Yet the price of the ticket wasn't worth the ride. Her initial infatuation with the games manager ended up being a foolish crush, and the impetuous decision to be a carny, nothing more than a "youthful indiscretion." The roads looked the same no matter where the carnival went and, about two years into Duthu's new gig, one led to Thibodaux, the municipal and cultural heart of Lafourche Parish. "Oh, the food and the music and the people," Duthu says. "I was hooked, just like everyone else who comes down here. The first thing I did when I got into town was have a cup of chicory coffee. The more cream and sugar I added, the worse it tasted. When everyone with the carnival wintered down that year in different parts of the country, I came back and wintered in Thibodaux. There was just no looking back."
Duthu had discovered a strand of Louisiana's Cajun lineage near the Gulf of Mexico, the kind often ignored by those spicy and jazzy marketing campaigns. Now smitten with a way of life rather than a boy, Duthu ultimately settled in Montegut, a small coastal hamlet of maybe 600 households in Terrebonne Parish, where she still resides today and maintains a small farm. Over the years she has adjusted to and embraced all the changes that come with invading a new culture ' no-meat Fridays during Lent, Mardi Gras schedules, bayou politics.
About 10 years ago, Duthu was introduced to cockfighting and game fowl breeding. At the outset, her interest in the legal competitions, deemed barbaric by animal-rights activists, was passing. But the pedigree side of the industry, the livestock aspect, suited her. By 2003, Duthu had become entrenched in what she calls a "Louisiana cultural tradition." Along with her husband, Duthu has invested thousands of dollars and countless time into the dream of breeding championship cockfighting birds.
That aspiration, however, is now gone because Duthu doesn't want to be fined by the government or put in prison. Cockfighting isn't illegal in Louisiana yet, but Duthu can see the political writing on the wall. New Mexico banned cockfighting in March, citing cruelty concerns, which left Louisiana as the nation's last holdout. Public pressure nationwide has been intense and, only a few days into the regular session, both chambers of the Legislature were moving bills last week that ban and criminalize cockfighting to various degrees.
The quick action should allow ample breathing room ' the session must end June 28 ' for all of the interested parties to read between the lines and draw a compromise. The House, in its first full hearing on cockfighting in recent memory, endorsed House Bill 108 by Rep. Harold Ritchie, a Bogalusa Democrat, which would make the practice illegal on Aug. 15, 2008. On the Senate side, the upper chamber is considering Senate Bill 39 by Sen. Art Lentini, R-Kenner, which would shut down the industry on the same date, only this year. Gov. Kathleen Blanco has repeatedly said she is ready to sign a bill banning the bloody sport, but it's unknown what the finished product will look like.
Pinckney A. Wood, president of Humane HEART and chairman of the Louisiana Animal Welfare Commission, says cockfighting needs to be abolished immediately to prevent a media feeding frenzy and large-scale tournaments. He also says game fowl deaths would skyrocket as handlers try to fight off as many birds as possible prior to the deadline. "That being the case, it is essential to have serious penalties regarding cockfighting so that incidental fighting of birds after the enactment of a cockfighting prohibition would be discouraged in a way that the cockfighters would respect," Wood says. "Namely, if you do it you are going to prison."
Both House and Senate versions offer such threats, with possible prison sentences topping six months and fines ranging upwards to $2,000.
It's a sobering reality to Duthu, who has come to link her Louisiana roots with cockfighting. Duthu says it's unfortunate that she and her husband, a pipefitter, chose to invest their retirement money in cockfighting instead of a 401(K), and now it's about to get wiped out. "With a $300 light bill, Social Security even won't do much," she says. "These birds were supposed to be part of our retirement income, and we are going to lose that. They are taking that away from us."
Duthu, who favors a phase-out of cockfighting over an immediate ban, doesn't currently sell game fowl, but she does trade and give them away to other cockfighters. "We've spent thousands on a breeding regime so people would eventually want to buy them," she says. "It's not the cockfighting for me, but watching the little birdies hatch and grow up. We haven't made any money at all from cockfighting yet, but you can develop a name for yourself based on the quality of the birds and people will wait in lines to pay $3,000 for a trio. That is what we were building up to."
A grandmother of four, Duthu says cockfighting is extremely popular in her family. Her son, along with others members of the brood, are "pretty good" cockfighters, and she has even nicknamed her most recent grandson, Conner, "Short-Line," cocking terminology for the final fight between fowl, when the claws are unleashed and feathers fly, most often resulting in a win or a kill. "He has two of his own birds and he was going to be a cockfighter," Duthu says. "We have pictures of him in the house with the birds."
The Duthu home sits on two acres of farmland off of Aragon Road in Montegut, where the game fowl are raised alongside award-winning breeds of rabbits and geese. Grandma Duthu admits she has recently become more fond of the actual sport of cockfighting and doesn't mind "getting in the pit and handling the birds." When the new law takes effect, whenever and if that might be, Duthu says she will continue to raise her game fowl, but will no longer take part in cockfighting.
Much like her interest in the traveling carnival, the cocking part Duthu's life is coming to a close. Asked if a future without cockfighting might be a safer place for her beloved fowl, Duthu shrugs off the suggestion and defends the sport. "I could see where it could possibly be perceived as ironic, to care for something and send it off, but in the long run, if you don't have the right birds to get the job done, you shouldn't have them in the pen," she says. "You raise the type of bird that leaves its opponent dead. You raise winners. Chickens are chickens. Chickens are not pets."
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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