Archive for April, 2009

The Metro Council approved the purchase of a Robinson R44 police helicopter for the Baton Rouge Police Department. The total purchase price is $946,000, which will come fully from federal stimulus money. Capt. Roger Tully of the BRPD said they will use the helicopter for around 1,000 hours/year, which will cost the department an additional $62,200 per year. It’s important to note that this fulfills one of Mayor Kip Holden’s campaign promises from 2004. At the Council hearing he noted that we’re the largest parish without such a helicopter. The helicopter is fully equipped and approved by the FAA for police work.

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has the brief. You can see the configuration of the helicopter here. The minutes from the Council meeting can be found here.

I just have to say, holy crap. I think helicopters are like the coolest thing ever. I’ve never ridden in one, but I’ve always wanted to. Plus, I think this’ll really help with crime fighting, which is a great thing. Reminds me of the US Army helicopter that landed on the LSU parade grounds the other day.

The Associated Press reported that Louisiana added 4,300 non-farm jobs in March. Baton Rouge added 2,100, which represents 48.9% of the total job growth of Louisiana. It was also the largest single-city growth. Year-over-year, Louisiana added about 7,000 new jobs, despite losses in a few major industries. However, unemployment claims are up year-over-year and week-over-week.

Overall, I’d say this is impressive. It seems that our area is weathering the recession decently enough. Let’s just hope this continues in the near future.

You can read the full AP report here.

The Red Stick Animation Festival, an international animation convention, is going on right now in downtown Baton Rouge. A highly acclaimed affair, it frequently brings in top talent to showcase. Just announced, Disney is previewing their latest feature “The Princess and the Frog” this Friday, April 24, at 5:30 p.m. in the Manship Theatre, which is downtown in the Shaw Center.

The movie is set in New Orleans and an animator from the studio will be there to introduce the exclusive preview. The movie is set to be released this Thanksgiving. Following the preview, Disney is showing “Bolt,” an animated feature that premiered last year. What’s interesting is that this marks Disney’s return to 2D animation. The animator who’ll be speaking also worked on “The Lion King,” which is one of my favorite childhood movies. I’m personally excited to see where this’ll lead Disney in the future. We’ve been lacking good 2D movies as of late (of course, Pixar has produced enough amazing 3D ones).

The festival is hosting a “princess ball” in anticipation of the showing, which starts at 7pm at the Old State Capital downtown.

The events are all apparently free and open to the public. However, a “Red Pass” is required to participate. Unfortunately, the site seems to be down at the moment. We’ve contacted the Festival to get more information.

[Update: I just contacted the officials and they say that you can register onsite even though the site is down. And it is, as of right now.]
[Yet another update: The site is now fixed. I recommend registering before attending.]

More information about the festival can be found at their web site.

Raising Cane’s is a beloved member of our community. Started by a former LSU student, Cane’s first restaurant is still operating right outside the gates of LSU (and it made the list of recommendations of restaurants near LSU). They’ve been operating out of Baton Rouge for the past twelve years—since day one. I was very surprised to learn that they’ve recently decided to move their main operations to Plano, Texas (Plano Star-Courier; Dallas Business Journal). At first, I was shocked, but then I was upset. I felt betrayed and abandoned. They’re taking a lot out of our economy—the economy that helped start the company. And with them goes at least 35 jobs. I’ve already received word from people who’ve been directly affected by this. They’re hurting the same community that Todd Graves, the founder, raves about on their about page. He said: “The community response was overwhelming and I wanted to make sure Cane’s gave back to the community that was supporting my dream.” (RaisingCanes.com) It’s been great having Cane’s in the community, and they did give back, but now they’re baselessly inflicting a severe wound upon this community. Needless to say, I am confused and bewildered.

The articles I’ve read say that it’s because it’s a more central location for their business, but I can’t imagine that this is the real reason. After all, Baton Rouge supports a fortune 500 company and another fortune 1000 company, which is a lot bigger than Cane’s approximate $100 million enterprise.

I reached out to the company via Twitter. I asked them twice to respond to this and give me something—anything. I received nothing but an emphatic “No, please don’t boycott us.” So, now it’s time for me to publicly call them out. This is absurd, Cane’s, and if you expect my continued passionate patronization, then you at least owe me an explanation.

So, Cane’s, how are you going to ameliorate this situation?

Note that this is officially coming from the enterprise of the Baton Rougean and not just me. As Baton Rouge’s first and only hyperlocal news site, it is our duty to give the community a public voice—something that traditional news bureaus either can’t or won’t do. Someone must stand up for the injustices inflicted upon our community when no one else will. And yeah, maybe those words are a little harsher than this situation calls for, but I’m just setting up our official policy for the future when something else happens. I’m not saying anything negative about Cane’s. In fact, I love Cane’s and this might legitimately be a shrewd business decision, I really don’t know. It’s just not excusable to extract 35 jobs from a community that you connect yourself with. It’s also not excusable that you do this and then proffer no explanation.

I’m interested in getting to know a little more about our readers. A few weeks ago I posted “What’s Your Favorite Baton Rouge Radio Station?” in which I asked you to submit your favorite radio station. We’ve gotten a few responses so far, but not really enough to extrapolate anything useful from. So, we’ll keep this question open some more.

We also have another question: are you a Mac or a PC? With Apple now branching into the Louisiana market with a store in New Orleans and in Baton Rouge and with the war raging on more intensely than ever, I think it’d be interesting to know. I have a feeling that we have more Mac users here (I can tell from our analytics that this is so), but we might be surprised.

