: "Nagin proposes big expansion of gambling"

NAGIN PROPOSES ENTERTAINMENT, GAMBLING MECCA

Aw, jeez. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it gets worse.

This morning my brother, Val, and brother-in-law, David, both told me in separate conversations that Charity Hospital and University Hospital have been condemned, and that Charity Hospital will be rebuilt in Baton Rouge.

That's crazy, I said. Charity Hospital has been there since the 1930's.

Not so, says Val, it's been there since the 1830's, was constructed to deal with a cholera epidemic.

But the poor people in New Orleans need Big Charity. What are they going to do without it? Why are they doing this? I asked.

Politics, they said. It's all politics.

I hate the way people in Louisiana say that. Like it's a force of nature you can't do anything about. The fix is in. You can't fight city hall.

David says that maybe it's a good thing since half the people in New Orleans are living in Baton Rouge now. Which does make some kind of sense, but still, what will the poor people in New Orleans do?

And now it seems to be coming clear. That's prime real estate. Turn it into casinos. Make some money.

I hate gambling. I hate people who gamble. It's an irrational prejudice of mine, I admit. But tearing Big Charity and University Hospital (former LSU Medical Center) is going to rip the still-bleeding heart out of New Orleans and replace it with the kind of people who . . . . well, come to think about it, a lot of the real people of New Orleans love to gamble. They love to go to Las Vegas. *Shudder.*

In some ways, New Orleans has always reminded me of a hooker, getting further and further down on her luck.

Where will the other New Orleans, the New Orleans that works, the one that runs the rigs and the riverboats and the docks and the big ships and the chemical plants, go? I guess up the river to Baton Rouge?

They're going to continue to turn New Orleans into XXX-rated Disneyland for sleazoid adults.

They don't know what they've got, what they've had, what they've lost, and some of them will never know, and never care.

This was their shining hour to reclaim her -- and they're going to put more makeup on her and put her back on the street.