We have all been touched, in some way, by the devastation of not one but two natural disasters. I have family as well as close friends who have been displaced, moved around, shattered, devastated and sickened by having to leave their homes not knowing when they will be able to return and others never able to return.
We should all be on our knees, praying for those displaced, praying for the loss of not only homes and personal possessions but most importantly for lives lost. We should be on our knees thanking Christ for all the blessings here, no matter how small.
We should not be using Christ as a cartoon. In this very issue your cover story on a man taking in 30 or more during this time and the struggle faced by he and his family is only the tip of this big iceberg. Do you have a warm bed to sleep in, Greg Peters? How many people are you housing? If a trailer is the only way to provide someone shelter, it is still much better than the street, with no place to call home.
Remember the story of "no place in the inn?" Remember Christmas and the stable that provided Christ and his family with a place to stay? With the holidays fast approaching I can only pray to Christ that there will be some shelter in this storm for families no matter how large, small, educated, no matter the color of their skin, no matter where they came from or what their contribution to society was or will be. A makeshift evacuee trailer park for some is better than nothing. Back atcha, ya loser.
Jennifer M. Mouton, Lafayette
Greg Peters responds: Ms. Mouton completely misses the point of my cartoon. Needless to say, I was not mocking the evacuees or their living conditions, but those across Louisiana and Texas who reject settlements of those evacuees, reasoning that a trailer park full of New Orleanians would constitute a "bad element." I suggest Ms. Mouton start with the Gretna bridge crossing incident and then ask, "Would Christ say, 'Not in my backyard'?" Would your neighbors?
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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