Once again, it’s time for the Up Fronter’s periodic review of the Military Purple Heart, Chapter 1996. Commander Henry D. Doiron continues to warn that the group may end soon if it doesn’t get some young blood. At 87, he’s the youngest of the three members who are still living.
Why should you consider getting involved? Well, let’s look at what the Order does. In addition to helping to provide for the daily needs of veterans at Chennault Place and the Jennings War Veterans Home, it recently held holiday parties at both these locations.
The group works with an Auxiliary that undertakes the same and similar projects. (Ask to talk with Carolyn Young.)
Finally, the group continues its long-term project of delivering commemorative military folders at the funerals of veterans. In 10 years, more than 2,300 veterans have been so honored by the Order.
It’s good work. But some younger people have to step up. Interested? Call 436-6945.
Well Within Everyone’s Comfort Zone
I realize that not everyone likes exotic food. But the American Press may have gone a bit far in exploring customary food options when it devoted most of a page (B2, Dec. 18) to a review of a local Hardee’s. That’s right. A review of a Hardee’s.
Here are some choice selections from the review of the “Mile High Bacon Thickburger”:
“The burger came covered in bacon.”
“Want something a little bigger than that quarter-pound meal? Upgrade the same burger to the half-pound. Seriously. It’s easy.”
Most flabbergasting of all was the reviewer’s challenge:
“I challenge you to step out of your comfort zone” — by going to a Hardee’s! That’s like stepping out of your comfort zone by watching the third most popular TV show instead of the second most popular TV show.
The “out of your comfort zone” motif was really fleshed out in the review; the reviewer implored readers to “Tell your mom you’ll pass on that homemade lasagna. Walk away from your dad’s grill as he flips those steaks and try something new” — the “something new” being the same old Hardee’s burger you’ve eaten innumerable times. Would I “walk away” from mousse prepared from scratch by a New Orleans chef in favor of a Kraft pudding cup? Not bloody likely.
The Press topped it all off with a 5-inch by 8-inch photo of a Hardee’s burger. It looked like a Hardee’s burger.
How does one follow a review of a Hardee’s? Maybe it’s time for a review of those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Walter White makes in Breaking Bad. And I’ve never seen a review of Vienna Sausages. Sounds like opportunity knocking.
The Year In Review
It’s not likely that anyone will soon forget the bare-fisted, knock-down, drag-out brawl that was the race for coroner of Bell City in 2014.
As much as I’d like to write more about the race, I think I should take this new year as an opportunity to point out that there were weird and interesting things happening in other parts of the state in 2014. For instance (according to the year-end round-up of The Ind magazine), things were just plain hopping in Lafayette.
In June, reported the mag, the Lafayette Regional Airport director Greg Roberts took one of the fake guns that’s used to train people in the Transportation Security Administration and pointed it at an airport engineer.
This turned out to be one of those occasions when the people and the powers that be decided it wasn’t acceptable for a political leader to act like a 6-year-old, and Roberts resigned.
But that wasn’t the interesting part of the story. What was interesting was that The Ind wasn’t afraid to report that other media in Lafayette avoided the controversial story. Furthermore, magazine staff did this with fairly sophisticated and truly hilarious wise-acre satire. Here’s the Ind’s take on other media in Lafayette:
“Citing an anonymous source, this newspaper reveal[ed] the reasons for Roberts’ departure before a press conference [was] held — a presser that [didn’t] reveal the reason [for Roberts’ resignation] anyway. Lafayette’s milquetoast dailies, which don’t use anonymous sources because Watergate never happened, report the ‘revelation’ a week later. Meh.”
O Lord! What are we ever going to do with these smart-aleck journalists? There’s no denying that the words “because Watergate never happened” are just plain funny. Someone with a brain came up with that.
