I haven’t mentioned it here, but Saturday was a big election day throughout Louisiana. In fact, we turned our association’s offices on Lakeshore Drive over to the electoral process. The “Baptist Center” became the voting place for nine precincts in the Gentilly area of New Orleans. Freddie Arnold hung around much of the day Saturday, to be on hand in case he was needed. He said the voting was light. I voted at my usual polling place–John Curtis Christian School’s elementary school library–here in River Ridge.

All of the 13 amendments on the ballot passed big, which was unusual. Several had to do with restoring the coastal wetlands and another with merging all the area levee boards into two, one for each side of the Mississippi River. We were assured that the federal government was watching to make certain the citizens were as concerned with flood protection as they were being told. The vote for levee consolidation was 81 percent in favor. Pretty strong.

The folks in back of the levee consolidation movement didn’t celebrate long. They promptly announced they’re now turning their attention to consolidating another bizarre local contraption–the seven tax assessors who reign over their tiny fiefdoms throughout Orleans Parish and who need to be merged into one central office, like is the case throughout the rest of creation.

Commander’s Palace restaurant opened for brunch Sunday for the first time since Katrina. The ancient building where they are located in the Garden District was severely damaged in the hurricane, then when they started making repairs, workers found major structural problems that had not been evident. It has taken this long to restore the facility. Like getting the Saints back in the Superdome, this is a symbol that the city treasures.

Macy’s in Kenner’s Esplanade Mall is not returning. That end of the mall is dark and empty and needs filling badly. We’ve talked previously here about the boarded-up historic Fairmont Hotel downtown, another sad sad thing.

But Memorial Hospital is back. The site where many patients died in the week following Katrina, this huge medical center, known for ages as Southern Baptist Hospital, was bought recently by Ochsner Foundation along with a couple of medical facilities. Ochsner is now the largest health care provider in the metro area. The headline in Monday’s paper reads “It’s official: ‘Baptist’ is back.”

Here’s the story. This hospital on Napoleon Avenue was built by Southern Baptists in 1926, just 9 years after the SBC founded the Baptist Bible Institute here which would become our seminary. From 1974 to 1993, its owner was known as “The Southern Baptist Health System.” Then, in 1993, something rather amazing happened. Baptist Hospital and Catholic-owned Mercy Hospital merged. Two years later, Tenet bought both and turned Mercy into the Lindy Boggs Medical Center which still remains closed. Baptist became Memorial Medical Center, and you know the rest. Now under the control of the Ochsner folks, the name is going to become Ochsner Baptist Medical Center. So, “Baptist” is back.

(In spite of the absence of any real Baptist involvement or identification of the hospital, we rather like the idea of its being called this. I’m tempted to wander afield here and comment that the “Baptist” on that building will be like the denominational label many people carry these days: meaning nothing important, but conveying a sense of identity only. Or, I could let my preacher-instincts loose and see the changing status of this hospital as a metaphor for so many people today: starting life as a Baptist, then in the middle years checking out the Catholics, then a few years as ‘nothing,’ followed by a return to the Baptist fold. )

A tiny bit of personal history here. In the 1960s, Baptist Hospital took care of the medical needs of the seminary families and never sent a bill. Our son Marty was born there in 1966. A bargain if there ever was one!

As a footnote, in the mid-1970s, I served as a trustee of the brand-new Mississippi Baptist Medical Center in Jackson. Toward the end of my three-year-term, I asked to be re-assigned to some other board, hospital governance not being my cup of tea. I remember remarking to Margaret that medical costs were getting out of hand. “Why, one night in the hospital now costs 55 dollars!” Little did I know that the day was upon us when a hospital room’s cost would be figured in the thousands of dollars. Those were the days.

Monday, supporters held a big rally for embattled Congressman William Jefferson in his bid for re-election. Since the FBI found a ton of money in his freezer and since his aides have turned states’ evidence and accused him of taking bribes to handle some business under the table, Mr. Jefferson’s status has been in doubt. Yet, the feds have not formally charged him with anything and the issue is left hanging. Meanwhile, for the first time in years, Jefferson has plenty of opponents vying for his job. An even dozen have lined up against him for the November 7 primary.

