The amazing this is NOT that Ray Nagin, former New Orleans’ Mayor, was convicted on corruption charges, but that he is the FIRST mayor in the Crescent City’s sordid history to be so charged.”Laissez les bons temps rouler!”

I taught for a year at Tulane University, which is in New Orleans. The food is delicious and the culture is fascinating, but the corruption is as common as the gumbo. Upon one of my first walks in the city, I asked a colleague why all of the trash cans had the mayor’s signature drawn onto them. It seemed senseless and politically foolish, at least to me, for an office holder to be associated with garbage. My colleague’s response was priceless.

“Well, the mayor has a family member who owns a company that does signs and those kinds of things and the Mayor gave him a contract to do it.”

“So, this was just a way for the Mayor to take city money and give it to his own family members?”

“Yes, pretty much.”

I honestly have no idea whether what I was told was actually true, but even if it is not, it should be. New Orleans’ politics are as clean as the French Quarter at Mardi Gras and smell about the same as well.