EXTREMIST REPUBLICAN LOSES ELECTION IN LOUISIANA

When Republican Rodney Alexander resigned from Congress a few months ago, there wasn’t any real doubt that his Louisiana district would remain in GOP hands. The only question was which Republican would replace him in Louisiana’s ruby-red 5th district.

State Sen. Neil Riser (R) looked like he’d win easily – he received endorsements from Alexander, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the NRA, and nearly all of Louisiana’s Republican congressional delegation. But then the votes were tallied in Saturday’s run-off election, and Vance McAllister (R), a first-time candidate, crushed Riser by nearly 20 points.

Take that Neil Riser, Bobby Jindal, and Eric Cantor!  Follow Gov. Jindal's advice and stop being the stupid party.   Of course, it's quite likely that none of you has any idea how to change direction.

As reported in the Times-Picayune, McAllister favored implementation of the Medicaid expansion section of Obamacare.  The expansion is a no-brainer for Louisiana. The federal program would cover about 400,000 low-income people who have no health insurance, and would not cost the state one cent for 9 years, when the state would assume only 10% of the cost. The good news is the extremist Republican didn't win.  Gov. Bobby Jindal's approval ratings were at 28% in August of this year, and McAllister's election confirms that many citizens in Louisiana do not approve of Jindal's extremist policies.  Keep in mind that the area in which McAllister was elected is conservative, but the extremist candidate was too much for the voters to swallow.

In fairness, it’s worth emphasizing that Rep.-elect McAllister didn’t exactly run as a progressive on health care – the Republican said he’d prefer to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But he nevertheless stuck to a fairly pragmatic line and told the far-right what it didn’t want to hear – repealing the entirety of the law is unrealistic and Medicaid expansion in Louisiana is a sensible move, even if Bobby Jindal pretends otherwise.

In this district, that was a risky move, and it led Riser and his allies to make the race a referendum over health care. And then McAllister won by about 20 points anyway.

National Republicans would be wise to take note. For many in the party, grunting “Obamacare bad!” is a sure-fire recipe for electoral success. Indeed, GOP leaders have started to think it’ll be easy – tie rival candidates to the controversial health care law, watch voters recoil, and wait for the landslide victories to commence.

Republicans may find that they have to dredge up other issues besides Obamacare if they want to win elections. Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi!?  Also, Republicans out there who think Bobby Jindal's support is an asset might want to think again.  If Jindal and his friends and advisers still live in the fantasy world that sees him as having a chance of being nominated or elected to a national office, it's time for them to wake up and take their places in the real world.  

LAFOURCHE PARISH VOTERS - PLEASE GO VOTE AGAINST DEFUNDING LIBRARIES

Thibodaux branch

If you live in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, please go vote against de-funding parish libraries to build a new jail.

Library funding in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, may be diverted to a new jail thanks to a legislator who doesn't approve of the library's programs. Jail proponent and chair of the Lafourche Parish Council Lindel Toups supports a ballot measure that would take funding away from libraries.

“They’re teaching Mexicans how to speak English,” Toups told the local Tri-Parish Times, referencing Biblioteca Hispana, a Spanish-language section of one of the nine branch libraries. “Let that son of a bitch go back to Mexico. There’s just so many things they’re doing that I don’t agree with. ... Them junkies and hippies and food stamps [recipients] and all, they use the library to look at drugs and food stamps [on the Internet]. I see them do it.”

"We are here to serve all of the residents of Lafourche Parish," Library System Director Laura Sanders told the Los Angeles Times. "It doesn't matter what ethnicity they are -- we serve them all."

The comments by Chairman Toups suggest that he would prefer people in the parish not to have access to learning materials and activities, even as it's obvious the chairman's grammar could use a bit of polishing.  I'm sure the library has books that teach grammar to people whose first language is English.  That's not to mention the expletive.  Oddly enough, in my visits to the Thibodaux branch, I don't see what Toups sees.

So, my fellow citizens, please go vote.

Update on the vote to defund libraries:

John Chrastka’s brigade of pissed-off librarians came into the game late in the Louisiana parish ballot referendum defunding libraries for jail money. 

But the social media blitz appears to have paid dividends, both for library funding in Lafourche parish (Louisiana’s term for a county) and for the profile of his political action committee, EveryLibrary. Voters on Saturday rejected by about a five to four margin a ballot initiative to cut library funding to finance the construction of a new jail, a move that would have quickly sent the libraries into deficit.

Excellent.  Folks around here like their public libraries.  Lindel Toups' inflammatory comments, which the newspaper was wise enough to print, probably went a way to help defeat the ballot initiative.  Toups would do well to remember that the libraries have computers and access to the internet, so word gets around.
 

