The National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez noticed something funny about this Baltimore Sun graphic, which purports to show the power players in “The GOP Universe”:

Look at the fellow in the lower-right corner. According to the Sun, it’s “Bobby Jindal, 37, governor of Louisiana.”

Yes. Well. Um.

The online graphic has been corrected, but as a service to our friends in Maryland, we offer a brief guide to other people who are not the governor of Louisiana:

NOT BOBBY.

STILL NOT BOBBY.

SERIOUSLY, DUDES…SERIOUSLY NOT BOBBY.

…because it sure seems that way.

Sneezes at Rouses, coughs on the streetcar, hoarse voices in the halls. I can hear A&E editor Will Coviello sneezing it up in his office. Listings editor Alex Woodward just got to the place where he’s sorta over-something, but not quite.

I’ve been washing my hands compulsively, taking vitamins, and Purell-ing whenever I think of it…and despite all the precautions I just sneezed a time or two myself.

Do we as New Orleanians not put in our time with nine months of sinusitis and pollen-mold cough? Is that not enough sacrifice for the health gods? What foul new crud infests our city this first week of November? And is everyone around you sick, too?

If you didn’t get enough of Oktoberfest this year, or you just can’t ever get enough of quality brews in a fun atmosphere with plenty of Bavarian food, then head over to Deutsches Haus this Saturday evening for Winterfest.

The party is open to the public and presented by the Crescent City Homebrewers club, so expect a crowd of folks who can dish on the finer points of mashing, sparging and fermentation, plus those of us who just know good beer when we taste it.

Admission ($30 at the gate, $25 in advance online) gets you complimentary home-brewed and commercially-produced beers and wines. There will be live music and Deutsches Haus will serve traditional German food including sausage, potato salad and sauerkraut.

Here’s the link for more information and advance tickets.

– Ian McNulty

Photo lifted from With Leather

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In case you haven’t heard, Hollis Thomas is fashionable. That’s him up there wearing custom-made Spongebob Squarepants  pajamas and sleeping cap. And yes, that is a jewel-encrusted Patrick hanging from his neck. Apparently he has all the characters in jewelry (we’ve noted before that Thomas has a slight obsession with Spongebob).

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What fans may not know, however, is that Thomas is also one of the most vocal players in the Saints locker room and one of the funnest players to interview. He’s also a bit of a smart ass who thinks he knows how sports reporters should dress.

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Photo by Jonathan Bachman

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If you know anything about this Hornets team it really shouldn’t take you long to guess who went ahead and wrote “OBAMA!!!” on the side of their shoe. But in case you’re stumped, I’ll give you a second and the answer is after the jump.

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Anyone need a lift?

You may have to snag a free ticket to the art exhibits down at the Contemporary Arts Center in order to be able to ride the shuttle. Be sure to do that on your first day. You will not be required to actually look at any of the art, however.

After a few days you may begin to arouse suspicion, so it’s important, when boarding the shuttle, to act like you give a fuck about celebrations of international contemporary art.

Thanks to NOLAfugees for a valuable tip that will save you some change on your daily commute AND just might increase your appreciation of contemporary art. If you live in Central City, the Prospect.1 shuttle can take you to work, or to places you never even dreamed of.

Try picturing avant garde Damien Hirst’s sheep suspended in formaldahyde hanging in your middle school gymnasium, and you’ll get a sense of the tone of the Prospect.1 art installations showing at the Charles J. Colton School. The St. Claude Avenue Orleans Parish school is home to several Prospect .1 expos and work by local artists as well.  Installations are in classrooms, scratched onto chalkboards and in the auditorium. Prospect.1 is the largest biennial of international art ever organized in the United States, and will run through January 18 in locations throughout New Orleans. At one of the more unusual neighborhood venues in the city, you can roam the hallways of the Colton school for free and take in the installation pieces, as well as discover the work of local artists and set designers.

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The Ogden After Hours music series features a couple of artist meet and greets tonight. Louisiana painter Douglas Bourgeois (Pop Star, pictured) and former-New Orleanian (and current-Baton Rouge resident since Katrina) sculptor Martin Payton have current shows at the museum and will discuss their work. Bourgeois paints in meticulous detail and whether he’s depicting natural scenes, Louisiana musicians or pop cultural motifs, he imbues his canvasses with an eerie luminescence. He created the portrait of Irma Thomas on the 2008 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival official poster. Payton is from the same family as jazzmen Walter and Nicholas Payton. Influenced by sculptor John Scott, Payton is known for minimalist works depicting African animals and mythological figures as well as more abstract works. Early R&R musician King Lloyd Palmer is the musical guest. His appearance is supported by the Ponderosa Stomp Foundation, New Orleans own treasure trove resource and booking entity for early rock and roll and R&B stars, particularly from Louisiana and surrounding states. Tickets $10, free for Ogden members.

There’s a real joy in walking into a restaurant you know, ordering from a familiar menu, and remembering all the times in the past when you’ve enjoyed the very same dish. This is both one of the pleasures of being a regular and of being attached to a particular cuisine, and it’s a common pleasure in our city of great restaurants and distinctly local cuisine.
Then there’s the other side of the equation: the excitement of never knowing what’s going to come next. That’s one of the pleasures of eating at new and new-to-you restaurants, and it was on ample display during our dim sum brunches at Three Happiness, the Gretna restaurant reviewed recently with a sprawling Chinese and Vietnamese menu.

Dim sum is served on weekends from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. This is standard fare in Chinese tea houses, but not so familiar to the average New Orleans diner. The dim sum menu is written in Chinese, Vietnamese and English, none of which did me much good since the English amounted to two or three word titles for what proved to be frequently complex small dishes.

What to make, for instance, of that “8 treasure sweet rice in lotus leaf?” We ordered it and waited in anticipation. The result was something that looked so much like a weathered, overstuffed leather wallet that the men in our party put their own battered billfolds on the table next to it to compare (pictured above.) Whereas a glimpse into our wallets wouldn’t reveal much action, we peeled open the thick, rough lotus leaf and released a cloud of steam cloaking a dense loaf of large-grained rice imbued with chunks of hard Chinese sausage, roasted pork and ham, all gripped in the aromatic, sticky rice. Where the rice touched pork, it tasted meaty, where it touched the lotus leaf it tasted like tea and where it was on its own it was sweet.

The Three Happiness dim sum menu has plenty more pleasurable surprises. But if surprise in dining isn’t your thing, below I provide some visual aids for some of the dishes described in my review. This might at least help the uninitiated know what to their meal could look like.

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Still on the fence about going green?  Chew on this:  Matt Peterson, president and CEO of Global Green, warns that New Orleans will be the first city in the nation to be lost to global warming if sea levels rise.   Peterson’s group, Global Green, is the one working with Brad Pitt and the Home Depot Foundation on the  super green Holy Cross Project in the Ninth Ward.

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There are tons of steps you can take to make the world safer and cooler for future generations.  One great step you can take is toward the eco-friendly wines in your local wine shop.

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It is impossible for a winery to reduce its carbon emissions to zero,  since releasing carbon dioxide is part of the fermentation process to make wine.  Wine is made by yeast converting the sugar in grape juice into alcohol, and carbon dioxide is the byproduct.  Beyond that, however, wineries can work to limit their other carbon byproducts and can alternate energy sources such as solar and wind power and can source local products and labor.

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