Recently Hurricane Chris was invited by the Louisiana House of Representatives to perform his song “Halle Berry (She’s So Fine).” Chris says the song is a song meant to uplift women. The whole encounter just seems strange to me, but what do you think. 

At the end comes the best part when a state representative asks Chris to “name a song after Ms. Barbara Norton because…she is fine.”  Then they move on to passing more health and education bills like it’s all in a days work. 

A California teen graduated from college only a few weeks after his high school commencement.  Chase Abrams started taking college classes while still in high school.  Abrams was involved in the Accelerated College Enrollment and Pre-Accelerated College Enrollment program at Cal Sate Los Angeles.  He graduated May 29 from Sierra Canyon High School. He graduated Saturday from Cal State LA with a bachelor’s degree. He’s a Radio, TV and Film major, and juggled being a full-time high school football player.  He finished his college classes at 10 p.m.  If the radio-TV-film thing doesn’t work out, Abrams said he plans to return to school for pre-med studies.

I don’t think I could have done it. It was hard enough getting through college alone. Plus, I love my social life.

The Shreveport Public Assembly & Recreation (SPAR) and the LSU AgCenter held Community Garden Day at Valencia Park Community Center on Saturday, June 20, 2009.  the groups say it was “a roaring success!”

Over 50 volunteers supported and created the Community Garden. Seventeen raised garden plots were built. A number of neighbors and local youth were active in building the garden beds and adding compost to enrich the soil.

It was all possible with support from the SPAR staff, Lowe’s employees, teachers from Stoner Hill Elementary, Northwest Louisiana Master Gardeners, and the LSU AgCenter.

Organizers say, “It was truly a team effort.”  Youth will be planting five of the plots on Wednesday, June 24 at 9:30am.

Today I did a story with the students and teachers at Oil City Elementary.  The students there have to go to school 20 more days than every other student in the Parish.  But they do get to have plenty of fun on field trips throughout the year as part of the school’s focus on earth science. They were at Caddo Lake getting some outdoor science lessons with the men from Troop G. They learned how to canoe, shoot a bb gun, shoot a bow and arrow and start a fire.  

Now at first I thought these kids had it bad when I heard about their extended school year.  Then I got home and heard a story about students at a california school who have 34 extra school days because the school officials can’t do math. 

Here’s the sucky story of the Dickson Elementary students. They were supposed to be done already, but a clerical error means they will have to make up the day or the school could lose $7 million in state funds.  

California schools have short days occasionally for teachers to prep, but they must be at least 180 minutes.  But apparently, the of the schools had days that were only 170 or 175 minutes. The missing time could be made up in just one or two school days, but the state law says the short days don’t count at all. That means every one of the 34 days must be made up to avoid the penalty in state funds.

So how would you feel if you had to go to school over the summer?  Do you think the kids will be better for it?

About 50 Caddo and Bossier Parish teens are attending BIZCAMP at Centenary College the next two weeks.  It’s a part of the Inner City Entrepreneur Institute.  Students ages 13 to 17 learn skills in all areas of business-ownership.  They’ll go on field trips to the Shreveport regional incubator, city council, commissioner’s office and Chesapeake Oil company.  Near the end of their camp they’ll have to create their own business plans and will be given $50 to buy supplies to start their business.  The kids will get to sell their goods at the Louisiana Boardwalk next Thursday.

Did you have a money making business when you were young?  Anything you think could make a profit for this group of kids these days?  I think one of the students makes jewelry and is doing quite well already.

I remember being hit on the hand with a ruler when I was bad in school as a young girl. I also remember hearing about my older brother being paddled at school because he had done something crazy. I’ve only been out of the school environment for a handful of years, so have times really changed so much that a lawmaker wants to ban all forms of corporal punishment at public schools in Louisiana? Are educators afraid of what a child might do these days and don’t want to allow children to receive slaps on the behind when they’re behaving badly? And why is that only public school children can’t get paddled anymore? What about private school kids? Is it still okay to hit them? Are they not equal under this law? If we are going to protect children from being paddled, why not protect them all? Or is it that public school children are more likely to do something retaliatory to the person that gives them licks. I don’t know just a few issues I have with this law. What are your thoughts?

It seems my weekends in the news business have horrible themes lately. Last week I covered a story about two people, one an 11 year old boy, who died after a motorcycle accident.  The next day there was a 2 year old boy that was hit by a car.

This weekend I covered two major fires in our area.  The first was at a downtown Shreveport business. Today, I covered a popular East Texas restaurant that was destroyed by a fire.

I’m hoping the news gods will save me from the despair next week.

Now that school’s out, it means kids will either be bored out of their minds at home for 3 months or they’ll find a more productive way to utilize their time. I for one was always pretty busy as a child and teen during the summer months. I split my time between summer camps, summer volleyball practices and rehearsals for summer plays.

I think my favorite camp was a tennis camp I went to with my neighbors and brother. There was also a camp I went to with a couple of my cousins and my younger brother. At the end of that summer we had a big day a performances to show off everything we did to our parents.

My favorite thing during the summer had to be rehearsals for the numerous musical productions I was in. Let’s see there was How to Eat Like a Child, Sleepover, Fame, Moby Dick the Musical, School House Rock Live and a few others. So tell me what were your favorite summer activities?

Don’t be sacred folks you can still hop on the twitter bandwagon if you haven’t already.  I just wanted to show you this message I got on Twitter when I tried to update my status before our 6:00 newscast.  Apparently there were too many tweeters trying to tweet on twitter at the time because my tweet wasn’t accepted.  I got this message and a strange picture of birds trying to carry a whale with a net.  I guess twitter is growing so rapidly they can handle all of us.

I’m no the biggest fan of ketchup, but I do appreciate a dab of it on my fries, burgers and occasionally hash browns.  For those of you that are huge fans of the famous red condiment, here are some other great uses of it. These may be great for that pile of unused packets hiding in your desk drawer at work or in the junk drawer at home.They may save you time and money.

Shine your copper

Massage ketchup over the copper and watch it dissolve the tarnish away (thanks to the acid). In the event that you have stubborn spots, add a pinch of table salt while you polish.

Get those auto parts gleaming

Some have good results getting their cars to shine by rubbing with ketchup. The condiment does a good job cutting tarnish.

Fight Skunk Odors

Many people still swear by tomato juice as a way to remove potent skunk odor. In the event you don’t have any tomato juice on hand you can try using plain ketchup instead.

Get back prettier hair from chlorine damage

Ketchup can also be used to correct limey-hair-highlights-gone-green, which can sometimes occur from exposure to chlorine found in swimming pools. Apply full strength ketchup to your hair. Let it linger for about 20 minutes and then wash it out thoroughly.

Soothe wounds

Freeze leftover ketchup and soy sauce packets to use on children’s booboos and bumps.