Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

A couple of weeks ago, a For Sale sign went up next door to The Wisdom household. The house, like ours, was built in 2001 and is quite a nice place.

Unlike our house, it”s owned by a man who has a lot of money and who”s made it a showplace. It was already a big house for East Atlanta (2,800 SF), and last year the dude spent a ton of money building out the basement. I”m talking a plush media room / guest suite kind of basement, not a wood-paneling, ping-pong table kind of basement. Now sporting nearly 4,000 sqare feet of beautifully-built space, it”s easily the nicest house on the street.

Dude got married this year, however, and his new wife isn”t an East Atlanta kind of girl. So they”re looking for a house in Buckhead that will be “their house”, as dude told me. I don”t think he”s happy about it.

And, apparently, moving quickly was more important than getting all their money back out of the house. He priced it ridiculously low (probably $40,000 low) to get a quick sale.

This place is such a find, I spent a lot of time the day it went on the market trying to convince friends who might be looking that they had to buy it. For an afternoon, I even entertained the idea of buying it ourselves and moving next door. But with one of our homes already on the market, I figured it wasn”t a good time to buy a fourth house. And, besides, our house was designed and finished out to look more like an older, intown home than the others. The house next door feels pretty suburban, and that ain”t for us.

Last week I saw what appeared to be a home inspector over there, so I figured they got their quick contract. When I saw the wife over the weekend, I asked her if they had sold it.

“Yeah, we got lucky. The first people who looked at it bought it,” she told me.

I thought about telling her that when you list a house on the high end of the neighborhood price range in December when the market is fairly flat and the first jerk who walks in the door buys it - you probably priced it ridiculously low.

But I didn”t. I just silently cursed her for lowering the bar for our resale values. Of course, we”re not going anywhere, and their sale price should help me out when I appeal the ridiculous value the county has put on my assessment next month. So it may work out in our favor.

Dear people in charge of RSS feeds at cnn.com:

This is not a helpful news snippet:

And while I appreciate your early adoption of RSS, you”re no longer the only game in town.

So it looks like FEMA”s post-Katrina hotel guests will get yet another month of taxpayer-paid lodging, with the mandatory move-out now pushed to Feb. 7.

That”ll be roughly five months in residence for those displaced by Katrina who haven”t managed to find their own place to live.

At this point, I”d like to remind everybody that the “E” in FEMA stands for “Emergency”, not “Entitlement”.

The “emergency” ended for residents of New Orleans and Mississippi when they found themselves high and dry with a roof over their heads. For many, that”s when a very big “problem” began, but we”re not talking about the Federal Problem Management Agency.

Get them out; get them safe. That should be the mission of FEMA when it comes to individuals. From there, whatever individual assistance is needed should come from “human services” agencies.

After everybody is safe, FEMA should concentrate 100% of its efforts on cleanup and rebuilding efforts in the disaster-affected areas.

There is still a very real “emergency” going on in New Orleans and across coastal Mississippi, and every minute FEMA officials spend counting people at the Motel 6 in Atlanta is a minute not spent on recovery in the disaster area.

Why isn”t Housing and Urban Development the federal agency handling the housing needs of displaced Katrina victims? FEMA should be concerned about housing only if it means restoring housing in the affected areas. It does an evacuee good to have a trailer in Jackson, La., but it does nothing for New Orleans.

To give you an idea of how the flood is altering the very fabric of New Orleans - and as a reminder to any of you who may think everything is just fine down there now - Tulane announced yesterday a sweeping recovery plan that “strengthens and focuses the university”s academic mission while strategically addressing its current and future operations in the post-Katrina era.”

The highlights (or lowlights):

- The School of Medicine (in New Orleans since 1834) won”t be back in the city until next fall, at which time 180 faculty members will be laid off and the school will focus more on research (and less on primary care). Tulane will produce fewer doctors for Louisiana going forward. I imagine the same will be true of the LSU med school, which has its main campus in New Orleans.

- The Athletics department will field teams only in football, baseball, basketball (men and women), volleyball, cross country and women”s track. Golf, soccer, swimming & diving and tennis will be eliminated. Tulane with seek an NCAA exemption to allow it to keep competing as a Division I school with fewer than the required programs.

- Tulane will “focus” its programs “in areas where it has attained, or has the potential to achieve, world-class excellence.” In other words, it”ll cut degree programs it doesn”t see promise in, and expects to lay off 50 professors in those areas.

