Guns for Gas

I don't really think this is the reason they created the "it's ok to bring your gun to church" law, but in Baton Rouge, 4 churches are not only encouraging it...they're paying you for them. In light of several recent shootings in the capital city, Circle K convenience stores and the churches are partnering to promote a gun trade in event. For every gun they collect, no questions asked, they will give back a free gas card. They have $40,000 worth of gas cards to pass out and the denomination is determined by the class of gun turned in. Assault rifles will earn the highest - a $200 card. HoumaToday has the whole ironic story here.

Easy Post Monday

The joke's on us.

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Two Lafayette Community Leaders Pass

We don't generally run obituaries but when two prominent, life-long Lafayette pillars of the community pass away, we can't not share our sadness. Our condolences go out to the Naomi and Alesi families who are each dealing with the sad passing of the heads of their families. On Sunday, Theresa Begnaud Naomi died at the age of 84. She and her husband of 56 years, Paul, founded Paul's Jewelry store back in 1954 and today that business has grown to two locations and is run by her surviving children, PJ, Patty and Nancy. Her full obituary can be found here.

On Monday, Mike Alesi, patriarch of the famous Alesi Pizza family and forever immortalized in that iconic sign on Johnston Street, passed away at the age of 90. He opened the doors of Alesi Pizza in 1957 on the corner of Cameron and Bertrand streets and just 5 years later moved to it's official home on Johnston Street, where it still thrives today. KATC has a nice remembrance story here.

We wish both of these families peace in their time of sorrow and thank them for all the wonderful contributions their loved ones made to our great community.

Fox....Meet Hen House

I hate stories like this. When you do a search of Louisiana stories everyday, you see this a lot. Our state sells out to big business at every turn. Who in their right mind would allow BP executives into our elementary schools, for anything other than to write one of those giant checks? It's bad enough they're on TV 24/7, rolling out their saccharine (sweet enough to make me puke) public relations campaign about how responsible they are. Does anybody really fall for this?

Well, officials at Oaklawn Junior High School apparently do. This article by Brian Merchant, for Treehugger.com reveals that the school allowed BP and the National Atmospheric Administration to conduct "science demonstrations" to dispel "myths" about dispersants used in the clean up of the oil spilled from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Relevant fact: It was BP's spill! In case anyone has forgotten. From the article:

"The primary purpose [of the demonstration] is to inform and educate students on the methods used to clean up the oil in the Gulf and the wetlands and marshes," Janella Newsome, BP media liaison said in a press release. "It's also to dispel myths about dispersants, subsurface oil and seafood safety."

Photo by xtinaaskew

Tracking Tweets

I find it difficult to see the usefulness in Twitter...I don't understand all it's special secret codes (RT, #, @) and don't particularly care what everyone in the entire universe is doing at that exact moment, however, a computer science expert over at Southeastern University in Hammond has announced the findings of a study that prove it really can be a useful tool. He and his students studied Twitter and found that it is a pretty good indicator and predictor of flu outbreaks. They found that they are just about as accurate as the Centers for Disease Control and it's a whole lot less expensive with no paperwork or forms to fill out and process. Neat....and kind of scary I guess. Next time you tweet "I'm getting sick" someone is watching and recording. Complete story and technical details here at Science Daily.

School Supply Drive

The Acadiana Outreach Center, along with Pippin McGee, KLFY TV10, and Big 102.1 are hosting a school supply drive now through next Tuesday.

Collection locations are:
* Pippin McGee on Ambassador (next to Posado's and across the street from Charley G's)
* KLFY TV 10 on Eraste Landry
* Acadiana Outreach Center (125 S. Buchanan Street)

All supplies collected will be distributed to needy families in the community. Please help support a worthwhile cause and pick up an extra pack of paper while you're out. Click here to see a complete list of supplies needed.

Thanks!
jill :)

Makes My Dang Head Spin

Wouldn't it be awesome if you were BP, to find cheap labor to do the most toxic work of cleaning the crude oil of the beaches of Louisiana? And even better, what if you could easily buy those worker's silence as to what they are seeing and experiencing out there cleaning. Let's go for the trifecta, add the good ol'racial component, and say we could get a workforce of predominantly African-American workers, who BP can get for dirt cheap, and won't speak to the press. Where could they find such a pool of workers? Well, look no further than Louisiana's awesome privatized prison system. In fact, BP gets a nice tax write off for hiring prison labor!

