“Depth sounding refers to the act of measuring depth; it is often referred to simply as sounding. Sounding is finding the depth of a given point in a body of water.”

unnamedWelcome aboard, Shreveport-Bossier, to Sounding Off! This is a completely unscientific and shallow measurement of our area’s political and social flotsam and jetsam, and the aggregate effect on quality of life. Here we are, slogging through the deep end of the unrelentingly fetid primordial fever-swamp that is summer in Louisiana. Foolishness has a built in thermostat, and it kicks on at about 88 degrees. Heads, like the air on a July afternoon, get bloated, thick, intemperate, and punchable. Alas, punching requires… eh, what’s that stuff we hate making?.. Oh yes… effort. Meet me on the lounge deck. Gentlemen, we have boat drinks.

Last Mark: 13 feet

While Sounding Off is not in the business of making political endorsements, we feel it is right and our bounden duty to make the following declaration: Dale Cox must go. The District Attorney of Caddo Parish’s words and attitude have draw an outsized level of scrutiny and condemnation, and this devastating piece in the New Yorker Magazine should be the final straw. But let’s be clear: the words do not matter nearly as much as the policies and actions they reflect. Caddo Parish is the incarceration capital of Louisiana, Louisiana is so of America, and America is so of the world. We are at the core of the Russian nesting dolls of human rights abuse, and like Russia, justice on the Red is a riddle wrapped in a mystery stuffed inside a cluster f*#! tied to a cinder block and tossed off the I-220 bridge. We have an opportunity for replacing Cox this fall, and redeeming ourselves in the process. I suggest we take it.    -2

You may have noticed that Slide The City did not happen this past weekend. After several months of negotiation and planning, it appears that Shreveport’s municipal bureaucracy, once again, got in the path of a happening that just about every other mid-sized and large city in America is willing, eager, and able to host. Without revealing too much, I can say that representatives from Slide The City personally told your dear Captain that they’ve encountered confusion and resistance in Shreveport unlike anywhere else in the country.  There is a continuing effort to bring Slide The City to Shreveport in late August or early September, but unless the contracts are signed and permits issued within the next couple of weeks, we will miss out on 2015. Most cities understand that inviting and supporting “cool stuff to do” is a no-brainer when it comes to fostering civic pride and amity. Operation “No Rake Unstepped On” is full steam ahead. Le sigh…  -1

And now for something completely different, but not really. The squabble over the Confederate monument in front of the courthouse is a red herring (see above). I’ve yet to hear a reasonable explanation as to how the Daughters of the Confederacy own a spit of dirt the size of two parking spaces surrounded on all sides by public, taxpayer maintained land. Be that as it may, I argue to let the monument remain. Allow the defenders to continue in their mental contortions as to why a statue commemorating an extralegal rebellion and insurgency, which was ultimately lost, should stand anywhere near an edifice dedicated to serving modern, blind justice (um, see above again). I want to know who the proudly unreconstructed dead-enders are in my midst, and if they actually want to self-select and identify themselves, let them. You think the fight over marriage equality or the Affordable Care Act is over? The Civil War isn’t over.  I actually have some sympathy for echo-Confederates: today, down is up, left is right, the world is inverted. I’d likely grasp at the last few dissolving threads of the world as I knew it, too. To paraphrase a great leader’s observation, the arch of stupidity is long, but it bends toward oblivion. +1

FORECAST: 11 feet. Ebb and flow, ebb and flow, yet our sea legs fail us not. We are taking submissions for new designs of our ship’s colors. The skull and crossbones has played out. We’re thinking something along the lines of a bottle of shiraz in a scabbard. Or maybe a cannon that fires ribs.