Early Monday morning, when I wish I could have slept, I went through the newspapers that had accumulated in my absence. Most of the news was old by then, but here are a few items readers might find of interest.
Steve Scalise, Republican, won election to Congress Saturday. He replaces Bobby Jindal, our new governor. Scalise won 3/4ths of the vote, easily defeating the Democrat, college professor Dr. Gilda Reed.
On the other hand, a Democrat has won the 6th District for Congress, for the first time since 1974. Now the problem for Congress will be learning how to pronounce Don Cazayoux’s name. (Cazzah-you, I suppose)
New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin has become a superdelegate to the Democratic convention scheduled for later this summer. Okay, mayor, Hillary and Barack are calling.
The resident curmudgeon of the Times-Picayune, James Gill, has been writing for this paper for the past couple of centuries it seems. Locals are still talking–and the paper is still going on–about how FBI Special Agent in Charge James Bernazzani was sacked by the big man in Washington, D.C., for even talking out loud about running for mayor of this city. James Gill writes that Bernazzani is one ignorant fellow for losing his job over a position he cannot qualify for. Turns out that to run for mayor, one must have lived her for five years, something the G-man misses by a few months.
Someone wrote to the paper rather unhappy with Gill and the way he put down Bernazzani, calling him clueless. “We need ten more just like Bernazzani,” he said, “while the one James Gill we have is one too many.”
Ryan Perrilloux has been kicked off the LSU football team. He’s a local boy and three years ago ranked as one of the nation’s premier high school talents. When he signed at LSU, he beamed, “I’m going to win the Heisman all four years.” Now, look at him. Coach Les Miles isn’t talking, but those who do say he’s immature, does not follow through on commitments he makes to the coach, and tested positive for drugs recently. Sad. He seems to be his own worst enemy, a not uncommon problem.
Everyone waits to see what will happen at the Hornets-Spurs basketball playoff game tonight. Saturday night, at the break between the first and second quarters, the Hornets’ mascot, SuperHugo, tried a stunt that backfired. He ran, jumped onto a small trampoline and vaulted through a burning hoop to dunk the ball. That worked fine. Then the people helping him could not extinguish the fire. The plan called for them to smother the flames, but when the fire did not cooperate, arena officials grabbed fire extinguishers and began spraying furiously. That put the fire out, but coated the arena floor with something like fine sand. A delay of some twenty minutes followed as workers labored to clean the mess and make the floor safe for the players. During halftime, workers came back out onto the court and tried to finish their job.
Such foolishness. I guarantee that stunt will never be performed here again, and it will be interesting to see if SuperHugo still has a job. Just play ball, I say.
Watching Saturday night’s game from Nauvoo, you couldn’t help but notice all the fans wearing gold t-shirts. Turns out the Hornets laid 18,000 of them across every seat in the New Orleans Arena. Neat.
One more sports thing. In Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, one of our true “characters,” Ronnie Lamarque–car dealer, singer, showman–had his horse, Recapturetheglory, come in fifth. Lamarque is the subject of a front-page article in Thursday’s Times-Picayune. Underneath his photo, get this: “Vivacious car dealer has found God, quit drinking.”
Not long ago, we reported here on the death and funeral of Al Copeland, a character if God ever invented one. Lamarque is in the same category: flashy, colorful, expensive lifestyle, trophy wife, that sort of thing. But he has changed, he says, and we are happy to join the celebration. According to the article, Lamarque, age 62 (wasn’t that the same age as Copeland?), says the transformation began at the birth of his son 11 years ago. “I went from being a Catholic to wanting to know more about the Holy Bible.” He began attending Fellowship Bible Church in Metairie “to learn the word of God and have a personal relationship with my Lord and savior Jesus Christ.”
Lamarque’s friends call him a Jesus freak, he says, but that’s fine with him. He gave up alcohol a year ago.
He did admit that trying to reconcile his horse racing with his newfound religious faith would be problematic for some. “Personally, I look at it as a business and a game of chance.” Then he says, “Would Jesus be in the horse business? I don’t think so. So I have to live with that.”
Lamarque used to sing “Volare” on his car commercials and was asked about singing a song for his horse scheduled to run two days later in the Derby. He said, “This is a real tough horse to write a song about. I believe the song days are over, even though I’m a better singer now than I ever was. I just do ‘To God Be the Glory’ now–that’s my song.”
Governor Bobby Jindal has sent word to the legislature that they may not continue handing out state money to their favorite projects without scrutiny. He listed four criteria that must be met before non-governmental organizations receive state money. The spending must have statewide or regional impact, must be a priority of some state agency, and must be openly discussed in legislative session. That’s only three, but from the news report, I couldn’t figure out the fourth one.
Good for you, Governor.
Looks like Ronnie Lamarque isn’t the only one having a “come to Jesus” experience, huh?
Ellen Crowell wants to thank the fellow who rescued her and her husband from Katrina’s floodwaters 32 months ago. They rode out the storm, only to have the levees break and flood their St. Bernard neighborhood. The water forced them into the attic. With one inch of water in the attic, the level quit rising. But now they were stuck–no food, no drinking water, no clothes. Then she heard voices outside. A man (wearing a t-shirt that said “Curtis”) and his two sons were in a rowboat looking for the stranded. Ellen kept yelling, they heard her, and chopped a hole into the roof and freed them.
Mrs. Crowell says, “My husband was HIV positive for 16 years. When Curtis hoisted him up out of the hole, he scraped his shin and began bleeding. He told Curtis, ‘I’m bleeding and I’m HIV positive.’ But that man said ‘I don’t care!’ Blood was everywhere, but he just said ‘I don’t care about that, man’ and carried Louis to the boat.”
The rescuers dropped the Crowells off at the parish jail and went in search of others. Louis and Ellen ended up in Athens, Texas, where they have family. He died in May of 2006. She’s living in a mobile home out there and wishes she could find Curtis to thank him. “I don’t have any money,” she emphasized. She just feels the need to say thanks.
One of my pet peeves is concert performers who forget their audience and do a program just for themselves. Reviewer Keith Spera describes Stevie Wonder’s Jazzfest concert Friday evening in those terms. The crowd was huge and they were ready for “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” and “I Just Called” and such golden oldies. Here’s what Spera said.
“From the get-go, (Wonder) made clear that the set would proceed according to his own inscrutable pace. He opened with a monologue about his mother’s death at this time of year and the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and asked for a moment of silence.”
“That silence pretty much describes the audience reaction to the show’s early going, a dreary procession of ballads and ad-libs about $4 gallons of gas and the need for global unity.”
Toward the end of the article, Spera writes, “When all was said and done, Friday featured a tremendous, hour-long Stevie Wonder performance. Too bad he required twice as long to deliver it.”
Reminds you of some sermons you’ve heard, doesn’t it? (Thought I would say it before you did.) I heard one not long ago–forget who preached it–and thought, “That fellow missed a number of great stopping places.”
A blue-ribbon panel of civic and business leaders is suggesting that the ownership of the New Orleans International Airport be transferred from the city to the state. Since the city’s coffers are empty, the money to upgrade the facilities and appearance of the airport is not available, whereas the state could step in and do something big and do it quick. Stay tuned.
That’s a good stopping place. So I will.