Smiley Anders for October 30, 2009

• By SMILEY ANDERS
• Advocate columnist
• Published: Oct 30, 2009 - Page: 1B

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Talk about bad news on the doorstep …

I was shocked and saddened to learn from  Wednesday’s Advocate that the feds plan to ban fresh Gulf oysters unless they’re treated.

I’m not one of those anti-government types (I’m only slightly paranoid), but this is going too far.

From the story, it seems a lot of Louisiana folks share my concern.

I can’t see us giving up fresh oysters easily — they’d have to pry them from our cold, dead hands.

It doesn’t take too much imagination to visualize oyster speakeasies popping up all over south Louisiana.

You’d knock on a nondescript door in some shady part of town, give the password (“Aw, shucks!”)  and enter a large room where fellow lawbreakers are huddled over platters of fresh, untreated oysters.

The feds, of course, would seek to enforce the ban with special agents — O-men — who specialize in busting clandestine oyster houses.

The lobbying group NOGO (the National Organization for Good Oysters) would fight for the legalization of untreated oysters.

It’s a sorry spectacle, and just thinking about it makes me want to head over to Acme and order up a dozen raw — while I still can.

Thai tie

After The Advocate’s Pam Bordelon wrote a story about Veronica  Mollere, a Baton Rouge native, getting a Fulbright Scholarship to teach in Thailand, she got this note from Dede Lusk:

“I read the article about Veronica Mollere spending the year in Chiang Mai, Thailand. My daughter Andrea Lusk Bransford, a native of Baton Rouge, and her family have lived in Chiang Mai for four years.