A digest of the top blogger thoughts and ideas - The A listers

Ok, as an unabashed liberal, let me stick up for the idea originally floated by New Orleans City Councilman at large Thomas Oliver: only people who are coming back to work should be welcomed into public housing.

There is no shortage of employment in NOLA right now, but there is a shortage of housing. Linking the two isn't such a bone headed idea.

And we have to find some way to break a cycle of dependency that goes back to slavery and Reconstruction, which contributes to some level of semi-professional idleness. Yeah, I'm a white guy and should probably get flamed (in person, not just online) for suggesting this, but it's a pretty clear cultural fact.

If we don't figure out how to reverse what we (as white southerners) have done for the last couple of hundred years to suppress inititative and inculcate dependency in black southerners, then there will be no way out for places like New Orleans with a large lumpenproletariat class.

Yelling at each other ain't going to help. Actually, the HUD secretary's and Thomas' remarks probably didn't help, except to start the argument. Now we need to turn it into a discussion.

Most residents of public housing wouldn't be affected by this anyway, thanks to neo-liberal welfare reform. Most were working, at very low wage jobs that made the New Orleans tourist and convention economy go.

Frankly, we need people in New Orleans who are coming there to work--together--to rebuild the city. To suggest that anyone else is less than welcome is inside the pale in my view. Hell, we know how to take it easy, and not kill ourselves in the heat. But there needs to be a commitment to work and to work together.