Archive for the ‘louisiana’ tag
Thousands to Protest Jindal Stimulus Rejection
Thousands of Louisianans are expected to descend on the state capitol May 27 to say “enough is enough” to Gov. Bobby Jindal’s decision to reject $100 million in unemployment benefits from the stimulus package. For those hit “first and worst” by the recession, the problem got even worse today as the state legislature couldn’t muster the votes to override his decision.This is a looming disaster for folks who’ve had too much disaster in their lives already.
Want to go to the rally or get your voice heard from afar? Full release after the jump….
(more…)“The Wire” Heads to New Orleans
The folks who brought you “The Wire”– everyone’s-favorite-show-of-all-time-anywhere-ever-no-really-you-have-to-watch-it-like-now — are moving their act down to New Orleans.
HBO just greenlit “Treme,” a series from producers David Simon and Eric Overmeyer and starring Wire alum/New Orleans native Wendell Pierce. The show, which will start taping in the fall and air next spring, will:
[C]enter on New Orleans residents — including musicians and a restauranteur –living in the city’s Treme district. Show follows the characters as they look to reclaim their lives as the city continues to rebuild.
“It will be uplifting at points, and may make viewers a little angry at points,” Simon said. “And at another point it will make viewers a little depressed.”
Simon said he and Overmyer, who lives in New Orleans, had been in love with the city long before the storm — but post-Katrina, knew there was a story to be told.
But, Simon warns, this won’t be “The Bayou Wire”and will have a broader, less overtly politically perspective:
Simon noted that there’s even perhaps the story of New Orleans can be used as a metaphor for the country’s current economic woes.
“Look at what happened down there after Katrina,” he said. “A lot of things in which New Orleans depended on and trusted turned out to be wholly undependable and untrustworthy. The governing institutions were supposed to monitor things of actual construct like the levees and the pumping stations. That could be an allegory for what we Americans presumed about our financial institutions, and the governing bodies that were supposed to monitor them.
“New Orleans found itself on its ass some years ago, and the rest of the country stared at it as it it was a unique case,” Simon said. “In some sense, Katrina is an outwire of what the rest of the country was going to experience.”
If you want to see what Simon thinks about the state of the nation, check out this really great interview he did recently on Bill Moyers show:
