The Legislature appears to be following the lead of Gov. Bobby Jindal in rejecting the expansion of Medicaid insurance coverage for the poor. But if lawmakers think they’ve put the issue to bed, they should think again. If a coalition of congregations and community organizations has its way, Medicaid expansion remains a battle, and grassroots … Continue reading →

The makeup of the state Senate committee did not augur well for a Cajun bill, Scott Angelle noted. The committee included an Adley, a Buffington, a Nevers, a Smith and a Heitmeier, but there was nary a Boudreaux or a Lapeyrouse in sight. Angelle, a Public Service Commissioner, was there in support of a … Continue reading →

We don’t know if a new law in Ascension Parish aimed at stopping underage drinking will hold up in court, but we hope it focuses attention on a problem that extends far beyond Ascension: Underage kids drinking at house parties hosted by parents. The law, recently approved by the Ascension Parish Council, prohibits minors from drinking … Continue reading →

We didn’t know whether to cry or smile at the news that 828 volunteers in Louisiana cleaned up 7,800 pounds of trash from beach fronts and waterways in five parishes last fall as part of the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup. We’re distressed that so much trash litters our lakes and coastlines, but we’re heartened that … Continue reading →

Oh my, there she goes again. In her letter included in your newspaper dated May 18 entitled “HB116 promotes creationism,” Barbara Forrest continues to promote one version of origins as the only acceptable one for public educational institutions. I make three points in response. First, it appears to me that the biblical information … Continue reading →

May is National Skin Cancer Awareness Month, and with skin cancer on the rise, everyone should know their risk for the disease. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1.5 million cases of skin cancer will be diagnosed this year. Despite common myths, everyone, regardless of skin color, can get skin cancer. While skin cancer … Continue reading →

National Time Out Day will be practiced in hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers around the country on June 12. Taking a “time out” before operative and other invasive procedures is a requirement of the Joint Commission Universal Protocol to prevent wrong site, wrong procedure surgery. Despite this requirement, the Joint Commission estimates that wrong site surgeries occur … Continue reading →

What seems like forever ago, I was sitting in the Student Union at Southern University playing Spades and Bid Whist. Folks were eating chili-slathered hot sausage poboys and fries. Some of the deep-thinking poli sci and philosophy students were debating the great issues of the day. Others were off in their own worlds bobbing their … Continue reading →

Orleans Parish Criminal District Judge Frank Marullo said that being the victim of a carjacking Tuesday “is nothing unusual. I wish it was unusual, but it isn’t.” We hope that Marullo’s comments aren’t taken as evidence that crime in New Orleans is simply a fact of life. City residents and their leaders need resolve, not resignation, … Continue reading →

Thank you for the nice article by Scott Gold about Chef Greg Sonnier. Nice read. However, if The Advocate is hoping to replace the Times-Picayune as our best-source newspaper, it would be helpful for all of the writers at your paper to become more knowledgable and accurate regarding the story about the floods that ravaged our … Continue reading →

Dr. W.A. Krotoski’s missive of May 17 in the editorial section of The Advocate prompts a response from me. As a board-certified specialist in both obstetrics/gynecology and reproductive endocrinology/infertility whose medical practice is devoted to bringing children into the most-wanted homes on the planet, I must take issue with Dr. Krotoski’s understanding of gestational surrogacy. … Continue reading →

It’s a frequent complaint when governors and legislators are confronted with having to make state budget cuts. Too many areas of the budget — the spending plan for state government — are off limits, leaving health care and higher education bearing the brunt of the cuts. The complaint is heard year-after-year as the administration and … Continue reading →

We wish East Baton Rouge Parish officials well in their plans to convert the site long known as Woman’s Hospital to a new public safety complex. The Metro Council voted unanimously to pay $11 million for the site at Airline Highway and Goodwood Boulevard, which became available when Woman’s Hospital moved to a new campus … Continue reading →

Is contracting out of state operations to businesses the wave of the future? It’s certainly been a big agenda item for Gov. Bobby Jindal. Several of his privatization initiatives sparked controversy, from the big changes underway at charity hospitals to smaller moves that have laid off state employees in favor of private-sector contractors. While that is … Continue reading →

