Hours after a mass shooting at one Baton Rouge bar – many of whose patrons come from LSU – an underage sorority member from LSU gets utterly wasted in another Baton Rouge bar, after which she’s gang raped and then fatally hit by a car. Not making this up. That’s how a 19 year old LSU student died.

Of course LSU has a long history of dead and almost dead frat boys; drunk, raped, and dead sorority girls is a new one on me. But you can see the progression that got us here. LSU’s brainless boozing in illegal bars, its sadistic fraternities, plus… what else is there? Football. Plus absolutely no discernable academics, or institutional ethics (an incredibly impoverished and ill-educated state, Louisiana gives tens of millions to LSU’s football team and almost nothing to LSU qua university). That’s about it. It all takes place in Baton Rouge, currently America’s deadliest city, guns going off absolutely everywhere.

The word for all of this is sleaze, mes petites; and if you really think this is the right college environment for your teenager, go for it.

It’s Baton Rouge (I call it Sang Rouge)!

Lookee here. Let’s not have any fake surprise that the gunniest city in America’s gunniest state utterly expectedly produced a bunch of teenagers (ages 13 – 16? I’m guessing.) butchering the innocent.

Sang Rouge is SOOO bloody, so beyond bloody, so bodaciously bloodsoaked! Nuther big mass bloodletting jest tuther day (in Shreveport; those victims were from a few months to eight years old) in that dripping red state; and now Massacre at the Mall.

Hold onto your hats – gonna be a lot more Louisiana blood running red.

Politicians have hired speechwriters to come up with new ways for them to say Message: I care but fuck gun laws. “Draft 52 distinct tweets for me – one for every week of the year. No redundancy and keep it Christian.”

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Some nice detail here:

After shots echoed through the food court and sirens began blaring outside, shoppers sprinted out of the mall. Some women donned nylon capes as they darted out of the JCPenney hair salon, their hair half-done.

Nylon capes is good. And this paragraph answers the question What do Baton Rougeans do for exercise? Sprinting, darting.

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“We’re not going to have this in Baton Rouge,” says the mayor. Babe, you’ve had it for years and you’ll have it til the next Great Mississippi Flood washes the city away.

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Court records show that during a hearing Tuesday, Commissioner Jermaine Guillory allowed Washington to stop wearing a GPS ankle monitor and instead placed him on telephone-based supervision.

It’s beautiful to watch how no gun laws plus morally degenerate judges work together to insure that bloodthirsty bastards remain in circulation. Hat tip also to this gunny’s high school, which seems not to have expelled him despite a criminal history that included stealing a gun that went off inside a classroom.

”Guillory said when the 18-year-old returns to court in July, he wants to see him with his high school diploma, a job, safe, healthy and out of jail.” Ain’t dat sweet!

He’s on the state bar board of governors! An inspiration to us all.

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Oh. Well! Why didn’t you say so in the first place, Guillory?

Neighborhood pool, Baton Rouge. It has been closed, mere days after it was inaugurated.

That’s in Louisiana:

The honor code of “guarding your respect” and “he had it coming” endures. [It’s] possible to “risk your life just by insulting the L.S.U. Tigers.”

“I’m more concerned now than when I wrote [a 1998 book about it,” said a local history professor.] “People are armed to the teeth.”

And by people I mean eleven year olds.

Louisiana Republican Points to ‘Big White Lines’ From Planes as Proof Government Is Manipulating Weather

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Burnishing its reputation as the dumbest state in the country (okay, fourth dumbest, but this successful legislation may be just what they need to put themselves over the top), Louisiana goes after evil chemtrails.

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While Louisiana faces an insurance crisis, a crumbling coastline, and one of the highest overdose death rates in the country, state lawmakers have decided their latest priority is… chemtrails.

