Scuzzbucket of the Week

HT to Swampwoman for the heads up on an article written by James Gill in the TP this week regarding Mr. John Lombardi, president of Louisiana State University.




.....The sparkling intellects of LSU offer New Orleans a lifeline, but the populace is too stupid and backward to be roused from its torpor. Time is running out to get the rabble in line. So says LSU President John Lombardi, who nevertheless remains determined to save New Orleans from itself.

Lombardi is just the man for the job, being, as he is fond of pointing out, from the efficient north. Lombardi got on his hind legs in New Orleans last week to rally the LSU troops in support of the “major academic medical center” proposed for a vast tract in Mid-City. Lombardi’s plans to win over the doubters evidently do not include a charm offensive. He has “never met a place like this, ” where people speak in a “code” he neither understands nor wishes to understand. He doesn’t know from “krewe.” The city does not contain “as many sensible people” as he had hoped — sensible people, of course, being those who agree with him. New Orleans is “on the edge” and Lombardi is offering it one “last opportunity to be a competitive, high-powered American city.” But he is up against idiots who want to “preserve old New Orleans in amber, ” and force LSU to revamp and reopen the old Charity Hospital. It is imperative that the issue be “settled this year, ” and the “Legislature needs to get out of our way.”

What a pompous old fool.