Prostitutes and Pirates

Prostitution has been accepted by city authorities in private while condemned in public. Police, DA's and Judges have, for many years, quietly allowed prostitution. Today there is a bar in the French Quarter that is the site of the last city licensed "Bawdy House" in New Orleans. The license and pictures of the girls are on the walls of the bar and the original rules are posted. It wasn't that long ago.

Storyville was the district set up to limit prostitution to one area of town where it could be monitored and regulated by authorities. In the late 1890s, the New Orleans city government studied the legalized red light districts of northern German and Dutch ports and set up Storyville based on such models. Between 1895 and 1915, "blue books" were published in Storyville. These books were guides to prostitution for visitors to the district's services including house descriptions, prices, particular services, and the "stock" each house had to offer. The Storyville blue-books were inscribed with the motto: "Order of the Garter: Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense (Evil to Him Who Evil Thinks.)" The District was adjacent to one of the main railway stations where travelers arrived in the city and became a noted attraction for many visitors.

Jazz did not originate in Storyville (it started off as a New Orleans style of music played all over town), but it flourished there as in the rest of the city; many out-of-town visitors first heard this style of music there before the music spread up north. Some early jazz writers suggested that Storyville was key in the development of jazz and that its closing was responsible for New Orleans musicians leaving for Chicago, but this is now regarded as inaccurate. Some people from elsewhere continue to associate Storyville with the origins of jazz. It was tradition in the better Storyville establishments to hire a piano player, and sometimes small bands.

The District was closed down by the federal government (over the strong objections of the New Orleans City Government) during World War I in 1917. In regard to prostitution, New Orleans Mayor Martin Behrman pronounced that, "[y]ou can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular."

The District continued in a more subdued state as an entertainment center through the 1920s, with various dance halls, cabarets, and restaurants. Speakeasies, gambling joints, and prostitution were also regularly found in the district.

A city with a culture that supports pirates and prostitutes has to expect a certain loose attitude about rules. Its the Big Easy.

Pirates and prostitutes

Yesterday I wrote about the French pirate Jean Lafitte and his role in the history of the Marigny. He is a wonderfully colorful character. Byron wrote a poem about him, several movies have been made based on his life, and many books have been written about him.

He established a "kingdom" with some 3,000 pirates downriver from New Orleans in the Barateria. From there he would raid British vessels and assist the American navy. There are many stories about him and he was popular in New Orleans for decades. His legend lives on in Pirates Alley in the French Quarter.

The glorification of a pirate king says a lot about local political mores today. We have a history of electing rouges to high office and it is perfectly consistent with our past admiration of pirates. We are tolerant of a certain corruption because of various reasons. One of them is that it is a part of our heritage and our culture. The legacy of Jean Lafitte lives on in the crooks in City Hall and the Governor's Mansion.

That is just one thread in the tapestry of New Orleans. Tomorrow I'll trace the thread of prostitution.

Pirates and prostitutes are living large in New Orleans.

New Orleans style

Scroll down and look at the pictures on the right. The signs were taken on a street corner in the Marigny. Over the next few days I'll put up more pictures from the Marigny, where my coffee shop is located. This is a classic New Orleans neighborhood. Its not typical of anything and that, in itself, is the style of New Orleans.

The history of the area and the man whose name it bears is interesting. The son of Count Pierre Enguerrand Philippe de Mandeville Ecuyer, Sieur de Marigny and Chevalier de St. Louis, Bernard was born in New Orleans in 1785. In 1798, Louis-Philippe, Duc d'Orleans (who became King Louis Philippe in 1830) and his two brothers, the Duc de Montpesier and the Comte de Beaujolais, visited the Marigny plantation. By all accounts, they were lavishly entertained by the Marignys. One story recounts that special gold dinner ware was made for the occasion of the Duc d'Orleans visit and was thrown into the river afterward because no one would be worthy of using it again. Now that is New Orleans style!

On reaching his majority in 1806, Marigny at once had his plantation subdivided and began to develop the Faubourg Marigny. Marigny had many gambling debts and the smaller the land parcels the more there was to sell. The area grew rapidly and lots were sold all the way into the 1820s.[6] Marigny's development was immediately popular. Marigny has famously named the streets of his neighborhood whimsically (Peace, History, Poets, Frenchman, Greatmen, Music, Love and Craps (after the game of chance he introduced to America). It was his losses at Craps (his game) that led him to sell off his land holdings.

During the battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson established his headquarters at Marigny's plantation on Victory Street.[10] Nevertheless, Marigny and Edward Livingston were unable to convince the American General to meet and seek the support of the pirate Jean Lafitte whom the British had reached out to, but who according to Marigny was inclined to support the Americans. Lafitte did eventually meet and persuade Jackson of their support, which proved useful during the campaign.

I'll pick this up again tomorrow. There are threads from then to now and I'll trace them in a future post

The shame of Bush

The false story manufactured by the Bush administration continues to unravel. Now George Tenant has a book out confirming what others have reported.

Bush & Co. intended to invade Iraq before 9-11.

There was no serious debate about the invasion.

I do think there are ample grounds for impeachment but would not want to see it happen. There isn't enough time now and Chaney would just be worse. I like the idea of impeaching Chaney. Would that make Nancy Pelosi V.P.? She's next in line. Now that would be delicious!

We are stuck with Bush, his poor performance, and his weak ethical standards. I was outraged again when I read this morning that the Bush people didn't collect on major offers of help for Katrina. I personally pay a price for the Bush bungling of the federal Katrina response.

Bush's approval rating hovers around 30% What are those people thinking? I'd love to know why they continue to approve of this disastrous president.

Hits, runs and errors

Did you watch the Democratic candidates debate? I found it helpful and interesting.

I was impressed with Hillary and disappointed with Barak and Gov. Richardson. I did not like Hillary before the debate. She seemed to act too much on political calculation and not enough on principle. For instance, she voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. That is a pet project of the far right wing. In the debate she seemed reasonable, logical, and, well........presidential. I gained a lot of comfort with her during the debate. I could see her as president.

Barak couldn't get to the point in his answers. I think if he had longer to speak, he would have done better. Some of his answers just wandered. He did not loose any ground, but he did not gain any either.

Richardson has the best resume but his answers were almost bumbling. Biden looked better than he has in the past and he may come up in the polls now. If Biden gains, it may well be at Edwards expense. Edwards was flat and looked tired. Mike Gravel, former Senator from Alaska was a flame thrower, critical of his fellow Democrats. His comment that the other Democrats scared him will give Fox lots of material to work with.

Nobody struck out and nobody hit a home run.

The tip of the ice burg

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D.RI). Senator Whitehouse is the former Attorney General of Rhode Island, and a former U.S. Attorney. He thus understands well how the Justice Department should operate, and how it actually is operating.

In a premise to a question for Gonzales, Senator Whitehouse said he had found correspondence in the files of the Senate Judiciary Committee from the days when Orrin Hatch was chairman relating to an investigation of the relationship between the Clinton White House and the Justice Department (under Attorney General Janet Reno). Hatch was concerned about the independence of the Department of Justice, so he wanted to know who in the White House could speak with whom in the Justice Department. The correspondence showed that four people in the White House (the President, Vice President, chief of staff, and White House counsel) could speak with three people in the Justice Department (the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney and the Associate Attorney General)—period.

Senator Whitehouse discovered—and created a chart to make the point—that in the Bush White House, a shocking 417 people could speak with 30 different people in the Justice Department. It was a jaw-dropper. As Chairman Leahy said, when he asked Senator Whitehouse to continue when his time expired, in his thirty years on the Judiciary Committee, he had never seen anything like the open contacts from the White House to the Justice Department that had occurred in the Bush Administration.

Gonzales really had no response when asked about this subject. But this information shows that, in this Administration, the Department of Justice has become a mere political appendage of the White House.

The firing of the US Attorneys is only the tip of the ice burg. The bigger scandal is the conduct of the daily affairs of that department and of other parts of the federal government as well.

The vast right wing sleeze machine

Rahm Emanuel, a senior Democratic leader, in a speech this week at the Brookings Institution, will tie together a long series of Bush administration scandals, controversies and missteps into what he argues is a campaign to turn the government into an appendage of the Republican Party.

"The U.S. Attorney scandal will be to public corruption what Hurricane Katrina was to incompetence in the Bush Administration," he plans to say Wednesday.

We cannot go back and undo the damage that has been done but we are entitled to the truth. It seems that investigations are everywhere now. Dennis J. Kucinich has prepared articles of impeachment against Cheney. The only problem with that is if he were gone Bush would have to run the show alone and it could be even worse.

A lot of what Bush has done was done in the past on a smaller scale. What sets Bush apart is that he has vastly expanded the role of partisan politics and corruption. It has become a way of life for his administration. They constantly alleged wrong doing by Clinton but none of it was true except for the Monica affair. The knew their allegations were not true but made them anyway. How stunningly hypocritical it is for them to defend the deeply corrupt Bush administration.