The idealists among us like to say that justice is blind and illustrations generally show us Lady Justice with a blindfold as she holds the scales of justice.
But if the statues gracing the front of the Federal Courthouse in Lafayette are any indication, it would seem that justice may also tend to be brainless as well.
…And there are certainly times when decisions handed down would appear to substantiate the latter.
But the burning question has to be: Why?
Posted in Politics | 5 Comments »
(Editor’s note: One of my classmates at Louisiana Tech back in the late ’60s was Nico Van Thyn who would go on to an outstanding career as a sportswriter for several papers, including the Shreveport Times, Shreveport Journal and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He is now retired and living in Fort Worth. While at Tech, he was a student writer under the direction of the university’s Sports Information Directors Pete Dosher, Jack Fiser and Paul Manasseh and he was an eyewitness to the career of Tech all-time great quarterback Terry Bradshaw. In addition to writing Survivors: 62511, 70726, a poignant book about his parents’ experiences as victims of Hitler’s Holocaust, he wrote the following to set the record straight about the myth surrounding Bradshaw’s predecessor, Duck Commander Phil Robertson. It is reprinted below with his permission:
By Nico Van Thyn, Guest Columnist
When it comes to his athletic career, reality star Phil Robertson—the famed “Duck Commander”—is not very real.
But he and his family are really good at spreading myths. Such as (1) he was All-State in football, baseball and track; (2) he was a major-college recruit; and (3) he had NFL potential as a quarterback.
The first part: no, no, no.
Major prospect: doubtful.
The NFL? Oh, please. No way.
Quickly: I pay very little attention to anything ol’ Phil or his relatives have to say.
He is as far-right conservative as one can get, and I don’t travel in that direction. His brand of religion isn’t mine; his social and political views … not interested.
The TV shows, videos and books about him and his Duck Dynasty family … no thanks.
But I checked for one aspect: athletics. That’s because I was around for Phil’s time at North Caddo High—30 miles north of Shreveport—and Louisiana Tech University.
We saw Phil from the opposing side in high school; we compiled the game and season stats in football as student assistant in sports information for most of the three seasons he played at Tech.
But what I’ve seen and heard from Phil & Sons is about as far from true as the length of Terry Bradshaw’s longest pass (that might’ve carried 80-85 yards) or his national-record javelin throw in high school (244 feet, 11 inches).
I wrote about Phil and Terry 4 1/2 years ago, so I will try not to repeat much of that.
So why write this piece now? It is admittedly a nitpicking, innocuous exercise … except it is like finding a resume’ that is greatly exaggerated.
It irks me to read and hear what I know is not so.
Phil’s athletics bio and story-telling are—I saw this term in a book I am reading—“stretchers.”
I wrote some of this two years ago, but held off because I could not verify what I recalled. Now having checked microfilm of the 1960s’ Shreveport Times, I can tell you this:
Phil Robertson not only was not All-State in football, he wasn’t 1-AA all-district. He was honorable mention.
(Fred Haynes of Minden was all-district, having led his team to an undefeated state championship. Then he was a starter at LSU).
Phil might have pitched for North Caddo — as his sons will tell you — and he did make all-district in ’64 … as an outfielder. But the special baseball players in Class AA in our area, the All-State guys—five of them—were at Jesuit (state champs) and Ruston (two, one a future major leaguer).
He did throw the javelin, and he did make it to the state meet. But he was second in the district meet two years in a row (a Minden athlete beat him both years), third in the ’64 regional, fourth in the state meet … and not All-State. He was not Terry Bradshaw in the javelin, not close.
Myth No. 2: A Sports Illustrated “Campus Union” story dated March 22, 2012, says: “… Robertson said he fielded offers to join the football programs at LSU, Ole Miss, Baylor and Rice.”
Can’t disprove it, but it is highly doubtful. He wasn’t that good as a high school QB, and I suspect Louisiana Tech was his best offer.
I can tell you that we had five talented QBs in the 1960s at our school that Phil could envy: three signed major-college scholarships (LSU and Arkansas); the other two signed with Tech. Three were drafted by pro football teams.
One started ahead of Phil at Tech; the other backed up Phil, but went on and won four Super Bowls.
Phil ducked his football career.
