Recently in Social/Cultural Category

I wonder if DWI enforcement is still off the NOPD radar. It's certainly not for the JPSO, but this study would have looked at Orleans Parish stats:

We looked at annual death rates due to alcoholic liver disease, as well as who's headed there by regularly downing five or more drinks in a sitting (CDC). Next, we factored in drunk-driving arrests (FBI) and the percentage of fatal accidents involving intoxicated motorists (U.S. Department of Transportation). Then, after tallying the MADD report card of state efforts to cut down on excessive drinking, we had our ranking and, for the state of Colorado, an invitation to AA.

The list below ranks the cities from most dangerously drunk to least dangerously drunk.

Most Dangerously Drunk

100. Denver, CO F

99. Anchorage, AK F

98. Colorado Springs, CO F

97. Omaha, NE F

96. Fargo, ND F

95. San Antonio, TX F
...
...
...
Least Dangerously Drunk

10. Jersey City, NJ B+

9. Richmond, VA B+

8. New York, NY B+

7. Little Rock, AR A-

6. Salt lake City, UT A-

5. Yonkers, NY A-

4. Jackson, MS A

3. Buffalo, NY A

2. Miami, FL A

1. Durham, NC A+

Baton Rouge was 15, a B+. But then, LSU students can usually walk/stagger home rather than drive.

...although I'm more inclined to eat a baked potato than I am to order fries:

Women who eat crisps or chips every day may double their chances of ovarian or womb cancer, say scientists.

The fears surround acrylamides, chemicals produced when you fry, grill or roast a wide range of foods.

The experts say avoid overcooking fried foods to limit the intake of acrylamides. I'm good with that--never been a big fan of burnt food.

Unlike wherever you came from originally, New Orleanians are, by and large, a friendly lot. We tell people good morning when we pass by on the sidewalk. People are more likely to wave at someone in a car when at a red light. We're more likely to chat each other up in line at the coffee shop in the morning.

Get used to it.

As much as sometimes the rest of the Baptist South doesn't like to claim New Orleans, we're still part of the south. Not only is the city steeped in Southern Culture, we pretty much created a goodly portion of said culture. That means you should expect to hear yourself referred to in a number of different manners depending on the social or business situation.

Get used to it.

For openers, we tend to go a step beyond friendly; we're polite. You'll hear a lot of "yes, ma'am" and "no, ma'am" when working with folks. In business settings, that politeness takes on a more formal tone. You may find yourself referred to as "Ms. So-and-so" by people when you're introduced. Even after someone's been working with you for a few hours or days, they may still put that "Ms." in front of your first name. (The increase in our hispanic population in the city has compunded this particular reference, since a lot of Mexicans and Central Americans would use "senor" or "senora" in conversation in Spanish. They automatically use the honorific in English as well.)

Get used to it.

When you get into a retail setting, the rules change a bit. A lot of people who work in bakeries, po-boy places, grocery stores, and restaurants don't feel the need to be as formal. They've got a "mi casa es su casa" attitude about their place of business, and it shows.

Get used to it.

New Orleanians love endearments. Whether it's darlin' (usually pronounced "dawlin"), heart, boo, honey, hun, or sweetie for a woman, or cap, sport, buddy, or big guy for a man, people who work in retail want to be friendly. They want you to feel like you're family. If they knew your name, they'd start with "Hi, Ms. Jane," but even then, they'll lapse back to heart or darlin'. If they don't know your first name, they don't want you to feel left out, so you'll be boo from the get-go.

Get used to it.

Women and men both use these endearments. They transcend age--you might see a thirty-something woman call a sixty-something female customer "sweetie," and the older lady isn't going to take offense. Same goes for men. These guys aren't lounge lizards who are trying to hit on women in a bar; it's not sexual harassment.

Get used to it.

