By Brandon Meginley

In 23 years as a White House chef, Ronnie Seaton prepared meals for five presidents and many distinguished guests. A certified master chef from New Orleans, Seaton has been in kitchens all of his life, and he knows that no matter who the diner is, kitchen work helps many people feed their own families.

“If you’re going to work hard, you should be paid for what you do,” Seaton said.

Seaton was the keynote speaker Tuesday at a panel discussion following the release of a study by the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New Orleans (ROC-NOLA), a policy and worker advocacy group. The study is based on 530 worker surveys plus focus groups and extended interviews with workers and employers. The study concludes that the local restaurant industry is overwhelmingly comprised of low-wage jobs offering few benefits and offered recommendations to improve wages, job security and help employers create better working environments.

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I enjoyed this just for the absurdity of it. Apparently the force that drives markets is sort of like the “invisible hand” Adam Smith imagined. (Enron references anyone? 1, 2, 3) Thanks to Wonkette for spotting this, also. No word on when this group will be ringing the opening bell.

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Hats off to Cash Money Records founders Ronald “Slim” Williams and Bryan “Birdman” Williams, who along with Lil Wayne and other Cash Money artists will give away more than 1,400 Thanksgiving turkeys and fixings to needy New Orleanians from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 24, at Taylor Park (2600 S. Roman St.). It’s the 13th annual turkey giveaway organized by the Williams brothers with help from other New Orleans celebrities, politicians and hip-hop stars.

The Williams brothers also have established philanthropic organizations in memory of their parents, Johnny and Gladys Williams, including Cash Money for Kids program, which provides free tickets to a New Orleans Hornets home game to students with high academic performances.

Cash Money Records roster of stars includes Lil Wayne, Juvenile, the Hot Boys and Jay Sean.

New Orleans orthopedic surgeon Dr. Robert Treuting is teaming up with Our Hearts to Your Soles and Soles4Soulsl to give free foot screenings and shoes to homeless men on Monday, Nov. 23, at Ozanam Inn on Camp Street.

Our Heart to Your Soles is a national campaign to help homeless people with foot problems by providing free shoes, boots, socks and medical screenings. The fourth annual event will be held in 40 cities nationwide, with Red Wing Shoes and Hanger Orthopedic Group donating footwear for the program. About 125 pairs of shoes are available for Monday’s event in New Orleans.

Soles4Souls founder Wayne Elsey says having a pair of comfortable shoes can make a person more confident and is a major step in building self-esteem and finding employment.

For more information about the program or to donate products, visit www.giveshoes.org.

“There’s a new generation of flea markets sprouting up in the Crescent City,” says New Orleans scribe and gadabout Cree McCree. You can take her word for it: McCree wrote the book on the bizarre roadside bazaars (literally, Flea Market America), and she’s a cog in two separate area attractions debuting this weekend.

Broad Flea, formerly the Broad St. Bazaar, reappears in its newly re-branded form on Saturday (11 a.m. to 4 p.m.). And Elysian Fleas launches Sunday (11 a.m. to 5 p.m.) with special focuses on Halloween (costumes) and Oktoberfest (oompah musicians and beer cloudier than the skies). Organizer of the latter, McCree is also a vendor and board member with the former. She posits the new local markets as both wallet-friendly alternatives to traditional shopping channels and ideal outlets for the selling or swapping of sustainable goods. “Amazon sales of my book have gone up as the economy has gone down, which isn’t surprising,” says McCree, who writes about the flea market economy and green recycled fashions at the Discovery Channel’s Planet Green under the title Flea Queen. “People are looking to make money by recycling used merch and also to save money by bargain-hunting at the flea.”

Costume vendors scheduled to appear at Elysian Fleas include High Bohemia, Howlpop, Avant Garbe and New Orleans Masks. Among the more enticing noshes advertised is the inspired pairing of sweet-and-spicy pecans with a cocktail made from hand-pressed Elysée sugarcane juice and Old New Orleans Rum. Broad Flea will occur the second Saturday of each month at the corner of Broad and Bienville streets. After its debut, Elysian Fleas will be held every third Saturday through December at the corner of Elysian Fields Avenue and Chartres Street. Head here for more information about the latter.

Antoine’s Restaurant (pictured with staff during its 150th anniversary in 1990) has a reputation for deep-running French Creole tradition and a resistance to change that has made its menu practically a museum exhibit. But some business moves since Hurricane Katrina are giving that reputation a run for its money.

After the disaster, the restaurant added brunch service for first time. Last spring, Antoine’s transformed one of its many dining rooms into the Hermes Bar, the first bar in the restaurant’s 169-year history.

The next planned move is to open a coffee shop and casual café on Royal Street, right around the corner from the restaurant. It will be called Antoine’s Annex and serve coffee drinks, gelato, pastries and light lunches, such as sandwiches and salads, according to Charlie Daroca, chief operating officer of Antoine’s.

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Layoffs may be on the way for staffers at The Times-Picayune after the first of the year, reports Editor & Publisher:

Advance Publications’ Newhouse Newspapers, believed to be the only major newspaper chain to avoid layoffs throughout the recent upheavals suffered by its industry, is planning to remove its long-standing “no-layoffs” pledge.

Publishers at the chain’s 20 daily newspapers, which include The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.; The Oregonian in Portland, the Staten Island (N.Y.) Advance and The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, broke the news to staffers Wednesday.

“We wanted to communicate to employees that this is coming,” said Steve Newhouse, chairman of AdvanceNet, the chain’s online division, and a member of the Newhouse family, the company’s longtime owners. “We have had a pledge not to layoff employees for economic conditions or advances in technology.”