A lot of us sensed, early in 1968, that when Bradshaw’s potential blossomed—it soon did—he would replace Phil as Tech’s starting QB. My opinion: Phil sensed that, too. Losing was not fun, and he loved duck hunting.
Myth No. 3: A tryout with the Redskins.
It is so ludicrous, it is laughable. It is a joke. Nothing about it adds up. It is Phil as his BS-ing best.
He talks about this on a Sports Spectrum TV segment posted (March 25, 2013) on YouTube.
A transcript (found through a Google search) of the video follows:
So, Robertson left football and, the following season, he hunted ducks while completing his degree.
A year or so later, though, a former Louisiana Tech teammate, running back Bob Brunet, was with the Redskins and thought Robertson could still make the team. Brunet told Robertson to come up and he would likely be the backup and earn about $60,000.
“At the time, $60,000 didn’t seem like a whole lot even in the ’60s,” says Phil, who worked as a teacher for a few years after earning his degree from Louisiana Tech and then earned his master’s degree in education, with a concentration in English.
“I said, ‘I don’t know about that. I would miss duck season, you know? I’d have to be up there in some northern city.’ I said, ‘Brunet, you think I’d stay?’ He said, ‘I doubt it. You’d probably leave with the ducks, Robertson.’ I said, ‘Probably so.’”
“That’s when (future Hall of Fame coach Vince) Lombardi went to Washington for a few years right before he quit coaching. …What (Brunet) said was, ‘We got this hot dog, Robertson, but you can beat him out easy.’ I said, ‘Who’s the hot dog?’ He said, ‘You’re not going to beat out (future Hall of Famer Sonny) Jurgensen. You’re not going to beat him out, but this hot dog, his backup, no problem.’ I said, ‘Who is he?’ He said, ‘Joe Theismann.’”
Phil paused, smiled, then chuckled, recalling the conversation and how good Theismann became—a Super Bowl XVII champion, NFL MVP, and a two-time All-Pro and Pro Bowl selection.
“(Brunet) said, ‘No problem, we’ve got him, hands down.’
‘I may do it,’” Phil recalls says. “But I didn’t do it. I stayed with the ducks. But looking back on it, who knows if I’d gone up there, you know, I might not have ever run up on Jesus at 28.”
Now, the truth, the facts:
Lombardi coached one season (1969) in Washington. Brunet never played a regular-season game with Lombardi as coach. In fact, he quit the team.
Robert was the best back (when not hurt) we had at Tech in my time there (1965-68 seasons), a two-time all-conference player. The Redskins drafted him, and as a rookie in 1968, he had the second-most carries on the team. The coach that season was Otto Graham.
After Lombardi came in — having sat out one season following his Green Bay retirement — Brunet did not take to his fierce coaching style.
(The Great Coach was the opposite of the dignified soft-spoken legendary Tech coach Joe Aillet, and the head coach in Robert’s senior season, Maxie Lambright, was a quiet man, too, more intense than Aillet but nothing like Vince.)
So Brunet left and sat out the 1969 season, the time of Phil’s story.
Robert did return to the Redskins in the spring of 1970, with Lombardi still there. But in June, Lombardi’s fast-spreading cancer was found, and he never returned to coaching. He died before the season kicked off.
So, Bill Austin was Brunet’s head coach in ’70, and George Allen came in ’71 (and Brunet was a standout special-teams player for him into the 1977 season).
Jurgensen did not start much in 1971 through 1973. He was injured a lot and then the backup to Billy Kilmer (including a hapless Super Bowl against the “perfect” Miami Dolphins, 1972 season).
Jurgensen and Theismann were on the same Redskins team only in 1974. The “hot dog”—after three years in Canadian football—barely played that year. Kilmer started 10 games (and got hurt); Jurgensen started four (and a playoff game).
By then, Phil had been out of football seven years.
And if I have the timing correctly, Phil’s downward spiral hit in the early 1970s, and he soon was drinking and rowdy and split from his family for a time—not exactly headed for the NFL. Then he found religion.
I Don’t remember religion being a factor for Phil at Tech. His religion was hunting and fishing. In fact, Bradshaw had more of a religious leaning (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) then than Phil.
So maybe Phil and Brunet had a conversation about him playing for the Redskins. But, good gosh, what Phil tells makes no sense.
