Grrrr. Cowards.

OK, so you don't like the fact we offed the biggest scumbag on the planet. We get it; it's a free country. But, this??

A Suggestion In Stupid.

I've been watching politics for a good part of my life, and I have heard some really stupid ideas tossed out there. But this one takes the cake. According to today's Daily Report, a former East Baton Rouge School Board member wants to abolish the School Board and let school bureaucrats run the place all by themselves.

Say what you want about the School Board - and I have said more than my share - but it is accountable to the people. The bureaucrats on Foster Drive are not. As the last election proved, the people can fire a Board members if they piss us off. We cannot fire a protected civil servant at the public trough.

And maybe that is the point. This new Board seems more than willing to ask questions about the bureaucrat's operations, not leave them alone and limit itself to policy matters only. It makes the bureaucrats and their friends uncomfortable; and I think that is as it should be. Somebody needs to hold them accountable. Like the School Board, school bureaucrats should always remember who they work for.

Oh, Pha-lease.

This week's Baton Rouge Business Report just hit my desk, and the cover story is about EBR's $1.3 billion sewer improvements. Rolfe and the gang are calling it "The BIG Dig".

Really? Really?

I was working in downtown Boston in the late 80's - 90's when the real 'Big Dig' happened. My wife worked for one of the firms doing design work on the above ground infrastructure. $1.3 billion and digging down a few feet... there is no comparison.

Time To Eat The Crullers!

According to the Daily Report, Dunkin' Donuts is looking to expand into Baton Rouge. One of the things I still miss about Massachusetts - 17 years on - is Dunkin' Donuts. No, their coffee will never beat CDM, but there is nothing better than a warm cruller on a cold, wintery morning. And we seem to be having rather more of those cold, wintery mornings round here.

Shhhh. Don't Tell Katherine Schori.

Some of the folks involved in this new reality show about firearms on Discovery Channel... go to my church. An Episcopal (tm) church. They even serve at Sunday Mass.

Contrary to what Bonnie Anderson would have you believe, not all us 'Piskies are whiny urban wall-flowers.

Watch Sons of Guns on Discovery Channel, Wednesdays 9-10 ET/PT, 8-9 CT.

We'll Miss 'Ya, Dahlin'.

Baton Rouge icon Price LeBlanc, Sr., has passed away.

Reading, Writing, Rights.

A lesson in elementary civics, as taught in the East Baton Rouge Parish Public Schools.

Woman Spends Months In Prison Without Being Charged.

After the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney’s Office aparrently "made a clerical error in her file."

Baton Rouge Retrospective.

Via Abandoned Baton Rouge comes this link with lots pictures and postcard images of Baton Rouge from the 30's thru the 80's.

This one's for you, Ruth.

Skiing The Decline.

It's early December. It's South Louisiana. And, for the second year in a row, we're expecting snow. Yes, snow. Not a few flakes in the air, but measurable stuff on the ground. (And yes, if it sticks your humble blogger be out X-country skiing again.)

Dear readers, "global warming" is worse than a joke; it's a fraud. Someone should "hide the decline" up Al Gore's arse.

Yes, You Can Beat City Hall.

We did. And pretty soundly, at that.

Now, it helped that City Hall and their establishment financial backers were pushing something that the voters had already rejected a year before, and they answered the many criticisms and unanswered questions about the ALIVE scheme with, at best, condescension. Those who opposed ALIVE were dismissed either too ignorant, too narrow-minded, or simply lacked vision. Not a way to win votes.

While I hated to push back much needed infrastructure improvements by defeating the all-in-one bond proposal, I would rather do that than saddle Baton Rouge taxpayers with paying $225 million for the ALIVE project. To paraphrase Cornelius Ryan, The Mayor and Metro Council went a project too far.

I hope the Mayor and the Metro Council listen to their employers - the voters - and go back to the drawing board to re-craft a funding proposal for those improvements the voters can support. We all want to make Baton Rouge America's next great city.

The Future Comes ALIVE.

A cautionary tale about rosy predictions of the future:



Something to remember when you hear this.

At Least Everyone Got Out ALIVE.

