U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, told the state Senate's redistricting committee Monday that he opposes moving any Acadiana parishes that he now represents in the 7th district to a Shreveport-based district. Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, emphasized his opposition to carving the capital region into as many as four districts.
This argument over whether or not Catholic and traditionally French Acadiana has enough "in common" with Bible Belt North Louisiana is fun even though it seems a little dated from a certain point of view. Modern Louisiana outside of Orleans Parish seems increasingly to have become a monolithic land of Teabaggery to many of us.
I don't mean to sound like I'm pulling a Richman here, but after 50 years of saturated mass culture via radio, television, and now the internet added to the steady disappearance of traditional lifestyles in the ever-shrinking Louisiana wetlands, is it not going too far to say that Cajuns as we once understood them are themselves becoming "fairie folk" who exist only in the images produced for the sake of tourism marketing? Today, at least, Boustany doesn't think so.
Boustany deflected questions about his thoughts on the north Louisiana districts, instead focusing his testimony on Acadiana.. "You're taking French speaking rice farmers and crawfish farmers and putting them in north Louisiana," he said. "It's very disruptive. Folks across my current congressional district are opposed to that."Over the winter, Menckles started us watching the unbearably stupid HBO series True Blood* which I've observed also tends to place "French speaking" Louisiana persons and settings along the I-20 corridor for some reason. Has Charlaine Harris drawn up a redistricting proposal yet?
*Still not as stupid as Treme which is currently doing to New Orleans folk culture what the previous 30 years of marketing has done to the Cajuns.
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