Benjamin Banneker Elementary closed Wednesday as New Orleans’s Recovery School District permanently shuttered its last five traditional public schools this week.With the start of the next school year, the Recovery School District will be the first in the country made up completely of public charter schools, a milestone for New Orleans and a grand experiment in urban education for the nation.
A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that monks at St. Joseph Abbey near Covington should be allowed to sell handmade caskets from their monastery, despite opposition from Louisiana's funeral home directors who claimed a sole right to sell caskets in the state. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's decision to strike down a state law limiting casket sales to licensed members of the funeral industry.Read the rest here.
The decision marks a victory for the Benedictine monastery, which has struggled for several years for the right to sell simple, wooden caskets built by monks in a woodshop to fund their medical and education needs. In 2007, the State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors ordered the abbey to cease sales after a funeral home owner filed a formal complaint.
Don't you wish you'd been in Shreveport Saturday?Read the rest here.
For once in your life, the answer should be yes. The Republican State Convention there offered raw passion, intrigue and even a few broken bones. They say politics is Louisiana's favorite spectator sport. In its current form, the GOP could fill the Superdome.
The purpose Saturday was to select the 46 delegates the state party will send to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Since Mitt Romney appears to have the presidential nomination sewn up, this should have been a pretty sleepy affair.
We knew beforehand that it would not be, however, because Ron Paul supporters, having turned out in force for caucuses that other voters largely overlooked, constituted a majority of those present. Meanwhile party officials were determined that Louisiana would line up behind Romney.
Saturday's Louisiana Republican State Convention in Shreveport promises to be a political donnybrook for the ages. A fight pitting the Ron Paul forces against the rest of the party is likely to lead the convention to split into two competing meetings that will proceed to put together two, somewhat different Louisiana delegations to send the Republican National Convention in Tampa in August, and leaving it to the national GOP's Contest Committee to sort it out.Read the rest here.
The only question seems to be how soon after the convention convenes at 10 the breakup will occur and a rolling wall in the hall at the Shreveport Convention Center will unfold, turning one convention into two and separating the 111 Paul delegates, from the 69 Santorum, Romney and other delegates, including state Party Chair Roger Villere and the rest of the party leadership.
Rick Santorum’s campaign netted a victory Saturday night in Louisiana, where he won that state’s GOP primary by a significant margin. The win sparks hope of a campaign rebound, following Santorum’s lopsided losses to Mitt Romney in the Illinois and Puerto Rico primaries.Read the rest here.
The former Massachusetts governor finished second and Newt Gingrich third in Saturday's contest.
The political terrain in Louisiana was favorable to the former Pennsylvania senator. Saturday’s vote was limited to Republicans only, making the electorate more conservative.
Exit polls from Louisiana showed Santorum dominating with voters labeling themselves as "very conservative." He also fared very well with those identifying as born-again or evangelical Christian.
The political geniuses in Louisiana have decided they hate poor people so much, they passed House Bill 195—near unanimously! (One nay in the senate.)Read the rest here.
It bans cash on all second-hand transactions. Now, when a good Louisianian holds a garage sale after a bout of spring cleaning, if they accept cash for their old vinyl collection, they’ve broken the law.
Swap meets. Church bazaar sales. Antique stores. Buying used skis off Craigslist. You can’t use cash in the Pelican State. Their stated reasoning is to prevent the sale of stolen goods—their view is cash transactions make it easy for criminals to sell their booty. Fair enough! No one wants to encourage dastardly behavior. Which must be very widespread, because one owner of a second-hand shop reports he had come in possession of hot goods once in eight years. (That he knows about! Cue ominous music.) And we all know how church ladies are regular fencers at their sinister fund-raising events.