He’s told it so often, though—and written it—and his sons talk about him being All-State and “turning down a chance to play professional football,” and they all believe it now … and want the world to believe it.
Our lack of success in 1966 and 1967 wasn’t all Phil’s doing; the teams weren’t sound. But the QBs were not difference makers.
As a passer, Phil did have a quick release—Bradshaw has mentioned that often in interviews—and he had a decent arm. But not a great arm, like Terry.
Pro potential? Hardly. Alan, Jase and Willie—the sons—can twist it the way they want and repeat the un-truth.
NFL teams were not going to be interested in a guy who quit before his senior season—“to chase the ducks, not the bucks,” as he likes to say—and who in two years as a starter threw 32 interceptions (nine TD passes) and led his teams to three wins (Bradshaw, as a freshman sub, was the star of the only 1966 victory).
It was nice of Tech to invite Phil back for a September 2013 game, reunited with Terry, and to honor him. But it was for his notoriety (and Ducks success), not for his football past.
Give Phil and the Robertsons’ credit for inventiveness, ingenuity, creativity, self-promotion … and a duck dynasty.
They have millions of reasons—and dollars—to be happy, happy, happy. And I’m happy to provide the truth on Phil as an athlete.
He is out “in the woods” on so much (that’s the name of his new show on CRTV, a subscription-only channel. No subscription here, thank you).
The promotion, which I am not looking for but which is popping up regularly on my computer, says, “… just truth, from Phil’s mouth to your screen.”
Phil’s truth, not ours. If he tells you he was All-State in three sports or an NFL quarterback prospect, don’t believe him.
God-appointed messenger? You decide.
Reminds me of a friend who used to joke, “Any man who says he runs his household will lie about a lot of other things, too.”
Posted in Politics | 33 Comments »
We have apparently entered into an era in which a public servant who does his job as he should now runs the risk of being named a defendant in one of those strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) discussed in recent LouisianaVoice posts.
The very prospect of Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera being sued for issuing a press release about an audit report his office performed should send a chill throughout the Fourth Estate—mainstream media as well as bloggers. Who’s to say you can’t be sued for discussing an audit report over a Frappuccino at Starbucks?
Welsh Alderman Jacob Colby Perry recently won a court victory when the judge threw out not one, but four SLAPP LAWSUITS against him but now the attorney for the four who sued him—the Welsh mayor, her children, and the police chief—is attempting to get the presiding judge recused from the case in a desperate attempt to keep the frivolous lawsuits alive.
And now we have a STORY in the Baton Rouge Advocate telling us that Baton Rouge attorney Jill Craft is suing Purpera on behalf of her client, former Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs David LaCerte—not because an investigative audit by Purpera’s office found that LaCerte, a Bobby Jindal appointee, allowed fraudulent behavior in his department, but because Purpera had the audacity to issue a press release saying so.
The state asked that 19th Judicial District Court Judge William Morvant dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that Purpera was protected by the same statute that protects the speech of legislators.
Incredulously, Morvant ruled that while the auditor’s investigative report was protected, the press release issued by Purpera’s office was not. “I don’t think the press release falls within that immunity,” Morvant said, apparently with a straight face.
That immediately raises the question of whether or not the media are free to write their own story from the report. In other words, yer honor, can I, as a news reporter, write a comprehensive story that accurately reflects the contents of the audit without fear of some attorney swooping down and SLAPPing me?
We’ve already seen SLAPP suits where Superintendent of Education JOHN WHITE sued private citizen James Finney over Finney’s request for public records.
That followed a similar lawsuit filed by 4th Judicial District JUDGES against the Ouachita Citizen over the newspaper’s unmitigated gall in seeking public records from the court.
When the audit was issued, LaCerte’s attorney at the time called the audit’s findings “blatantly false. Both the interim secretary and the newly-appointed secretary of Veterans’ Affairs agreed with the findings and had taken corrective actions, Purpera’s news release said. The news release also noted that LaCerte’s attorney at the time called the audit’s findings “blatantly false.”
One thing Louisiana’s anti-SLAPP laws do is provide for the awarding of legal fees should a defendant prevail in one of these outrageous attempts to stifle public discourse.
Perry stands to collect something on the order of $16,000 in attorney fees. If plaintiff attorney Ronald Richard persists in pursuing this matter, he will be doing his clients a disservice because those attorney fees for Perry can only continue to climb.
