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Report from Louisiana: Six Feet

Posted: June 8, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By: Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – It does seem like COVID-19 is on the back burner now; with the riots and the protests, nobody is really worried about catching a virus anymore. That whole thing about “groups smaller than ten” and “groups smaller than fifty” sort of vanished.

Here, in Shreveport, we have seen several protests downtown, but they have been peaceful. Saturday, hundreds, maybe over a thousand people, marched through downtown while at the same time the ladies from the United Daughters of the Confederacy held their annual observation of Confederate Memorial Day at the Confederate monument in front of the courthouse. No words were exchanged at all, just everyone practicing their own Constitutional rights.

From a “man on the street” level, it seems that people are just “over” this virus business. Very few of the protesters wore masks and they were by far closer than six feet from each other.

Meanwhile, Governor John Bel Edwards (D) is doing his best to keep his thumb on his people. His restrictions for Phase Two reopening have raised a few eyebrows.

While he has allowed restaurants to reopen, for example, they have moved from 25% occupancy in Phase One to 50% occupancy in Phase Two. Live music is not authorized and dancing is forbidden. (But protests with hundreds of people are okay).

Casinos can reopen, although one of our casinos closed for good during the quarantine. Employees must wear masks but patrons don’t have to. What? One of our casinos has already reported a small Covid outbreak among employees.

Swimming pools can reopen as long as people remain six feet apart.

Apparently the only place that six feet apart rule does not apply is a mass protest in city streets.

There is no guidance whatsoever on the opening of school in August at this time. It is as if nobody needs to make plans or adjustments for this kind of thing. While the CDC has released some initial guidelines for schools, it is unclear whether this applies to schools currently open or if those guidelines are meant for schools opening in the fall. Either way, the guidelines are ridiculously impossible for the most part.

One of those guidelines includes students keeping six feet apart from each other in class and in hallways, which should all be one direction only.

I fail to see the logic in any of it.

If we are so worried about keeping people protected, how are we condoning these protests where all rules, ALL rules, are excluded?

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

5 Important Aspects of Digital Marketing

Posted: June 5, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized
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Virtually every company engages in digital marketing in some way, but there are lots of different ways you can reach your audience through digital platforms. In this guide, we will take a look at some of the main options for companies looking to improve their digital marketing.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

One of the most important parts of digital marketing is being able to get websites ranking at the top of the search engines. When you achieve this, you get free, organic clicks that can bring thousands of visitors to your site each month.

For professional digital marketers who don’t specialize in SEO, a great way to improve your offering to your clients is through an SEO reseller program, which allows you to make use of the expertise of an SEO company under your own brand name.

SEO provides business with a great ROI and steady stream of traffic that boosts sales and increases brand awareness.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Getting to the top of the search engine rankings takes time and consistent effort. Sometimes you need immediate results though, and in these cases, pay per click advertising is a great medium to turn to.

PPC allows your business to feature at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs), but the key difference is you pay for every click you receive. This might make PPC more expensive, but it’s a great way to get your message in front of a targeted audience and reach people with a strong buying intent.

Content Marketing

Your content is like the bricks and mortar that your website is built upon, and it forms an important part of your digital marketing strategy.

No matter how good your SEO listing is, or PPC ads are, it’s rare that you convince someone to buy something from you there and then. Instead, you’ve got to build a relationship with the customer and convince them that they need your product or service.

This is where content marketing comes into its own. You create the informative content that establishes your expertise and convinces people that they need your service.

You can then use your SEO, PPC, social media, and email marketing to bring people to the content.

 

Social Media

Part of marketing is reaching your target audience where they are, and there are a huge amount of them on social media.

This makes platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram great places to share your brand and reach people with your key messages. Different people respond to different forms of marketing, and social media certainly isn’t one that should be underestimated.

Email Marketing

One challenge with digital marketing is to consistently build touchpoints with your potential customers. When someone comes to a blog on your website, they might click away and never return to your site, even if they enjoyed the content.