In yesterday’s rally at his Canal Street headquarters, preachers and others lauded Mr. Jefferson as the “experienced and decisive” voice in Washington which Louisiana needs. Jefferson himself opened his Bible and found his counterpart in Nehemiah who was doing “a great work” and could not come down to the level of his detractors. After the construction was completed in Jerusalem, Jefferson said, Nehemiah’s opponents “lost their confidence as a consequence of his having rebuilt the wall and repaired the bridges and declared unto themselves that this must be the work of the Lord.”

Now, I’m by Mr. Jefferson quoting the Bible the way I am about Ochsner taking the name Baptist for their hospital: you don’t have to ask me and you can do it if you want to. However.

However, Mr. Jefferson, I can think of a Bible verse or two myself that seem to apply here. “If you have not been faithful in the use of filthy lucre (that’s King James for ‘unrighteous riches’), who will entrust the true riches to you?” (Luke 16:13)

Explain the money in your freezer, Congressman, and we might re-elect you to help us re-build a wall.

Chris Rose, humor columnist for the Times-Picayune prior to Katrina, has metamorphosed since Katrina into something of a local conscience. He’s a lot more serious about life and willing to take on anyone anywhere, although, thankfully he still has the sharp wit. Tuesday, he wrote about the national reaction–judging by the letters to the editor in last week’s USA Today–to the reopening of the Superdome on Monday night, September 25, and the national exposure given the Saints and this city. What we thought was a good thing was not received that way in the nation’s heartland, apparently.

Rose quotes six letters verbatim, all of whom voice the same criticisms: the money spent on redoing the Dome should have been spent on rebuilding homes, the faces in the stadium were white whereas the majority of our displaced citizens are Black, it’s the type of foolishness one would expect from a city that “prides itself on booze, food, gambling, and parades”. That’s what they said. Here is some of what Chris Rose said.

“Let’s start with this: If we did not open the Superdome for Saints games, presumably we could not then open it for the Bayou Classic, the Sugar Bowl, Tulane football, the state high school football championships, the Essence Music Festivals, rock concerts, religious revivals, car shows, home and garden shows, or anything else that happens there in the course of a normal year and which generates massive spending, jobs, and activity in the community.”

“The arguments posited in USA Today seem to suggest that…repairing the Dome prevents homes being rebuilt in the 9th Ward. Or that patching potholes on Bourbon Street is keeping hospitals from opening. Or that reopening the Aquarium of the Americas–or doing anything with federal dollars that rebuilds our economic engines rather than homes–keeps people homeless.”

“Pardon my plagiarism, but that is arrant dreck.”

“If there weren’t thousands and thousands of black folks in the seats Monday night, then I am blind. And it might be worth noting–just because I’m feeling ornery–that when you incorporate surrounding parishes and trace a map from southern Mississippi up through central Louisiana, the demographic makeup of the Saints potential fan base is not an African-American majority. In fact, it’s not even close….”

“Let me ask you something, Omaha: If you get your *** kicked by a tornado, are you going to tell the College World Series to permanently relocate somewhere else so you can get your priorities in order? Hey, Bowling Green: If Louisville or Lexington gets whacked with a dirty bomb and has to rebuild from scratch, where will the Kentucky Derby and Wildcats basketball fit into the recovery? Disposable entities, last on the list?”

“Unlike some of (USA Today’s) correspondents, I don’t speak for black people. And I don’t speak for other white people. I speak for me and I’ll take the grenade on this one if my priorities are so misplaced as to think that the opening of the Dome was, above all else, an enormous boost to the economy–to say nothing of our spirits.”

Rose didn’t ask if he could speak for me. But he most certainly did.

We’re glad to have the Dome back. Glad to have the Saints playing (and winning, even). Glad to have Commanders’ Palace open. Why, I was even glad to see today that they’re rebuilding the McDonald’s at the intersection of Elysian Fields and Interstate 610. We welcome every sign of life and recovery in this city.

Perhaps most of all, we welcome those daily contacts we receive from friends all over America wanting information on how to help us. You don’t have to ask if you can come. We want you!