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Dear Abby: Man's proposition sends woman back into her house

Fri, 07/03/2020 - 10:01am

DEAR ABBY: I’m a 60-year-old woman. My house is on a corner lot. Just about every time I walk outside, a male neighbor of mine stares at me. He looks like a hobo.
I felt bad for him, so when he came to the edge of his yard, I asked him from my deck how he was doing because of the quarantine. He responded by telling me to wear a dress because he wants to have sex with me! I was stunned and went back into the house. I didn’t know he was that crazy. Besides ignoring him, what, if anything, should I do?
SHOCKED NEIGHBOR IN CONNECTICUT

DEAR NEIGHBOR: Because this was a one-time occurrence, it’s possible your neighbor may have been “under the influence,” or has mental health challenges or a touch of dementia. From now on, ignore him, avoid him and warn the other women in the neighborhood about what happened. If I were one of them, I would like to know.
Other than that, there’s not much you can do unless his behavior escalates and he becomes a nuisance. In that case, you may want to go online to the National Sex Offender Registry just to make sure your neighbor is not a registered sex offender. Then it will be time to file a police report.

DEAR ABBY: When seeing a therapist is not an option, I have found writing to be helpful. A cheap spiral-bound school notebook works great. The idea is to write at least one full page every day.
Some days, all I can say is, “I don’t want to write,” but I fill that page anyway, so that the commitment is met. However, other days I find I can pour my heart out, unload the things that are hurting me, express my anger, resentments, disappointments and longings. Sometimes, while I’m waiting for the thoughts to come, an insight or solution will present itself.
Because I’m afraid of my thoughts being found and read by someone else, I destroy each page after it’s written. Names can be disguised. The simple act of getting those thoughts out of my head and onto paper helps to relieve stress tremendously. Just thought I’d share this with you.
WRITING IT DOWN IN THE EAST

DEAR WRITING: Writing or journaling is a very effective way to organize one’s thoughts and purge negative emotions. I’m glad you suggested it because I think it may help some of my readers. Thank you!

DEAR ABBY: I babysit my nieces and nephews. While we are grocery shopping and we get to the checkout, they’ll ask for candy or chips. If I tell them no, it’s usually because they have already had a treat, it’s too close to a meal or perhaps because they have misbehaved.
What do I do when the person behind me offers to buy it for them? I know they assume I refused because I don’t have the money, and they are trying to be helpful. Saying, “No, thank you,” just upsets the child when he or she knows someone wanted to buy them a treat. Any ideas?
NO MEANS NO IN GEORGIA

DEAR NO MEANS NO: Instead of just saying, “No, thank you,” to the person making the offer, explain the reason for your refusal as you have explained it to me. That way, the well-meaning stranger understands that you are not short of funds, and your nieces and nephews hear the reason as well.

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To order “How to Write Letters for All Occasions,” send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $8 to: Dear Abby — Letter Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447.

Learn some easy ways to keep your immune system strong

Fri, 07/03/2020 - 9:59am

The immune system is a powerful component of the human body. The immune system recognizes when viruses, bacteria and other foreign invaders enter or compromise the body, and then takes action to prevent illnesses from taking over.
The average person can help his or her immune system do its job more effectively by making the immune system as strong as it can be.
Harvard Medical School says that diet, exercise, age and psychological stress may affect immune system response. Certain lifestyle choices can promote a strong immune system.
—Get adequate sleep. Doctors believe sleep and immunity are closely tied. A study of 164 healthy adults published by the National Institutes of Health found those who slept fewer than six hours each night were more likely to catch a cold than people who slept for more than six hours. Aim for adequate rest each night to keep your body in top form.
—Increase your intake of fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables supply the powerhouse antioxidants that are essential for protecting a body against free radicals. Free radicals may play a role in heart disease, cancer and other diseases. Serve fruits and/or vegetables with every meal to ensure you’re getting enough antioxidant-rich foods.
—Consume fiber and fermented foods. Fiber can help feed the gut microbiome, which is linked to a robust immune system. The microbiome also may prevent harmful pathogens from entering the body through the digestive tract. Data also suggests that eating more fermented foods can further strengthen and populate healthy bacteria in the gut.
—Exercise regularly. Aim for 30 minutes of moderate exercise per day, advises the American Heart Association. Thirty minutes of exercise each day can go a long way toward keeping the body healthy.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine says physical activity may help flush bacteria out of the lungs and airways. Exercise causes changes in antibodies and white blood cells. These antibodies and white blood cells circulate rapidly, so they may detect illnesses earlier than they would if you do not exercise. Body temperature also rises during exercise, which could naturally prevent bacteria from growing.
—Try to minimize stress. According to Simply Psychology, when people are stressed, the immune system’s ability to fight off antigens is reduced, making people more susceptible to infections. The stress hormone corticosteroid can suppress the effectiveness of the immune system. Limiting stress through meditation and breathing exercises, or trying to remove stressors from oneÕs life, may help.
A healthy immune system is vital to fending off or recovering from illness.

Jim Bradshaw: Mississippi diversion was conceived 50 years before Corps' plans

Fri, 07/03/2020 - 9:56am

Each spring and summer, when the Mississippi begins to rise, we start to hear from folks who think it will change course into the Atchafalaya, flooding half of south Louisiana.
In 1980, two LSU professors, economist David Johnson and civil engineer Raphael Kazman, were among the first to seriously study what might happen if the Big Muddy did switch its bed. More recently LSU hydrologist Yi-Jun Xu, has joined the list of folks who warn that a really big Mississippi River flood could cause the change, permanently and with disastrous results.
The Corps of Engineers began seriously studying the problem in the 1950s, when they were designing controls to allow some, but just some, of the Mississippi water into the Atchafalaya. It turns out that they came up with a solution that was recommended at least 50 years earlier by a civil engineer named E. T. King.
He was hired in 1897 by the police juries of St. Martin and Iberia parishes, who were thinking of another diversion. They wanted the federal government to pay for a dam across Bayou Courtableau at Port Barre, sending its water into Bayou Teche.
For most of the year the upper Teche didn’t have enough water to float a good-sized steamboat and Bayou Courtableau was so jammed with logs near Port Barre that boats could not use it. Folks on the Teche reasoned that diverting the water would allow steamboats to use the upper Teche and even get back into the Courtableau, and also provide ample water for irrigation. They hired King to “compile the available data . . . [for] a business-like and intelligent presentation to Congress.”
His report gives an impressive picture of the commerce along the Teche in St. Mary, Iberia and St. Martin parishes just as the new century was about to begin. There were 66 sugar mills, 19 saw and shingle mills, 38 cotton gins, two cottonseed oil mills, 10 brick factories, five ice factories, and three foundries alongside the bayou. They turned out products valued at $12 million (about $375 million in today’s money), and that didn’t include fish and oyster factories, tanneries, moss gins, and more.
King said improving navigation was well worth the money, that the factories in place would do more business, and new ones would be built.
But he also said in 1898 that there was a “great danger” threatening everything — “the danger of the Mississippi river continuing down the Atchafalaya.”
The distance down the Atchafalaya from the mouth of the Red River to the Gulf was only one-third of the winding Mississippi’s course, he pointed out. The Atchafalaya was also straighter and steeper. The only reason the Mississippi had not changed course was because the Atchafalaya was not yet wide enough or deep enough to handle the water, he said.
“But,” he warned, “it is both widening and deepening rapidly, and it is only a question of time.”
The remedy, he said, “is to entirely divorce the Red and Atchafalaya from the Mississippi” by building a dam at Old River that would “protect from overflow one million acres of the richest land in the world.”
His report was sent to Congress, but nothing was done then — either to cause the diversion of the Courtableau or to stop the diversion of the Mississippi. King’s studies and comments were presumably filed away in some dusty corner of the Library of Congress, probably sitting untouched to this day.
But it is just possible that someone peeked at them in the 1950s when the Corps began to worry that the Atchafalaya was getting even wider and steeper than in King’s day. Or it may simply have been that they applied the same engineering principles and arrived at the same solution independently. At any rate, their answer was to build the Old River Control Structure, designed to “divorce” the Mississippi from the Atchafalaya, exactly where King said it should be.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, "Cajuns and Other Characters," is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.