Abe Louise Young, writes this article for the Nation, that details the situation described above. Holy cow, some of this article reads like it was taken from the script for Cool Hand Luke...can this really be 2010?

Photo by quinn.anya

World Gone Wrong

I'll admit it...I'm a bit naive to the ways of the business world. I mean, I get the concept of free enterprise, and profit, and I'm all for that. But in my limited view, those concepts work for the greater good of society when they are practiced within the limitations of shared ethical standards. That's cool right? Just common decency...and I'm not even talking about laws or regulations, I'm talking about the basic assumption of honesty that allows us to conduct the transactions of daily life with a modicum of assurance that the parties involved aren't trying to screw each other. Well....that shit ain't really working so good at the moment.

Case in point: Science and Business. Scientists are the smart guys and gals, the eggheads, the ones who collect and interpret the data. If they lie about their findings, society is put at risk. Fairly simple. However, sometimes their findings don't land within the profit margins of the business folks...and the squeezing begins. That's cool. Squeezing the facts can result in getting the absolute most of a situation, allowing folks to make money and other folks to receive goods and services....and the world goes round. But what if a company, lets say BP, calculates that it's in its best interest to ignore science, or control science or just flat out lie, obstruct, and obscure the collection of data. And further, what if the company then attempts to silence scientists with contracts that prevent them from reporting their findings for years. Oh man, then you got the makings for some ethical violations there...on both sides. And yet, this is exactly what is being alleged in this article by Ben Raines in the Press-Register of Mobile, AL.

BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university, according to scientists involved in discussions with the company's lawyers. The university declined because of confidentiality restrictions that the company sought on any research.The Press-Register obtained a copy of a contract offered to scientists by BP. It prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years.

Now, the scientists at the University of South Alabama declined the offers on ...get this...ethical grounds. Not so much for LSU, University of Southern Mississippi, and Texas A&M. And there's more about Bobby Jindal's sand berm folly, but I've done that to death on here. It blows my mind how cynical these folks are, and how stupid they assume we are.

Photo by Crowolf

Thanks for the tip in Wayne!

Bahr On Olberman Tonight

Len Bahr, Ph.D., founding editor of LaCoastPost is scheduled to appear on MSNBC this evening at 7:00 PM CDT on Countdown with Keith Olberman to discuss the use of sand berms to save marshes from oil.
Here is an article by Dr. Bahr that appears in LaCoastPost. And here is a segment of the article:

In terms of specific criticisms, I have predicted that the berms will: (1) squander limited sand resources; (2) increase the depth and reduce the friction of the bottom profile; (3) increase the erosive power of tidal exchange; (4) steal dollars from and interest in less dramatic but more effective measures; (5) exacerbate the ongoing tension and lack of cooperation between federal and state agencies; (6) inject political overtones in what should be objective technical discussions; (7) jeopardize the credibility of the overall mission to protect and restore the Mississippi River delta; and (8) – most telling – fail to actually reduce the risk of oiling local marshes.

Thanks for the heads up Paul.

Time Machine

Here's what happened to Brazil's fisheries after only 350,000 gallons of oil spilled 10 years ago. That's only a quarter of what has been glug, glug, glugging in the gulf for the past three months. And this report was filed by Al Jeezera, not any of the major media here. Kinda ironic. Thanks Tim!

His Name Is Drew...Not Dan

What the hell? Of all the names this reporter could have been given from Cajun country, he screws up Drew? In spite of that, the main point is Drew Landry has more courage than just about anyone I know, and talent too! Check out this story from the Huffington Post.

Man, This Is Sad

Tar Balls For $200 Alex

If I ever hear the words "tar ball" again, I'm just gonna spit. That's all any media can cover in Louisiana this summer, and with obvious good reason. Much like the stare down I give my oatmeal in the morning, it's been battle of wills between me and the balls this summer. Who's gonna blink? The thing is, there seems to be way more of them than there are of me. Just yesterday they were found in Lake Pontchartrain, and Galveston.

