Nov 2nd, 2011 at 10:00AM:
If New Orleans' Bourbon Street has a little sister, it is, at least sometimes, 6th Street in Austin. Both streets are main attractions, teeming with boisterous activity. Both streets are usually embraced by tourists and, perhaps just as usually, eschewed by locals. And both streets are worth walking, no matter who you are or where you are from, on certain days of the year, namely, costumed days. ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Louisiana posts
Halloween on 6th Street in Austin: the sounds and lights
Nov 2nd, 2011 at 10:00AM:
If New Orleans' Bourbon Street has a little sister, it is, at least sometimes, 6th Street in Austin. Both streets are main attractions, teeming with boisterous activity. Both streets are usually embraced by tourists and, perhaps just as usually, eschewed by locals. And both streets are worth walking, no matter who you are or where you are from, on certain days of the year, namely, costumed days. ...Photo of the day: New Orleans after Katrina
Oct 26th, 2011 at 5:00PM:
People have been talking about New Orleans differently since Hurricane Katrina. No matter how the city's name slips into conversation, the disaster named Katrina is typically addressed and typically, it must be. Anyone who knows NOLA will vouch for the tremendous damage caused by this storm and the circumstances surrounding it. But many people who know NOLA will also confess: the city still has ...Gawker's Worst 50 States
Aug 25th, 2011 at 11:30AM: I've been following Gawker's newest series, The Worst 50 States. I've been enjoying following this series. In an effort to pin down not only the best states in the US of A, but, more importantly, the worst states, Gawker compiled a Gawker-invented rating system in order to rank our fair fifty. Granted, this rating system consists solely of the viewpoints of those on staff for Gawker, so the ...Confederate submarine set upright for first time since 1864
Jun 26th, 2011 at 3:00PM: The H.L. Hunley made history back in 1864 when it became the first submarine to successfully attack an enemy ship. Launched by the Confederacy as a way to break the Union blockade of Southern ports during the Civil War, it sank the USS Housatonic on 17 February 1864 and itself mysteriously sank shortly thereafter.
Crew members hand cranked the propeller to make the sub move forward and its one ...Pop-up restaurants: dining for a new decade
Apr 28th, 2011 at 1:30PM: First, it was underground supper clubs. Now, everything's coming up pop-ups. As with food trucks, this form of guerrilla cheffing borne of economic need has become a global phenomenon. Equal parts dinner party and dinner theater, a pop-up refers to a dining establishment that is open anywhere from one to several nights, usually in an existing restaurant or other commercial food establishment.
...Update from the shores of Louisiana
Feb 17th, 2011 at 10:00AM: A trio of events happening simultaneously this week along the Gulf coast is stirring debate:
The team responsible for paying out damages to Gulf spill victims is about to start writing checks to those who've proved they deserve it;
NOAA has given its blessing to reopening a 4,200-square-mile area of the Gulf of Meico to fishing, near where the BP well exploded;
and chemical ...5 tips for actually enjoying Mardi Gras
Jan 30th, 2011 at 6:00PM:
While New Orleans seems to celebrate Mardi Gras all year round, it is at this time of the year--the weeks leading up to Fat Tuesday (in French: Mardi Gras) and the beginning of Lent--that the city earns its hard partying reputation.
It happens ...New Orleans Band Better Than Ezra Welcomes us to Mardi Gras
Jan 28th, 2011 at 12:00PM: Ever thought about going to Mardi Gras, only to quickly reconsider? Daunted by the idea of drunken crowds and inadvertently turning up on an episode of Cops? Well New Orleans-based rock band Better Than Ezra is inviting newbies and veterans alike to a Mardi Gras experience that promises much more than the balcony-hanging, bead-throwing debauchery one might expect.
The event is called Krewe of ...Top 10 travel spots in the United States
Jan 17th, 2011 at 1:30PM: So, Orbitz noted when we like to travel ... but where do we go? The top 10 destinations in the country were mostly predictable, with big tourist-magnet cities dominating the list. There were a few surprises, according to the information supplied by Orbitz: Boston, for example, didn't make the list, after having ranked ninth in 2009. Los Angeles, fifth in 2009, also fell off in 2010. New Orleans ...Civil War secret message decoded
Dec 26th, 2010 at 9:30AM:
A coded message sent to the beleaguered Confederate commander of Vicksburg has been cracked, the BBC reports.
