Columns & Opinions

The 30-Second Read team today offers tips for hoarders. And, wow, do we need them. Because the survival instincts we developed on the savannas of prehistory are, today, often laughable and occasionally deadly.

Thanks to a second grant from the Noel Foundation, the LSU Health Shreveport School of Allied Health Professions is now offering advanced educational opportunities for entry-level professional and residency education programs. This advanced technology delivered through the Bioness BITS Balance System provides students the opportunity to have simulation and hands on experience with the most advanced technology available in real time.

Reading is likely the most studied aspect of human learning. Louisiana has been losing ground to our neighbors in Mississippi since 2013 when their legislators funded the transition to teaching what is called “Scientific Reading.” That name alone would intimidate some people away from the opportunity to teach our youngest learners the right way to read and comprehend what they have read. You should know that the roots of Scientific Reading come from 1986 when the concept was then called “the simple view of reading.” I like “simple” a lot more than “scientific,” but what I really like is that Mississippi has raised their fourth-grade reading performance from the bottom of the rankings to the middle of the list in only six years!

Fix sewer disposal. Bring back recycling. Solve violent crime.

The city of Shreveport is in a strong financial shape. The combination of 2020 cost-cutting moves, federal monies related to the pandemic and the large spike in our 2.75% sales tax on which I wrote May 7, results in an opportunity to appropriate general funds for several of the “Unfunded Needs” shown in the 2021 Operating Budget. At the Nov. 20, 2015, budget hearing in the mayor’s conference room, District A Councilman Willie Bradford drew a clear distinction between “wants” and “needs.”

Finally, the city of Shreveport has something to cheer about, and the Perkins administration deserves a lot of credit for making it happen.

During the recent Covid crisis, I have wondered why we have not devoted more emphasis in educating all of us about boosting our immune systems. Things like increasing exercise, eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables, getting adequate sleep and minimizing stress are among some of the ways known to boost the miraculous arrangement within our bodies that defends us against disease-causing microorganisms.

Louisiana House Bill 652, which decriminalizes possession of less than half an ounce of marijuana, passed on to the Louisiana Senate by a landslide bipartisan vote of 67-25 Tuesday. Shreveport City Council members John Nickelson and Tabatha Taylor, who successfully cosponsored a similar decriminalization law in Shreveport earlier this year, were in Baton Rouge to speak in support of the bill passage. The bill, which closely mirrors laws passed in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and now Shreveport, moves to the Louisiana Senate for consideration.