Tulane calls the plan “Survival to Renewal”, and it”s just that. All of New Orleans is having to examine how it goes on and gets by in the post-Katrina world. And as Tulane is showing, in a lot of cases, “renewal” will mean “smaller”.

And I believe Tulane is making its decisions carefully and is doing all it can to remain a positive force in New Orleans. What the university outlined yesterday is what an institution that is heavily invested and cares a great deal about New Orleans is being forced to do.

Just think what choices the schools, businesses and individuals who don”t care this much - or just can”t bear the costs and efforts - will be forced to make.

The great thing about selling products stupid people buy - say, GM vehicles (no offense, TCL. That Oldsmobuick of yours is a fine ride) - is that often times your marketing promotions don”t even have to make sense.

Witness the GM Red Tag Event. At its heart, this is basically a year-end clearance event. They”ve dropped prices on 2005 cars and are advertising those prices with big red tags. Because, of course, a red tag means a lower price.

But the tagline for the event is “The price on our tag is the price you pay. Not a penny more.”

Yeah, no shit. Why would I ever pay more than the price on the tag? In fact, I”ve never paid as much as what”s on the sticker, and I”m sure your local Chevy dealer would still cut a few bucks off that Red Tag Malibu if you really pressed him.

I think they”re trying to create the same kind of buzz that their “employee pricing” promotion created a while back. “You pay what we pay” is how that went, so maybe they think “.. the price you pay. Not a penny more.” has a similar ring to it. I have to admit there”s a certain urgency and to that tagline, even if it makes no sense. And, of course, people are stupid.

You have to figure somewhere in the approval process - GM, after all, spends $3 billion a year on advertising - the point was raised that the tagline doesn”t make any sense. I wonder if “our customers won”t notice” was the logic that got it through.

It came shortly after 6 p.m. Eastern time last night, when LSU won the coin toss at the SEC Championship Game.

At that moment, Les Miles peaked. His team was 10-1 and ranked No. 4 in the BCS. But that was the top.

During the next four hours, Miles was truly exposed for what he is: a poor coach who has no game. But this time, there was no last-minute touchdown pass, no missed field goals by the other team, no lucky breaks. Against a good team with a very good coach, even the Tigers” amazing talent couldn”t overcome Les Miles.

In their 12th and most important game of the season, the Tigers were completely unprepared. Nine penalties for 78 yards. Badly blown coverages. Badly blown pass protection. Badly blown punt protection. Mark Richt watched film and crafted a perfect gameplan. Les Miles apparently watched Breaking Bonaduce.

A quote from D.J. Shockley in today”s Advocate (the Baton Rouge daily, not the national gay newspaper) illustrates the situation perfectly:

“The second play was something that we”d seen on film where, their defensive backs, they kind of knew some of our routes, they knew what we were doing,” Shockley said. “It was just simple. We ran an in-route/out-route by one of the inside guys. He jumped it. Sean was over the top for another touchdown.”

Shockley and the UGA offense was thinking one move ahead of LSU”s defense. They could predict our coverage because we”re predictable.

On offense, LSU did nothing to react and adapt to Georgia”s defense. The one big play - negated by a discipline penalty (holding) - LSU pulled off was our typical “busted play, JaMarcus finds a receiver deep” success story. Without an actual offensive strategy, it”s the only thing that works for us.

When LSU did try to make minor checks at the line - audibles are apparently illegal in Louisiana - the team was completely unprepared:

“We had some problems and miscommunications as far as what play we were supposed to be running,” Rudy Niswanger said. “We had some miscommunications on the line in checks and it turned out badly for us.”

A dozen games in to the season, and the offensive line is confused about what plays they”re supposed to run? Go ahead, say that”s not horrible coaching.

About this time next year, instead of jetting off to Dallas to pitch the Cotton Bowl on LSU before we lost to Georgia, he just might be begging for a spot in the Independence Bowl.

We”ll fire Les Miles someday. There”s no doubt about that.

This season was a testament to the talent Nick Saban brought to LSU, and a lesson on how bad coaching can squander it. Next year, when LSU doesn”t have Joseph Addai, Bennie Brazell, Shyrone Carey, Skyler Green, David Jones, E.J. Kuale, Nate Livings, Rudy Niswanger, Melvin Oliver, Ronnie Prude, Cameron Vaughn, Andrew Whitworth, Kyle Williams and Claude Wroten, we”ll have to depend a lot more on Les Miles.

That”s a scary thought.