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Mixed Signals

If Gov. Jindal continues down this path of unwillingness to negotiate on higher ed cuts, he will leave little doubt about his priorities. “What is the matter with Jindal?” That’s the question former...

So Far Two Things are Evident About Our Governor

But we can hope for more. Bobby Jindal is clearly ambitious and well-intentioned. He started with ethics, promising us new ethics laws and delivering. Yet his efforts on ethics reform, much heralded...

Publisher's viewpoint stirs reaction

I was happy to hear from two well-known voices on a subject I wrote about, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s decision to certify for many Louisiana public science classrooms the...

Gone Pecan

Boozoo Chavis, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and Lonnie Brooks planted the seed. The Lake Charles zydeco legend, the Slidell jazz/blues icon and the Louisiana-born Chicago blues guitarist all played at...

The Death March is Halted

With only eight days remaining, the Death March came to a screeching halt. Monday morning, after more than a week of repeatedly saying he wouldn’t veto the legislative pay raises that doubled...

Pay Raise Hell

What started out as a ridiculous bill destined to gain little traction — New Orleans Democratic Sen. Ann Duplessis’ proposed legislation giving elected officials a 200 percent pay raise — passed the...

Spinning the Media

One of the biggest surprises in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s nascent administration is its decision to ignore the Louisiana press corps as much as possible. One of Jindal’s biggest campaign platforms was...

The Ind's LPA Awards

The Louisiana Press Association announced the winners of its 2007 statewide awards competition at a luncheon in Lafayette on April 26, and your hometown, homegrown, independently owned newspaper The...

Amazing Grace

Being a road manager or business manager for a band that tours extensively means constantly corralling an ever-changing list of small and big details that are vitally important. Is the band being...

Play Ball

It’s piped into stadiums across the country as get-fired-up mood music at sporting events and frequently used to introduce the starting lineups for countless playoff games. No games were played last...

How Many More Years?

This week marks the start of the sixth year of the Iraq War and a U.S. military death toll of 4,000. These are the men and women from Louisiana who have lost their lives in Operations Iraqi Freedom...

The Vitter phone call

I had just taken the burgers off the grill and my family was sitting down to dinner when the phone rang. I told my wife that unless it was an emergency, tell whoever it was that we’d call them back....

Randy's Grace

I wish I’d met Deacon Randy LeBlanc. He loved football and he loved to watch the New Orleans Saints. He loved to watch cooking shows and television, and when he wasn’t working as a general manager for...

Following the Money

A look at individual donations from Lafayette and across the state flowing into presidential candidate campaigns shows that Louisiana once again appears to be bucking some national political trends....

The makings of a super fiasco

With the exception of the moniker of Clark Kent’s timeless and legendary alter-ego, the word super has been on a steady decline that even the Man of Steel couldn’t stop. It’s had isolated moments —...

No Agenda Here

The woman’s voice came barreling through on the voicemail message, and she was so angry I could practically hear her shaking. “I opened up your newspaper this week — actually, I didn’t even have to...

Jindal's First Hiccup

Talk about ironic timing. Just weeks before Gov. Bobby Jindal commences his long-awaited special session on ethics reform, team Jindal gets hit for not accurately reporting more than $100,000 worth of...

UL's New Role Model

Call me naive. I thought the long-simmering, destructive 2005-2006 controversy over renaming Willow Street as Martin Luther King Jr. Drive was thankfully behind us. Two months before the Lafayette...

One for Dad

Dad helps out on my wedding day in 1997. Photo by Scott Saltzman The morning after I arrived in November, Dad wanted to work in the yard. There was clover and crab grass snaking around the yellow...

Authement's Legacy

As the calendar year winds down each year, one question begins to dominate The Independent Weekly's editorial meetings: Which individual or individuals have made the biggest impact in the last 12...

The Cajun/Zydeco Grammy Dilemma

When the 2008 Grammy Award winners are announced Feb. 10, 2008, it's supposed to be a shining moment for Acadiana and Louisiana, as the first winner in the newly instituted Cajun/zydeco Grammy...

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Breaking the Cycle Another week, another study that ranks Louisiana in an extremely unflattering light. The 18th annual edition of America's Health Rankings: A Call to Action for People & Their...

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Bon Appetit Lunch time at The Independent Weekly's offices at 551 Jefferson St. is always a lively affair, especially when football season and cooler weather means that a lot of our staffers have been...

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Now, the hard part In his acceptance speech after winning the governor's race on Saturday night, U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal called for unity. "At times it was a rough campaign, lots of charges and...

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And the Winner is ... Louisiana insomniacs were the big winner after last week's gubernatorial debate, as the forum featuring Democrats Walter Boasso and Foster Campbell, independent John Georges and...

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Victim of the Streets According to Eric Gammons, president of Acadiana Regional Coalition on Homelessness and Housing Inc., the homeless population in Lafayette hovers somewhere around 400, decreasing...

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Blueprint's Crossroads The story usually goes like this: Architect designs dream home for client, who can finally visualize a lifelong ambition becoming a reality. Then client hears from the local...

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The Anniversary The first time we met, we boarded a bus at the New Orleans Arena to spend a weekend in the locker rooms of the Pensacola Civic Center and the Biloxi Coast Coliseum with now-defunct New...

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Whitewashing History Bishop Gerard Frey sure loved his 8 a.m. cup of coffee. He could be a demanding boss, too, when he needed letters sent to other bishops or the wristband broke on his watch....

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Dodging the Debates Every Child Matters in Louisiana is a partnership between the National Head Start Association and the Every Child Matters Education Fund. The nonpartisan organization was founded...

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The Author and The Slugger It's hard to overestimate UL Lafayette writer-in-residence emeritus Ernest Gaines' place in American literature. His novels such as A Lesson Before Dying and A Gathering of...

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Foti casts for a scapegoat Democratic Attorney General Charles Foti must be taking public relations lessons from Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter. Immediately after a New Orleans grand jury refused...


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