When you’ve got someone’s email address, though, you have an easy way to contact them and build that relationship. This is one of the reasons why so many companies engage in email marketing, and it’s a very important part of digital marketing.

These riots are the end result of progressive indoctrination

Posted: June 4, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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The death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer was an appalling crime, one worthy of outrage from everyone.  The despicable nature of the crime more than justified widespread protest across the United Sates. 

Unfortunately the protests turned into the wide scale rioting and destruction because far too many college students and young adults have been brainwashed into believing that violence is an acceptable form of protest.  This is something that they are being taught on college campuses.  Had they been taught civics and the original meaning of the Constitution they would know that peaceful protesting is the only valid form of protesting.  Here is the exact text of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The right to protest is a combination of the rights of free speech, assemble, and petition.  The amendment clearly states that the right to assemble must be done peaceably.  Rioting, looting, throwing rocks, and other forms of violence are not peaceable therefore they are not valid forms of protest.

For decades college students, and recently high school students, are being taught that the United States is now, and has always been, an inherently racist nation.  They are receiving a highly edited history of this nation with only the worst components of our history blown way out of proportion.  That has led to tremendous and unjustified anger, especially in the minority communities.

ANTIFA is a common entity on college campuses whose members are very often recruited and taught on college campuses. They are being taught that the use of violence is an acceptable form of expression especially against people who have different beliefs. Check out this Breitbart article

A new poll has revealed that young and college-educated Americans are more likely to support the recent riots that have taken place in major cities around the nation. 58 percent of respondents with a four-year degree agreed that riots are “fully or partially justified,” including such acts as burning a police station down.

Progressive indoctrination has also misled whole generations into believing that capitalism is an unjust system that exploits everyone especially minorities.  That has led to the belief that looting is an acceptable remedy for this injustice.

Restoring our educational system is the best way prevents these riots from happening again.  We must teach again concepts such as liberty, and the original understanding of the Constitution, and the true virtues of capitalism.

Report from Louisiana: Phase 2

Posted: June 1, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Louisiana is expecting news today from Governor John Bel Edwards regarding moving into Phase 2 and reopening the state.

Whatever else this pandemic has been, it has certainly been the cause for many businesses and restaurants to close permanently. Maybe they were already on the brink of closure and Covid just pushed them over the edge—I don’t know. It seems now that people are just “over it.” I’m seeing fewer people wearing masks than I did a week or two ago. The rioters and looters on my television aren’t wearing masks, either, for the most part.

Louisiana State University has released their plans for reopening the college for the fall semester; plans include social distancing, increased sanitation measures, and random testing of the campus population:

Random testing between 10 and 16 percent of the populations of all LSU System campuses statewide for COVID-19 this fall. Participants would be selected randomly from lists of students and employees, and those selected would be encouraged to participate in the testing, although, not required. Anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 would be interviewed in an effort to determine who they have been with recently so that accurate contact tracing can be achieved. Every effort would be made to locate and test anyone believed to have been exposed. The goal of this plan is to determine the incidence of the virus on LSU’s campuses and to locate and mitigate any possible clusters of the virus.

The public school system in which I work has not yet released any specific plans, but the discussions sound much like everything else with social distancing and increased sanitation. I’m having a hard time envisioning my 15 and 16 year old students practicing social distancing in the hallways and the very small classrooms. On our campus there is just not a lot of room to spread out classes to keep kids six feet apart or have smaller classes.

Will they have to wear masks? Will I have to teach theme, symbolism, and literary analysis through a mask?

It is hard to imagine.

I have seen discussion in neighborhood social media groups with parents who will opt to home school rather than send kids back to “an environment of fear.” So be it.  That, too, will be interesting to monitor. For example, mine is a Title 1 school in a high poverty neighborhood and not many parents are interested in home schooling their kids. That is not to say none will or that all of our kids are in poverty; that’s not the case. There is a high percentage that are and many struggle just to have regular meals.

The virus numbers do seem to be leveling off, but our challenges are not.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

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