Morgan City man arrested in hit and run that caused serious injuries

Thu, 07/02/2020 - 2:40pm

Police have arrested a Morgan City man who's accused of hit and run after hitting one motorcycle early Thursday and causing two other motorcycles to crash. Two people received serious injuries.

Justin Cheramie, 39, La. 70, Morgan City, was booked on charges of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, possession of an open alcoholic beverage in a motor vehicle, felony hit and run, possession of a Schedule IV controlled dangerous substance, two counts of first-degree vehicular negligent injury and vehicle negligent injuring.

Around 12:05 a.m. Thursday, officers with the Morgan City Police Department responded to the area of La. 70 near Veterans Boulevard due to a serious hit and run vehicle accident. As officers arrived they learned that the accident involved one truck and three motorcycles and that the truck had fled the scene.

Officers were able to determine that the driver of the truck had crossed the center line and struck one of the motorcycles. As a result of the truck striking one of the motorcycles, two other motorcycles crashed due attempting to avoid the truck, according to the Police Department.

One male driver of a motorcycle who had serious injuries was airlifted to Trauma Center due to his injuries. Another driver was treated at Oschner St. Mary for injuries including broken bones. The third driver was treated at the scene.

Cheramie was determined to be the driver of the truck which fled. He was located a short time later after he called the Morgan City Police Department to report that he had been involved in an accident. Cheramie was located and placed under arrest at which time he was taken to Morgan City Police Department, where he was given a field sobriety test on which he did poorly on. Cheramie then submitted to a chemical test for intoxication with the results of .346 g%. Cheramie was booked into the Morgan City Police Department.

Smith takes oath for full term as sheriff

Thu, 07/02/2020 - 1:15pm

St. Mary Parish Sheriff Blaise W. Smith was sworn in Wednesday to begin his first full elected term. \ Smith, surrounded by deputies and employees of the SMPSO, family and friends was sworn in by Assistant District Attorney Tony Saleme at the St. Mary Courthouse in Franklin.

Smith was first elected in December 2018 when he defeated Scott Anslum in the runoff of a special election. Smith served as elected interim sheriff from December of 2018 and won the 2019 election in November against challengers Todd Pellerin and Frank "Boo" Grizzafi. July 1, marks the first day of his full four-year term as Sheriff.

Smith's office said his interim term was characterized by upgrades to the St. Mary Parish Law Enforcement Center facility, as well as changes to the operations at the LEC, acquisition of much-needed units for patrol, expansion of the K9 division from one to give K9s and handlers, re-establishment of the criminal exchange program with nearby agencies, and fiscal responsibility.

New Morgan City commander 'grew up in the Coast Guard'

Thu, 07/02/2020 - 1:00pm

GEOFF STOUTE

gstoute@daily-review.com

A desire to lead is a part of being a U.S. Coast Guard member, and Cmdr. Ben Russell, the new commanding officer of Marine Safety Unit Morgan City, has received that opportunity.
Russell, who was installed as the local Coast Guard leader in a change of command ceremony Friday, is in his first role as a commanding officer.
“This has been an amazing opportunity for me and my family,” he said Wednesday. “As Coast Guard officers, you’re encouraged to always inspire to command, and it really becomes part of a Coast Guard life.”
Russell takes over for Cmdr. Heather Mattern, who left Morgan City after three years of service for a new post.
Russell, who has been a Coast Guard member since 2000, graduated as a third-class petty officer and marine science technician.
“I grew up in the Coast Guard, basically in marine safety,” he said.
He comes to Morgan City after serving four years in New Orleans on the District 8 Commander’s staff.
He said he and his wife, Jennifer, have been impressed by the local Coast Guard staff.
“The women and men of Coast Guard MSU Morgan City are outstanding, and my predecessor told me as much,” Russell said.
As commanding officer in Morgan City, he and his staff will be tasked with keeping local waterways safely navigable. One component of that involves dredging. He said the Coast Guard works closely with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who handles dredging, to locate areas that need to be dredged and take care of them.
Morgan City is located on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and many vessels through the Gulf Coast pass through the city annually.
As commander, he said making Morgan City “one of the Coast Guard’s premier towing vessel inspection and servicing ports” is a goal.
“Day to day, I want us to make sure that working with our community leaders and our industry stakeholders that we continue to have a vibrant waterway,” Russell said.
He also said he wants to enhance education among recreational boaters.
“Certainly Morgan City has a huge commercial nexus, but there’s also recreational users out there. … There is risks out there, but I think we can do some education and some outreach with the Coast Guard and our other local law enforcement partners. … With those partnerships and outreach with the community, we hope to make the recreationalist a lot safer,” he said.
As he begins his time in Morgan City, Russell said it is a place that is known throughout the Coast Guard as a great area for Coast Guard members to live and work.
He said that members of the local unit are more than just stationed in Morgan City.
“Certainly, we’re the federal regulator, but we also live here, and we want to make sure that people know that and that we want to be a part of this community,” Russell said.