Not fixing the Sewerage & Water Board. Not stopping insurance companies from fleeing the state. Not funding addiction treatment programs. No, instead, our legislature is spending precious time and taxpayer dollars debating a bill—Senate Bill 46—based on a completely debunked internet conspiracy theory that claims airplanes are spraying chemicals like aluminum and barium into the sky to manipulate the weather. The theory has been thoroughly discredited by the scientific community, but that hasn’t stopped lawmakers from pushing it through the House by a vote of 58 to 32.

… We could be talking about how to prepare for another brutal hurricane season. We could be debating how to keep teachers from leaving the profession in record numbers. We could even be discussing how to rein in Entergy as utility bills skyrocket across the state. But instead, our elected officials are chasing clouds—literally.

… If you’re wondering why our roads flood when it drizzles, or why your homeowner’s insurance bill just tripled—look no further. The same people who think Delta Airlines is controlling the weather are the ones writing our laws.

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Not unexpectedly, Louisiana yet again was ranked as the absolutely rock-bottom worst state in America, 2024.

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Baton Rouge and Shreveport are the only other cities of note, and both are crime-ridden. We could throw in Lafayette as well. That’s one reason the magazine ranked the state at #50 in crime and corrections. According to the FBI, New Orleans had the third-highest homicide rate in 2023 of all U.S. cities…

… Crime is heavily weighted in these studies. According to the FBI’s final report of 2022 (the latest available), Louisiana had the worst homicide rate in the country — 16.1 homicides per 100,000 people. Of the 408 homicides that year, 266 took place in New Orleans.

Crime is a symptom of poverty, lack of education, and unemployment, to name a few. And Louisiana falls flat on its face in all dimensions.

The 2023 state budget produced a surplus of $325 million. Much of that will go toward paying down the state’s debt. None of it was allocated for elementary and secondary schools…

Okay well, based on what I’m reading, most of them – a thousand? – should go, sans délai, to Louisiana, by far America’s most dangerous state.

You’re just thinking Nawlins, but Alexandria, Monroe, Baton Rouge, and tons of others are really really dangerous. UD has often wondered aloud on this blog why anyone would send their kid there to college.

And of course down there “People are armed to the teeth.”

And from the comment thread on a 2021 NYT story that asks in its headline “WHY DOES LOUISIANA CONSISTENTLY LEAD THE NATION IN MURDERS?” :

Combine the [nation’s] highest rate of gun ownership with the lowest rate of education, sprinkle in some STRONG white supremacy and insurrection and that spells doom for all Louisianans.

There are close to five hundred comments on the article, many of them from Louisianans, and most commenters agree that while you’re free to consider variables like a history of violence and an engrained distrust of government and its institutions, the crucial element is simply stunning numbers of guns in the hands of hyperemotional (the motive is often ‘disrespect’) and unschooled people.

Equally stunning but absolutely predictably, the killers are getting younger and younger, as in the latest story out of the blood-soaked Baton Rouge area, involving a high school kid blowing away one schoolmate and injuring two.

Oh, so now just because there’s been a third school shooting, you’re gonna throw him out?

On Tuesday, the Newport News School Board posted an agenda for a special meeting on Wednesday, saying it will vote on a separation agreement and severance package for Superintendent George Parker III. 

It’s not his fault the third shooter was six years old! That sort of thing gets global attention. The last two were teenagers, and that’s so routine it never makes much of a mark. If he’d been able to isolate the bloodbath to junior high and high school all would have been well. Give the guy a break and hope the killing goes back where it belongs – to the upper grades, among more mature and competent marksmen.

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Meanwhile, if they do fire the dude, he’ll get an enormous severance for keeping his trap shut about all the other violent and nonviolent scandals in the school system; plus, there are TONS of public school abattoirs (start with the Baton Rouge public schools!) where Parker’s bloody ways will fit right in. Don’t worry about Parker. Wave of the bloody future.

But this one’s like why hasn’t a mass shooting already happened forty times in that lounge. I mean, maybe it has, but locals are still pretending to be shocked at the mass shooting at another hookah bar down south.

As you know if you read this blog, there’s nothing more banal of late than mass shootings inside hookah bars in southern cities. And this one happened in Baton Rouge, and man I mean ROUGE like flowing all red in the streets!

Apparently there’s a grassroots movement down there to change the city’s name to SANG ROUGE. Better fit.

 Louisiana’s capital city [has made] it big in the world of crime and murder. Baton Rouge has outdone the rest of the state, which is [itself] 40 percent more violent than the nation as a whole. New Orleans is more popular, so Baton Rouge seized the opportunity to top the violent crime list. Baton Rouge isn’t a very large city, but it manages to attract attention by having 49 murders annually. If you have a death wish, it’s a great destination.

A few details here. Some locals – a few – feel kinda bad about the “lack of effort by the state government to address gun violence,” but baby baby baby that’s cuz they love their guns and they love it when they get a chance to shoot ’em off! Hookah bars concentrate large numbers of incapacitated victims in easily accessible, charismatic, locations, and, you know, take any random Saturday night and conditions are RIPE.

Given that everyone knows shooting’s gonna happen – note that Dior’s advertising stresses the word “safely” — wonder why – why does it… well… keep happening?

Look more closely at what Dior offers: Incredibly cheap booze. A dark chaotic place to whip out your guns and get some real killing off before someone notices. Rooms packed with idjits from LSU, one of America’s most violent and stupid locations.

Bloodbath keeps happening because Bloodbath is the state sport of Louisiana, and everything the state does — from basically zero gun restrictions to the proliferation of hookah bars – promotes the sport.

Shut down the bars? Are you fucking nuts? Death’s a way of life down there. UD‘s had enough of inauthentic local pols getting all ‘senseless… tragic.…’ … I mean, being all negative about it. Millions of Americans adore violence and go out of their way to legalize, mainstream, and personally experience it. Bloody, almost dead, and dead people scattered everywhere is Sang Rouge’s effing calling card, it’s their Graceland, their Machu Picchu, their one reliable tourist destination. Find a violent psycho like Jim Jordan to run the city – someone who revels in blood – and GO TO IT.

Remember White Noise, the most important American novel of the last fifty years:

“Look past the violence. There is a wonderful brimming spirit of innocence and fun.”

The numbers are out. As you’d expect, many prospective college students seem likely to avoid Ensouled Zygote states.

OTOH: If you’re a teenage girl for whom rape, drunkenness, berserk athletes/frat boys, gun and gang violence, self-righteous Christian/sexist administrations, and absolutely no abortion in the state, sounds like the ideal higher ed environment, UD (who has followed these schools for years) recommends the following:

Baylor University

Florida State University

Jackson State University

Louisiana State Baton Rouge

As with all lists, not all of these schools will feature all of your desiderata, though Baylor comes closest to ticking off all the elements you’re looking for.

Update/recap of the idjits in Louisiana who maintain that state’s distinction: America’s highest murder rate, now for the 31st year.

“People are armed to the teeth.”

I know you’re thinking New Orleans, but don’t forget Baton Rouge, home of LSU.

When you’re helping run what is arguably the worst public school system in America, openly shopping online for dresses during important school board meetings really says I want to make this situation better. And what a special role model for the children of your district you are as you lie about what you were doing.

Arthur Pania of Baton Rouge, who attended Thursday’s School Board meeting, took to Facebook Saturday afternoon to rebut Bernard.

“I personally watched her for about eight minutes, attempting to decide between a beige and red dress,” Pania wrote. “The only thing I had issue determining from my sight was if it was a short dress or nightwear.”

Of course anyone who teaches at a university that allows students to bring laptops to class knows what it feels like to be, say, sweating your way through a careful presentation of Kantian philosophy and notice some guy in the front row watching pornography while you talk. (What alerted you to something amiss? His erection.) So while the bruised and aggrieved and long-suffering people of Baton Rouge discuss racism, this school board member tries to decide between beige and red. As with the panting guy in the front row, it’s a spectacular way to say hey lol fuck you.

The simple expedient of telling school board members not to use laptops during meetings never occurs to the ninnies who run schools into the ground.

… “stunned”?

