PooYie! 6.13.12

C’EST BON
We were never fans of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Louisiana Scholarship Program, the controversial voucher plan muscled through the recent session. In fact, this paper was one of the first in the state to question it (in a Feb. 8 cover story titled “Incomplete.”) But we’ve never felt the plan got the scrutiny it deserved, in part because JindalCo and the state Department of Education were less than forthcoming with details on the plan. But after the state released the names of private and parochial schools “accepted” for vouchers a couple of weeks ago, that began to change. Newspapers across the state began to question the plan. National media outlets turned their attention to it. Finally, the Louisiana Scholarship Program is getting the critical scrutiny it should have gotten during the session — scrutiny that will surely increase when the state defends the voucher program in court.

PAS BON
Ville Platte is once again putting the “ew” in news with another attempt at clamping down on its black community. KATC reported last week that signs began going up around town — but mainly in predominately black neighborhoods we have to suspect — warning residents that low-slung pants exposing one’s underwear is illegal: “Pull up your pants. No one wants to see your underwear. Slabbing — it’s against the law!” Oh, the scourge of slabbing! It’s right up there with planking. The council last fall ate some (Jim) Crow and abandoned a clearly racially targeted ordinance that prohibited residents from walking the streets after 10 p.m. on weekdays after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit. The ACLU needs to challenge this unnecessary ordinance, too. Fashions, after all, come and go. Remember Jheri Curl?

COUILLON
Ville Platte would be our couillon this week were it not for Old Faithful, U.S. Rep. Jeff Landry, whose teapot spews indignant steam with stunning regularity. Recently, the family valuer carped in a radio interview with a Pat Robertson-affiliated radio station about the Obama administration’s “hypocrisy” in requiring insurance companies for religiously affiliated institutions to offer contraceptives while at the same time “granting special status or waivers to Muslims as they go through TSA screenings.” Camp Landry even posted a link to the interview on the congressman’s website. Problem is, the Transportation Security Administration provides no such privileges — no waivers, no special status — to Muslims. Landry was parroting a long-discredited claim advanced by his ideological hero, Glenn Beck.

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