BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TABASCO SAUCE?

Thursday, July 25^th, 20l9

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TABASCO SAUCE?

Grandparents visiting day took me to Portland, Maine this past weekend to spend time with my two oldest grandsons.  The highlight of the trip was of course hanging out with the boys and attending their various camp activities.  But second on my list was to partake and enjoy Maine seafood, particularly the bountiful supply of lobster.  Now coming from the Bayou State with the best seafood in the nation, my standards are high. And with all due respect to the fine folks in Maine, I was disappointed.

My first food stop was for a lobster roll at one of the seafood joints that are on every corner. Now a lobster roll is simply a hotdog bun filled with lobster meat with a little mayonnaise on top.  Sure, the lobster meat was tasty, but the roll needed spicing up a bit.  So like any other hungry Louisianan would do, I asked for some Tabasco sauce.  “Don’t have any,” I was told.  I received the same response at several other seafood stops.

The lesson here is that our yankee friends don’t know how to spice up their seafood.  It is often rather bland. Seafood and hot sauce go hand in hand down here where I live.  And Tabasco is the gold standard when it comes to condiments. I was in northern Thailand a few years ago eating lunch at an outdoor cafe with dirt floors along the Cambodian border, and when my rice dish was served, included was the Tabasco sauce.  But I couldn’t find it in Maine.

I first learned about Tabasco sauce in a rather unpleasant way back in 1972.  I was a newly elected state senator and one of my first proposed new laws was to create a Louisiana cancer registry. The Bayou State has what has been called “cancer ally” along the Mississippi River south of Baton Rouge.  My proposal was to direct the Department of Hospitals to put in place a monitoring system to try and determine what was causing such high incidences of cancer.

When I spoke before the Senate to lobby for my suggested legislation, I told my colleagues: “We really do not know what is causing such a high rate of cancer.  Maybe it’s in the air along the river, perhaps it’s in the water, or maybe it’s something we eat.  For all I know, it could be the Tabasco sauce.”  As the President would say, my mistake was HUGE.

Remember now, I was a redneck legislator from Ferriday, and back then we did not spice up our food that much.  Not having used Tabasco sauce, I honestly thought the name was generic, like mustard or ketchup.  I had no idea Tabasco was a popular brand name.

Later that night, I was asleep in my apartment at the Pentagon Barracks when the phone rang. It was a state trooper stationed at the governor’s mansion, and he told me a Mr. Walter Mcllhenny was desperately trying to get in touch with me.  I immediately called him and it would be an understatement to say he was upset.  I explained that I genuinely thought the brand was generic and I profusely apologized.  

I told him I would stand up in the Senate the next day, explain my regrets and try to clarify my mistake.  “Oh no,” he admonished.  “That could only make things worse.  Let’s just let it be.”  So we did, I learned a good lesson, and have become a Tabasco aficionado ever sense. I often carry a small Tabasco sauce bottle as I travel, particularly in “bland, food seasoning free zones” like Maine and the West Coast.

Louisiana has to be considered the spice capitol of the nation.  Whether we cook with the holy trinity of spices (onions, bell pepper and celery) or blend in garlic, bay leaves thyme and stewed tomatoes, it’s the herbs, spices and other special flavors that make the Bayou State unique when it comes to succulent cooking.  But of all the ingredients, it’s the hot sauce that really brings out the taste.  And despite my faux pas many years ago, this redneck has become a convert.   Hey, pass me the Tabasco sauce.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.  You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9:00 am till 11:00 am Central Time on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

DO DEMOCRATS SELF DESTRUCT?

Thursday, July 18^th, 2019

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

DO DEMOCRATS SELF DESTRUCT?

Being a moderate democrat in Louisiana has become a real labor of love today, The Louisiana Democratic Party is becoming more and more irrelevant in the Bayou State. Party officials did itself a real disservice two years ago when it tried to wipe out the memory of the state’s two most important figures.

If ever there were any two individuals who should be regularly honored and commemorated in Louisiana history, there should be doubt that the two should be Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. And for many years, the Louisiana Democratic Party did honor both American heroes by hosting an annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner as a yearly fundraiser. Democrats held similar events across the country.  And for good reason.

Jeffersonwas the driving force in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon in 1803. Simply put, without Jefferson’s vision and tenacity in seeking the vast territory west of the Mississippi River, Louisiana would not be a state today.  Andrew Jackson was our countries’ seventh president, and what he did for Louisiana was incredible. In the war of 1812, New Orleans was under siege by the British. Major General Andrew Jackson rushed to New Orleans and gathered a rag tag army made up of a motley group of local citizens, frontiersmen, slaves, Indians and even pirates, and soundly defeated the British. 