Add to that the slow-motion quality of the glug..well 21st century folks aren't equipped to be able to pay attention this long, and now we're losing interest. Here's a bunch of graphs that tell you that.

Oh yeah, and Baton Rouge...it's the second ranked metropolis in the country..for AIDS. Really? I mean, with all due respect, it's not even that fun a place to hang out. But there are four prisons in the area, and we've allowed our prison system to degrade in to giant incubators of the HIV virus. Don't be jealous New Orleans, you're in third place.
So, let's recap: tar balls, oatmeal, ADHD, and AIDS....hell let's throw in whore monger since he's been slinking around town lately. Good morning Acadiana!

Photo by BPAmerica

Don't Believe The Hype

For those of you who may be fans of our Governor, Bobby Jindal, here's a piece from National Public Radio that reports on Jindal's reemergence on the national scene due to the BP oil disaster. In seems, that running around looking angry, and bashing the President, and the federal response to the disaster counts as "doing something". What a load.

Don't forget that the Fed gave Jindal 6,000 National Guard troops, he still has only used 1,053. We just cited a CBS News report on this in our post Saturday, here's the link . And those sand berms he's so pissed about? Turns out they would do more harm than good. Here's the post we did citing a story in the LA Times.

Meanwhile, a new report shows that Louisiana is second only to Mississippi in percentage of population living under the poverty line. Almost %20 of our fellow Louisiana citizens live in poverty. Check the study here. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Photo by Arete 13

Happy Monday

Well, it's a good news-bad news situation with our new friend Tropical Storm Alex. The good news is, it's probably going west of Louisiana and the BP glug. The bad news is the conditions are suitable for the storm to gain strength and become a hurricane. Don't take my word for it, read KATC's Dave Baker's blog here.

In other news, the "Cajun Navy" has reassembled. I think their last mission was helping rescue folks stranded in NOLA, during the Katrina aftermath. Now, they're using barges to block oil from entering into sensitive shrimp and oyster beds. National Public Radio ran this story about the efforts of Louisiana locals to save their coastline, and their livelihoods.

Elsewhere, there's more shenanigans from Gov. Bobby Jindal. He vetoed a bill that would allow public access to records detailing the state's response to the BP glug. So much for transparency. Read this account by The Washington Monthly.

And finally, for those who desire a wallop of human suffering to start their week, the Associated Press ran this article by reporters, Janet McConnaughey and Mitch Stacy, about the mounting psychological toll on Gulf Coast residents. Read it here. It's about what you'd think it would be. And it's very depressing.

Ponies And Balloons

Righteous anger. Here are two reader submitted clips that will make your blood boil. Try and keep track of who is a true friend of Louisiana. CBS won't let me post their video, but you can watch it here. Thanks to Wayne and Paul for the submissions.

20 Billion Would Make It Rain....For A Long Time

With a couple Youtube videos making the rounds of what purports to be oily rain in areas along the Louisiana coast, one gets the sense that the wheels are just about to come off of this oil glug thing. True enough, the environmental damage began months ago, but now the real circus begins as folks line up for a piece of that $20 billion dollar pie.

Enter the "Mimosa Dancing Girls". They are here to remind BP, that fishermen, after they fish, often enjoy a beverage whilst engaging in cultural studies of the female form....at da strip club. But if they ain't no fish, they ain't no fishermen...thus the employees of the Mimosa strip club ain't getting paid. They have filed a claim for lost wages with BP.

Newly appointed BP claim czar, Kenneth Feinberg, says, he was born in the night time, but not last night, a mantra he is sure to repeat ad nausem, for the next couple of decades.

"I’m dubious about that claim. I’m very dubious about that claim,” Feinberg said. “But I don’t want to prejudge any individual claim and I think we will study this and decide how attenuated claims can be that will be eligible or ineligible for compensation under this independent facility.”

Read the article here at George Stephanopoulos' blog, dimly titled, George's Bottom Line.

Where Ya At Vermilion Parish?

