ABOUT TOWN

About Town

— The Literacy Council of Southwest Louisiana will offer “Beginning Word” literacy classes for adults at the Calcasieu Business and Career Solutions Center.

Classes, which are three weeks long, will be offered Tuesdays and Thursdays 9 am-noon, starting on Sept. 15.

Since there are limited spaces available, call 494-7000 soon if you want a space.

The fee for classes is $20 a person; it must be paid by money order.

All participants will receive a certificate when they complete the course.

The Sept. 15 class will take place 5-9 pm at the Allen P. August Annex Building at 2000 Moeling St.

‘Attakapas’

As you may know, 2015 marks the 250th anniversary of the arrival of the Acadians — or “Cajuns” — in Southwest Louisiana. If you miss Zachary Richard’s appearance in Lake Charles, you can still catch him at the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, where he’ll present his “Attakapas, The Cajun Story” program on Oct. 7-8 at 7:30 pm. (Richard will perform in L.C. at the Central Library at 7 pm on Sept. 15.)

Richard describes his program “Attakapas” as a “multi-media concert … that incorporates visual projection and live music to tell the story of the Cajun people of Louisiana.” It’s a story that, he says, is at once “funny and tragic, light-hearted and powerfully moving.”

If you’d like to know more, visit acadianacenterforthearts.org or call 337-233-7060.

On The Campaign Trail

— Aug. 18: The Advocate reports that at the Iowa State Fair, Jindal says the “deep-fried butter” is a “must have.”

On the same day, New Orleans’ Gambit reports that Jindal is still polling at less than 1 percent among potential Republican voters. The latest CNN poll shows him as one of five Republicans trailing Rick Santorum, who has 1 percent. CNN simply puts an asterisk next to Jindal’s name. Real Clear Politics at least gives Jindal a number: 0.7 percent. (On Aug. 21, Gallup will give Jindal a +2 in favorability, which — in this poll, anyway — gives Jindal the advantage over Rubio.)

Also on the 18th, Jindal Tweets: “We need to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants.”

— Aug. 19: Jindal challenges Scott Walker to a debate about their respective health care plans. For some reason, Walker doesn’t respond.

Also on this day: “Live from Council Bluffs, It’s Bobby Jindal” — a headline from the Powerline blog, which is run by four lawyers who routinely submit articles to the National Review and The Weekly Standard. A link to the story is provided in the daily Jindal campaign email.

— From the Aug. 20 Jindal campaign email: “The Left … are a bunch of science deniers. I think folks today are too easily offended. They are too politically correct.”

There’s that term again — “science deniers.” It’s a great term. I just wish Jindal would tell me what it means.

But what really caught my attention in this message was the sentence “they are too politically correct.”

They are too politically correct. Now where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah. Now I remember. That’s what Donald Trump said in the Aug. 6 debate. Exactly what he said.

— Aug. 21: Jindal continues his tour of Iowa’s most luxurious hot spots: the Iowa Pork Tent and the Farm Bureau Booth at the state fair; Smokey Row in Oskaloosa; Wapello; the Ford Dodge Pizza Ranch and the Pella Opera House. You know the old saying: when you’re staying in Pella, you know you’ve really made it.

— Aug. 23: In response to a large number of Hispanics who are heckling his comments about immigration, Jindal says, “It’s time to secure the border for once and for all. If you want to come to our country, come legally, learn English.” Jindal does not explain when the 289 million Americans who are not illegal immigrants will be required to learn English.

— Aug. 24: In the daily campaign email from the Jindal Press Office, Jindal says that when he is president, he will “fire the EPA.” There is no word on whether he will fire the EPA in the same way in which he will arrest the mayors of sanctuary cities.

— Aug. 26: After grousing that immigrants need to “learn English,” Jindal uses horribly mangled English in his official daily campaign email. Here’s a selection quoted verbatim: “We’ve seen our people comeback as well. Louisianan’s from all over the country have come back … “

Endorsement Unlikely

Don’t be looking for a Jindal endorsement from the Baton Rouge Advocate. In an editorial about Jindal’s Louisiana budgets, the paper wrote: “Legislators facing the voters in the October primary better come up with a better explanation for their performance than ‘we just did what the governor wanted.’ That mentality led to a budget that is so seriously out of whack that the new administration is going to face significant challenges, likely even greater than those of this year.”

