Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Who coined "Federal Flood"?
John from The Dalles, Oregon writes a
letter to the T-P praising the return of the green streetcars to Canal St.. Check out his choice of language, though:
As a frequent visitor to New Orleans, I am thrilled to note the progress made since the federal flood.
The return of the traditional green streetcars to Canal Street is a milestone that truly reflects the rhythmic soul of the city and provides a salve to the areas that have not yet healed....
Who coined the term "Federal Flood", anyway? I believe I first saw it last year at ye olde
G Bitch Spot. But, then, I'm a little slow sometimes.
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Karen notes another praiseworthy letter to Da Paper.
Labels: Federal Flood, Pelicans
12 Comments:
I asked myself that same question this morning. It's one of those lovely blogger catch phrases that seem to be bubbling up into print as of late.
Kind of like exploding pie.
I know that I used the phrase right after the Flood, but it was mainly when talking to folks during our exile.
Referring to the Thing as the Katrina Flood seemed the wrong way to go since it was the Feds who screwed us.
My only claim to fame is creating the wikipedia entry for it.
I always refer to what we got in Metairie as "Broussard Water."
and not to pick nits, but the green streetcars on Canal are a temporary fix. They're on the National Register of Historic Places, so they can't run off of St. Charles forever. The red streetcars are up in the shop at Carrollton, undergoing repairs.
Ashley: stop being so modest. Your miming, your work doing pron movies, your loudest g-damn novelty horn in the world, your endless advocacy of the word "fuckmook"... you have a claim to fame in these categories as well.
Also, I think you did something for NATO one time, too.
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yatpundit: thanks for the clarification. The letter writer loved, among other things, the ozone smell of the green cars and wished some could be kept for Canal.
pron?
F?ZK MoOk?
Copper??
When are we gonna tear this boy up with a bday party?
Not sure where I saw "Federal Flood" first, either. There was about a two month period last year in which I refused to say the word "Katrina" or hurricane and exclusively used the phrase "Federal Flood" when discussing the issue with folks around here. After explaining this to my classmates during a seminar, my professor used the phrase again with us two weeks later. I felt good.
I like the device. It immediately calls attention to the scale of the event, and it places responsibility on the entire nation. Instead of The Great Deluge or simply "Katrina," maybe we should all call it the Federal Flood.
Kudos.
I thought the letter writer hated the red minibuses-on-rails but was being tactful about it. One thing that the federal flood has made us all forget is that you could get tourists to take the red mini-buses-on-rails, but regular commuters hated them -- they were as hard to keep on schedule as real streecars, but a lot more cramped to ride on.
Not a major concern, but streetcars were a major selling point at the "reinventing the crescent" presentation that I went to.
I always make a point to say Katrina and the flood, never just Katrina, but from now on it will be the federal flood. Whoever coined it, it's good.
I thought it was Mark Folse
Hell, I thought you coined it. I read it here first and thought it was an Oyster original.
