That's OK we've got airplanes

Today Lamar wrote about a bill before the Legislature that would allow the cash strapped state to subsidize "religious theme parks" like this one here. 

If signed into law, HB 771, a bill authored and proposed by Louisiana’s newest and most controversial state legislator, could provide tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer incentives to subsidize the construction of large-scale theme parks by tax-exempt churches and religious organizations.  It’s an outrageous proposal, and what’s even more outrageous, the legislator behind the effort is suing the State of Kentucky for millions of dollars after it pulled the plug on new earth creationist Ken Ham’s ostentatious and delusional Noah’s Ark theme park.

You might remember that a "Noah's Ark theme park" was among the proposed uses for the defunct Jazzland/Six Flags site in New Orleans last year.

The proposed name for the project is Transformation Village.

In addition to re-establishing the Theme Park  at the existing site, they are proposing the addition of a Water Park to be called Atlantis, a Movie Back Lot, a Jazzland Resort Hotel,  a Hospitality School, a Resource Center, a lifesize reproduction of Noah’s Ark and a International Shopping Center.

A release says “the project is a multi-year Vision with a Team of professionals including  Eric McQuiston, of Eric R. McQuiston, LLC, Craig Dennis and Frank Scurlock, of Scurlock Development Group, LLC.”

Scurlock is the founder and owner of Space Walk and Inflatable Zoo and been involved in Themed entertainment for more than 40 years with extensive World travels.

That proposal, along with one other, was rejected by a review panel who found it was not financially viable. Actually, they used stronger language than that. 

A member of the committee charged with reviewing the responses called the two proposals an “insult to the people of New Orleans” because they lack specific details about financing, developer qualifications and other matters.

“This is too big of a project, too massive of a development project not to have meat on the bones,” panel member Jeff Hebert said. The proposals offer “nothing of what we need to be able to review to have intelligent conversation,” he said.

Though no one else on the five-member panel was quite so outspoken, they seemed to share Hebert’s sentiments.

“I’m not looking for a pipe dream,” committee member Justin Augustine said. “I’m looking for viable projects that can go to this community.”

Scurlock seems to have taken it in stride, though.  He showed up again recently during Jazzfest when he paid a skywriter to grace the city with a week of positive, vaguely religious messages and smiley faces. 

Words like hope, faith, and coexist have been inspiring city dwellers and popping up all over social media.

The messages of love were the idea of local businessman Frank Scurlock. He hired Hammond to write the sky messages after being moved by all of the recent violence in the city and across the country.

Apparently that wasn't all he was moved by, though. He also used the publicity to launch a Gofundme site for his Noigiler (religion spelled backward) foundation.  Look what that's about.

This mission is fairly costly as it's not local. It cost approx $24000 for the period rain or shine.  The goal is to purchase the "Sky Magic" plane and keep it at Lakefront airport. If purchased the cost will drop considerably and be easy to maintain. At that point it's just smoke oil and gas,etc. We have had offers of free pilots and hangers which is a great start and blessing. We are based out of Flightline First FBO who has donated services.

This is the beginning leading up Transformation Village which is the rebirth of New Orleans East reserecting Jazzland and the addition of a water park and resort hotels to continue to make New Orleans a world class destination.

While the skywriting was going on a few weeks ago, some of us did ask what the angle was supposed to be.

Did the skywriter finally show us whatever the ad was supposed to be?

— skooks (@skooks) April 30, 2015

And some others of us got all bent out of shape about the cynicism or whatever.

@skooks It's super quaint, and it involves looking up at the sky, which inherently instills a sense of wonder. Like hot air balloons.

— davegladow (@davegladow) April 30, 2015

 Welp.

Anyway, so now I have to wonder if Scurlock has any relationship with this Ken Ham guy.  How big can the Ark-themed religious amusements community really be?

Thanks, Pro-Life thugs!

Love, Mitch Landrieu

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu issued an official welcome this week to Operation Save America, an anti-abortion organization that interrupted an Uptown church’s prayer service with its protests on Sunday and had plans to parade the alleged remains of a fetus around Jackson Square in the French Quarter.


