Director and writer Steven Zaillian continues to film All The King's Men in Acadiana. The Columbia Pictures feature film based on Robert Penn Warren's novel ' starring Sean Penn, James Gandolfini and Kate Winslet ' was shooting last week on location at Dixie Plantation, Medric Martin's store in Franklin and Albania Plantation just south of Jeanerette. Lodgings from Morgan City to New Iberia are housing crew members, while Cypress Bayou Casino and Charlie's restaurant in Franklin have kept King's crew and cast happy.
In a related note, the film incentives offered by Louisiana to attract such projects are putting other states in reactionary mode. The March 18 issue of the Austin Chronicle notes, "The [Texas] legislature's $20 million in proposed incentives to lure more film projects to Texas is emphasizing jobs and aiming to boost rural areas as well as larger cities like Austin. And, of course, it's all about turning back the infidels in Louisiana and New Mexico whose similar incentive programs have cut into our slice of the auction [sic]. â?¦ More important, they could end the migration of Texas film crew and talent to Louisiana, which was highlighted recently when one of Austin's largest talent agencies, Jeff Nightbyrd's Acclaim, opened a New Orleans office." ' MT/SJ
DOES NOT COMPUTE
Last weekend, media all across Louisiana announced that the state's health department would unveil a Web site that would rank the sanitary conditions of Louisiana's 30,000 restaurants. But after the site's launch, it never managed to stay online. The Independent Weekly attempted unsuccessfully to access the site for two days. By the end of the week, there was only a message that read, "The Restaurant Inspection Site is experiencing technical difficulty and has been disabled until further testing has been completed to ensure optimal performance." ' RRF
UNLUCKY COWBOY
Firefly Digital CEO Mike Spears was the envy of office workers across Acadiana earlier this year when he announced he was taking a work sabbatical to hike the Appalachian Trail. The 40-year-old entrepreneur planned to hike the complete 2,175 miles of the trail and write daily reports on www.luckycowboy.org, a Web site he created to document his trip.
The journey didn't quite go as planned; Spears lasted 13 miles. His knee was hurting, and winter storms were predicted for his third night on the trail, so he left and came home.
"However, on the bright side, in the last five miles of the trail, I realized something. I'm always up for an adventure," wrote Spears in his online journal on March 3. "This was an epic adventure. It was more about discovery and a quest to find something than it was about fun and excitement. In those last miles on the trail I realized that what I was seeking, I'd already had at home. It took a very different perspective, in a very different environment to realize it." Spears did not return a call for comment, but noted in his online journal that he might try and return to the trail and hike smaller increments on future trips. ' SJ
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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