The Advocate estimated that the budget gap the Legislature will have to deal with next year already sits at $713 million. Wait for that number to get bigger.

Don’t Drive Down Grunch Road

Years ago, I did a cover story for Lagniappe on the bayou monster Loupgarou. In a recent report on Louisiana monsters, Mysterious Universe calls this beast the Rougaru (then goes on to point out that “loup-garou” is French for “werewolf”).

Mysterious Universe says Loupgarou — or Rougaru, if you prefer — is 10 feet tall and has red eyes. There’s also mention of a curious legend that if you break Lent seven years in a row, Loupgarou is gonna get ya.

What makes this Mysterious Universe piece worthwhile is that it introduces a bunch of lesser known rural Louisiana monsters. For instance, have you heard of the Grunch? They live on a dead end in east N.O. called Grunch Road. They are a group of “albino dwarves” who “live in the woods.” The result of generations of inbreeding, they “have a taste for blood.” They may account for dead goats and other livestock in the area that seem to be short on blood.

Some in Louisiana say these same livestock have been victims of the Chupacabra, who is familiar to most of us, and especially the residents of Moss Bluff — a Chupacabra haven.

Then there’s Ogeron’s Sea Monster, whose first known press appearance came in 1856, when it was reported to have been killed by a fellow in the Bayou Lafourche.

Ogeron — the man who claimed to kill the monster — said it was 14 feet long; had a six-foot long tail and a three-foot wide mouth. Ogeron had begun to butcher the animal when a storm hit and washed the carcass away. He said its skin was like an elephant’s. (Some think he may have encountered a garden-variety manatee.)

How about the Honey Island Swamp Monster? It was first sighted in 1963, somewhere in the 108-square-mile Honey Island Swamp. The old fisher who found the thing made a plaster cast of its footprint — a cast that revealed three webbed toes. Debunkers say these are alligator prints. But it would have been an unusually large gator that made them.

Another local told the press the monster was “seven feet tall and covered in dark grey hair.” It’s “arms [hung] down below its knees” and it could swim.

If you like what conspiracy theorists call “high strangeness,” you’ll love this story. The Honey Island monster is said to have caused an early 20th century train wreck. Circus chimpanzees escaped from the train and bred with the alligators in the swamp. I know the dude who claimed that he wasn’t tripping because they didn’t have acid back then.

If you got to Honey Island in search of its monster, don’t expect to see it right away. The island is 20 miles long. In fact, Mysterious Universe tells us no one has seen the Honey Island Monster since 1974.

Follow the great work of Mysterious Universe at mysteriousuniverse.org. Recent articles deal with the Russian Chupacabra, prehistoric giants in Tanzania and ways to create a “mind spider.”

I’ll Loan You A Burger At 25%

Let’s start with a numeral. I’ll tell you that by one recent count, there are 226 McDonald’s locations in Louisiana.

Well, maybe you find that an interesting figure, maybe you don’t. Maybe you think it’s high, low or about right.

But what about the number of payday loan operations in Louisiana. How many of those do you think there are?

Can you guess? Come on! You can do it!

Are you ready for the answer?

OK. In Louisiana, there are 1,009 payday loan operations at present. So, yes, that means there are more than four times as many of those as there are McDonald’s. And it sounds to me as if at least a few people out there are buying Quarter Pounders at 25 percent interest.

These numbers come from the California State University at Northridge.

Our legislators have just gone through two sessions in which they refused to pass a bill about payday loan offices. If you read a year from now that we have 1,500 payday loan places in the state, you’ll know the Legislature went through another session doing nothing.

That Explains It!

Mitch Landrieu told Gambit Magazine the restructuring of the city’s educational system is “a source of some concern for some folks.”

Now as a rule, I’d think a statement like that is just another instance of a politician trying to avoid taking a stand by using vague, circular language that means nothing.

Fortunately, in this case, I know exactly who is concerned and what the “folk’s” level of concern is.

When it comes to the restructuring of the N.O. educational system, the guy who sells hot cashews in the alley behind Trey Trey’s Boudin And Dutch Pornography Hut in Wagon Rut is greatly concerned; the waiter at the Mud Den in Snake’s Belly who drives the camo dually is moderately concerned; and the security guy at “English” Billy Boynton’s Financial Healing Center in Gopher Hole is almost entirely unconcerned.