Columns

By Raymond Powell

Times have changed – as everyone knows. Early in the century most young boys wished they had lived in the Pony Express era. They dreamed of riding across the plains on a fast pony facing the dangers the trip incurred. There were few of the distractions that youth face today, therefore dreaming of exciting bygone days was the main pastime.

On April 3, 1860 the Pony Express was initiated with the plan to reduce the time from three months to ten days to deliver Letters from the east coast to the west coast. The hazards facing the riders included empty wilderness, howling blizzards, scorching sun, hostile Indians and terrible loneliness.

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By Stephen Waguespack

The last couple of years we have heard much opposition to Louisiana officials taking public pledges to outside groups.

The most obvious example is the Taxpayer Protection Pledge pushed by the Americans for Tax Reform since 1986, which asks elected officials to oppose tax increases. Many press articles and public debates have focused on criticizing elected officials for taking this public stance against new taxes.

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By Allison Davidson Carpenter

“To the children we pray for daily we say: Your long night is coming to an end. Hold on. We are on our way.”

That promise is on the home page of the web site for Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), an organization that brings awareness to child trafficking and teams up with the likes of former CIAs and Navy Seals to help rescue and rehabilitate children trapped in child slavery

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By Stephen Waguespack

In just a few weeks, the   will be back in session. It has only been a month or so since they met and addressed the most recent shortfall, which was the 15th mid-year deficit since 2009. For decades, annual deficits have become commonplace with the exception of times with hurricane recovery dollars or oil booms.

It’s a fact that most of the issues teed up for discussion in 2017 will be remarkably similar to topics debated in the Capitol time and time again throughout the years. Once more, Louisiana’s elected officials will discuss how to stabilize our budget and how to improve our schools, roads, legal climate and economy. Once more, Louisiana’s employers will be unfairly blamed for the state’s budget woes, even as exemptions are plummeting and tax collections are up substantially as a result of the laws passed in 2015 and 2016.

By: Raymond Powell

Probably the fiercest battle of the Battle of Sabine Crossroads (as the northerners call the Battle of Mansfield) was the charge of Col. James Beard’s Crescent Regiment attack of Col John Reid’s Illinois Regiment. As the Crescent charged forward and reached about fifty yards from the federal lines the 130th Illinois opened fire from their barricade of fence rails. Fifty-five men lay dead at that spot including Col. Beard, Lt. Col Clack, Major Canfield and seven of the ten Confederate Captains. One hundred fifty Confederates were killed or wounded in that charge. However, the vicious attack of the Rebs rushed on and over-whelmed the 130th Illinois.

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By Stephen Waguespack

Guest Column by Camille Conaway LABI Vice President for Policy and Research Sitting in an empty committee hearing room in the US Senate in Washington, it struck me. We really are on our own with flood recovery. Three small business representatives traveled to DC to deliver powerful personal testimony on the flooding event and the days that followed, yet only the two Louisiana senators were present to hear it. Every other chair remained empty. True, a few senators floated in and out to make a brief remark about their own concerns in their districts, but did not stay to hear the Louisiana experiences. The hearing was scarcely mentioned in national or local media.

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By Allison Davidson Carpenter

My grandfather,  Burnis Wilburn ( “ Papaw ” ) , recently turned 90 years old.

He and my sweet grand-mother, Charlotte Wilburn, still live in their home in Pelican, Louisiana, where they’ve resided for 63 years of their 69-year marriage.

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By Stephen Waguespack

In the 1970’s, management consultants started using a new metaphor to convince companies they needed to think about their problems and potential solutions in a whole new way. To illustrate their point, they began to use what is called the “nine dot puzzle.”

The puzzle consisted of nine dots, equally arranged in three rows to make a box. The challenge was to connect all the dots using only four lines without letting your pencil leave the paper. The puzzle was difficult at first because most people felt compelled to stay within the box, but it became easy to solve the puzzle once they viewed the challenge differently and drew the lines to go beyond the boundary of the square. Hence, the analogy of “thinking outside the box” was born.

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By: Raymond Powell

If you are a faithful reader of this column you will know that one of the main objectives is to keep alive the history and culture of DeSoto Parish. Today's article is devoted primarily to a historical fact that will be new to some - World War II German Concentration Camps in Mansfield!

By Stephen Waguespack

On September 21, 2016, a letter was signed and sent by Governor John Bel Edwards to multiple coastal parishes in the state of Louisiana to “encourage” them to sue oil and gas companies in their parishes, as well as those that previously operated in the area.

In this letter, the Governor explained that the state has intervened in lawsuits filed by Plaquemines, Jefferson, Vermillion and Cameron parishes in the hopes of landing a big payday from the industry in the name of coastal restoration. It goes on to say that a few handselected attorneys hired by the Governor – at taxpayer expense – many with direct ties to his campaign last year – have told him that the parishes receiving this letter were ripe to join in the lawsuit. The Governor’s attorneys obviously asked him to “encourage” the coastal parishes to get with the new program and apparently he was obliged to do so.