La. La. Land: Saving Louisiana, one cypress at a time

Thursday‘s Blogs from the Bog!

• SAVING LOUISIANA, ONE CYPRESS AT A TIME

  SEP 18 Here‘s a story in the New York Times about a New Iberia man who is trying to save his own little corner of Louisiana. A lot of people spend their spare time clearing their land, but Matt Conn works to restore the natural state of his property. It‘s a fascinating story.

• ON CLIMATE CHANGE, BP AND A LOST BABY

  SEP 18 Here‘s an amazingly personal piece from Naomi Klein, posted on the Guardian. It is long, and intense, a personal telling of her own process of covering, denying and realizing climate change. She addresses the issue of big business pretending to address the issue, the concealment of climate damage for corporate gain, and how her coverage of the BP spill led, she believes, to a miscarriage.

• PANTS ON FIRE RULINGS

  SEP 18 Sure, Louisiana Congressional candidate Lenar Whitney made the first page of Politifact‘s "Pants on Fire" statements section, and of course that‘s always entertaining. But really you need to go check out the Pulitzer Prize winning fact-checking website, which is run by former Lafayette journalist Angie Drobnic Holan, because it has a great new design.

• MANESS DOESN‘T BELIEVE HE‘S SPLITTING VOTES

  SEP 18 The math might be simple to most - leave a lone Republican in the race against Mary Landrieu for a better shot at winning in the primary - but to Rob Maness (the "other" Republican) it‘s not that simple. This story on the E&E Publishing site features some of his more interesting viewpoints on energy, politics and the EPA.

• JINDAL‘S LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH SCIENCE

  SEP 18 This post on Howard Fineman‘s Political Read blog takes a look at the fine line that Bobby Jindal will have to walk if he wants to be the guy who can unite the creationists who don‘t believe in evolution with the Christians and others who do. On paper, Jindal could be the guy to do it, Fineman says, but politically, he‘ll have to start with the far right if he wants to get anywhere in the GOP.

• LIKE THEY‘RE NOT ENOUGH OF AN AGGRAVATION

  SEP 18 Inspection stickers. They‘re a pain but you have to have them. Now there‘s a problem with the recent ones, WVUE reports here: they‘re peeling off. Last year, word from the state was we would be getting better glue, but apparently that didn‘t happen.

• LC‘S FRENCH JUST LAUDED AGUILLARD

  SEP 18 This week, four Louisiana College board members resigned in protest after Tommy French was re-elected chairman. This post on the Associated Baptist Press website reports that, just a couple weeks ago, French was handing controversial former LC leader Joe Aguillard a medal and the title of President Emeritus.

• GRACE: JINDAL KEEPING A LOW PROFILE

  SEP 18 Bobby Jindal is spending a lot of time on the road helping candidates get elected - but none of them are in Louisiana, columnist Stephanie Grace writes in this post. None of Jindal‘s buddies are running (Cassidy dumped Teepell early on in favor of a Vitter acolyte) and maybe Jindal really does read polls and knows that his support is the kiss of death here.