John Flores: Fishing for bream should be part of Fourth of July

Thu, 07/02/2020 - 12:57pm

JOHN FLORES

One of the best things about federal holidays like the Fourth of July that fall on the weekend is most companies give employees the day prior or after off. Depending on if it’s a Saturday or Sunday that is. And, what’s better than a three-day weekend?
A couple of weeks back I began watching the Morgan City river stages. It was predictable that the water in the Atchafalaya River would be falling precipitously and by the time the Fourth of July weekend rolled around a pretty darn good bream bite would be in full swing.
Of course, I had to test my prognostication, so I marked the calendar with a few dates to go fishing. Last Saturday being one of them. Sure enough, the bluegills and red ear sunfish fishing was stellar. Mrs. Flores and I brought home from Flat Lake 31 red ears, also known around these parts as chinquapins.
They were pretty ones too. All were in the 8- to 9-inch length and we even had a couple that hit 10 inches long. So, with that successful test, I marked the calendar again for July 3.
There’s nothing better than spending Independence Day on the water with good company catching a mess of bream. After all, there is that pursuit of happiness part of the Declaration of Independence. And, it seems to me fishing is exactly what those founding fathers had in mind.
The thing about bream fishing is to keep it simple. Case in point, this past weekend a feller from Denham Springs (Note: I didn’t catch his name) hollers at me from across the bayou. Seeing me and Christine catching fish he says, “How do you catch a fish around here? My wife and I have been trolling all morning and ain’t caught a fish yet.”
I told him that we were using a No. 6 Aberdeen hook set 3½’ beneath a balsa wood float with a small split shot set about 12 inches above the hook to make it set right. Moreover, for bait we were using red worms.
He said, “Well I’m now in the right church, now all I have to do is find me a pew. My wife and I’ve been using artificial lures, but I brought a box of worms.”
He found him a little spot amongst the cypress trees, where several boats were fishing and immediately started catching bream. And from the sound of his wife, they began to have a little fun.
It’s not that artificial lures don’t work for bream, they certainly do. Lures like Johnson Beetle Spins or H&H Lures Pro Cajun Spins are very effective under the right conditions. Particularly, in the 1/16th and 1/32nd ounce sizes. These lures come in a variety of colors of which black and chartreuse, black with yellow stripes, and yellow with black stripes are popular.
I have to admit, though it’s fun catching bream on lures you fooled them with, I’ve simply found you catch a lot more bluegills, chinquapins, and goggle eyes on live bait like crickets and worms.
Many of the fish we caught were full of eggs meaning they are probably into a second spawn. Bream spawn when the water temperature is 69.8 to 89.6 degrees, with the peak temperature being 75 degrees.
Essentially, bluegills and red ear sunfish can spawn more than once during the spring and summer months in two to six feet of water being preferred. With the Atchafalaya River stage falling below five feet this week, there will literally be hundreds of locations throughout the Atchafalaya Basin to catch panfish.
Look for any structure in five feet of water along canal banks. Fish points that form a submerged flat. Patches of thick grass usually produce quite a few small ones, but if you’re willing to cull, you’ll eventually pick up a few keepers to fill your ice chest.
There’s nothing like a good fish fry. And, what better day than the Fourth of July. As always, be safe on the water and make sure not just the little ones wear their personal floatation devices, which is required by law, but make sure you do as well.
With heat indexes approaching 100 degrees plus, be sure to bring along plenty of water and sunscreen with no less than SPF 30.
Here’s wishing you a fantastic Independence Day weekend.