LouisianaVoice also collected attorney fees in a recent SLAPP action when the presiding judge ruled in our favor. But there appears to be no shortage of plaintiffs willing to sue and unless judges start imposing sanctions, there will be no incentive for attorneys to refrain from collecting legal fees to represent them.
Morvant’s ruling, for lack of a better term, is an absurd interpretation of the First Amendment held in such high esteem by Thomas Jefferson who once said if forced to choose between a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, “I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
This is just the kind of ruling, if it is allowed to stand, that can send us barreling down the slippery slope to a government without newspapers—or any other independent media with courage enough to report the truth.
Somewhere in the great hereafter, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew are applauding Morvant’s ruling and should he learn of it, Donald Trump will no doubt be tweeting the glad tidings of great joy about the “fake news” comeuppance.
Posted in Audit Reports, Auditor, Corruption, Ethics, Exemptions, Fraud, Governor's Office, Judges, Lawsuits, Legislators, Media, Public Records | 9 Comments »
The film An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary about former Vice President Al Gore’s lectures on the perils of global warming, won an Academy Award.
State Fire Marshal Butch Browning’s “convenient untruths” about the safety record of carnival rides in Louisiana and the so-called “intricate inspections” his office conducts of rides should win a few rotten tomatoes.
A recent STORY on a New Orleans television station about a so-called “near miss” when a ride called the Gravitron at a church fair in October malfunctioned and would not stop spinning.
No one was injured in the incident, though it did leave a few riders dizzy and more than a little concerned about the safety of the ride.
Browning said since he has been the fire marshal, “we’ve never had a ride fail—where you have a car come off a ride and that kind of thing.”
That remark has to be filed away behind the “C” tab, as in CYA.
Because state law mandates only that ride owners report when there is an injury, the so-called “near misses” get reported only when someone calls Browning’s office to file a complaint. In all, eight such incidents have been investigated by the fire marshal’s office in the past three years.
Browning said rides undergo “intricate” inspections. “They go through every piece,” he said. “They take things apart.” He said the rides are required to pass inspections by National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials each year in order to operate in Louisiana.
We will return to that requirement but first, let’s look at the record to see if Browning is being entirely truthful.
On May 14, 2011, two teenagers were injured when a ride MALFUNCTIONED at a school fair in Greensburg in St. Helena Parish.
Oh, sorry. That was more than three years ago and Browning did say only eight incidents had been reported in the past three years.
Still, it did happen on a ride called the Zipper. LouisianaVoice was informed earlier this year that a ride called the Zipper was shut down at another fair in Louisiana this year but the same ride was allowed to operate only a couple of weeks later at the recent Baton Rouge State Fair after apparently passing inspection.
In the St. Helena accident, a brother and sister were thrown from the ride when it re-started as they were exiting. They were ejected from the car and fell to the ground. Both were airlifted to a Baton Rouge hospital.
The mother of the teens filed a lawsuit against the fire marshal’s office, claiming the ride was improperly INSPECTED. The state SETTLED that lawsuit for $180,000.
On Oct. 21, 2015, a Shreveport television station did a puff piece about the thoroughness of fire marshal INSPECTIONS of rides at the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport with one deputy fire marshal proclaiming the rides to be “absolutely safe.”
Yet, just four years earlier, four-year-old Sheldon Lewis was critically injured when a ride he was exiting suddenly re-activated and trapped him beneath it. The accident left him confined to a wheelchair. The accident occurred when a child pressed an “on” button on an easily accessible active ride control panel, a hazard risk that had been overlooked by fire marshal inspectors.
An online service on negligence called DENENA POINTS was critical of “an easily-activated piece of heavy ride equipment accessible” that showed “a lack of proper safety precautions.”
Like with the St. Helena accident, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the injured child.
In September 2016, a woman sued the Baton Rouge State Fair and an amusement ride company over her fall on Oct. 29, 2015, from a ride called GEE WHIZ. She claimed in her lawsuit that the ride had been experiencing problems the week of the accident and should have been taken out of service.
Browning, typically, defended his office, saying preliminary and final investigations discovered “no defects or failures” in the ride’s mechanics.