The certificate, which is dated July 20, extends Mayor Landrieu’s official recognition to Flip Benham of Operation Save America for “outstanding service to the city of New Orleans,” according to an image of the certificate being shared by the group on members’ Facebook pages. Supporters of the group were enthusiastic about Landrieu’s welcome, with one noting that “This is a first!”

Benham, director of Operation Save America, was found guilty of stalking in North Carolina in 2011 for distributing “Wanted” posters featuring the name and photo of a Charlotte abortion doctor, and sentenced to 18 months probation. A local organizer for the group, Pastor Dale Sochia of King Jesus Ministries in Boutte, told the New Orleans Advocate that they would be holding a funeral procession in Jackson Square on Tuesday featuring an open casket containing a “a real aborted baby.”

 Meanwhile, the mysterious "Tips For Jesus" is in town.  Reports about the tipper (or more likely group of tippers) for Jesus vary but it is speculated that there is probably a genuine religious bent to their guerrilla publicity campaign.   Maybe they're here with Operation Save America.  In which case, they would be demonstrably more thankful for the service than the Mayor.

Quote of the Day

“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality,” he told Father Spadaro. “I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person.”

Pope Francis I 

I'm not someone who needs religion to make sense of the world. (I don't really need it to make sense at all but that's another conversation.) But many people seem to like it, so I figure it's caught on and so the kids can have fun with that if they like.

Anyway, despite the many crazy things your grandmother or Bill Donahue may have said to you over the years, the Catholics were never the most socially backward Christians. (At least not during the most recent century or so.) They've only been really really bad.  And, relatively speaking, that's pretty OK.

So it's not surprising to see a somewhat less hardline stance from a Pope every now and again. Now, if only they'd fix that whole child sex abuse thing they've got going on, they'd be halfway to becoming a semi-legitimate global fraud conglomerate just like any other large bank.

In other words, nice going.

Messiah Complex

You probably already know that we maintain a healthy sense of the apocalyptic in New Orleans.  This is explained, at least in part, by experience. No one can say exactly when we'll be washed away by the next hurricane, poisoned by the next chemical disaster, sucked into the next sinkhole, or hauled off to the gulag in the next Go-Cup crackdown.  But we know it's coming, and we know it's coming soon. Get your licks in now. It's later than you think. Yadda yadda yadda.

But this attitude is also informed by well-ingrained religious tradition.  You see signs of this everywhere. They come in many forms.















And so, naturally, the perpetual end times environment combines with the Christian iconography to foster an expectation that salvation is at hand. The signs of this also come in many forms.

Images of the prophet Tebow

The mullahs are in a rage.

Sympathy for the Devil

I've always kind of been pulling for Team Satan myself, anyway.

Mississippi voters head to the polls today to consider a radical anti-abortion measure that equates abortion with murder and would outlaw some forms of birth control, but Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant (R) warned yesterday that if the personhood amendment fails, “Satan wins.”

Going for the record

If you're wondering if the Louisiana legislature has room to squeeze in one last crazy order of business before the session ends, you won't be disappointed.

February of 2011

For those of you who had that month and year in the "When will homophobic preacher Grant Storms be arrested for something perverted?" pool, you may cash in your tickets now.

The Rev. Grant Storms, a Christian fundamentalist best known for his bullhorn protests of the Southern Decadence festival in the French Quarter, was arrested for allegedly masturbating at a Metairie park Friday afternoon.

After Saturday night's parades, Menckles and I made a trip down to Bourbon street where we indulged in our annual Lucky Dog.



Since some time during the late 90s, I've been allowing myself one of these each year usually on Endymion Saturday but sometimes a bit earlier as was the case here. Menckles also thought this might be a fun time to actually engage the Christian missionaries (blurrily pictured wielding a cross in the photo below) in theological debate.



In both of these activities, the results were unsurprising. I ended up with indigestion, and she didn't make much headway convincing the missionaries that our souls weren't in any greater peril than usual. Likewise, Grant Storms isn't surprising anybody today either. But I don't think we'll be seeing him shaking a cross at anyone on Bourbon Street anymore so there's that.