Parish schools fill assistant principal positions

Thu, 07/02/2020 - 12:55pm

Staff Report
St. Mary Parish Superintendent Teresa Bagwell has announced several appointments “to secure leadership positions and allow for attendance at required trainings in advance of the 2020-21 school year.”
The changes included appointments of assistant principals at three high schools:
—Morgan City High teacher Lacie Hotard will fill the assistant principal vacancy at MCHS. Dennis McDill resigned the position to relocate out of state.
—During the 2019-20 school year, Centerville High Assistant Principal Tammilee Kelly became the acting principal at Wyandotte Elementary. She was recently named principal at Wyandotte. Angela Brinkley, acting assistant principal at Centerville High, has been appointed to that role permanently.
—With the retirement of Terry Duchane as assistant principal at Franklin High, former Patterson Junior High physical education teacher and coach Bianca Bennett has been appointed to fill Duchane’s spot.
—Noelle Lowrimore, who has served as acting assistant principal at Berwick High School, has been permanently placed in that position.
Two junior highs have new permanent appointments. Berwick Junior High’s acting assistant principal, Ryan Taylor, will remain at BJHS. Patterson Junior High will see the addition of former Lagrange Elementary special education teacher Almetra Pierce-Stansbury as a new administrator. She will fill the vacancy created when Dequindra Redding resigned to assume an administrator role in St. Martin Parish.
With the appointment of Tonya Hills, former assistant principal at Hattie Watts Elementary, as principal at Raintree Elementary, Bagwell appointed Ronica LaPoint, former curriculum facilitator for Hattie Watts and Patterson Junior High. LaPoint also served as acting principal at PJHS during the spring 2020 semester when Redding resigned.

Holiday closings listed; no paper Monday

Thu, 07/02/2020 - 12:53pm

The Daily Review will be closed Monday, July 6, in observance of Independence Day. There will be no paper printed on Monday.
Due to the closure, news and advertising deadlines may be earlier than usual.
Normal business hours of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. will resume on Tuesday, July 7.
State and parish offices will be closed Friday in observance of the Fourth of July holiday which falls on Saturday.
Morgan City and Berwick municipal offices will also be closed on Friday.
However, Patterson municipal offices will be closed on Monday.
The Harold J. “Babe” Landry Landfill in Berwick will close at noon on Saturday.
Due to the early closure, any routes run by Republic Services and Pelican Waste & Debris will be collected earlier than usual. Customers with a Saturday collection may wish to put the receptacles by the street Friday night.

