Scuzzbucket of the week

This week's scuzzbucket is nominated on two charges: perversion and spamming.




A Slidell man known as one of the most prolific spammers in the country is accused of raping one teenage girl and handcuffing and molesting another, authorities said Wednesday.

Police arrested Ronald Scelson, 36, after seizing computers, servers, marijuana and drug paraphernalia during a raid on his home and office Tuesday afternoon, Slidell Police spokesman Capt. Kevin Foltz said.

In May, the mother of a 14-year-old girl told Slidell Police that Scelson, who was considered a friend of the family, had molested her daughter during Mardi Gras week, Foltz said.

The teenager told authorities she was at Scelson's business address, at 1831 Third St., when she saw sexually explicit material and open chat rooms on several monitors, Foltz said. Scelson started "playing around" with her, eventually handcuffing and fondling her, he said.

A 2003 Times-Picayune profile on Scelson said he was once one of the 10 most prolific spammers in North America or Europe and quoted him bragging about sending out hundreds of millions of e-mails a day. At the time, Scelson claimed he distinguished himself from other spammers because he did not hide the identity of his company and did not market pornographic sites or "get rich quick schemes."


ewwwww

The Heat

It's not even noon and it's 96 degrees outside. This is the second straight week that the heat has been incredibly unbearable. I feel sorry for anyone who has to work out in this stuff. Here are a few links that describe this heat

Spoke the Cat

Mark Folse describes his lunchtime walk from his job to the riverfront

Aaron, over at Iced Coffee and a Bagel

Roads are buckling all over

RIP Ed McMahon

Former Johnny Carson sidekick Ed McMahon has died at the age of 86.



The man had a wonderful laugh and seemed to have lived a good life until recently.
RIP, Ed.

Back home in Lake Catherine

A recent article in the Times Pic tells the story of a family who've rebuilt in Lake Catherine.

Excerpts

Although plenty of folks might scratch their heads about the decision to rebuild on the waterfront, it wasn't a hard one for Bourg, a born and bred local who attended Jesuit High School. After buying a camp on Lake Catherine in 2002, he became enchanted with the area and became an ardent convert to fishing.

"When my parents bought the camp," said Becky Bourg, the couple's grown daughter, "at first it was meant for weekends and getaways. It wasn't their primary residence at first; that was in Mid-City. But by the time the storm came, they were spending almost all their time out here. It had become their permanent home."

The Bourgs' camp was one of about 500 that lined the shores in the Lake Catherine community before Hurricane Katrina.

"After the storm, when I could get back in to check it out, there were no more than 20 buildings still standing, and only 16 or so of those were sound," Bob Bourg said. "Our house was gone. All that was left was the foundation."


The Bourg's house is the one on the right

The house is manufactured Deltec, an Asheville, N.C., business,which designs hurricane-resistant circular (technically, polygonal) homes and produces kits for assembly. The company trains contractors in various locales to ensure that kits are assembled according to company standards. Locals who follow "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" were introduced to the company when Ty Pennington and crew landed in town last spring and replaced the storm- and tornado-damaged home of a Westwego first responder and his extended family using a Deltec product.

Still Not Okay

BBC journalist James Coomarasamy interviews two Katrina survivors four years after the storm.

found at Voices of New Orleans website.

Time Wasters

At a time when there are so many important things to take care of in this state, with precious little time left in the session, I cannot believe the Louisiana Legislature wasted so much time for
this bill. House Bill 44 bans gunfire at parades and jazz funerals.

I thought this was already against the law!

Dan Baum

Writer Dan Baum, who fell in love with New Orleans Post Katrina when he was sent to cover the aftermath in 2007, has penned an editorial in the NYT about the city's laizzez faire lifestyle. Excerpts:

While the rest of us Americans scurry about with a Blackberry in one hand and a to-go cup of coffee in the other in a feverish attempt to pack more achievement into every minute, it’s the New Orleans way to build one’s days around friends, family, music, cooking, processions, and art. For more than two centuries New Orleanians have been guardians of tradition and masters of living in the moment — a lost art. Their preference for having more time than money was at the heart of what made that city so much fun to visit and so hard to leave.


Americans will probably continue to use economists’ numbers to measure recovery from the current recession. But as we debate what to do for the millions of homeowners who are “under water” — owing more on their homes than the homes are worth — we could learn from a city that knows a thing or two about being under water. New Orleans can teach us that the life we build with our neighbors deserves at least as much attention as our endless thrust towards newer and bigger.

Here's a link to the blog Dan kept while he was down here.

To those who look down your noses at message of the article, which does contain some untrue facts (such as the 9th Ward being reconstructed), here is an explanation from Mr. Baum
I have this disagreement with friends who live in New Orleans all the time. I come in for a weeklong visit, and all I see is the progress. I see places that I thought were dead, dead, dead forever — like big swaths of the Lower Ninth Ward — and I see a place that is, as I put it, “a lot more live than dead.” Perfect? Of course not? But Jesus wept, give yourselves some credit. What you’ve done in New Orleans in four years — with minimal help from the government or the insurance companies — is amazing. Compare it to the seventeen square blocks, in the middle of the richest city in the world, annihilated on 9/11, four years earlier than your entire city was flooded. Again, I don’t live there. I’m not putting up with the challenges on a daily basis. I’m not feeling the losses you’re all feeling. But my perspective is no less skewed than yours. You’re right and I’m right.
As for the cliches, they’re only cliches to you because you’re used to New Orleans. Spend some time out here, where nobody makes eye contact, where everybody’s on to the next thing at every second, where the dollar and the clock rule every goddamn minute of waking life, and be reminded of what a weird and wonderful place you inhabit. I was writing for the New York Times — for an audience outside of New Orleans — trying to explain, in a thousand words or less, what your city has to teach the rest of us. You don’t like what I wrote? That’s fine. But I’m really (really) tired of having my intentions, my character, my credentials as a New Orleans-lover questioned by everybody who thinks I wear a silly hat. I’m just some guy who came to town for a while and wrote a book; I’m not claiming to be anything else. As for my ill-considered comment many, many moons ago on Marketplace, for which I’ve amply apologized: How nice it must be for y’all never to have misspoken.