Something to remember when you're listening to Holden/Futrell/Foreman, et. al., tell you what a great idea it is to build an amusement park an Epcot on the Mississippi an "interactive adventure" "celebration" (fill in misty marketing superlative here) out into the Mississippi River:



Yes, that is a really big ship. And what is stopping it is the New Orleans' Riverwalk Marketplace shopping center.

Is Somebody Scared?

Baton Rouge Tea Party had another Town Hall last night, explaining our opposition to the current East Baton Rouge Parish bond proposal due to the ALIVE component. A couple of pro-ALIVE folks were also in attendance, and got all Joe Wilson on us. (Isn't that supposed to be a bad thing? -ed.) BRTP has had members at the supporter's meetings in the past, and we've had the good manners not to disrupt their program. For a bunch that's outspending us more than 200:1, and who looks at us - at best - as a fringe of uneducated, mis-guided, reactionaries, why take such actions?

P.S. One of the back-of-heads you see in the Advocate picture, is me. And that's about all you will ever see of me on RSR. I have a face only a wife could love.

It's Good To Be Here.

While the rest of the country is still reeling from the effects of the government-created financial crisis - and the government-created bailout to fix it - according to The Baton Rouge Business Report our little slice of red-state heaven... ain't doing too bad.

Don' Pahk Yah Cah At Raisin' Cane's.

Note to my Boston area readers: Baton Rouge's Raising Cane's restaurant is opening up a location at BU, their first in New England. Best chicken fingers there are, so go give 'em a try!

UPDATE: Of course, you still need to go here for ice cream.

In A League Of His Own.

For the record, I generally like Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden, and would support most of his upcoming bond issue. We need it. But when it comes to the current ALIVE debate, Charlie Buras is spot on.

Only someone who is too afraid to confront his critics, or too arrogant, would call The League of Women Voters a "hostile forum."

That Ain't Earl Grey, Mr. Mayor.

The opposition to the bond issue on the ballot on 14 November is, um, alive and kicking.

Here's something to remember when you hear the ALIVE opponents trashed as "anti-progress":

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

- C. S. Lewis

And funding ALIVE with public dollars is the wrong road.

The Dead Innuendo?

Louisiana's DRUDGE wanna-be, Chad Rogers, posts this headline on Dead Pelican: "State Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, has taken his wife to Paris for their 20th wedding anniversary."

Hmmm. Sounds fishy, don't it? But if you head over to the link, there's no there there. None. Just an announcement that the State Senator took his wife to Paris for their 20th wedding anniversary. It wasn't reported that he did it on the State's dime, or that he put his wife on the payroll in order to get the Louisiana taxpayer to foot the bill, or anything that would make it Dead Pelican newsworthy. He took his wife to Paris. Big freakin' deal. You can't get much more romantic than that, and most of us guys would do it if we had the chance.

I can't say for certain why Chad decided this was Dead Pelican material. Maybe it was a reallllly slow news cycle. I'm sure it had nothing to do with taking a cheap shot at Claitor, who won one of the most contentious State Senate races in memory over a candidate Rogers seemed to be pushing. No one would be that petty.

Anyway, Dan and Shermaine - congrats on 20.

If It Ain't Breathing, Is It ALIVE?

Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden has tied voter approval of much-needed infrastructure improvements in Baton Rouge to approval of public funding for an amusement park downtown - the ALIVE project.

That strategy now seems to be in some trouble. The ownership for the ALIVE site is in dispute, and has been for some time. Plus, another $40 million will be needed to bring the property to the proper flood elevation before any construction can begin, an amount the State hasn't agreed to pay. Oops. The Metro Council ain't too happy upon learning about about all of this at this late date, especially after Holden pushed them to couple the two on the ballot in November. That coupling may now guarantee the entire bond issue fails at the polls.

ALIVE has been a hard sell from the beginning, and Holden, who I normally admire, has even tried to gerrymander out the most anti-tax areas of Baton Rouge in order to get it passed. (That failed.) His obsession with ALIVE is hard to fathom.

Charlie Buras is now calling this the last straw for Holden. Sadly, I think he might be right.

Side Note: In the article above, a little group your humble blogger is associated with gets a Page 1 mention.