How we behave towards each other is part of the social contract we all buy into when we move into a community. There's a codocil in that contract in this community that says these sorts of endearments are not to be considered offensive, nor do they create a hostile workplace. If you don't want to be addressed as "honey" or "boo," I'm sure you can get your coffee at a national chain like Starbucks, where their standards are defined more by people that come from places like you do rather than New Orleanians. If you prefer eating our food and drinking our coffee, however, you have to accept our social contract.

Get used to it.

Or don't, we really don't care. Well, actually we do care. We hate to think we've been rude to folks.

Love,
YatPundit

I swear, band drummers never stop tapping...maybe it's a better idea than the meds:

Drugs for ADHD 'not the answer' Craig Buxton has been on medication for a decade Treating children who have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder with drugs is not effective in the long-term, research has shown.

A study obtained by the BBC's Panorama programme says drugs such as Ritalin and Concerta work no better than therapy after three years of treatment.

Read the full article. I've never been a big fan of these meds, but some parents swear by them. I've been fortunate that mine aren't ADHD.

But if you can't offer one as a reason for hanging one, you deserve to be fired:

THIBODAUX, La. -- A Thibodaux police officer was ultimately fired for having a Confederate license plate and a noose hanging from the rear-view mirror of his personal car, Chief Craig Melancon.

Cpl. Michael Rodrigue had the vehicle parked on city property. A dozen black police officers went to the chief of police about the display.

"They're hurt by it. You know, what could he possibly be representing to put something like this up?" Melancon said.

The problem is not the noose by itself, but the combination of the Confederate flag and the noose. Seriously, the noose could be explained. Look at the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office. Former Judge Ronald Bodenheimer (R-Club Fed), prior to taking the bench (and subsequently going to jail), Bodenheimer was an assistant district attorney in Jefferson parish. On the wall in his chambers was a "Big Prick" award, a giant hypodermic needle commerating one of the death-penalty cases Bodenheimer prosecuted and won. Subsequent to that, Jefferson Parish ADAs began to sport ties with hangman's nooses and "grim reapers" on them. The practice was banned after defense attorneys complained, but it's an example that Cpl. Rodrigue could have used to defend himself.

Well, had he not put up the rebel flag, of course.

I hope they have a "STUPID" stamp to use on his termination papers down in Thibodaux.

Lois Maxwell has died at age 80.

What a gal.

And that's two high-profile deaths today, who will be the third, i wonder?

(This is my Daily Kos diary entry for today)

Ohmy, all the navel-gazing and hand-wringing in the Blogosphere over the Jena 6! Like others here, I'm concerned that a front-page dKos post strolls down memory lane while there's a lot of work to be done on this issue. I'm also amused by the notion that the "black blogosphere" is annoyed with the "white-o-sphere" because the liberal white folks are coming very late to the party and still aren't doing enough to help the Jena 6.

On the subject of helping the Jena 6, let me also pimp blueintheface's diary from earlier today. I'd like to go a bit further and suggest a few more things.

Give to the Jena 6 defense fund. blueintheface already mentioned this, but let me re-empasize this. Even pro-bono legal work comes with expenses, not to mention the fact that these families have been turned upside down by all this. Hell, someone should probably start a fund to re-locate these folks to someplace where the kluxers of the local klaven won't come after them once the bright light isn't shining on Jena. And if you think that's not going to happen, consider the fact that they found a shotgun in the truck with the nooses today.

Contact the Louisiana Attorney General, Charles C. Foti and encourage him to start an investigation into the LaSalle Parish District Attorney's office. The Grand High Foti has had himself a helluva time sticking his nose into cases in Orleans Parish lately, so he's no stranger to flexing the muscle of his office. Be sure to remind Mr. Foti that, once upon a time, New Orleans Archbishop Rummel excommunicated a politician for refusing to integrate schools, so stopping racism is as important to the church as stopping euthanasia.

Encourage Democratic Presidential Candidates to visit Jena. If you really want to mess with the law enforcement agencies of Jena and LaSalle Parish, get Edwards, Clinton, and Obama to pay courtesy calls on the families of these young men. Those families need all the nelp and encouragement they can get. Of course, any visit from one of the big three Dems will mean that their USSS protective details are going to go with them. Those agents don't have a lot of patience for the KKK or local government officials who enable them.

