As an avid observer of political theater, I can easily say the 2024 narrative is more addictive than prime "Days of Our Lives" of seasons past.
Fortunately, it is not just the presidential election dominating the stage. If politics is all about mobilizing the voting public through engagement of base emotions, Louisiana is doubtlessly on par with Washington or any Madison Avenue-built campaign.
Unfortunately, the base emotion is some new form of rapture of the deep (a condition caused by diving to deeper than 100 feet of water where the higher pressure causes divers to breathe in much higher levels of nitrogen). Except in Louisiana, bull malarkey replaces the water and ignorance supplants the nitrogen narcosis.
Along those lines, I have been motivated to write to discuss Tiger-gate, aka our governor’s obsession with having a live tiger at LSU football games.
I can’t help but be amazed at how relentlessly (some might say doggedly) the governor and surgeon general are chasing this issue. They have managed to find a potential creative solution to LSU’s hiatus from this grand tradition. I will call it the “more cowbell” solution because I can hear in my mind’s eye a Christopher-Walken-esque voice calling for “more tiger!”
These are the kinds of creative solutions we need for our pressing state issues. Crumbling overfilled classrooms and dorms, not a problem. Disintegrating infrastructure, no worries. The fact we have syphilis and mPox billboard campaigns and drive-by shootings around town? People are gonna be people. Brain drain and professional flight is just those people who can’t handle the spicy and sassy culture.
What we need is a fancy (feast) solution to our issues, a solution that is the cat’s meow. If you feel like you’re on your ninth life, just cry out for more tiger.
WESLEY WILLIAMS
Baton Rouge