Hay here to stay: Gary Hay has been named director of the LSU AgCenter School of Animal Sciences. Hay officially takes his new job on Jan. 1. He has been serving as interim director since May 2009 following the retirement of Paul Humes. The AgCenter says that Hay spent 20 years as an AgCenter dairy specialist. He has a bachelor’s degree in animal science from Louisiana Tech University and a master’s in dairy science from Virginia Tech. He received his doctorate in dairy science from LSU in 1985.
Big bite for gator hunter: A judge has ordered a commercial alligator hunter from Sorrento to pay more than $5,000 in fines for possessing untagged alligators. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says it cited 65-year-old Arnold Villeneurve in September for having nine untagged alligators, some of which were stored in a cooler at his home. Agents also seized more than two dozen unused tags from him. Judge Marylyn Lambert of the 23rd Judicial District Court in Ascension Parish sentenced Villeneurve last week to pay a total of $5,242 in fines.
All is vanity: Christopher Hitchens, a sharp-witted provocateur who used his formidable learning, biting wit and muscular prose style to skewer what he considered high-placed hypocrites, craven lackeys of the right and left, “Islamic fascists” and religious faith of any kind, died Thursday at a hospital in Houston. He was 62. He had pneumonia and complications from esophageal cancer, according to a statement from Vanity Fair, the magazine for which Hitchens worked. An English-born writer who had lived in Washington, D.C., since 1982, he was a tireless master of the persuasive essay, which he wrote with an indefatigable energy and venomous glee. He often wrote about the masters of English literature, but he was better known for his lifelong engagement with politics, crafting subtly nuanced views that did not fit comfortably with the conventional right or left. Read more here.
