Opining Online

I have to wonder if he didn’t wait so long just to embarrass some of the legislators. Shreveport professor Jeff Sadow separates the winners from the losers here.

Biggest winner: Naturally, the people of and their state of Louisiana.

Here’s the NYTimes article.

This thrills me because now I don’t have to help get nearly a million signatures for a recall petition.

In other Louisiana budget news, Jindal used his line item veto power to cut state funding of $500,000 from Shreveport’s Robison Film Center. According the Shreveport Times (longer quote than usual because this link will disappear in a week or so)

Included in the cuts was $500,000 in new funding for the Robinson Film Center. The nonprofit’s officials said they weren’t depending on it, yet its absence will reinforce the need to raise money in other ways.

In all honesty, why does Hollywood need the help of a nonprofit? I suggest they hit up a few of the millionaire (megamillionaires?) coming into town to make movies for a donation or two. Even more galling to me is the way this group was going to use the money

…the film center had intended to use the new money to build its endowment. Not getting the money will not affect its current programming or daily operations.

Good Grief.

Sure he’s not perfect, but Bobby Jindal is for Louisiana more than just a breath of fresh air; he’s a breath of refreshingly clean air.

Yep, for the first time since 1990, when I moved to Louisiana, I can say I’m genuinely proud of our Governor.

Here he is on Jay Leno.

It’s certainly needed, as Jeff Sadow points out.

Imagine if Hillary Clinton could have changed her vote for the Iraq war to ensure that it would happen, then could change her vote to be able to campaign that she voted against it.

It gives a whole new meaning to “I voted for it before I voted against it.”

Requiring complete consistency for politicians (or anyone else) is unreasonable. Anybody should be able to change their mind, but I expect a legislator to have thought about the matter up for vote and to vote honestly as MY representative, not as a representative of their future personal gains, such as re-election. I’d like to think they thought about carefully enough not to change their mind 8 hours (or less) later.

Because it’s Monday. And I’m in Louisiana, though I’m not doing laundry today.

•2 cups dry small red beans
•16+ cups water
•4 slices bacon, cooked & crumbled, reserve drippings
•1 teaspoon Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning (or too taste)
•2 cloves garlic, minced fine
•1 bay leaf
•3 cups Trinity*
•3 medium carrots, minced
•More water
•2 teaspoons beef base
•2 pounds polish, link, or cajun sausage
•4 cups cooked white rice** (I prefer Jasmine Rice)

“Look & Pick” the beans, removing any trash, rocks, or severely discolored and deformed beans. Rinse beans well, changing water at least 3 times. This step reduces the flatulence-making property of beans. Cover with 8 cups of the water and let them soak overnight in refrigerator. The next day, remove any “floaters” and drain the water off the beans.

In a large heavy pot, cover the beans with 8 cups water and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and reduce heat to low and simmer beans for at least one hour. In the meantime, sauté the Trinity*, garlic, and carrots in the reserved bacon drippings. Add the crumbled bacon, the Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning, then add the entire seasoning mixture to the partially cooked beans.

Bring back to a rolling boil, then reduce heat and simmer for several hours, adding water as necessary. The beans are done when they begin to “pop” or split and are tender all the way through. (For this step, I use a pressure cooker, even though it’s only 300 or so ft. above sea level here. I like for the carrots and trinity to “dissolve” and thicken the soup.)

High altitudes require using a pressure cooker. If you’re at 4000 ft, you can boil beans for a week and they won’t get done.

Check seasoning and adjust to taste, keeping in mind that the rice is somewhat bland. If the bean soup is not as thick as you like, smash some of the beans to a paste for thickening. Do not use a roux to thicken.

Slice and brown sausages, or grill them whole or in serving size pieces. Your taste, your choice. Serve the beans ladled over cooked white rice, the sausage on the side and a wedge of cornbread, all accompanied by some blues, of course.***

*Trinity – equal parts chopped celery, chopped green pepper, chopped onions. I prefer green bell peppers and red onions, and chop the inner tender celery leaves as well as the stalk.

**Rice – Cover 2 cups uncooked white rice with 4 cups water. Add 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a rolling boil, cover, and simmer over lowest heat for 20 minutes, then “fluff” with fork. Do not stir rice during cooking or standing time.

Variations:
•Substitute finely chopped pancetta, ham, or sausage for bacon
•Eliminate the bacon, slice & saute the sausage and vegetables, adding all to beans. •Skip the side serving of sausage. For a lower fat version, use less sausage.
•Substitute grilled pork chops or chicken for the side of sausage.
•Use pinto or black beans. You could also use kidney beans, I suppose. I don’t like kidney beans, but if you do… use them.
 
Now for the blues***

Click here to listen to (or download) a sampling of the music of Huddy Ledbetter, aka Leadbelly. Click here to hear more snippets of some of his songs and Woodie Guthrie’s performed by Little Richard, Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Sweet Honey in the Rock. That CD — Folkways: A Vision Shared - A Tribute to Woody Guthrie & Leadbelly — is one of my favorites.An updated recipe from the one I originally posted at Pajama Pundits.

This house used to one of the nicer ones on the street:

Now it’s decaying, trees and plants are dying and falling on power lines and into neighbors yards. The mounds of pine straw and dead leaves are havens for snakes and other critters. The basketball goal is on the ground beside the driveway, which is covered in pine straw. No one has seen the owner since July 2007, but the family moved out during the spring of 2006.

This is the only house on the street that is vacant and run down. This is a nice neighborhood, and maybe this is an example of a bank repossessing a property and then neglecting it, even though this area has not been hard hit by the foreclosure crisis as is the case in Minneapolis:

Some of the entities that hold these houses are big banks with shareholders, who ought to be concerned about the financial health of a bank that is essentially treating properties as losses without actually writing them off. I am also waiting for some enterprising lawyer to sue a bank for not maintaining a property that leads to some awful crime. Right now, the lack of maintenance is mostly creating headaches for neighbors, in unshoveled snow, uncut grass, etc. One realtor mentioned that a lot of foreclosed property owners didn’t bother winterizing the houses and now some have ruptured plumbing to go along with all the other problems that make it an unattractive purchase.

I’ve already complained to the city just before Thanksgiving when the dead pine tree was about to fall on power lines. After two weeks of calling my city councilman and the power company, the tree finally fell. We were without power for three hours. It would have been longer if not for my complaints - the power company had a crew scheduled for that day anyway. They got here about an hour after the tree fell.

According to city tax records, the taxes are paid up and the mortgage holder is GMAC MORTGAGE, LLC-DBA DITECH.

Anyone have any suggestions what the neighbors can do to get this property cleaned up?