Guest blogger Jared Serigné remembers beloved New Orleans photographer Michael P. Smith, whose life will be celebrated tomorrow (Oct. 11) with a second-line followed by a musical memorial at Tipitinas. (See Kevin Allman’s earlier post for details.)

I never got to know the real Michael P. Smith. When I came into his life this summer, Alzheimer’s had already taken over. He didn’t speak and Parkinson’s had limited him to a simple handshake.

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New Orleans has lost one of its most talented visual artists and a dedicated archivist of the city’s culture with the death of photographer Michael P. Smith. He died at his home last Friday of diseases of his nervous system. He was 71.

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It’s hard to understand how Jefferson Parish School Board member Judy Colgan can continue to support a proposal that is so clearly wrong. She initiated a system in which Jefferson Parish reroutes standardized test scores of students in advanced studies schools to conventional schools in their home districts despite the fact that they don’t attend those schools.

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     Mayor Ray Nagin needs a reality check. He says he can’t attend the City Council meeting today to discuss the New Orleans Affordable Housing (NOAH) debacle because his schedule won’t permit it. That’s unacceptable.

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Entergy New Orleans Inc. is asking the New Orleans City Council to approve a $23 million reduction in electric rates and the fuel adjustment charge, which if approved, will save customers with typical electric use about $6.40 a month. Any approved changes would go into effect in April 2009. 

Entergy spokesman Morgan Stewart says the utility filed the rate case on Thursday (July 31) but does not know when the City Council, which regulates Entergy New Orleans, will take up the matter.

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Inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola this month are donating 200 wheelchairs, walkers, crutches and canes they refurbished to people in Guatemala through Wheels for the World. 

The prisoners also are donating a container of handmade toys they constructed through the inmate organization, The Toy Shop, which provides toys for children whose families cannot afford them. 

A large truck will arrive at the prison on Aug. 11 to pick up the medical devices and toys. They should arrive in Guatemala in December.

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Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell says it’s time the PSC uses a special act the Legislature passed in 2001 to declare an “energy emergency” to help out seniors and low-income utility ratepayers deal with escalating energy bills. Campbell is calling for a special PSC meeting in August to vote on declaring the emergency, made possible through the Louisiana Emergency Relief Act of 2001, which enables the PSC to require that utility companies offer certain customers the option of deferring payment of charges that go higher than their normal utility bill when those higher charges are caused by fuel adjustments in response to the rising cost of natural gas. The Louisiana Emergency Relief Act has never been put into use by the PSC.  Read the rest of this entry »

 Louisiana Senate President Joel Chaisson has suspended Sen. Derrick Shepherd’s right to participate on senate committees until the West Bank lawmaker’s legal woes are resolved.

Chaisson says Shepherd has accepted the suspension.

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Is it just me or is there something odd about receiving an email about a fashionable gun for women although I’ve never bought a gun? The presentation of the email is that left-handed women can now get an accurate, fashionable pink .38 Special + P caliber handgun with the cute name “Southpaw Pink Lady.”

It sounds more like a fruity drink than a deadly weapon.

My problem is not the thought of a woman buying a gun for self-defense, but the marketing strategy. If I got the email without a history of buying guns, then it must have been an indiscriminate mailing.

The gun is produced by Charter Arms, which says it produced a mirror image of its “wildly popular” right-hand Pink Lady firearm because of a demand from customers. The marketing verbiage is pretty effective with phrases like “compact ultra-lightweight Undercover series” and “weights a feathery 12-ounces thanks to its tough 7075 aircraft aluminum frame.” It’s almost like reading a fashion magazine description of the must-have handbag for teenagers. It even has a quasi apology for costing $36 more than its right-hand version (also pink). Who are the intended customers here?

I could be putting my personal safety at risk with this conversation, but what the heck. I really want to know what are the objection is to the Comprehensive Photo Traffic Safety Program (traffic cameras) around New Orleans, Jefferson Parish and
Gretna. People are really steamed about the cameras and some have even said they won’t pay the fines because their use is somehow illegal or should be challenged in court on the grounds of a violation of privacy rights or a lack of eyeball evidence by a uniformed police officer.

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