Big Sole Blog (BSB)

Look at this picture, part of several released by the New Orleans Police Department on May 13. Is that a small child running alone from the shooter? So young, so small, and already he's had to learn to escape a bullet. The man is aiming a gun into a crowd attending a New Orleans Mother's Day Second Line Parade. He and his partner wounded 19 people. Another person was injured when she fell.

Sinkholes fascinate and terrify me. They have for years, long before I heard about the story of the man whose bedroom was sucked into one in Florida in February. So, when I see a story about sinkholes on the news or online, I have to watch or read, and lately, if the report is about sinkholes in general, like the video posted above, I wait to see whether the reporter covers the mess we've got

This is Snow Ball, a 1.5 year old Samoyed. I saw him for adoption at the St. Tammany Humane Society Shelter in Covington, LA, on February 15, 2013, when I took my Lab in for a check-up.

Today I saw an article at the Huffington Post with the headline, "Bobby Jindal: GOP Should 'Stop Being The Stupid Party'." The article includes the following statement: Jindal told Politico Republicans should “stop being the stupid party” by working to embrace a larger group of constituents rather than becoming the party of "big anything." As I read this statement and more of Jindal's rhetoric

Music producer Marcus Anderson, Jr., captured on video the waters rising in LaPlace, Louisiana, around his family's home. He had to move his family to the attic. I hope he monetized this video because it appears they've lost everything as have many other Southeastern Louisiana families. Source YouTube and NOLA.com.

Happy National Poetry Month!While surfing for something about Louisiana-born poet Yusef Komunyakaa, I came across a interview at Well&Often Press: The Love Child of Frida Kahlo and DMX: An Interview with Safia Elhillio. It included video of Elhillio performing her spoken word poem "Questions for John Coltrane, from his saxophone." The interview, conducted and written by Kameelah Janan Rasheed,

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore won best animated short last night at the Oscars. (You can see the winning film in the video above.) It was created at Moonbot Studios in Shreveport, La., by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg. According to the AP, the studio held its own Oscar party last night, and that same article describes the film as follows:The 14-minute long film follows

When my father, age 91, told me a few weeks ago that a woman, born Augustine Lemieux Stevens (a.k.a. Gussie), had died, I shuddered for moment in a spasm of grief. I grieved not because I knew Ms. Gussie but because I did not know her. Born on September 13, 1911 in Vacherie, Louisiana, of St. James Parish, she lived near him when he was a child growing up in that rural town. Vacherie sits on

The Reflection in Our New Backyard Pond By Nordette N. Adams 'Twas the season of hurricanes, when all through the land, creatures called "Whodats" scurried and ran to Home Depot, to Lowe's, to Sam's and to Rouses for candles and canned goods and fixin's for houses. They tuned in TVs to local news stations, dreading the word, "evacuation." They counted their children and grandparents, too, and

I'm joking. I don't think today's census workers would ever write down what this census work did in 1880. Check what's listed as Joseph Jean Baptiste's occupation.Also notice how neat the handwriting is on the snippet of the screenshot from the original document. I doubt this guy was walking and writing at the same time. Mr. Jean Baptiste was most likely a farm worker living on the Laura

I know people who live in Terrebonne Parish and near the Atchafalaya Basin. Naturally some of them are suspicious about the reasons behind the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' (USACE) decision to open the Morganza Spillway because its opening will result in flooding an area that includes approximately 25,000 people in south-central Louisiana. This event is rightfully described as a modern-day

On April 26, 2011, the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus held a rally on the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge to protest Gov. Bobby Jindal's cuts to higher education. The most urgent matter on the minds of the speakers was Jindal's push to merge Southern University of New Orleans with University of New Orleans, SUNO with UNO.The event was hosted by the Southern University

Isaiah Doyle, a 28 year-old who confessed to killing a conveneience store clerk in Jefferson Parish, La., during a robbery in 2005, has been sentenced to death. His attorneys argued that he was mentally handicapped in order to save him from the death penalty. According to WWL, "a psychologist for the defense said, 'Without a doubt, he has mental retardation.'” The prosecution offered its own

It's been raining ducks and alligators here, and my dog, who is afraid of thunderstorms but won't go in his dog house, has been outside going nuts. Furthermore, I postponed a trip across the lake partly because I don't like driving over the Twin Span when the rain's pouring down, but also because I'm functioning on little sleep today. Verizon Wireless called me this morning before my wake time

I took these photos last year during the 2009 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Actually, I shot video that was too crowded with tourists walking in front of my view to post online. More photos are posted on my Facebook page. I probably need to check this with Kalamu ya Salaam, but I think these two black Mardi Gras Indians in the first two photos both serve as the wild man that clears the

The 17-year-old pictured here is Pauline Deese. Both the Times Picayune and WWL TV report that Miss Deese is one of four teens, ages 14-17, charged with allegedly beating to death a 78-year-old woman in Norco, La. St. Charles Parish authorities have not yet released the names of the other suspects.News sources say that the teens allegedly convinced Mary N. Mulé Arico that they needed to use her

As reported through a Foreign Policy Magazine news brief: BP officials hinted that the company may not make voluntary payments, which it had previously consented to in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, if Congress goes forward with plans to restrict the company's activities in the Gulf of Mexico. BP is saying "if lawmakers pass legislation that bars the company from getting new

National media is still on the BP Gulf of Mexico oil leak/spill/greatest environmental disaster of all time/oilpocalypse--whatever the media gurus are calling it now. CNN is reporting on the next phase of well fixing, putting mud in the well, called a "static kill." Next comes relief wells. Watching the video at the top of this post, I marvel at how I'm not breaking out in hives. The video

At this link you'll find a round-up of articles, press releases, and FAQs about cuts to the State of Louisiana budget. The focus of the list is education, and I compiled it mainly as a resource for myself as I try to understand how the money flows. Visit here.

I am trying to ignore all the doomsday scenarios arising as people project their fears onto the BP Deepwater Horizon leak in the Gulf of Mexico. I prefer to keep a positive mindset, as reflected in one of my poems about the disaster. However, I do read about the fear such as those Gena Haskett explored in her post about doomers and the BP oil spill. Last night, I saw the following in my mail, a