Analysis: Sessions were less about policy than about COVID

Thu, 07/02/2020 - 12:50pm

Louisiana legislators passed a $35 billion state budget with two hours to spare on Tuesday, a stark contrast from the frenetic final moments of other recent sessions.
It was an unusual ending for an unusual session that likely will be remembered more for the constant threat of a new coronavirus than for any of the legislation that came out of it.
Lawmakers convened for their regularly scheduled session on March 9. Changing the state’s civil justice system was at the top of the agenda for many Republicans. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards hoped to continue raising K-12 teacher pay and boosting funding for higher education. And everyone wanted to invest more in early childhood learning.
All of those goals were overshadowed by the most deadly worldwide pandemic since 1918, which sent state government into survival mode. Legislators canceled most of their regular session and launched a one-month special session literally one minute after the first one ended June 1.
COVID-19 killed one representative, Reggie Bagala, threatened the lives of at least two others, Rep. Ted James and Rep. Rodney Lyons, and infected an unknown number of lawmakers and staffers.
“Rep. Bagala didn’t come back,” Lyons said Tuesday. “Several members of this body almost didn’t come back. I almost didn’t come back.”
It was only the second time the Louisiana Legislature, not the governor, called an unplanned session, as the Republican-dominated legislature continued to establish its independence in a state where historically the governor drives the agenda. The state Senate and House of Representatives worked together more closely than during the last term, forcing Edwards and his allies to play defense.
The state constitution requires passing the bills that fund government services before the fiscal year begins July 1. In crafting the $35 billion spending plan for general operations, lawmakers gave haircuts to departments across state government and held back funding for scheduled raises. But they avoided making deep cuts despite a projected revenue shortfall thanks to federal aid.
The topics lawmakers debated during the special session went far beyond their constitutionally required work. A business task force legislative leaders created to come up with economic recovery ideas drove much of the agenda. The various tax breaks and incentives they proposed were pitched as ways to help businesses recover from the pandemic, though skeptics worried the measures would chip away at state finances while doing little to help struggling companies stay afloat.
Legislators also used federal pandemic aid to set up funds to give low-to-middle-income “essential” workers $250 of “hazard pay” and grant small businesses harmed by the pandemic up to $15,000. Lawmakers acknowledged both funds may run out of money before every affected company or worker gets a share.
As protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police were held nationwide and even internationally, state lawmakers debated law enforcement reform. While there wasn’t much argument about the need to study the issue, the conversations turned heated over questions of race and whether there is a need for systemic change, as opposed to weeding out “bad apples.”
Lawmakers voted down a proposal to end “qualified immunity” for law enforcement, a judicial concept critics say enables misconduct. They approved creating a “police training, screening and de-escalation” task force only after Republicans insisted on stripping out of the resolution language referencing Floyd and the treatment of Black men.
And when Rep. Tony Bacala, a Republican and retired law enforcement officer, took to the House floor to say that officers are more likely to be killed in the line of duty than Black men are to be killed by officers, James, who is Black, gave a fiery response.
“I will concede that there is an issue with police brutality period,” James said. “Way too often, when the victim of that brutality is an African American, that officer skates.”
Perhaps the most significant policy development of the session was passage of a sweeping civil justice overhaul, which Edwards has promised to sign into law after vetoing a similar measure passed during the regular session. Among other changes, the legislation lowers the amount that must be at stake to trigger the right to a civil jury from $50,000, by far the highest such threshold in the nation, to $10,000.
Supporters say the state’s current legal system is too generous to plaintiffs and encourages frivolous lawsuits, arguing the changes could lead to cheaper automobile insurance. Skeptics doubt the promised benefits will come to fruition and worry lawmakers have tilted the system to favor insurers and big companies over average citizens.
All the while, the pandemic hung over the session. Fewer people showed up to give public testimony than in past years. Temperatures were checked on the way into the capitol. Seats in committee rooms were blocked off with yellow hazard tape to ensure distance between audience members.
During the first several weeks of the pandemic, even Republicans gave Edwards credit for controlling the spread of the disease and ensuring the state’s health care system was not overwhelmed with patients. But once the infection curve had been flattened, some House Republicans called for an immediate end to the business restrictions that handcuff the state’s economy, though those efforts did not succeed.
Several lawmakers bristled at being left out of the governor’s decision-making loop about COVID-19 restrictions, echoing complaints about what many see as the administration’s lack of transparency on other issues. Legislators of both parties objected to the health department’s request for quick approval of a major overhaul of how state government handles Medicaid payment dispersals, though they ultimately signed off on the “dollars follow the patient” plan on a one-year trial basis.
Wearing masks, which public health experts now say is one of the most effective ways to control the spread, became a partisan issue. Many of the Republicans who were most adamant about fully reopening the economy were the least likely to wear face coverings.
In his speech to colleagues Tuesday, Lyons recalled not entering his own home when he left the suspended session in March, out of fear of infecting his family with the coronavirus. Though his risk might be lower now that he has recovered from the illness, he said, he still wears a mask to set an example.
“We’ve got to think beyond ourselves,” he said. “Whatever we can do from this point on to protect ourselves and others, let’s do it.”
Though they haven’t scheduled another special session, many lawmakers expect to come back in October. If the economy has not recovered and more federal help is not forthcoming, they may be forced to make the deep cuts they avoided in June.
Shortly before Lyons spoke Tuesday, Baton Rouge Republican Rep. Rick Edmonds, a pastor by trade, tried to strike a hopeful note amid the multiple crises. He urged his colleagues to find ways to speak respectfully with one another about sensitive issues and “give each other the benefit of the doubt.”
“We will rally together, as the people of Louisiana and the people of America, and we will not throw in the towel,” he said.