I am sure that hunting alligators on the Bayou is an especially tricky way to make one’s living. But according to this profile of a lady far tougher than I’ll ever be, the vocation is at least somewhat easier if you have the good fortune to belong to a favored family: Victoria Bouvier, a 41-year-old […]
We’re taking the rest of the day to hit the creative reset button—that is, catch up on a zillion-and-one e-mails, and start collating all of the project ideas that piled up while we were banging out the Now the Hell Will Start screenplay. So we’ll outro with this gem from the great African Music Machine, […]
Tags:African Music Machine·Louisiana·music·Now the Hell Will Start
Several years ago, we read a revealing interview with Wilbert Rideau, former editor of the newspaper at Angola State Prison. He was asked whether harsher sentences, including the death penalty, would deter criminals. Rideau bluntly answered “no”—criminals never think they’re going to get caught. That’s in part because (as noted in the chart above) the […]
Tags:crime·Germany·Guatemala·Japan·Louisiana·prisons·statistics·Wilbert Rideau
Our nation’s turtle farming industry recently received some rather unwanted attention, courtesy of Operation Shellshock. The multistate investigation uncovered a clandestine network of reptile smugglers, whose dastardly deeds included the peddling of rare turtles to both collectors and Chinese diners. The scheme was allegedly abetted with “the help of a corrupt Louisiana turtle farm,” which […]
Tags:agriculture·China·crime·Louisiana·Operation Shellshock·turtles