We have been contacted by a Daily Meaux reader in Vermilion parish with a complaint about being unable to receive non-emergency medical transportation, a service which would be paid for by Medicaid. Apparently there are no businesses willing to provide this service in the parish, and providers from other parishes are unwilling to cross parish lines to provide the service.

I'm curious if any folks from Vermilion parish have had similar problems. If so, please email us or leave a comment on this post.

Why Am I Not Surprised?

OK, you think it's easy being an unpaid blogger? True, the dress code is flexible...very flexible, as are the hours, and really there's no boss or office politics to speak of. But, try watching the USA vs Algeria while composing a little story, and by story, I mean a paragraph, maybe two. Still, we got robbed again on another off-sides goal, which is made all the more infuriating by the fact that I don't understand the rules of soccer. Grr!
And yet, here comes the Whore Monger to bail me out with a story only he could provide. Matthew Mosk and Brian Ross report for ABC News that Sen. David Vitter has a longtime staffer who pleaded guilty in 2008 to attacking his then girlfriend with a knife. Bad, but not Vitter bad yet. The aide, Brent Furer, has been assigned by the senator to oversee women's issues. There, Vitter bad...and all wrapped up with a bow. There's more, like the fact that Furer still has an open DUI warrant in Baton Rouge, and has had repeated brushes with the law since the 1990's.
The attack on Furer's girlfriend was particularly brutal and the victim required medical attention. Here are some details of the attack taken from the police report and included in the ABC Story:

After drinking at a restaurant, the two returned to Furer's Capitol Hill apartment, the report says. Furer "would not let her leave." He "pulled on her coat, which caused it to rip," then "pulled out a knife and stabbed [her] in the hand," the police report says. Furer became angry when he found phone numbers for other men in her blackberry. He smashed her phone when she tried to call 911, the records say, and he shoved her to the floor when she tried to leave, then held his hand over her mouth and threw her on a bed. Furer "uttered the words to her, 'Do you want to get serious.'" Then, the arrest warrant states, Furer "grabbed an unknown object and held it under her neck. The suspect asked the complainant, 'Do you want to die?' The complainant replies and she stated, 'No, I don't want to die.'" After a 90 minute standoff, Furer made her promise not to call police, and then allowed her to leave. She fled to a friend's house, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. A slash on her chin took eight stitches to close, the police report says.

The story goes on to report that Furer is a former Marine and veteran of the first Gulf War and takes medication for treatment of post traumatic stress disorder. If this is true, perhaps Vitter could help the man get the help he needs rather than giving him a tax payer subsided staff position.

Read the full story here.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

I hate being told what to do. I'm sure it comes from some combination of limited intelligence, massive ego, and a natural inclination towards the path of least resistance (hey man, water does the same thing, and nobody nobody questions its ability to be a "self-starter"). So, when I saw an article titled "An Open Letter To Louisiana", I bowed up a little. On a certain level, I knew we had it coming. Our legislature, just finished trying to get guns in church, and solve the oil flood in the Gulf with a day of prayer (not that praying isn't needed, I'd just prefer it was done silently, and without state endorsement).
Well, turns out this outsider, this guy from Washington D.C. makes a lot of sense. In fact, he says the same things that I've been saying (cue the ego). We as a state need to diversify, and see the oil industry for what it is...the past. Big Oil just takes, they don't give back. Here's a quote from the article written by Edward Flattau as it appeared in the Huffington Post:

So while you obviously cannot walk away from your oil industry employer, wouldn't it be wise to begin developing a fallback strategy to save your environment for future generations and preserve your economy when the existing offshore wells run dry? Shouldn't you press your politicians to diversify your local energy economy by obtaining federal seed money for new wind and solar energy manufacturing facilities? Louisiana is a state rich in natural resources. What about expanding commercial activity in biomass, hydro power and geothermal energy? Even if the end of the age of oil were no where in sight, you badly need energy diversification. Petroleum has not been the economic bonanza to your area that it has been made out to be. If it were, how come Louisiana is 40th out of 50 states in per capita income? Either the oil wealth is too concentrated, or it's just not as much of an economic game changer as you think.

Read the rest here.

Photo by toshihiko2001

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