Hornets game tonight

Odds are we won't be there early enough for the opening prayer which makes me sad a little bit. The Hornets' pre-game prayer is a George Shinn legacy of sorts.

Update: Hokey Pokey definitely not a jazz standard

But it may turn out to be a hate crime. Neat.

Time to start kicking people in the face

Unless there's a better way to make this kind of shit stop...

Bars and churches on every other corner

I never did understand why the presence of religious charlatans in the neighborhood was allowed to dictate whether or not I could by a beer at the grocery.

NEW ORLEANS – Some neighbors of the Louisiana Meat Market are mystified. How can one corner grocery at Louisiana and Loyola be selling alcohol? It appears to violate an ordinance that forbids alcohol sales within 300 feet of a church.

You know, I have dubious feelings about people who drink cherry-flavored Dr. Pepper. There's something unsavory about luminescent rust-colored fizzy liquids that I don't trust. Could we look into restricting that activity to beyond 300 feet of a library? What the hell kind of a medieval thinker do you have to be in order to justify such an absurd law? Other than the Stacy Head kind, I mean.

Quote of the Day II

Taibbi:

First of all, why is that no professor alive can make it ten feet from his front door without sticking an a priori into a sentence? Is there some kind of subterranean lair where academics are beaten with whips and clubs until they learn to write alliterative book titles (”Pus, Primates, and Pessimism: Jane Goodall’s Descent into Septic Shock”) and lard up perfectly good sentences with epistemological catch-phrases? Weird.

D-BB finds my choice of words offensive

As a longtime fan of D-BB's trademark blue and haphazardly spelled writing style, I can promise you that is indeed saying something. But the fact is he's right. I probably pushed the wrong button by titling a post "This is why I hate the Hornets" The phrase "I hate" focuses too much attention on me personally as an actor in this tragedy when the offending action being described has nothing to do with me. Plus, as D-BB's long tangent on the subject evidences, it's rarely if ever a good idea to use the word "hate" in reference to an event with religious overtones... even if that event happens to be a pseudo-religious commmercial non-entertainment such as the Christian rock concert which followed Friday night's basketball game. So please allow me to apologize for that phrase. It distracted from and failed to communicate the author's intention. It was poor writing. But then again, as D-BB reminds us on a regular basis, all blogging is poor writing and so such mishaps should be far from unexpected. I'll try to do better. Or at least, I'll try to stop assuming that literate adults who have been following this space for some time, might have developed enough of an idea of where I'm coming from to look past the errors that inevitably result from these hastily tossed-off and admittedly poorly styled blurbs.


You would think maybe... just maybe... such literate adults would understand I was expressing disapproval (god forbid we make an extreme or potentially offensive word choice like "hatred", right D-BB?) of the Hornets for assuming that a spectacularly lame Christian rock band is appropriate entertainment to accompany a sports event.

I'm sure you've read my similar criticism of the NFL and the Saints for attempting to ruin the Saints' 2006 homecoming by subjecting their audience to the hyper-pretentious whining of Bono before kickoff. Or maybe you've seen me relate my experience with the circus-like atmosphere at any given Hornets game that isn't followed by a musical review from New Kids On the Cross or whatever. Surely the fact that the superfluous "entertainment" is now Jesus-flavored pop-music does not insulate it from such criticism.

It would be quite a stretch to conflate my antipathy toward some crappy band playing the Jesus angle or towards George Shinn's appropriation of Christian imagery to sell his new-agey self-help/business management literature (or his basketball team for that matter) with some sort of blind disrespect for individual religious freedom. But that's exactly what D-BB does... or pretends to do anyway. But, again, it's my fault for hastily hammering out a post title on my blog without first giving due deference to the severe gravity of the occasion. Sorry. I won't promise it won't happen again, though.

This is why I hate the Hornets

Faith and Family Night

Featuring a postgame concert by Christian rock band New Method. "Who?" you ask. That would be these guys.



Despite the fact that they're clearly a gang of tragically white 40 somethings, they've apparently never graduated high school. (Could they have possibly had difficulty passing biology?) The guy sitting on the floor looks particularly sad about this. Or maybe he's just coming down after having too much joy joy joy joy down in his heart the previous evening.

