Commentary
Getting vaccinated against COVID-19 doesn’t mean you lack faith | Christopher Sylvain
Your vaccine hesitant friends and associates are caught in a whirlpool of information and misinformation swirling around them. Thinking about the virus and thinking about the vaccines all day makes them feel bad. When things feel bad, people of faith are taught to run to faith — and God will solve every problem. The music, […]
As Louisiana’s COVID-19 cases spread, a gospel of selfishness spreads with it | Jarvis DeBerry
Every Christian should know the story of the legal scholar who tells Jesus he knows he’s commanded to love his neighbor as much as he loves himself but professes not to understand who his neighbor is. Without actually reciting the parable of the man who’s ambushed on Jericho Road and then revived and rescued by […]
Louisiana’s Steve Scalise is 7 months late promoting COVID-19 vaccines | Jarvis DeBerry
Approximately 210 days after Congressional leaders became eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer; roughly 200 days after 41-year-old Representative-elect Luke Letlow died of COVID-19; 124 days after every Louisianian 16 and up could be inoculated and four months after the 10,000th Louisianian died of COVID-19, Republican House Whip Steve Scalise had himself […]
Scientists understood physics of climate change in the 1800s – thanks to a woman named Eunice Foote | Sylvia G. Dee
Long before the current political divide over climate change, and even before the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865), an American scientist named Eunice Foote documented the underlying cause of today’s climate change crisis. The year was 1856. Foote’s brief scientific paper was the first to describe the extraordinary power of carbon dioxide gas to absorb heat […]
My daughter is enrolled in Pfizer’s vaccine trial because I don’t trust COVID | Taylor Hirth
On a sunny Wednesday a little over a month ago, my 7-year-old daughter bravely held my hand as we walked into Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City to participate in a pediatric vaccine trial. After a numbing agent, a blood draw and a nasal swab, she was finally injected with either a placebo or the […]
Louisiana (and every other state) needs to impose mask mandates now | Tammy C. Barney
From banning smoking in businesses to forcing drivers and passengers to wear seat belts to prohibiting texting while driving, governments have never had a problem passing laws to protect residents from themselves. Yet, even though Louisiana has the highest number of COVID-19 cases per capita in the United States, our officials refuse to do the […]
In pushing a transgender sports ban, Louisiana Republicans manufactured a war and lost it | Jarvis DeBerry
While it may have been true during Tip O’Neil’s time that “All politics is local,” it’s been 34 years since he served as Speaker of the U.S. House and 27 years since he died. With the dominance of talk radio and cable news networks and the central role social media plays in our lives, we […]
Extreme weather causes homelessness and threatens people experiencing homelessness | Clarence J. Adams Sr.
As we witness a staggering increase in extreme weather caused by the climate crisis, a community we so often forget about is disproportionately suffering from its vast impacts: the homeless. During temperature extremes, severe weather and flooding, the majority of us have homes in which to shelter. But many have nowhere to turn. The National […]
Denying systemic racism exists and enacting racist policies go hand-in-hand | Jarvis DeBerry
As the Louisiana House argued this past session about whether systemic racism even exists, there was a one-on-one debate on the Senate floor between Sen. Barrow Peacock (R- Shreveport) and Sen. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) on whether people convicted of gun crimes as juveniles should have those records used against them if they’re caught in possession […]
Louisiana’s handsome, gifted, charming governor Edwin Edwards had it all — except integrity | Robert Mann
The following is an excerpt from “The Comeback of the Cajun Prince,” a chapter in Robert Mann’s memoir, Backrooms and Bayous: My Life in Louisiana Politics, which hits shelves Aug. 9. When I read the endorsement of Edwin Edwards in the Shreveport Journal, the newspaper where I began working in August 1983, I knew covering […]
Republicans and Democrats accuse each other of ‘defunding the police’ | Tammy C. Barney
“Defund the police”– a rallying cry during the 2020 protests following the unwarranted deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of police – is now a congressional football that Democrats and Republicans keep throwing up as Hail Mary passes without anyone scoring a touchdown. First, Republicans accused Democrats of embracing “defund […]
Zaila Avant-garde – 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee champ – stands where Black children were once kept out | Shalini Shankar
When Zaila Avant-garde, 14, won the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee on July 8, 2021, she became the first Black American to win in the competition’s history. Shalini Shankar, a scholar of spelling bees, breaks down the importance of this historical moment. Why is it news that an African American won this championship? It’s significant […]