The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond has had the message in its collection for more than a century. It had never tried to decipher the code of seemingly random letters until this year, when they sent it off to retired CIA codebreaker David Gaddy. While Gaddy is trained to ...Bowermaster's Adventures: Checking in on the BP spill cleanup
Dec 10th, 2010 at 11:00AM: Reports last week from the beaches of Alabama and Mississippi suggest that the post-BP gusher cleanup continues, with varying degrees of success, and that new oil continues to show up.
Near the Alabama-Florida border, a placed called Perdido (Lost) Key, BP-contracted crews have been sifting sand for more than six months to try and get rid of tar mats buried nearly three feet beneath the sand.
...Bowermaster's Adventures: Five reasons we should not believe the BP mess is "cleaned up"
Nov 30th, 2010 at 2:00PM:
Three months ago, on August 2, the White House – citing an in-house National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study – announced that 74 percent of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico by the BP mess was gone, had either been cleaned up or simply disappeared.
Few seriously believed the report at the time, including many NOAA scientists; even fewer think it's true today. ...Bowermaster's Adventures - Measuring the extent of oil spillage
Nov 29th, 2010 at 11:30AM:
With the six-month anniversary of the BP spill now in the rear view mirror the company as well as a variety of officials both federal and state would like the world to believe the oil is gone.
But photos and first-hand accounts from Barataria Bay recently show the opposite – oil still reaching high into the marshy grasslands, baby crabs and adult shrimp covered by crude, slicks on the ...Best college restaurant: Good Morning America wants your vote
Nov 19th, 2010 at 11:30AM: For most of us, college was a low period in our culinary lives. Ramen, macaroni and cheese, beer for breakfast. . .ah, the memories!
When we got tired of contributing to our freshman fifteen with junk food, there was always that one place that served up something a little better, a little special. If you've been to college, or even if you haven't, I bet you just thought of that place right now. ...Bowermaster's Adventures: Lifiting the drilling moratorium
Nov 19th, 2010 at 9:00AM: Less than 180 days after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank and less than 60 days after BP finally sealed the well that leaked 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama Administration lifted its own moratorium on deepwater drilling.
While Gulf State oil workers, especially in Louisiana, are relieved, hoping that new permits will be approved by year's end and jobs ...Abandoned Six Flags New Orleans video is creeping us out
Nov 5th, 2010 at 4:30PM:
Six Flags New Orleans, which closed as Hurricane Katrina approached in 2005 and has never reopened. The sign outside the park still announces that it's "CLOSED FOR STORM."
The theme park was in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, one of the hardest hit areas during Katrina and the flooding after the storm. Though many of the rides still stand, Six Flags says that saltwater from the flood has corroded ...Katrina exhibit opens in New Orleans
Oct 31st, 2010 at 11:00AM: It was the most catastrophic event in New Orleans history. Hurricane Katrina destroyed large swathes of the city and left hundreds of thousands homeless. Now the Louisiana State Museum has opened an exhibit chronicling the natural disasters that have visited New Orleans, culminating in the most recent and worst.
Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond, a 6,700 square-foot multimedia ...New York: best and worst city in schismatic survey
Oct 21st, 2010 at 12:00PM: If you want to travel like a local, then it makes sense to know something about your destination ... and isn't the best city to live attractive? It's the kind of place you'd want to explore and see why it's so loved. And at the same time, you'd probably want to avoid the worst of the worst – who would want to go there?
Well, a new Harris Interactive poll makes this thinking hard to ...From the Shores of Louisiana - Is gulf seafood safe?
Oct 20th, 2010 at 10:00AM: Baton Rouge, Louisiana: It's rare for me to see 67-year-old Wilma Subra – chemist, MacArthur Grant 'genius,' grandmother of six – so worked up. But when I asked last week how things were going in the Gulf, where she's been measuring levels of toxicity in air, water and fish long before the BP gusher began she was adamant that things are still bad out there.
"My biggest concern is ...From the shores of Louisiana - SoLa premiere
Oct 18th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
Baton Rouge, Louisiana – Last weekend I premiered my new documentary film about water and man in Louisiana – "SoLa, Louisiana Water Stories" – in the belly of the beast, in the heart of the state's capitol.
The showing was at the beautiful Manship Theater and drew a crowd of Louisiana's environmental cognoscenti, from activists to lawyers, politicians to fishermen. After ...