“We were unable to determine how the rider (Andraea Gilmore) was able to free herself from the lap-bar restraint,” Browning said in a statement that left Gilmore’s attorney, Ralph Fletcher, less than impressed—or convinced.
On June 9, 2006, a two-year boy broke his arms and legs after falling from a ride called OVER THE RAINBOW at Baton Rouge’s Dixie Landin’ Amusement Park and four years later, in 2010, a 21-year-old woman who fell from a roller coaster ride known as the XTREME at the same park was killed.
And while Browning parses words in saying things like, “We’ve never had a ride fail—where you have a car come off a ride and that kind of thing,” it’s more than evident that there are failures and that people get hurt—and even die from amusement rides.
But who, exactly, conducts inspections of these rides? And how do inspectors become certified by the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials (NAARSO)?
As to the answer of the second question, we’re not at all certain other than to say CERTIFICATION rules were changed in 2015. But the NAARSO CRITERIA for certification senior level might seem to eliminate Louisiana State Fire Marshal inspectors. Senior certification requires 10 years’ experience in the “design, repair, operation or inspection of amusement rides and devices” and that senior applicants “have worked in the amusement ride and device inspection field a minimum of three out of the past 10 years.”
Under the system of cross-training currently required by Browning’s office, the possibility of an inspector’s meeting those criteria would seem remote at best. Boiler inspectors, nursing home inspectors, jail inspectors, and arson investigators are simply not qualified as amusement ride inspectors—and vice-versa.
Yet, that is precisely what deputy Louisiana fire marshals are required to do, which is why one boiler inspector from Texas turned down a job with the Louisiana Fire Marshal’s office upon moving here. He found that he would expected to inspect carnival rides “and I knew I wasn’t qualified to do that.”
What that means, of course, is that by leaving itself exposed to legal risks by having unqualified amusement ride inspectors, the state runs the risk of being hit with a major lawsuit if someone’s child is permanently injured by a defective ride that somehow passed inspection by the fire marshal’s office.
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Fraud, State Fire Marshal | 3 Comments »
When I posted the story on LouisianaVoice last Thursday about the Step-N-Strut trail ride on Tunica-Biloxi land in Marksville on Nov. 3-5, I did so in the full knowledge that it would be a controversial story because of the claims by organizers that Tunica-Biloxi Police Chief Harold Pierite, Sr. attempted a $10,000 shakedown under the threat of closing down the last day of the event.
That is why I called Pierite, his Chief Deputy Chico Mose, and attempted without success to speak with Tribal Council Vice Chairman Marshall Ray Sampson, Sr.
Pierite did at least speak with me long enough to deny any shakedown, and I quoted him as saying it “never happened.” I also quoted him as denying that he threatened to shut down the event’s last day of activities.
Mose did not deny or acknowledge anything. Instead, he said he would get back to me.
He never did.
I attempted to call Sampson and left word for him to call. He, like Mose, did not call back. Instead, I received a statement from Sampson but delivered through the Enrhardt Group, a New Orleans corporate communications and marketing firm.
That statement, which did little to shed any light on the events of Sunday, Nov. 5, was included in my story.
But on Saturday, two days after the story was posted, Sampson and Pierite have issued a joint, two-page statement, again through Enrhardt, that purports to dispute the content of Thursday’s story, point-by-point.
“In the interests of accuracy and fairness, we hope you will give this statement of facts the same consideration as you did for the original posting of Nov. 16,” the latest statement says, apparently suggesting that I did not do so with the original story.
But hey, let’s not ever say I’m unfair in giving both sides a chance to have their say. Even though they chose not to elaborate on the charges by Dave and Torry Lemelle of Opelousas, I agree to print their statement—but do so with the caveat that Thursday’s story contained an accurate account of the facts insofar as I was able to obtain them from sincere efforts to contact both sides and to obtain their version of the events.
So, here is the TUNICA BILOXI RESPONSE:
So, there you have it. For the record, Paul Scott, with whom Pierite dealt in negotiations for the event, has also come to the support of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe. His statement was posted by LouisianaVoice as one of the comments to the original story.
My final word on this is to express the desire that when contacted by LouisianaVoice on a story, don’t duck the issue. Don’t say you’ll call me back and then go silent. I am happy to publish both sides of a story but too often, one side clams up and won’t talk and then cries foul when the story hits.
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Media | 3 Comments »