"AMOUR" - THE FILM

To whoever recommended the film "Amour" to me: Thanks and no thanks. What a wrenching emotional workout! The film is superb in every way, direction, acting, cinematography. To say the movie is depressing is weak; I asked myself more than once, "Why do I continue watching? I don't know how much more I can take."

The title is an apt description, for the movie is the love story of a cultivated and sophisticated man and woman, both music teachers, who have been married for many years and now have grown old together. We briefly see their pleasant lives before, Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), the wife, suffers a stroke. Even in the scenes before the tragedy, we sense with foreboding that what follows will not be pleasant for either Anne or her husband Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant.

The writer and director, Michael Haneke, unflinchingly and without sentimentality, depicts the reality of life for the caregiver and the cared-for after disabling tragedy strikes. Haneke does not fear scenes of lingering silence, nor does he scorn blackouts, which go on longer than the viewer expects. Except for the scenes at the beginning, the movie is filmed entirely within the couple's apartment. The setting does not feel unreasonably constrained, for Anne and Georges live their lives within the constricted space, except for brief ventures out which are mentioned but not shown.
 
 Riva and Trintignant are brilliant in their roles. Often without words, we read in their faces their intense love for each other, the severe tests of the strength of that love, and their shared humiliations. The actors, both in their 80s, have not lost the golden touch.
 
 Their daughter, Eva, (Isabelle Huppert) cares about her parents, but she faces challenges in her own life and, though somewhat perplexed, she seems to understand and perhaps envy her parents' devotion to each other - that devotion which effectively excludes intimacy with anyone else, even their own daughter.

The movie is brilliant in its every aspect, but it hit at least this one viewer with a hard emotional punch that I would not want to repeat every day.

THE BLACK MOUNTAINS - WALES

While I was in England, my friend Erika took me on a day trip by car through the Black Mountains to the town of Hay-on Wye in northeastern Wales.   In a later post, I will show my pictures of the town.

The mountains are hills, as my friend Kevin, who lives near the Cascades in the US, reminded me. Whatever - the scenes are beautiful, as you see from the pictures.

The beauty of Wales is one of Britain's well-kept secrets, at least it was to me. I had no idea of the loveliness of the countryside until our visit.

The photo shows plainly a few of the many crevices in the rocky hills.

The animal in the photo is a wild horse. Erika hoped we would see a herd of horses, but one is better than none.  Though if I remember correctly, there may have been another horse in view but too far away to capture in the same picture.

QUIET ROMANTIC DINNER

A man and a woman were having a quiet, romantic dinner in a fine restaurant.  They were gazing lovingly at each other and holding hands.

The waitress, taking another order at a table a few steps away, suddenly noticed the man slowly sliding down his chair and under the table, but the woman stared straight ahead. The waitress watched as the man slid all the way down his chair and out of sight under the table. Still, the woman stared straight ahead.

The waitress, thinking this behavior a bit risque’ and that it might offend other diners, went over to the table and, tactfully, began by saying to the woman "Pardon me, ma'am, but I think your husband just slid under the table."

The woman calmly looked up at her and said, "No, he didn't. He just walked in the door."


Doug strikes again.

EMILINE "DOUCE" BOURGEOIS - OLDEST WOMAN MILITARY VETERAN IN LOUISIANA

Emiline Anne Bourgeois enlisted in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps on Feb. 10, 1945, a week after the U.S. 6th Army invaded Luzon island in the Philippines intent on liberating Manila from the Japanese. About six months later, she was there nursing wounded soldiers.

A Thibodaux native, she served her country through the end of World War II in the Philippines and a post-war, overseas assignment in occupied Germany.

She served stateside through the Korean War and the beginning of the Vietnam War era.

Bourgeois was honorably discharged as a major on Jan. 31, 1962, a rank few women attained back then.

Douce is an old friend and distant cousin. Two years ago, we celebrated her 100th birthday with family and friends. The picture to the right shows Douce with her sister Cora Lee at her birthday party at a local restaurant.  Douce will be 102 years old on on Christmas Eve of this year.

Douce receiving communion from a lay minister dressed in her uniform, which is still a perfect fit.

Douce and I are related through the two brothers pictured in their Confederate uniforms. On the left is Paulin Adrien Ledet, Douce's grandfather, and on the right is François Amedee Ledet, my great-great-grandfather.

REMEMBERING...

My thoughts and feelings on this Sunday when many churches honor the living and dead veterans of our wars are far too conflicted for me to write at length and coherently about the day of remembrance.

A few questions:

Do we remember the glory of war more than the horror of war?

Why, as a country, are we so lacking in care and compassion for many of the living veterans of all our wars? Why do our deeds not match up to our patriotic words?

Thank you, veterans.