Encourage the FBI to stay on the case. Yeah, the DoJ blew off the investigation, but that doesn't mean fed involvement has to be over. Write Director Mueller and remind him that most of the kluxers are really just criminals who need to be slapped down, racial implications notwithstanding. The political hacks at Justice may not care because of the Kanye West theory, but common criminals offend the institutional sensibilities of the FBI.

Speak up on racism in your community. Make sure your community doesn't become Jena. Consider starting a chapter of ERACE, an organization here in New Orleans whose mission is to open up dialog on racism with the hope that talking will promote understanding. ERACE has information on how you can facilitate dialog in your local community on their website.

Now, onto the subject of the colors of the liberal blogosphere. While I join with ProgressiveSouth in wondering why some of the major lefty sites in Teh Blogosphere haven't emphasized the story of the Jena 6 as strongly as perhaps they should, I'm wondering about this whole notion of the "black blogosphere" and the "white blogosphere." Maybe it's just me, but a lot of the black folks I know down here are pretty much still working on trying to make The Road Home program work for them so they can re-build their still-gutted houses in Gentilly.

Still, if there is indeed a "black blogosphere" that is upset with the "white blogosphere" about the Jena 6, I would strongly suggest that there might be a few things happening that are just a tad bit more important than the plight of six young men in Central Louisiana. I'd further suggest that the "black blogosphere" get off its Collective Black Blogging Ass, come down to New Orleans, pick up a hammer and help Habitat for Humanity re-build the Ninth Ward. Maybe I'm a bit selfish on this issue, but the 100,000+ black New Orleanians who were put on buses and shipped out of state might be just as important as six kids who like to fight.

Lefties, as in left-handed folks, that is:

Scientists have been left scratching their heads with both hands, after research showed the number of left-handed people in the population has almost quadrupled over the last 100 years.

According to The Telegraph, the proportion of folks fiddling with standard corkscrews and taking their lives in their hands by using right-handed scissors has increased to 11 per cent, compared to three per cent a century ago.

The reason for the increase? Well, we've been here all along:

The conclusion is that it is largely down to schooling. Whereas the left-handed Victorian and Edwardian school child would have been soundly thrashed before having his left hand nailed to the desk, today's kids are free to use any hand they want, teachers being pleased they've decided to turn up at all.

And carry that as late as WWII. The nuns at Good Shepherd in Manhattan went out of their way to try to break him of left-handedness. One particular none, er, nun, when she realized there was no way he was ever going to write with his right hand, began to break him of the left-handed trait of writing upside-down. She would crack him on the left wrist with a ruler, so that he eventually wrote perfect Palmer Method script as if he was right-handed.

If any teacher tried that with my left-handed kiddo, I'd shove the ruler up her ass.

...passed away Tuesday. I was catching up on Adrastos' blog and he had this vid of Weather Report's "Birdland"

which led me to this Manhattan Transfer vid of the tune:

Gotta love those 1980s hairstyles...

RIP, Zwainul.

The Black and Gold Patrol report that the "All American" fans of Indianapolis are, well, pretty much assholes:

The Colts fans made it personal alright.

Dilly went with me to purchase socks at TJ MAX where a clerk refused to wait on Saints fans and someone else said she would check us out.

That's was even before we pulled out the signage!

I was hailed by such treasures of Midwestern American charm as :

"I hope the levees break again and kill you."

"What are you doing here? We don't want you here."

"New Orleans SHOULD have another hurricane."

and the charm as we were leaving the stadium:

"Let us take a picture flipping you off."

When I was in Indianapolis earlier this year, the best sightseeing suggestion they could offer me was to tour the raceway, and the burger place all those guys raved about couldn't hold a candle to any of the places here in New Orleans.

and now they're going to flip us off? Pffft. Put them in the same duck pit as Bears fans.