Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum.

I also believe my home state is cursed by ignorance and poverty and racism, much of it deliberately inculcated to control a vulnerable electorate. And I believe many of the politicians in Louisiana are among the most stomach-churning examples of white trash and venality I have ever known. To me, the fact that large numbers of people find them humorously picaresque is mind numbing, on a level with telling fond tales of one's rapist.

Colored or not, we all pick the white man's cotton.

The Gulf Stream waters of Woody Guthrie's famous song were strung with columns of oil that were several miles long.