Beautiful weather, a low cost of living and gorgeous natural surroundings haven’t stopped Louisiana’s capital city from making it big in the world of crime and murder. Baton Rouge has outdone the rest of the state, which is [itself] 40 percent more violent than the nation as a whole. New Orleans is more popular, so Baton Rouge seized the opportunity to top the violent crime list. Baton Rouge isn’t a very large city, but it manages to attract attention by having 49 murders annually. If you have a death wish, it’s a great destination.

Why would you send your kid to school there?

[Louisiana State University] defensive lineman Trey Lealaimatafao [was] arrested on Tuesday for allegedly pushing and punching a woman in the face outside Reggie’s bar near the LSU campus … He was allegedly taking money from the pants of another person who was on the ground unconscious at the parking lot outside Reggie’s, and that man’s girlfriend began yelling at Lealaimatafao to stop.

“When she approached him, he pushed her away,” the initial Baton Rouge Police report says. “She continued to scream at him to stop, and he hit her in the face with a closed fist, causing her to fall to the ground.”

… Lealaimatafao was issued a misdemeanor summons last July for stealing a bicycle from the LSU library. He later returned the bike and told police that because the bike was not locked, he thought it was part of a ride for free program, which is available in several cities. Lealaimatafao was redshirted last season at LSU after injuring an arm when he punched through a glass in the LSU weight room.

Fucked up the weight room. Stole a bike. Punched a woman while trying to take money from an unconscious person.

It’s real hard to get released from the LSU team.

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UD thanks John.

[A] Louisiana State University assistant professor identified a new species of pancake batfish in the Gulf of Mexico last year, and the discovery was recognized by the International Institute for Species Exploration as being one of 2010’s top 10 new species. While LSU didn’t increase his $85,000 pay, he did get a nice note of congratulations from the provost, he said.

Across the Baton Rouge campus, Les Miles is having a good year, too. His top-ranked LSU football team is undefeated… Miles will make an extra $200,000 on top of his $3.75 million-a-year salary if they win the title, and $300,000 more for winning the national crown.

… “We are not doing this, [said the professor,] for monetary gain.”

… “These coaches aren’t motivated by the bonuses,” said Scott Minto, director of the San Diego State University Sports MBA program. “It is about creating a legacy. National titles do that.”

Alabama Athletic Director Mal Moore said neither [Nick] Saban [$4.7 million annual salary with the chance of an additional $525,000] nor other coaches are in the business for the money.

Nobody’s in it for the money!

And there’s no better field for play in this regard than big time university sports.

Here’s some wonderful writing from Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky, about Auburn’s rapidly-tarnishing Saint Cam Newton:

We expect a certain level of stupidity from our athletes. We accept that they’re going to have tons of personal tutoring help, up-to-and-including people writing their papers for them. Hell, it’s college; we expect kids of all kinds to cheat. But to get caught [as Newton did] indicates a stupidity that we just can’t accept. This, and nothing else, is sullying our notion of the student-athlete!

It’s a joke, of course. There’s an All-SEC Academic Team, and being on it doesn’t tend to improve a player’s draft stock. ESPN College GameDay doesn’t go to Knoxville or Baton Rouge or Tuscaloosa for finals week to cover the due date for term papers. We all know these kids are there to play football, and we’re there to watch them, and all we ask them is to make the slightest effort in preserving the illusion of academia mattering. We know they don’t care, but we’re all content to live in our giant happy Moon Bounce, oblivious to anything beyond the bizarre artificial creation that is college athletics. And we get mad when someone pops it.

I like Petschesky’s evocation of the surreality of big time college athletics, since that is what has struck me the most in my years of covering it. I like just as much his point about the fragility of this giant creation, the way it can suddenly be made to explode in our faces, and the way this reality-explosion angers us. Humankind cannot stand very much reality, says Eliot; and indeed fewer sights are more intense, and intensely strange, than university sports figures and fans forced to reckon with the reality of their false and sordid world.

Burst their bubble at your peril.

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[UD thanks Dave for the link.]