But today, Jefferson and Jackson are persona non grata.  Louisiana Party officials have decided it is no longer “politically correct” to honor these two American icons. You see, they were slave owners. It made no difference that the first seven American presidents also owned slaves, as did most of the nation’s founding fathers. The democratic leadership apparently wants to judge these past heroes based on present-day values, and continue a warped effort to re write Louisiana and American history.

The new dinner name is the “True Blue Gala.” I suppose we will see a resolution at a future dinner calling for the re-naming of Jefferson and Jackson parishes, Thomas Jefferson High School in Gretna, the town of Jackson, La., Jefferson Island in Iberia Parish; the list goes on and on.

Up until about 15 years ago, party labels were irrelevant in the bayou state. Democrats and republicans in the legislature worked well together irrespective of party affiliation.  When I held two statewide offices and worked with legislators to pass important legislation, I would have been hard-pressed to distinguish who was in what party.  It’s a lot different today.  

Many of the democratic presidential candidates, during the first debate, advocated proposals that are pushing the Democratic Party far out of the mainstream.  There is little national support for the return of forced busing, slave reparations and a single payer healthcare program.  Yet these issues are in the forefront of the current democratic presidential debate.

In Louisiana, forced busing back in the 70s tore local communities apart, and was a judicially imposed requirement by federal judge John Parker of Baton Rouge. A large majority of white and black families were appalled at the thought of busing their small child an hour away or more to a different school.

There is virtually no support from moderate democrats on being taxed to make reparations for an event that happened 160 years ago, particularly when many of those who would be taxed come from families who were not even living in this country at the time.  Give up your current healthcare insurance for a one payer system?  No way say moderate democrats in poll after poll that is taken.

What we are watching is that democrats on both the state and national levels are embracing losing issues and ceding the political center to republicans.  Pandering to the extremes may get a candidate or a political party a slight bump in the early polls.  But democrats seem to have a fatal inability to set an agenda that makes common sense to most Americans.

Embracing a host of losing issues, including wiping out the memory of Jefferson and Jackson, and bring backing forced busing are not the way to win at the state or national level.  Right now, republicans are high fiving.  And for good reason.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.  You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9:00 am till 11:00 am Central Time on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

GET THE POLITICIANS OUT OF REAPPORTIONMENT

Thursday, July 11^th, 2019

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

GET THE POLITICIANS OUT OF REAPPORTIONMENT

It’s getting close to redistricting time for legislators in Louisiana. By federal law, all election districts must be reapportioned every 10 years to reflect the latest census figures. But should legislators, who have a vested interest in how the redistricting lines are drawn, actually do the drawing?

The problem is one of gerrymandering, where district lines are not drawn to reflect geographical or political balance, but to favor the incumbent or some other partisan choice.  When legislators do the redistricting, the norm seems to be that the state ends up with meandering footprints meticulously designed, it would seem, to ensure that no incumbent will face serious opposition regardless of how the political winds are blowing. So here’s what we have. In elections, people choose their legislators.  In reapportionment, legislators choose their people.”

Gerrymandering, by the way, means to manipulate the electoral boundaries for political gain so as to give undue influence to an incumbent or other favored candidate. The name comes from Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, who in 1812 created winding districts that looked like salamanders to favor incumbents. Thus the convoluted word of gerrymandering.

What most voters want to avoid is the self-dealing by legislators where voting districts slashes across communities of interest and geography.  A blatant example of winding, disjointed gerrymandering is the Louisiana third congressional district.  It winds from the Mississippi border south of New Orleans though the southern part of Jefferson Parish and all the way through south Louisiana up to Lafayette, some 300 miles in length.

The question for Louisiana voters is this:  Are they that concerned that the legislature is, for all practical purposes, creating their own voters? 

So what are the alternatives?  What are other progressive states doing to transfer the power of redistricting to a system less driven by self-interest?  Fourteen states have assigned the task to officials or panels outside the state legislature.  And independent redistricting wears the cloak of good-government reform, as long as a consensus can be built on just who will serve on such panels.  How do you pick the members?  How can such a system be put in place that assures voters the final result will be fair, non- partisan, and keep local interests balanced?