We’ll keep the polls open for one week. Check back here after a week for commentary on the results. As always, you can submit your vote via Twitter by sending us a reply @btrblog or tagging your tweet with hastag #btrblog, sending us an email or dropping us a comment. Help spread the word by using the share links at the bottom of this post.

Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts will be traveling to Baton Rouge next week, April 28th, to host its annual Arts Gala at the Manship Theatre in the Shaw Center for the Arts in downtown. The show begins at 7pm and it’s free and open to the public—all are invited to attend! The students will be performing dance pieces, comedy sketches, musical ensembles and more. Plus, alumnus Josh Tickell will be showing his documentary “Fuel,” an Audience Choice Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The full program is as follows:

• Dance piece #1: City at Night (Impulse Dance Company – Ali Arsement, Autumn Billings, Meagan Evans, Ashlei McDonald, Stephanie Michot, Anna Tan)
• “Behind the Scenes” Josh Callendret filmmaker
• Solo Dance Piece #2: “A Path of Her Own” Anna Tan
• Segment from “Greater Tuna” Mason Joiner and Kyle Richard
• Dance piece #3: “Fives By Six” (Impulse Dance Company)
• Josh Tickell video appearance
• Instrumental music trio (Trio in A minor, Opus 188) Dylan Blanchard, Phillip Larroque, and Dr. Charles Jones
• Poetry Recitation: “Dulce Et Decorum Est” Dylan Staley (Poetry Out Loud state competition 3rd place winner)
• Instrumental music duo “Idyll” Susannah Robichaux and Dr. Charles Jones
• Poetry Recitation: “Mrs Kirkorian” Dylan Staley
• Vocal Performance of “Nancy Hanks” by Gabby Hildestad
• Vocal Performance of “The Wizard and I” from Wicked by Stephanie Boyd
• Finale: Piano: Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata in D Minor, Op. 31, No. 2 “Tempest” Performed by Anna Tan

In addition, pieces from the school’s visual arts students will also be on display, including sculpture, ceramics, watercolors, and pen and ink drawings.

More information is available on the LSMSA web site.

I graduated from LSMSA, which means I can personally vouch for the students. Their art is going to be incredibile. In fact, I’ve seen some of it already and it’s just superb. If you’re a patron of the arts, I highly recommend this event, oh, and it’s free, too. Can’t go wrong there.

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard the terrible news about former LSU wide received Demetrius Byrd. If you haven’t, ESPN reported yesterday that he was hospitalized after a terrible car accident in Miami, FL (his home town), just days before the NFL draft. It was just a freak accident and he’s expected to make a full recovery and not sustain any long-term, football-debilitating injuries. Thank God.

Demetrius Byrd is a fantastic player and it was always great watching him play with our Tigers. I remember many times waving my hands in an avian fashion with my fellow LSU students in Death Valley after he made an incredible touchdown. And I think we all remember that Auburn game last season. He was, and always will be, a Tiger and so we want to support him and his family during this time.

Ethan Killett and I thought it’d be a great idea to make a community get well soon card. He illustrated it and now we just have to fill in the content. Just use the comment form below to shoot your thoughts to Demetrius. I’ll send the link way up the ranks and do my best to get it to him. Help spread the word by using the share links at the bottom of this page. Let’s show him some Baton Rouge loving!

Get Well Soon Byrd

Please provide a link back to this post and to EthanKillett.com when referring to this strip.

Fortune released their annual Fortune 500 list today, which “ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect.” (Wikipedia) Big oil company ExxonMobil knocked off Wal-Mart to take the coveted number one position.

Amongst the top 500 companies are two from Louisiana (Entergy and the Shaw Group), with an additional four in the top 1000 (CenturyTel, Albemarle, Superior Energy Services and Pool). The Shaw Group is Baton Rouge’s claim to fame. At number 357, the Shaw Group posted $6,998,000,000 in revenue—in millions, by the way—which is a 22.3% increase from 2007. (Fortune) The year has been good to the Shaw Group, which moved up 69 spots. Albemarle is Baton Rouge’s other company in the top 1000 list at number 806. Moving up 18 spots from last year, Albemarle is a chemical company that posted $2,467,100,000. in revenue.

It’s good to see Louisiana putting on a strong show. It’s great to see Baton Rouge showing highly as well (the two companies from Baton Rouge are more highly ranked than the New Orleans ones). It’s important to note that we’re not last on this list. In fact, there are ten states that do not have a Fortune 500 company listed. However, our neighbor, Texas, is number one on the list with 64 companies.

Good job, Louisiana.

You can see more of the Louisiana companies on the list on Fortune’s web site. You can view the full list on Fortune’s web site.

LSU Budget Cuts

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So, I’m sitting here on this lovely Saturday morning, perusing the police reports and amongst the fairly mundane DWI traffic stops, murder warrants and middle school fights is this: 47 Pounds of Pot Seized During Stop.

. . . What? Fourty-seven pounds? That’s a lot of weed.

Apparently, a Mr. McCoy was driving recklessly and when a police doing routine patrolling saw this, he pulled him over. Mr. McCoy then admitted to smoking a joint, which he promptly threw out the window when he saw the officer, and also admitted to having a bag of weed in his pocket. This, of course, was a terrible idea because it led to the subsequent discovery and confiscation of 47 pounds of weed. I guess Mr. McCoy didn’t realize that you don’t get good faith points from the DA for being forthcoming with your infractions.

He was charged with Possession With Intent to Distribute Marijuana, Possession of Marijuana, Improper
Lane Usage and Littering. Of course, I think the last two are of far less concern to Mr. McCoy right now.

Full news report from the Department here.