Lewis Thomas, a gifted physician and author, took pleasure in reminding graduates that diplomas came from humble origins. “The word diploma comes, simply and by definition, from duo, two,” he wrote in 1990. “A diploma was a sheet of paper folded double.” But the real of value of a diploma isn’t the document … Continue reading →

The Legislature’s debate over the budget and the film tax credit program continues as the legislative session begins to wind down. The focus is on what can be done this year to control the cost of the program without causing any harm to the industry by the possibility of reduced film production. Missing in the discussion is … Continue reading →

Lately it has almost become a rule of thumb that those who decry left-wing bias are those who have a right-wing bias. This surely applies to Jim Richoux’s rant on the May 17 Advocate opinion page. I haven’t been a reader of The Advocate for very long, but one thing I know is that it … Continue reading →

Your recent editorial urging investments for young children is spot on. Unfortunately, in lean budget times children’s services appear to be a target for reductions. One has only to compare the appropriations for the current fiscal year to the requested amounts for next year to realize that truth. The actual dollar difference between the years … Continue reading →

I have a little booklet that my dad got when he was mustered out of the Navy at the end of World War II. It’s titled “Going Back to Civilian Life.” It details things returning veterans should know: benefits available to them and their families, advice on keeping the government life insurance they may have had … Continue reading →

The message from New Orleans Police Chief Ronal Serpas could hardly be more reassuring. If you don’t count murders, New Orleans is an “incredibly safe city.” And, in case there are still a few nervous Nellies out there, Mayor Mitch Landrieu will always be there to spread the same encouraging news. While the bodies … Continue reading →

Question: “At what point do we stop giving away our revenues?” That query from state Rep. Jay Morris, R-Monroe, was answered the day he asked it in the state House: not yet. The latest giveaway — er, that’s development tax credit — was pushed by Rep. Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, to revamp an insurance premium tax … Continue reading →

As hurricane survivors, many of us in south Louisiana are painfully familiar with the damage that bad weather can bring to a community. That’s why we have a special sympathy for Oklahoma residents as they recover from a huge tornado that ripped through the suburbs of Oklahoma City, killing a number of people and injuring many others. Continue reading →

Defendants in two emotionally charged criminal cases in the Felicianas, and their attorneys, spared a large number of people the horrifying ordeal of participating, in one fashion or another, in criminal trials this year. Brett Gerald, who’ll be 31 on May 30 — exactly one year after he killed seven Baton Rouge … Continue reading →

This week, the Louisiana House will vote on Senate Bill 242, an innovative plan put forth by New Orleans tourism leadership that ensures the continued vitality of the state’s valuable tourism industry. Like other statewide initiatives that receive some public dollars, tourism marketing efforts are potential victims of on-going financial stress and significant governmental cutbacks. SB242, if … Continue reading →

I am writing in response to the opinion piece, “BR breakaway district not a done deal,” written by Will Sentell and published on May 18. In this column, Sentell gives the impression that he supports the breakaway district and he seems to characterize all opponents as “Democrats who are less inclined to favor big changes in public … Continue reading →

Edward Buckner, president of the Original 7 Social Aid and Pleasure Club, writing about the tragedy surrounding their Mother’s Day Parade, seeks a restorative-justice approach that would “more deeply repair the harm.” Buckner, a former board member of our organization, knows that our current system of criminal justice is not working. Most people … Continue reading →

Recently The Advocate juxtaposed its near-weekly plaint regarding our “absentee” governor to a cartoon showing a caricature of Bobby Jindal in a straightjacket, mouthing the words: “Any Republican that’s thinking about running for president in 2016 needs to have his head examined” (see “Our Views,” May 17). The implication was clear. My mind … Continue reading →

Look behind the crime statistics in any major city in America, and you’re likely to find that a lot of young dropouts are committing a sizeable number of the offenses. That’s why we applaud the efforts of East Baton Rouge Parish officials in fighting truancy — the chronic absence of children from school. In … Continue reading →

Perhaps the most encouraging development in the recent arrest of two young men accused of shooting into a New Orleans Mother’s Day parade was the number of people willing to phone in anonymous tips about what they saw during the shooting. The shooting in the Crescent City’s 7th Ward left 19 shot and another trampled. Shawn … Continue reading →