Anywhoo... just another instance of unwelcome Christian proselytizing jammed into your sports entertainment package approved by the author of Good Morning, Lord.

I believe the kids all say Wooo!

Lafourche Parish must be Palin Country

High school principal bans book teacher assigned

03:29 PM CDT on Wednesday, October 15, 2008

L. Kasimu Harris / Houma Courier

RACELAND — The principal of Central Lafourche High School banned a teacher’s assigned book about a failed U.S. Special Forces mission after a parent complained about the author’s use of curse words, officials said.

Quick aside. Back in the dark ages of the George H.W. Bush administration, I traveled with my high school football team to Matthews, Louisiana for a game against the C. Lafourche Trojans. Back then, as is the case from time to time, prayer-in-public-schools was a widely debated matter. I remember feeling a bit uncomfortable as the administrators of this public school home football game made a big to-do out of having the stadium announcer lead the attendees in a pre-game prayer. I don't remember the exact words, but the public display was clearly a political statement. It is unsurprising to find the same community involved in a book-banning controversy now.

I should disclose, BTW, that I attended a private religious high school whose football team actually knelt and prayed a Hail Mary before each game and a rosary decade afterwards. So one interpretation of this story could be that, since we pretty much blew them away that year, our God was bigger than their God. But that's a difficult thing to sort out between equally Catholic opponents.

More pre-draft video clips

Fill the rest of your Saturday morning watching Bill Moyers and Jeremiah Wright discuss exactly how "threatening" and "unpatriotic" Rev Wright and his ministry really are.

BILL MOYERS: What does the church service on Sunday morning mean in general to the black community?

REVEREND WRIGHT: It means many things. I think one of the things the church service means is hope. That tell me that there is hope in this life, almost like Psalm 27 when David said, "I would have fainted unless I lived to see the goodness of the right in this life." Don't tell me about heaven. What about in this life-- that there is a better way, that this is not in vain, that it is not Edward Albee or Camus' absurd, the theater of the absurd. It is not Shakespeare full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That life has meaning and that God is still in control, and that God can, and God will, some people of goodwill working hard do something about the situation. We can change. We can do better. We can change policy. We can look back and say, "Well, 40 years ago when King was alive, we did not have right before his death, a civil rights act. We did not have a voting rights act." So, change is possible. But I'm getting my head whipped. The average member in the black church five days a week, "tell me that this is not all there is to this." So, they come looking for hope. And as we've tried to do, move a hurt. People who are marginalized, marginalized in the educational system, marginalized in the socioeconomic system -- to move them from hurt to healing, that there is really is a balm in Gilead.

BILL MOYERS: Are you saying that the members of Trinity leave the world of unemployment, leave the world of discrimination, leave the world of that daily struggle and come to church for-

REVEREND WRIGHT: For encouragement, to go back out and make a difference in their world. To go back out and change that world, to not just talk about heaven by and by, but to get equipped and to get to know that we are not alone in this struggle, and that the struggle can make a difference. Not to leave that world and pretend that we are now in some sort of fantasy land, as Martin Marty called it, but that we serve a God who comes into history on the side of the oppressed. That we serve a God who cares about the poor. That we serve a God who says that as much as you've done unto the least of these, my little ones, you've done unto me, so that we are not alone. Because that same God says I'm with you, and I'm with you in the struggle. Our United Church of Christ says courage and the struggle for justice and peace that is an ongoing struggle.

It's a Bill Moyers show so there's obviously much more than just one quote to distill the whole discussion. But the people who want to vilify this man and use his distorted image to their political advantage are beyond despicable.

Tomorrow is Good Friday

Remember, kids. If you're gonna get crazy, keep it safe.

link via blacksundae

That way, everyone will be unhappy

(CBS) The pastor of a southwest Florida church opened many eyes and ears Sunday when he said he wants married couples in the congregation to -- have sex for 30 days in a row.

Update: I seem to have ruined my own joke by not grabbing the next line from that article. It reads:

Oh -- and he wants singles to steer clear of such frolicking for the same length of time.

Get thee off of my upstairs phone extension, Satan

La. town changing phone prefix from 666 to 749