Based on The Ind’s report, I’m thinking Lafayette beat us in the category of rants last year. And it was all due to a politician — Don Gagnard, who did well enough in his race for a school board seat to make it to a runoff. I would make some sort of ethical point about the horrific prospect of people such as Gagnard having some influence on the education of children. But why fight against the ways of the world?
In the following rant, Gagnard uses strong language as well as language that will probably offend everybody at some point. So if that sort of thing bothers you, you might want to skip down a couple of paragraphs.
As with any rant, the Up Fronter retains all the writer’s capitalization, punctuation, grammar and spelling errors. This is the rant exactly as it appeared in the original:
“I am not only racist but I hate faggots, bums, illegal aliens. Veterans mistreatment and most of all: OUR HITLER PRESIDENT WHICH IS TRYING TO RUIN THIS COUNTRY PURPOSEFULLY…………………………..I HATE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE COMMUNIST REGIME SO CALLED OUR AMERICAN CULTURE. OBAMA, GO AWAY AND BRING YOUR URGANGUTAN WITH YOU.”
This spiel appeared on Gagnard’s Facebook page. He’s smart enough to determine that the Obama administration and American culture are “communist,” but can’t figure out how to work the privacy settings on the Facebook. Apparently he isn’t quite bright enough to realize that if you don’t get the settings right, anybody in the world can read whatever you write on your Facebook page.
He finally figured it out, though. The day after Gagnard’s rant appeared all over the media, he disabled his Facebook page. I’m guessing his next step will be to sign up for Twitter and tweet that Facebook is communist.
And as the old year ends, and the new year begins, I just want to thank Mr. Gagnard for reminding all of us once again that nothing — and I mean nothing — beats capital letters.
The Normalization Of More Money
If you’re still not sure what to think about the “normalization” of relations with Cuba, you could ask for input from a Louisiana rice grower. Or you could just read this little story.
Which state was the largest importer of rice to Cuba before the embargo? That would be Louisiana. Now again, before the embargo, what percentage of goods imported to and exported from Cuba went through New Orleans ports? That would be 65 percent. Those stats come from a statement made by state Commissioner of Agriculture Mike Strain to the Monroe News-Star.
Here are some more stats. In terms of states that produce rice, where does Louisiana rank? That would be No. 3.
Where does rice rank on Louisiana’s list of biggest agricultural exports? That would be No. 2. And what sort of revenue is generated by Louisiana’s export of rice annually? That would be a figure north of $150 million.
Elton Kennedy of Morehouse Parish is one of the state’s biggest rice growers and dryers. He’s a partner in a group that manages 160,000 acres of agricultural land in seven states. He’s a member of Louisiana’s Business Roundtable Committee of 100. Here’s what he has to say about the economic windfall Louisiana stands to experience from improved relations with Cuba:
“It will definitely be a great boost, especially to rice growers. We need the market so bad because our exports have been lacking. It’s great news and something that should have already happened. I hope Congress will make it happen because we need it badly. It’s so natural for us because Cuba is close to our shore. It’s sad because all this (embargo) has done is hurt ourselves. It’s time to do something.”
The War On Blogs: North Korea 15-Love
Here’s to America … the fearless, mighty, invincible champion of the War on Terror … the awesome force that shook the mountains of Afghanistan with Daisy Cutters and fought street to street and block to block to subdue the monstrous revolt of Fallujah …
… and was terrified to watch a Seth Rogan comedy because a few hackers in North Korea said, “boo!”
On the afternoon of Dec. 17, Nola Film Events tweeted a list of the New Orleans theaters that had already cancelled their showings of the slapstick comedy The Interview:
@BowTieCinemas
@LandmarkLTC
@ArcLightCinemas
@RegalMovies
@AMCTheatres
@Cinemark
@CarmikeCinemas
@CineplexMovies
By the end of the same day, Sony had pulled the movie out of all theaters in the country.
We should note that Sony is still headquartered in Tokyo and thus might have something real to fear from North Korea. But there are no excuses for the owners of every major U.S. theater chain overreacting and wussing out.