Teeming with Scuzzbuckets

I think the heat is bringing out the sickos this week.



There's a crack ho who brought her child along while she went on a crack binge and apparently the three year old ingested some crack.

In Lafayette, the "father of the year" was arrested after he allegedly forced his child to eat a whole crawfish, including its shell.

Brandon Javon Arceneaux began to slap the child Sunday night when the child could not swallow the crawfish. Cpl. Randal Leger would not release the age of the child or more information about the incident because the victim is a juvenile.

Arceneaux was booked with cruelty to juveniles. Arceneaux was released from jail on a $2,500 bond.

Thanks, Ann you scuzzbucket

A bill that would have put the brakes on the state acquiring land for the proposed new public hospital in New Orleans has been jettisoned by the Senate Education Committee.

After sailing through the House earlier this session, the proposal by Rep. Rick Nowlin of Natchitoches, failed to get passage in the Senate committee. Senators voted 7-1 against it Thursday, led by opposition from New Orleans Senator Ann Duplessis.



Ann Duplessis is a Scuzzbucket Extrodinaire. She authored a bill that passed last year, giving the leges a $34K raise. And now we learn that she is instrumental in the failure for HB 780 to get passage in the Senate Committee.


After sailing through the House earlier this session, House Bill 780 by Rep. Rick Nowlin, R-Natchitoches, ran into a 7-1 buzzsaw, led by Senator Ann Duplessis, D-New Orleans, who disputed the notion that the bill was designed to protect private property rights.

This bill is more about the new hospital being focused at Charity Hospital," she said, referring to some of the bill's backers who oppose the lower Mid-City site and want the state to gut Charity and rebuild within its shell.

Duplessis also pointedly asked Nowlin, "Are you from New Orleans?"

Nowlin said private property rights, the importance of medical education across Louisiana and the hospital's advertised $1.2 billion price tag -- with $300 million in state money already committed -- made it acceptable for a northern Louisiana lawmaker to weigh in.

State Treasurer John Kennedy, a critic of the hospital planning, said, "I don't see this as a New Orleans bill or a health care bill. This is an expropriation bill. . . . We shouldn't take land until we know we can build a hospital."

Wondering if Annie is in the pocket of previous scuzzbucket LSU president John Lombardi ? Wouldn't surprise me. You'd think that someone who represents New Orleans East, an area completely devastated by Katrina wouldn't be so blatantly greedy.

State Sen. Ann Duplessis said the legislative pay raise issue was skewed by those who do not believe elected officials are credible.

As an example, she pointed to the photo of her Mercedes that popped up on the Internet before the governor vetoed the pay raise.

Duplessis, D-New Orleans, said the car is part of her compensation package as a banker.

“It’s a 10-year-old, broken down vehicle,” she said.




Hell, she couldn't work to open a hospital in her own district. One opened recently that was bankrolled by a private citizen.

What a bee atch

The French Market VIEUX TO DO

Occurring this weekend in the French Market and adjoining venues is the Vieux To Do, another wonderful free festival in New Orleans.

A trifecta of free festivals celebrating Louisiana culture: The French Market's Creole Tomato Festival; the Louisiana Cajun Zydeco Festival, sponsored by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Foundation; and the Louisiana Seafood Festival, sponsored by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board. All held along the French Market, the festivals will feature two stages of Cajun-zydeco music, cooking demonstrations of Creole tomato dishes, 11 seafood vendors, costumed characters and more.

• When: Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

• Where: The French Market, on North Peters Street from St. Peter Street to Esplanade Avenue.



We attended last year as well as in 2007 and it was a blast both times, despite the heat.

There are plenty of places to cool down, such as watching chef demonstrations

click here for a full lineup of events. Some of the chefs demonstrating on Saturday are from Dickie Brennan's, Andrea's, Bacco and Cafe Degas. The above link also has a line up of some good Zydeco musicians as well.

Fort Pike Reopens....Again

After nearly being closed due to damage sustained from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, Fort Pike reopened today.

The Fort reopened 2 1/2 years after Katrina but was completely closed after the two 2008 storms battered the 182 year old Fort.

From the article in the TP:
The historic site which sits on New Orleans' eastern shore near the Rigolets had been closed for more than two years after storm surge from Hurricane Katrina submerged the 14-foot-high structure and left significant structural damage to the site, which has already fallen into disrepair due to decades of neglect.



Marsh grass and other debris that inundated the area after Gustav reached more than five feet high inside the fort's gun emplacements, said Joseph Yarbrough, president of the Fort Pike Foundation.

"It kind of devastated us a little bit to have a setback like that," Yarbrough said Friday.

It was the most recent of several hits, which resulted in Fort Pike being listed in 2007 as among the 10 most endangered battlefields in the United States. The list was compiled by the Civil War Preservation Trust, a nonprofit group in Washington, DC.


Looking forward to visiting the old Fort again. It's a great piece of history.