Every April we hear grand political pronouncements about preventing genocide and to “Never Forget!” April, the month in 1945 when U.S. troops liberated Nazi concentration camps, is also the month when genocide broke out in Rwanda in 1994. To make such pronouncements in an obligatory and perfunctory manner mocks the horror that the victims … Continue reading →

Every day American workers face threats to the security of their jobs. The U.S. merchant marine knows this all too well. Today, less than 2 percent of imports and exports are carried on U.S.-flagged ships, while over 98 percent of cargoes travel on foreign-flagged vessels that do not employ U.S. citizens or pay taxes to the United … Continue reading →

Albert Einstein has been credited with stating that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This aptly describes the Republicans in Congress on their 37th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Unfortunately, my congressman, Dr. Bill Cassidy, is front and center in this exercise in … Continue reading →

It’s been just over three years since the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, killing 11 people and spilling millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf. An untold number of pelicans and other animals succumbed to the oil slick that polluted large swaths of coast … Continue reading →

In rejecting a bill to expand public access to the records of the Governor’s Office, the House and Governmental Affairs Committee early in this legislative session struck a blow against transparency in state government. The bill was defeated after opposition by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s executive counsel, Thomas Enright. That’s a sad development from a governor who entered his … Continue reading →

If the good people of South Carolina want to elect to Congress a philandering ex-governor who lied about being on the Appalachian Trail, that’s up to them. Yet as John Nichols reminded readers of The Nation magazine, the election of Mark Sanford was not as far-fetched as many thought. The reason: It was a GOP district, … Continue reading →

I have been teaching in the Louisiana public school system for seven years. Frankly, I am appalled that the Senate would even consider removing the Common Core State Standards from Louisiana schools and continue to use the Louisiana Comprehensive Curriculum. First of all, the LCC … Continue reading →

Providing vouchers to children who attend failing schools does not solve the problem of public education. Even if we assume that children are getting a better education at private schools, the vouchers are only helping a small number of students. What about the many other children who … Continue reading →

The Louisiana Science Education Act promotes a greater discussion of science, not religion, in public school classrooms. Unfortunately, The Advocate obscured that fact by initially titling its May 3 article on the law “Creation science repeal fails.” Contrary to the article’s initial title and those quoted in the … Continue reading →

In reference to the May 10 letter “Erroneous judgement on religion,” Wayne Pace conveniently used only Muslims to agree with Michael Polito that religion is and has been used to perpetuate ideologies that caused death and destruction to the masses. He conveniently left out the Spanish Inquisition and … Continue reading →

After years of fighting attempts to tweak or lessen the generosity of Louisiana’s film tax break program, industry leaders have come to the negotiating table. Apparently, they realize that lawmakers are feeling a lot less generous these days. The state’s continuing budget woes, stretching into a sixth year, have provoked new scrutiny for the billions of … Continue reading →

A major mobile phone corporation launched an attack on Sen. David Vitter, R-La., during the same week the senator used social media websites to ask people for pictures of “free cell phone” booths and signs. Earlier this month, Vitter filed legislation to end the GOP-maligned subsidies for low-income families to receive mobile phone services. Continue reading →

Oil City, home to just 1,000 souls, is in the middle of nowhere — Caddo Parish, to be precise — but life there is far from uneventful. As many as 25 wild hogs might show up at any time and start rooting around. It wouldn’t do much good … Continue reading →

Even as a bipartisan majority in the state House celebrates its renovation to the budget proposal of Gov. Bobby Jindal, the spotlight moves to the Senate, where a new phase of budget deliberations begins. If history is any guide, the Senate will consult with the governor on changes to the House-passed product. But the significance of … Continue reading →

In a state with high levels of illiteracy, promoting reading is especially important. That’s why we welcome the approach of summer reading programs in public libraries across south Louisiana, thanks to the support of the State Library of Louisiana. The State Library, which sets the theme for each year’s program and provides support to library systems … Continue reading →

In politics, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. That is a lesson both for Gov. Bobby Jindal, and for those who push him to expand Medicaid insurance for people in need in Louisiana. The Legislative Fiscal Office suggested that taking the federal aid that would expand health care would be a … Continue reading →