{"id":6570,"date":"2017-07-20T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-07-20T12:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/?p=6570"},"modified":"2017-07-19T12:13:11","modified_gmt":"2017-07-19T17:13:11","slug":"in-doubt-close-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2017\/07\/20\/in-doubt-close-it\/","title":{"rendered":"In Doubt? Close It."},"content":{"rendered":"

Southwest Louisiana schools continue to close because rain is in the weather forecast. Let\u2019s take the case of McNeese State University \u2014 one of the area\u2019s educational institutions for people who are the age of adults. By 2:50 on Tuesday (June 20), the university had announced that it would be closing on Wednesday (June 21)\u00a0 and Thursday (June 22).<\/p>\n

At 2:50 pm on Tuesday, the Weather Underground forecasters were predicting that the chances of rain on Wednesday would not go over 50 percent until 1 pm. Most McNeese classes are over by 1. But even if they weren\u2019t, would a 74 percent chance of thunderstorms be a good reason to close down a university?<\/p>\n

For Thursday, WU predicted the chances of thunderstorms would range between 75 and 92 percent on Thursday morning. After noon, chances of a thunderstorm steadily declined until they fell below 50 percent at 4 pm.<\/p>\n

As for the total rain accumulation expected, at the time McNeese announced its closure, WU called for 3 inches of rain on Wednesday and 1 inch of rain on Thursday. That\u2019s 4 inches of rain over a period of 48 hours. I don\u2019t deny 4 inches is quite a bit. Is it enough to warrant the closing of a university? Is the prediction that the rain won\u2019t start falling for 21 hours enough to close a university?<\/p>\n

By 8 am Wednesday, predictions for rain accumulation had dropped dramatically. The prediction now was for 1.64 inches on Wednesday and .8 of an inch on Thursday. In spite of that, it was also announced that all Police Jury offices would close at noon. The City of Sulphur would close at the same time. It was announced that the attempted second-degree murder trial of Paul Walling had been put on hold and the Lake Charles City Council had pushed its scheduled meeting all into the next week.<\/p>\n

This hysteria must have been what prompted Emergency Preparedness director Dick Gremillion to make an announcement he shouldn\u2019t have felt obliged to make: an \u201cevacuation [order] will not likely be issued.\u201d Cut off my legs and call me shorty! What goes on here?<\/p>\n

In scattered corners, calmer heads prevailed. The N.O. Advocate\u2019s Jessica Williams reported that N.O. Mayor Mitch Landrieu would soon make a statement about Tropical Storm Cindy, which, Williams said, \u201chas weakened.\u201d (On Thursday she would report, \u201cTropical Storm Cindy hits with whimper on Wednesday.\u201d) In his Wednesday statement, Landrieu said as far as he was concerned, New Orleans was not under a state of emergency. And on the same day, Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Tony Mancuso stated his opinion that Cindy was likely to be a \u201clong thunderstorm.\u201d Given time, a few adults will pop up here and there.<\/p>\n

When I was an undergrad at the University of the South (Sewanee), I and my friends actually wanted to go to class. I guess you\u2019d say we were book nerds. So we probably would have been annoyed if the university had closed because meteorologists called for rain.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s pointless to speculate about that since it was impossible the university would have closed for that reason. As far as I can recall, not once in four years did it close for any reason. Of course, I was very young then and didn\u2019t yet understand that things can get real screwy real fast when people aren\u2019t constantly on the look-out for a reason not to work.<\/p>\n

Silly<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Gavin Harp, self-styled \u201cPR guru\u201d and LSU Manship School grad, reported on June 21 that \u201ctwo members of [the] Louisiana Legislature got into a fight about [the] Hamilton musical.\u201d I can think of more destructive ways to avoid doing work on the state budget. I\u2019m not sure I can think of more immature and silly ways.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Only 2 Percent, Right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s it going to mean to you that the Louisiana Legislature failed to craft a fix for this year\u2019s budget gap? Well, here\u2019s one thing that\u2019s going to happen. LSU will be putting in place a 2-percent increase in school fees at all campuses. I wonder how long it will be until we learn just how much Louisianans are willing to pay for an LSU degree.<\/p>\n

The Story On Storyville<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Do you know what Storyville is? I know many of you do. Storyville was the red light district of New Orleans that flourished a century ago.<\/p>\n

A new exhibit at The Historic New Orleans Collection, \u201cStoryville: Madams and Music,\u201d will give patrons an in-depth look at the old den of iniquity by means of\u00a0 displays of photographs, maps, postcards, artifacts of the era and the infamous \u201cblue books\u201d that gave bad boys a long list of the prostitutes working in the hot spot.<\/p>\n

In 1897, the government of New Orleans recognized the Storyville neighborhood as an area where prostitution would be legal. Storyville was located just north of the French Quarter.<\/p>\n

Where there\u2019s sex, there\u2019s dancing and music. Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver were among the musicians who experimented with the new jazz music while they entertained johns in the parlors of Storyville. In 1917, the country\u2019s first jazz record \u2014 \u201cLivery Stable Blues\u201d \u2014 was recorded in Storyville. These cultural aspects of the area are covered in the exhibit.<\/p>\n

\u201cStoryville: Madams and Music,\u201d will run through Dec. 9 at the Williams Research Center at 410 Chartres St. Hours are Tu-Sat 9:30 am-4:30 pm. Admission is free to the public. Those who want to can buy the Historic Collection\u2019s brand new book Guidebooks to Sin: The Blue Books of Storyville, New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Inattentive But Super-Smart<\/strong><\/p>\n