MY ADVENTURE AT THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM

During my travels in England, I had an adventure that I didn't tell anyone about until I returned home. One morning when I visited the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, I went down the stairs near the entrance to the ground floor to the cloakroom. As I descended the stairs, there was a red carpet covering a stair near the bottom. A warning, but of what? With my bifocals, which those of you who wear them will understand, downward looks can be distorted. I understood the red carpet warning to be about the last step, but - alas - it was not so. There was one more low step beneath the red carpeted step, which was more or less the same color as the floor, and I missed it and began to fall. Though I tried to catch my fall with my hand on a nearby pillar, I spun around in an intricate and ungraceful ballet maneuver and landed on my padded bottom and banged the back of my head hard on one of the metal lockers lining the wall. I sat dazed for a minute or two, but I never lost consciousness.

A museum employee came running toward me and immediately called the first-aid staff person to tend to me. When he came, he told me to sit for a while and began asking me questions. After a few minutes, he asked if I wanted to try to get up, which I did because people were staring. I managed to get up with his help, and I walked on my own to a room away from public glare. He looked at my pupils, asked me if I could see and hear and if I'd lost consciousness. He looked at my hand which had struck the pillar. It was red but not really injured. He didn't look at my bottom where I landed, but it was well-padded as I've already said, so no injury there.

I've seen pictures of what happens to the brain from a blow on the back of the head; the blow forces the brain forward where it collides with the front of the skull. The back of my head where I hit the metal locker hurt, as did my neck and forehead. I assume the neck pain was due to forward force, sort of the opposite of whiplash. The first-aid person asked questions, took notes, and asked me to sign a paper in which I agreed that the notes he'd made were correct, which they were, and I signed. I presume the papers were necessary in the event I decided to litigate, which I will not unless unforeseen complications develop, which is highly unlikely, as I am fine now.

The employee told me the signs to watch for indicating a concussion, but I already knew them from having three children who received blows on the head in the course of their childhood. Not from their parents, I should add, but rather from the vicissitudes of life. I worried about concussions in my children after head blows, but one of my sons did suffer a concussion at age two or three from falling off the bed while he was jumping on the bed, and it was immediately obvious something was very wrong.

The gentleman finally told me he had done all he could do and asked me if I wanted him to call for further help or walk me back to my hotel, which was only a short distance away. I said no, but I thought a cup of tea would do me good, and if I needed him to walk me back to my hotel, I would call for him. He took me to the café and got me tea. I took a paracetamol and drank my tea slowly and started to feel better. When he came back to check on me, I told him I would continue my walk through the museum. You know, carry on, if you can. When I was done at the museum, I made my way back to my hotel in time to meet a friend. For a few days my head, both in back and in front, along with my neck were sore and painful, but paracetamol relieved the pain, which was not severe. All things considered, I was very fortunate, because I took a hard blow.

I told no one about the accident at the time, because I knew my family and friends at home and in England would worry for the rest of my stay. Perhaps the decision was unwise, but it's what I thought best at the time, and, in the end, I was all right, at least as all right as I was before the fall. All's well that ends well, and it's over now.

The safety expert who ordered red carpet on the next-to-last step made a mistake, in my opinion. Red carpet warning! Be careful! Of what? Not this step, but the next step? That's not how my mind and my bifocals work.

Image from Wikipedia.

AROUND THE MEADOW AT CHRIST CHURCH COLLEGE, OXFORD

My friend Richard and I walked the path around the meadow at Christ Church while I was in Oxford.

The buildings of the college are far in the distance.

As sunset approached, but before Mr Sun disappeared over the horizon, he gave us the wonderful display of color against the dark clouds.

The different appearance of the sky in the various pictures makes it hard even for me to believe that the photos were taken on the same walk.  In the center and to the right, the small brown speck is a deer.

A drainage canal beside the path around the meadow, which Richard said is, "...vitally needed because the land is immensely soggy, and otherwise the cows' hooves would rot....  It's a very damp place, Oxford."

"DIVINITY BELONGS TO THE POST-EASTER JESUS, NOT THE PRE-EASTER JESUS" - MARCUS BORG

"Divinity belongs to the post-Easter Jesus, not the pre-Easter Jesus. To think of Jesus as divine actually diminishes him. If he was divine and had the power of God, then what he did wan’t all that remarkable. He could’ve done so much more.  But the classic Christian affirmation about the pre-
Easter Jesus is not that he was God, but that he was the decisive revelation of God.  This is the cumulative meaning of the exalted language that Christians use for Jesus: in him, we see what can be seen of God in human life.”— Speaking Christian by Marcus Borg

If the classic affirmation about Jesus is that he was not God before the Resurrection, why have I not heard this before now?  What do you think?