Monday, July 24, 2006

"Jackman to Bogalusa"

Jackman, Maine sent lumber to Bogalusa City Schools in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Daily News article here.

Some students at Forrest Hills High School made a film about it for their local student film festival. Kennebec Journal Online article.

Watch "Jackman to Bogalusa".

One list of Maine contributors to Katrina relief. Thank you!

Jackman, Maine Chamber of Commerce.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Friends of Preston Hartzog

Welcome! I see you - from all over the world - finding this blog through search engines.

I don't know any of his family myself, but I'm certain they would like you to sign his guestbook at Poole-Ritchie Funeral Home.

Obit at Nino Boxing.
Obit at The Daily News

Note in The Daily News obituary that the family requests donations sent to the Shane Kellis Fund (address given).

The good ol' days

Relive 'em with DVDs from the Bogalusa Dirt Cheap! Ozzie and Harriet, Shirley Temple, Laurel & Hardy, Rin-Tin-Tin. Fifty cents apiece.

Family entertainment without sexual innuendo - a concept that deserves revival.

Two men. One war.

Normally I don't comment on national and international news except as it relates to the Bogalusa-Washington Parish area.

But there is dissatisfaction with the Mainstream Media - the "MSM" - these days. Articles presented as reporting are biased and opinionated. This is especially true when it comes to war, terrorism, and the United States and our allies.

For an up-close-and-personal perspective on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, you owe it to yourself to read Flyertalk scoops the world with news report!. The forum has been mentioned on CNN and MSNBC.

"Dovster," a kibbutz resident with dual US-Israel citizenship, living within sight of the the Lebanese border. And "BEYFlyer," formerly of Beirut, now with his family on a mountaintop overlooking the city.

Politics is left at the door. Pour yourself a cuppa, start at the beginning, and follow the war through the eyes of two citizens who are watching the rockets' red glare.

Also:
Ha'aretz
Jerusalem Post
Honest Reporting

Blogs:
Israellycool --> Good info and many links: Israeli MSM, other Israeli and Middle Eastern blogs

Charges of racism flung

From the recent Daily News article on yet more school board shenanigans, this interesting bit:

A Massachusetts transplant who has been in Bogalusa for three years, Donnamarie Barker, the child of a racially mixed couple, said Bogalusa is not different than any number of other places in terms of racial tensions - citing her and her white mother's own experiences with discrimination in the North.
Oh. That's okay, then [sarcasm].

If I had a dime for every time some Southerner claimed moral equivalency - "They discriminate in the North, too!" - I'd be rich.

How about rising above other regions, Bogalusa? Instead of being proud you're as bad as they are.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Humble pie, served warm

July 10th editorial:

It's all about attitude and, outside the "Bogalusa means business" campaign, ours is not that good.
Said without a trace of irony, too.

I'd suggest you start with admitting all the problems Bogalusa has, and quit blaming "outsiders" - those who weren't born here - for our sorry state of affairs.

Previous:
Just go home?
Crime in Bogalusa

Skateboard park under construction

Good news for area kids:

The YMCA is installing a skateboard park on the old tennis court between the pool and walking track at Goodyear Park.
In the same article:
The leadership of the Bogalusa YMCA, which is currently divided between Avenue B and Avenue U locations, has been working to unite the two into one new facility. Parker is hopeful that will happen within the next couple of years.
These two facilities are often referred to as the "black Y" and the "white Y" by locals. Maybe in a couple years, we'll quit with the unofficial apartheid.

Jan. 12 driver pleads guilty

From the Sun Herald:

GULFPORT, Miss. - A college student whose alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit when he was in a crash that killed six friends has been sentenced to a year of house arrest.

Chris Rutland, 21, waived his right to indictment and pleaded guilty Thursday before a Harrison County circuit courtroom of friends and relatives of the victims, who were graduates of Mercy Cross High School in Biloxi.