There are a number of bright people in Louisiana with solid business and educational backgrounds that are capable of taking on this controversial task. There are several respected demographers in the state, and a number of well qualified professors at Louisiana universities.  Retired judges fit the category as well as representatives of some of the state’s good government groups.

When I was first elected to the Louisiana legislature back in 1971, legislative redistricting had taken place just months before.  But the reapportionment plan did not pass federal court muster, and was thrown out just weeks before the primary election date.  Ed Steimel was head of the Public Affairs Research Council at the time, and was appointed by federal judge Frank Polozola to serve as a “special master” to redraw the district lines.  Based on Steimel’s rework, the old plan was thrown out and the new court ordered plan put in place.  There was general agreement that the Steimel Plan was fair and kept district more cohesive and less spread out. (It must have been good as I won my senate seat easily in the first primary.)

One idea would be to create a Louisiana Fair Reapportionment Practices Commission. Let nominations for its members come from the legislature, the Supreme Court, the good government groups like PAR and CABL, the various college boards, and perhaps a key business group or two.  Then put all the submissions in a hat, and draw out eleven names to serve as members to begin their work right after the new census data is made available.

The goal for such a commission is simple – put the important issue of redistricting into the hands of less vested interests instead of those who in the past have been allowed to define the terms of their own cartel. Simply put, it’s just wrong for legislators to draw these districts and then run in them.  There needs to be a better way.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.  You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9:00 am till 11:00 am Central Time on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

DON’T BE CIVIL IN POLITICS?

Thursday, July 2^nd, 2019

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

DON’T BE CIVIL IN POLITICS?

Here’s what we learned from the first democratic presidential debate last week. Do not fraternize with those you disagree with and never refer to a fellow politician as son, boy or anything similar.  It’s just not “politically correct.”

  Former Vice President Joe Biden was roasted for talking about trying to find common ground with conservative southern senators when he served in the U.S. Senate. “At least there was some civility” Biden said about working with segregationists like former Mississippi Senator James Eastland. He should not have been so “civil” says a number of other democratic candidates.

I’ll tell you this. These presidential wannabes have never spent time around the Louisiana legislature.  When I was elected to the Louisiana State Senate back in 1972, I sat in the Senate chambers shrouded by older senators who had served in that body for a number of years.  They included Harvey Peltier from Thibodaux, Jackson Davis from Shreveport, Jesse Knowles, who survived the Baton death march in World War II, and J.E. “Boysie” Jumonville from New Roads.  They all were quite conservative, more so they me.

Many of these senators had served through the segregation era and had opposed any legislation involving civil rights. When I took office, we often disagreed and I did my best to bring them around to my point of view.  But we were always civil and we often socialized and shared a meal when the legislative day was done. 

Should I have scorned those who disagreed with me as Joe Biden is accused of not doing.  Of course not.  The whole focus of a democracy is to confect workable solutions where a consensus can come together.  Failing to confer with those you disagree with is, in my opinion, a dereliction of one’s oath of office.

I was affectionally referred to by these elder senators, as “the new kid” and “young Brown.” Boysie Jumonville, who sat right next to me, often called me son or boy.  I never took offense, nor did I think his term of “boy” had any racial connotations.  A far cry of the onslaught of criticism Biden is facing today. 

Let me tell you how bad the racial tension could have become.  With much humor and gusto, Louisiana’s first black representative, Dutch Moriel from New Orleans, relished telling of his first day at the state capitol in Baton Rouge as a new legislator.  Representatives have seat-mates, with their two desks sitting side by side.  As chance would have it, Dutch sat right next to Representative Jesse McLain, who represented an archconservative district in southeast Louisiana that had been a hotbed of Klu Klux Klan activity.  Now Dutch was from a Creole background and quite light skinned.

Dutch told me that when he took his seat, Jesse leaned over and whispered: “Where’s that N…..? (Yes, the N word.)  Dutch said he just smiled, looked around the room for a minute, then leaned over to Jesse, got right up in his face, and said: “You’re looking at him.” Then he burst out laughing.  A flustered McClain excused himself from the legislature for the rest of the day.

McClain came back the next day and apologized.  Dutch told me that they became friends, and that he worked on McClain for the next four years to make him more enlightened on a number of social issues.

Of course you have to reach out when you are in public office.  We will never agree on all matters, but there is a middle ground on a number of social and economic issues that both make sense and serve the public interest. For some current presidential candidates to argue otherwise is bad policy and bad governing.  

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.  You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9:00 am till 11:00 am Central Time on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.