Twitter has become a major pain since the Twitter people started loading up everybody\u2019s Twitter feed with giant \u201cPromoted\u201d ads. The other day, Twitter ran a huge \u201cPromoted\u201d ad for itself. It began with a Tweet, which started with these words:<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers are savvy. Attention is scarce.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Help me out here. Are you saying a person can be super-smart but have a really short attention span? Would you also tell me a person can wake up dead? Do you think a person can turn up missing?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s just do the basic thing and apply common sense claims. If a guy is savvy, he must have a really long attention span, right? If he didn\u2019t, how would he have acquired the knowledge he has to have to be savvy? And even if he\u2019d gotten that knowledge in some kind of magical way, wouldn\u2019t he have to have a long attention span to be able to use that knowledge in such an efficient way that he comes to be known as \u201csavvy\u201d?<\/p>\n

The pay-off in this ginormous ad was the assertion that the Twitter folks \u201ccan make your brand stand out.\u201d So, I\u2019m going to let the same folks who think a guy with a short attention span can be James Bond handle my advertising? Not bloody likely, Buster Brown.<\/p>\n

For Your Reading Pleasure<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ever wondered what it would be like to be a hybrid with an extraterrestrial and travel freely about through the extraterrestrial universe? You have? Of course you have!<\/p>\n

Well, wonder no longer. The answers are all there in a fantastic new book called The Star Table Trance Missions: Telepresence Conferences with ETs and Celestial Guides (The Five Star Series Book 1).<\/p>\n

The book is written by Ted Denmark, who puts a \u201cPhD\u201d after his name so you\u2019ll know he\u2019s really, really smart and therefore could never possibly make this stuff up.<\/p>\n

So you can get an idea of what it\u2019s like to travel through space on ET \u201ctrance missions,\u201d let\u2019s read part of Doctor Ted\u2019s story as it\u2019s written in his book\u2019s promotional copy:<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though they were previously aware of themselves as \u2018contactees\u2019 … Julie and Ted found themselves … in their seventh decade, being given nearly full access to the depth of detail of their secret lives as extraterrestrial hybrids \u2026 by members of their star families.<\/p>\n

\u201cJ&T were told they are among a group of about 100 Earthuman hybrids in a genetic seeding experiment being carried out by Pleiadians from the star system of Taygeta … The first installment of a movie waiting to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reader, believe me, this is one movie you don\u2019t want to invest in. But the book is a hoot and holler. And it\u2019s cheap! You can get the Kindle edition for just $6.99. That\u2019s the cheapest alternative to actual space flight you\u2019re going to find.<\/p>\n

The \u2018It\u2019s Only A Penny\u2019 State<\/strong><\/p>\n

I often hear people say, \u201cI don\u2019t like politics\u201d or \u201cPolitics is too complicated\u201d or something of that sort. Be that as it may, readers may want to at least skim the \u201cSolve The Budget\u201d section in Jeremy Alford\u2019s political column in this issue.<\/p>\n

Alford reports that The Advocate newspaper and the Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs questioned more than 5,000 Louisiana residents for its recent \u201cSolve The Budget\u201d project. Residents were asked how they would solve the state\u2019s problem with budget gaps. Results show they didn\u2019t do too well. (That is, they tended to be unable to figure out a way to bridge the budget gap.)<\/p>\n

Alford reports that \u201cThe least popular option [for fixing the budget] was \u2018remove a penny from state sales tax.\u2019 Only 27 percent were in favor of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s unpack that a little. A sales tax for the general population is one of the most regressive taxes a government can levy. The only tax that would be more regressive would be a sales tax that was levied only on those at the poverty level. (Some may recall the time when Margaret Thatcher levied a \u201cpoll tax\u201d on the entire British population in 1990. The people rioted and Thatcher\u2019s government gave her her walking papers.)<\/p>\n

So, here in Louisiana, only 27 percent of the populace would like to cut the sales tax by a penny. Can we interpret that to mean that in Louisiana, only poor people want to cut a tax that hurts only poor people? If that interpretation is correct, those numbers go a long way in explaining why Louisiana is in the condition it\u2019s in.<\/p>\n

The News<\/strong><\/p>\n

To do The News section up right this issue, we\u2019re going to have to start with a headline that was featured in The News of the last issue. That headline read:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Bachelor in Paradise\u2019 cast talks about scandal\u201d \u2014 CNN, June 15.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s pick up this breathtaking story from there:<\/p>\n

\u201cMore \u2018Bachelor in Paradise\u2019 fallout\u201d \u2014 CNN, June 21.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Bachelor in Paradise\u2019 contract exposed\u201d This headline had a subhead: \u201cThis deal is so one-sided, experts say\u201d \u2014 CNN, June 22.<\/p>\n

I am like so into this story because I feel like journalists who use so a lot are like so open-minded and like not one-sided at all and like write so good too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southwest Louisiana schools continue to close because rain is in the weather forecast. Let\u2019s take the case of McNeese State University \u2014 one of the area\u2019s educational institutions for people who are the age of adults. By 2:50 on Tuesday (June 20), the university had announced that it would be closing on Wednesday (June 21)\u00a0 [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[38,37],"yoast_head":"\nIn Doubt? Close It. - BestOfSwla<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2017\/07\/20\/in-doubt-close-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Doubt? Close It. - BestOfSwla\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Southwest Louisiana schools continue to close because rain is in the weather forecast. Let\u2019s take the case of McNeese State University \u2014 one of the area\u2019s educational institutions for people who are the age of adults. 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