But Newhouse said recent industry problems have forced the company to rescind the pledge. He said staffers are being told today that the pledge will remain for six more months, and then layoffs could occur.

“It was not a pledge that applied to the kind of transitional moment in the newspaper industry that is basically struggling to survive,” he said, noting it only applied to the company’s daily newspapers.

This is following the departure of some of the T-P’s most experienced and recognizable names, including Angus Lind, Susan Finch and David Cuthbert in the paper’s latest series of buyouts. It’s also a rough blow to a paper where morale already isn’t tip-top and yet the staff is working hard to put out quality work, because that’s just what they do.

The pledge was a lovely thing in theory, but it was hardly legally binding; the life of a newspaper employee isn’t a civil-service sinecure, with all its perqs and guarantees. The days of big-city dailies as fat-and-lazy “velvet coffins” where people remain for decades are gone forever. It’s possible to foresee a day when big-city dailies are gone forever, too. According to the blog Paper Cuts, which tracks the death decline of U.S. newspapers, the industry has lost 12,964 jobs in 2009 alone — almost as many as it did in the entire year of 2008, which was horrendous on its own. With this news, it’s hard to imagine 2010 will be any better for anyone except perhaps Satan’s Botoxed Handmaiden, who will likely be offering unemployed journos the chance to work “for exposure.” But exposure don’t pay the rent or feed the cat.

To our friends and colleagues over at the T-P (even the ones who can’t stand us): we’re feeling for you today. Truly.

• And to double the bummer: It’s been one of the worst-kept secrets in town that the T-P’s excellent food critic, Brett Anderson, was on the very short list of people to replace The New York Times‘ food critic Frank Bruni. Today it was announced that the job went to Times culture editor Sam Sifton. We’re disappointed for Anderson, but the silver lining is that we’ll be able to look forward to his byline in Lagniappe.

• The city and Six Flags Over New Orleans a Decaying Mad-Max Hellstructure Just Off the I-10 in New Orleans East are back in court today …

• The AP analyzes the chances of Sen. David Vitter’s keeping his seat in 2010. Money quote:

Gene Ulm, a Republican consultant who does polling for Vitter, said voters are in no mood to hear attacks about Vitter’s personal life. Instead, Ulm said, the election will be largely about Democrats’ handling of the economy.

“We know that midterm elections are a referendum on the party in power,” Ulm said. “When you have an economic environment like this … if it doesn’t have to do with people’s economic worries and hardships, it’s just immaterial.”

It seems like just yesterday that the candidate himself was saying “”I don’t believe there’s any issue that’s more important than this one.” Of course, he wasn’t talking about the economy, or Katrina recovery, but same-sex marriage …

• Perhaps speaking of — the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee releases its list of Louisiana GOPers who may be vulnerable in the next election …

• A new survey about who stayed and who left during Hurricane Katrina, and the psychology behind those decisions …

• JetBlue has $69 one-way fares to New York. Now if you could just find a $69 hotel room.

By now you’ve surely heard that Entrepreneur magazine has an August cover story on a subset of startups in New Orleans (the magazine’s editor has called them “saints who are helping this thing rise up from the ashes”).

This morning the Fox Business Channel’s Alexis Glick interviewed local developer Sean Cummings and Nic Perkin of The Receivables Exchange about the story:

• Rising Tide 4, the annual conference of bloggers and others concerned about the Crescent City, will be held Sat. Aug. 22 at the Zeitgeist. Gambit’s “Suspect Device” cartoonist, Greg Peters, designed the striking poster, and the keynote speaker will be Harry Shearer. More details on the Rising Tide blog as they get finalized.

• A rep for Arnie Fielkow emails a statement from the councilman this morning:

My family and I continue to discuss our future and my professional plans and I anticipate announcing a final decision on or before Labor Day.

• Clancy DuBos is on a plane today, but he has confirmed with NOPD Crisis Intervention Unit director Cecile Tabo that she will not be runnng for the District A council seat being vacated by Shelley Midura. Tabo told him, “You can look for me possibly in 2014, when all the kiddies are off to college and, hopefully, life is dandy.”

• Lutherans, Lutherans everywhere! And, boy, are they excited to be here for a week to do public service. Here’s a nice story from a Wisconsin newspaper about their mission.

• Cliff’s Crib blogger Clifton Harris reviews last night’s CNN special Black in America 2, and finds it an improvement over the (depressing) original.

• The federal minimum wage goes up to $7.25/hour tomorrow (it’s currently $6.55). Not surprisingly, a writer for The New York Times approves and a writer for Bloomberg sees gloom and doom. Perhaps more interesting is this piece from an org that calls itself Business For a Fair Minimum Wage:

“A minimum wage increase at this time could be the most important factor in powering our economy out of the recession,” said Camille Moran, owner of a paralegal service and Christmas tree farm in Louisiana. “The higher the wage an employee receives, the more income he or she has to purchase goods and services for their family, which is indeed ‘the best medicine’ for our economy.” More than 8% of workers will be affected by the minimum wage increase in Louisiana.

• The hideous story about the local baby killed by rats plays out elsewhere, with a similar instance in Ohio.

• Newsbusters is the latest to take up cudgels regarding Arianna Huffington’s policy about not paying her bloggers:

In any case, it all makes me wonder how many HuffPo bloggers are realizing that “the exposure” does them no real good at all if there isn’t any actual, real reward in it for them? Further, how many are becoming irked that Arianna Huffington is pulling in millions of dollars in investment cash and advertising fees made on the backs of the thousands of those bloggers that toil for free on a daily basis?

• …and local rockers Rotary Downs are currently previewing songs from their upcoming album. Listen here.