...

Bob: CAN THEY LET US KNOW?

Melancon: I'll get my staff to email to you the address where you go to get the bill. And if there's some difficulty getting the bill downloaded from the site... whatever it is.. please let us know because I want government to be responsible...

Bob: So when are you gonna get this information so I can pass it on to my listeners?

Melancon promised he would have "my staff" email the appropriate information to DelGiorno later. But since Melancon is "never at my computer" and DelGiorno is a blithering idiot, I can't imagine that operation will go off very efficiently. Bob has a lot of spam to click though in between his obsessive refreshes of "housegov.com."

During the next hour, Bob updated us on the state of things. Obviously Melancon's staff had not yet emailed.

He's gonna send me all this information on how to access this bill. They get a nice binder and we gotta get on the internet and just go crazy trying to get all this information and verify the crap we get... you know.. what's true what's not true.

Here's what's true. HR 3200 is available online. I'll get you there in one click, if you like.

What's also true is that if Bob were to find the bill, it would be the most disappointing development of the day for him. It would invalidate his smug insinuation that it's being hidden from his view for some devious purpose. Worse than that, he might even feel obligated to read it. And that would suck since, as we all know, it's not Bob's job to actually read and understand the bill... or read summaries of the bill... or read any reliably sourced piece of news about the bill. All he's paid to do is shout about it on the radio. Although I can't imagine why WWL continues to agree to such an arrangement.

* Clarification: I feel a little bad about not pointing out that the Congressman was obviously referencing the site politifact.com however that isn't what he said.

High comedy

John Labruzzo is a guest this morning on WBOK.

Yeah you rite

Athenae:

You know, there is no injustice to which people are subjected that radio talk show nutballs cannot explain away by smugly asserting that it was simple dumbassery that got them screwed over. I'm not even arguing the facts of this case, simply noticing the pattern: Something shitty happens, and clearly whatever it is, it's the fault of the person it happened to.

Happens every damn day. The level of discourse on most talk radio is about two steps below your typical barroom argument.

Programming note

If you're like me... and I know I am... you might be getting a little tired of listening to Bobby Hebert pretend he knows something about basketball night after night. In which case, we invite you to turn the dial.

Bizarre statement of the day

This afternoon on WIST radio, Kaare Johnson was attempting to reach out to the "Bush haters" who "might be cheering this guy (the shoe throwing Iraqi) on." Kaare wanted the "Bush haters" to understand that... regardless of your opinion of the President, throwing shoes is just "not something that is done in Western civilization."

Despite the odd wording, we all kind of understand what Kaare is getting at. It's probably not a good idea to go throwing things at people just because you disagree with them... or because they have dropped tons of explosives on you and your neighbors. It tends to reflect badly on you and whatever message you're trying to convey.

But then Kaare had to go one step further. To help the "Bush haters" comprehend the magnitude of the shoe-thrower's offensive behavior, Kaare invited the "Bush haters" to imagine that, instead of Bush, someone had thrown a shoe at Tom Benson.

Um.......

Jay Batt is against "the low incomes"

And possesses other such charms.

Some derivative internet cliches are worth ripping off

For example (with apologies to Atrios) Simple Answers to Simple Questions

Schroeder writes:

Does WWL have anyone on staff who isn’t a Republican Party ideologue?

A: No

This has been another cheap ripoff of an internet cliche.

WTF

Has the all-sports radio station (1280 AM) decided to suddenly switch to all-gospel? Who makes these kinds of decisions?

Hilariously, the newly all-gospel station's website currently features a catalog of "Hot Babes"

Update: The website has been taken down. They really have changed the format.

Upperdate: Huzzah!

Almost-all-rerun radio is almost done at WWWL AM-1350, which since late 2006 has been re-airing talk programs generated by sister stations WWL AM-870 and FM-105.3

Starting Monday (June 30), WWWL will carry a lineup of ESPN Radio network programs, some of which had been running on WODT AM-1280.

Surviving the format flip: Tom Fitzmorris's "The Food Show," which in July will celebrate its 20th anniversary on the New Orleans airwaves.

I like this because Fitzmorris likes to talk about his distaste for sports.

Also... thank fucking God Jim Rome is off the air in New Orleans.

Today's topic on the Garland Robinette show

These Kids Today: They're stupid, they have too much time off, they text too much, and don't even get me started on that damned internet.

Strong and Determined

I'd like to go back through the text of last night's clown show but... but it's really really bad and I don't want to end up in a swearing fit like David just yet.

Instead, lets start by looking at the bang-up job done by local radio of discussing the important issues skirted around or lied about by the mayor yesterday. Last night, Varg girded himself to listen to Bob Mitchell's after-speech discussion on WWL wherein Mitchell the Slidellian hung up on callers who were displaced to Baton Rouge because they were "not from New Orleans" WWL's hosts are well known for conducting "conversations" in which points of view other than that of the host are dismissively screamed over, callers are hung up on, and guests are routinely cut-off and talked over. It's an infuriatingly perfect horror show.. so naturally I listen religiously.

The comedic idiocy is nearly enough to allow the casual listener to put the hypocrisy out of mind. But it seems that WWL's purpose is to do anything in its power to obstruct rather than facilitate meaningful public discussion. Sometimes it goes through great feats of acrobatics to achieve this.

Case in point: Last night, Mayor Nagin's speech addressed the state of the city's recovery as the administration sees it. He spoke about the following critical issues.

1) Health care

2) Crime

3) City finances

4) His controversial sanitation contracts

5) Emergency preparedness

6) Rebuilding plans

WWL, in analyzing this speech could choose any or all of the above topics for discussion. Callers could offer their thoughts on what the Mayor said, whether or not they agree with him, where they thought he was full of shit.. etc.

It would also be interesting to discuss Nagin's attacks on Gov Meemaw and the Road Home program. He seemed to suggest that he had better ideas for dispersing federal and state funds. There are rumors that Nagin is running for Governor this year. Do his statements last night sound like those of a candidate for state office? I would like to listen to that show.

Within the context of such a show it would also be fun to discuss the Mayor's.. idiosyncratic speaking style. We could talk about the part where he crassly and clumsily built an analogy between the city and the terminally ill "mother of one of my staff" or how he crescendoed this analogy with the statement, "I choose life" as though he were in a Wham video. Or we could talk about the part where he said the garbage collection carts in the Quarter are "uniformed". Or we could talk about the way he addressed the controversy over his questionable garbage collection contracts. (He uttered the one-word sentence "Controversy" and spoke no further on the subject.)

So you can see there's a lot of fun to be had there and it doesn't necessarily have to come at the expense of a substantive discussion. But like I said, WWL doesn't really even want to try. Here, instead, is the actual text of the opinion poll question WWL is asking its listeners this morning.. ostensibly as a non-ironic stab at sparking a thoughtful conversation.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin says ''the state of our city is one of strength and determination.'' When it comes to recovery are you strong and determined?

Are they serious? Interestingly enough.. at the moment, 77% of respondents at wwl.com are answering "No, I am not strong and determined" Yeah neither am I.