War’s not just about bullets and bombs and fighting. It’s also about image. And the image of the cowardly reaction to the “Sony Hack” (on the part of theater owners, Sony executives in this country and potential American audiences) was that of gutless wonders. The image and message that a lot of people in North Korea got was no doubt expressed in words such as these: “Wow, if these Americans get this scared of a few words written on a web site, just imagine how they’d react to a really serious military action.”
USA Today ran a variety of comments on the most humiliating loss of nerve since Saddam Hussein hid in a hole in a barn:
Rob Lowe: Wow. Everyone caved.
Newt Gingrich: No one should kid themselves. With the Sony collapse, America has lost its first cyberwar. This is a very, very dangerous precedent.
Mia Farrow: Damn. Bad guys won.
Kelly Oxford: This precedent is scary and disappointing on so many levels.
Zach Braff: Canceling The Interview seems like a pretty horrible precedent to set.
Mitt Romney: @SonyPictures don’t cave, fight: release @TheInterview free online globally. [Editor’s note: Sony did eventually release the picture online, but not for free.]
The Alamo Drafthouse movie theater in Dallas said it would respond to the pulling of The Interview by showing the movie Team America: World Police free of charge. Team America was a movie-length parody of North Korea that was shown in theaters all over the USA 10 years ago. Not one person was blown up in all those showings. Drafthouse reps commented: “THAT [watching Team America] is how true American heroes will be celebrating this year, but if you want to let the terrorists win … well, that’s your prerogative.”
(Credit where credit is due — Sony did finally allow the Alamo Drafthouse to show The Interview, where it debuted on Christmas Day. As of Dec. 29, the website for the Alamo Drafthouse in Dallas was offering visitors a chance to sign “a petition to support freedom of expression.”)
Recent reports that the British hacking group Lizard Squad supplied Sony’s passwords to hackers in North Korea just provided a few more farcical notes to the absurd situation.
Regardless of what North Korea thinks or doesn’t think, this embarrassing incident is one more indication that the War on Terror has, in the long term, been about as successful and efficient as the War on Drugs. (And if you want to believe the war is effective, you may take some solace from the fact that London police arrested a prominent member of Lizard Squad on Dec. 31. Ostensibly he was arrested for stealing cash from Facebook accounts; but one assumes British agents got around to questions about Sony pretty damn fast. If you want to follow the case, the alleged perp is 22-year-old Vincent Omari.)
Boring Facts
The company WalletHub recently released its “2014’s Best & Worst College Cities & Towns in America” list. As the Up Fronter points out from time to time, various companies release these sorts of lists on a regular basis in hopes of benefitting from them in some way.
For its list, WalletHub ranked 280 U.S. cities that have colleges or universities based on “23 key metrics.”
WalletHub was trying to promote its list and itself (it called itself “the leading personal finance social network”) with its “Key Stats.”
I figured the Key Stats would be remarkable factoids about unexpected, startling, juicy information. Instead, they described places exactly as one would expect them to be described. The result was underwhelming, bland and blah — and thus, unintentionally humorous.
Let me quote a few “Key Stats” so you can see what I mean.
“The housing cost (rent of a two-bedroom apartment) is three times higher in San Francisco than in Johnson City, Tenn.” But that’s OK, because everybody would rather live in Johnson City anyway.
“The number of nightlife options per capita is 28 times higher in Las Vegas than in Miramar, Fla.” And that’s surprising, since most of us think of Miramar as the entertainment capitol of the U.S.
“The number of violent crimes per capita is 57 times higher in Detroit than in Orem, Utah.” Well, I might have thought 50 or 60 instead of 57. But at any rate, I think the Great Orem Crime Wave has been on the wane for some time now.
No, Wallethub didn’t put Lake Charles in its list. Nor did it list cities that are homes of colleges and universities very close to Lake Charles. Lafayette and Baton Rouge did make it; they were ranked 66 and 68.
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