The IND Monthly was launched in August of 2003 to provide a forum for thinking, educated, involved readers who care deeply about Acadiana's future and help shape the community's vision for it.
Our readers are leaders. Whether they are business people or creatives, college students or grandparents, soccer moms and dads or singles, they don't sit on the sidelines. They are in the game - passionately - and make things happen.
They are influencers in their business and social circles. When it comes to news, they want to know the whole story. The IND's readers also care about the arts, culture and style. They are the essence of the joie de vivre that makes Acadiana so special.
Publishing partners Steve and Cherry Fisher May are veterans of the industry, having published The Times of Acadiana for eighteen years as well as ventures in Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Lake Charles, Louisiana, and San Antonio, Texas. (Under their leadership, The Times was named Newspaper of the Year by the National Newspaper Association.) Associate publisher Odie Terry, also a partner in The Ind, had oversight of special projects for The Times Publishing Group, which was sold in 1998.
The IND's offices at 551 Jefferson Street in downtown Lafayette, Louisiana has also been home to Lafayette Music Store and the Artists Alliance.
Top management recruited some of the finest writers and photographers in the state for staff and contributing positions at The IND. This commitment to excellence resulted in 27 awards from The Louisiana Press Association after publishing only 16 issues in the timeframe eligible for the most recent statewide competition, including first place honors for best feature story, best investigative reporting, best editorial cartoon, best photo feature and most effective use of graphic design, among others.
In the months since that competition, The Ind has routinely scooped the other media and is credited by competitors and colleagues alike as having raised the bar for journalism in Acadiana.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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