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So, you see, if you just crunch the numbers right, we’re still No. 1.
The Up Front column is going to be a little weak this time around. The Up Front office staff has been bustling away as usual the last few weeks. But yours truly has spent much of the time at home battling whatever kind of illness is caused when a bayou goes for months without rain. I’m calling it grisgrisitis until I think of a better name. If I’m lucky, I’ll get well in time to get my flu shot. So for this issue, I’m easing my already low standards. The first stuff I see on the IntraWeb is what’s going in. Don’t worry! You’ll like it!
What’s New With Poor People? Gov. Bobby Jindal got a mighty nice headline in Washington on Sept. 19. It read “Louisiana school voucher fight: Justice Dept. vs. poor.” The problem was the headline ran not in the Washington Post, but in the Washington Times, which is the farright newspaper nobody reads. The Times was a little slow starting to play on this particular string, which Jindal’s latest PR stooge — I think his name is Gleason or something — has been plucking away on at a frenetic pace for a month or so. It would be wonderful if life were so simple and clear-cut that everything was a matter of big bureaucrats versus poor kids. Be that as it may, courts may find that Jindal’s move violates federal desegregation laws and declare it unconstitutional. If blanket emails could trump federal courts, Bobby Jindal would be considered one of the great political successes of the country.
No Respect For Novelty There was some not so good news for Jindal in a just-released Public Policy poll that showed him attracting just three percent of potential Republican voters in New Hampshire. Of course, we’re not so close to the next presidential election that people have to get really worried about numbers. On the other hand, high numbers never hurt fund-raising yet. Much worse than this was the fact that Rick Santorum finished at the very bottom of the pack with 2 percent. Few politicians can lay down a rant like Santorum can. You may remember that Santorum was the candidate who stated in 2010 that even married people shouldn’t have sex unless they’re intending to create a pregnancy. I still think telling people that they can’t have sex is the most novel approach to running for office I’ve encountered. It would be a pity to be without that novelty in the months of debates that are lying in wait for us.
Still No. 1 Good news! Louisiana does not have the highest poverty rate in the country! Mississippi has the highest percentage of poor — 22 percent according to the new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. Louisiana comes in No. 2 — or No. 49 if you’re one of those people who insists on seeing the glass as half empty. There was some reason to see the glass as half full on this one. Julia O’Donoghue of the Times-Picayune reported that if one averaged the poverty rates from 2010 through 2012, Louisiana came out on top, with a tad over 21 percent living in poverty.
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October 3, 2013
Conservative Liberal Bias While I was trolling the state news headlines in my daze of illness, I noticed this gem: “CASSIDY GAVE TO CAMPAIGNS FOR LANDRIEU, DEMOCRATS [sic] RECORDS SHOW.” The reference, of course, is to Louisiana Congressman Bill Cassidy. Usually a headline like this would indicate that a Tea Partier is running against Cassidy, who is considered, by everyone who isn’t a Tea Partier, to be a conservative Republican. But in this case, the headline was run by the Nola Defender, which promises its readers “BLOOD • ALCOHOL • CONTENT.” It appears that Cassidy did contribute $500 to U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu more than a decade ago. He also gave $2,000 to former Gov. Blanco. He’s contributed other small amounts to Dems over the years. Turns out that in this case, there is, in fact, a Tea Partier involved. It’s Col. Jim Maness, who’s running huge ads that juxtapose photos of Mary Landrieu and Bill Cassidy. Under each photo is the tagline “Mary.” In short, Maness is arguing that the conservative Cassidy is the equivalent of Mary Landrieu. Under all that is a big photo of Maness wearing a gimme hat. Brief political note: it may take more than a gimme hat to beat Mary Landrieu. Again, Tea Party candidates target conservative Republicans and argue that they just aren’t conservative enough. Now, this might work in Louisiana, which seems to inhabit a political world of its own. But nationwide, in 2012, the “he’s not conservative enough” approach put an awful lot of Democrats into elected office.
Louisiana Vindicated Louisiana has been vindicated as a fashion-conscious state. Finally! It happened just the other day, when shopping site Tanga held its “Cool In Camo” sale. The site declared that camo clothing was “Fall’s coolest trend.” Featured in the sale were such camo styles as the “Woodland Camo Long-Sleeve Tee w/Gold Foil Star ($5.99),” “Girl’s Subdued Woodland Camo Vintage Capris ($10.99)” and “Tricolor Camo Capri Pants by Rothco ($10.99).” It’s going to take some time for camo to complete its conquest of the fashion world. I admit it stung a little when Stella McCartney gave a thumb’s down to my camo tuxedo tee shirt design. And no, I didn’t appreciate it when Donatella Versace told me I’d be the first to know if she ever got a yen to go deer hunting. I think the thing is we’ve got to start small. I’ve been wearing my handdesigned camo tidy whities for a year now. So far, not a single deer has detected my presence in my bedroom.
Keep Your Bride From Becoming A Zombie Since I wasn’t able to generate the usual amount of prose for this column, I decided to compensate by writing about some topic that has nothing to do with any kind of news: the history of cinema. I can’t cover the whole topic in the amount of space I