Allen Martel, the only surviving passenger, was among those who begged the judge for mercy.

Read the whole thing.

More here.

Previous:
Underage drinking at a Bogalusa bar?
More on Jan. 12 fatal crash

Friday, July 07, 2006

Sheesh, again.

As of the time of this post, July 7, 2006, The Daily News has still not updated their online edition.

The June 30, 2006 issue is still showing.

Hey! Anybody home over there?!

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Weather and burning

The area enjoyed more rain today.

According to the Washington Parish Government site today [see link at left], there is no burn ban.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

The Daily Snooze

It's July 5, 2006. And The Daily News still has their June 30 issue online.

Wake up, folks.

Stormy weather

Much of the Bogalusa area had a goodly amount of rainfall today. Hooray!

Bogalusa man kills terminally ill wife

At the WWL-TV site:

BOGALUSA -- An 85-year-old man allegedly shot and killed his terminally ill wife in an effort to ease her suffering, police said Wednesday.

A nurse’s aide heard a gunshot early in the morning at the home of John and Elsie Purvis, police said. Link

According to the brief article, charges have not been filed against him.

Registration sometimes required at WWL; use BugMeNot.

Happy Independence Day!

Nice-sized, peaceful crowd at the fireworks display.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Crime in Bogalusa

Take a surf on over to this page, read it and weep, fellow citizens.

Compare Bogalusa to anywhere. You'll get numbers, a graph, and two tables. One shows the crimes per 100,000 people in each city chosen, and what the national average is.

Bogalusa was above the national average in every single category in 2004. Which is well before Hurricane Katrina and those transplants.

Aggravated assault and burglary were about three times the nat'l average.

Oh, yeah, the city of Bogalusa was so calm and peaceful before those dang Katrina refugees, huh? [sarcasm]

Link to the comparison page shamelessly borrowed from a message at the Hard Copy board - see list on the left.

Just go home?

What looks like an unsigned editorial in the June 30, 2006 issue of The Daily News.

Hateful stuff. But then, Bogalusa has a sordid history of hate, and a distrust of "outsiders" which some older residents blame all those old problems on. "Problems" like fair treatment and integration. A reputation like that dies a hard, slow, noisy death.

What did the charming Daily News editor tell us?

T here were two drive-by shootings and an arson within a 24-hour period in our community on Wednesday and all have been tied back to New Orleans.

Allrighty. I guess people came up here from The Big Easy and raised some heck, huh?
In the arson, a New Orleans resident took a cab to the apartment of his ex-girlfriend, broke in and started a fire.

Took a cab all the way from New Orleans?? 60-something miles? Wow.
According to Bogalusa police, all those involved in the shootings - with the exception of victim Dagrick Moses - were "New Orleans transplants."

Big effin' deal. There are a whole lot of folks in the area who moved here from somewhere else. Apparently since Katrina, there are 8,000 to 10,000 of them.

Last time I checked, the people who are considered to have founded Bogalusa moved to the area from somewhere else. Stop the presses!
We don't need New Orleans' mess that has spilled all over the Southeast and Southwest in our community. Goodness knows, we have enough problems of our own without that brought along by transplanted thugs.

Hate, hate, hate. Even though there's a bit of a disclaimer in the second sentence - "we have enough problems of our own" - there's a clear implication that things were rollin' along just fine before those dang "New Orleans thugs" moved here.

You know, those "transplants." Those "come-heres."

Jeez, out of several thousand people, I betcha a few of them were bad guys. Ya think?

Oh, and Daily News? The correct term for people who have been living here long enough to vote is residents.

Residents, yes. Many of whom are sick and tired of the slurs against those who weren't born in Bogalusa, the town that smells like a fart.

Perhaps they'll register to vote and get some new blood in office. Hopefully, they'll refuse to buy the local rag, too.

Sheesh.

Weather

Some rain has fallen at our hacienda in the past two-three days. It was much needed.