The Founders Show

Hy and Christopher are joined for the second half of The Founders Show by Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta, who has launched an inquiry into why the blackouts were ordered with just nine minutes notice by a little known federal regulatory group one month ago. MISO is more than a soup, but Skrmetta believes that Louisiana and her electric utilities would be better off working with other so...

The Founders Show comes to you live from the Thousand Islands on the Canadian-US border, from the deck of the famed Canadian Empress riverboat. We’ve been sailing down the St. Lawrence Seaway, and that triggered our kick off topic for this week’s show. The U.S. / Canadian relationship has been in the news quite a bit over the last year. North of the border, voters have resented the “51st state” co...

Hy and Christopher are joined by Curtis Robinson of the Hunter-Gatherers podcast to interview the legendary David Amram. At 94 years young, the famed jazz and folk musician has played with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Leonard Bernstein. He invented jazz poetry with Jack Kerouac in Greenwich Village.  And Amram explains why New Orleans is the most American city.

Curtis Robinson joins Hy and Christopher to talk about the chances to pass the current budget in Congress and the state of politics in Washington DC.  He also mentions a little bit about Hunter S Thompson and Gonzofest 11 while he is at it. Robinson is a veteran newspaper, editor, Washington-based columnist, and member of the National Press Club. He ranks as the consummate Washington insider, and...

May 15-18 will see Gonzofest 2025 at The Rink, 2727 Prytania. It's a celebration of the life and work of Hunter S. Thompson. Hy & Christopher are joined by two of the organizers, Curtis Robinson and Kent Fielding. Christopher and Curtis actually produce a podcast on Hunter S. Thompson - Hunter-Gatherers - which they exerpt on this week's radio show. Join us on Friday, Saturday and Sunday - Gon...

Hy and Christopher take on the legislative session, discussing Gov. Jeff Landry losing influence as the deficit picture changes and several pieces of legislation under consideration. We also spent some time looking at the trash situation in the French Quarter, and a proposed legislative solution. This is Christopher‘s editorial on the subject: Trash Bill: the first step at empowering neighborhoods...

Hy and Christopher kick off with an interview with hospital activist Beth Pence. She reveals that only six Louisiana hospitals have been transparent with their pricing and cost for procedures, despite the law passed by U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy which mandates hospitals must provide the pricing “openly and transparently”. We discuss how hard this byzantine economic burden places on so many families. W...

Hy and Christopher begin this week’s program talking about the 2025 legislative session.  We kick off ruminating about over the Port of New Orleans seeking to build a container terminal in St. Bernard Parish—an issue coming up in the State House Transportation Committee on Wednesday.  The concept is deeply unpopular amongst the residemts of Violet and Chalmette, but Port Nola officials are undaunt...

Hy and Christopher start the show by celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to New Orleans on his 1825 Farewell Tour. We are joined by General Lafayette himself (as well as his alter ego, Mark Schneider) and the President of the American Friends of Lafayette , Chuck Schwam. We then talked to Trump tariffs and the potential deal to open 10% trade with 75 countrie...

Hy and Christopher begin by talking about the impact of the Trump tariffs, and end the show highlighting the festivities this week celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to New Orleans.  Many of the events are free and open to the public, and Christopher will actually be playing then-Governor Henry Johnson on Thursday, April 10 at Chalmette Battlefield. More inf...

Louisiana public schools have made major advances in reading and math, yet still lag behind other states in educational achievement.  Could the International Baccalaureate (IB) program service as the solution? Seven Louisiana schools, including the French Quarter-bound Lycée Francais use the IB, but the internationally-recognized,  integrated educational system has a significantly small presence i...

Hy and Christopher lament the loss of another local newspaper, and question if our society had become more crass and divided as local journalism outlets die?  We then turned to Donald Trump and Ukraine. Christopher contends in a column of The Louisiana Weekly, which he talks about below, that when American needs a Churchill, it has a Chamberlain.  Hy disagrees, to say the least. Community newspape...

Hy and Christopher kickoff this week show talking about a new production of Jersey Boys at Le Petit Theatre, running Thursday-Sunday through April 6. Joined in the conversation by Sebastian Rohn (Frankie Valli), Knox Van Horn (Nick DeVito and others), and Stephanie Abry (Lorraine and others), we talk about how the story of The Four Seasons particularly lends itself to a musical theater interpretat...

State Rep. Ricky Templet faces off against activist Andrea Manuel in a debate for the (West Bank) District 1 Jefferson Parish Council seat. Hosted by the Crimefighters organization, the March 29 election is to fill the unexpired term of Marion Edwards. Hy and Christopher are joined in the questioning by Crimefighters President Irv Magri. The third candidate in the race, Mayor Timothy Kerner Jr., w...

It’s Carnival time all the time on this edition of The Founders Show, talking Mardi Gras traditions to the melodies of Armand St. Martin’s original musical compositions, heard exclusively on this week’s broadcast with Hy & Christopher.

"Historian Jane" Delacour joins Hy and Christopher on this week’s show to talk about her book The Axe Woman Of Bourbon Street . Bourbon Street in New Orleans was a glamorous place with a long-held reputation for a good time. While the rest of America was getting more conservative, Bourbon Street became more salacious. Burlesque dancers filled the stages as live bands played to entice tourists insi...

Hy and Christopher kick off the second segment of this week's show wondering if Louisiana’s Republican Governor has become a socialist? Facing skyrocketing property insurance rates, Landry is proposing a government intervention more to Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warner - or is he? As the governor stated, "What we've seen with insurance companies is they've enriched shareholders but it's made the...

Donald Trump's plan to release the files tied to the assassination of John F. Kennedy has already unearthed nearly 2,400 new documents which might shed light on the mystery of whether there was indeed a lone shooter, potentially including information on the CIA operative who knew about Lee Harvey Oswald over a month before JFK met his end in Dallas. In late January, Trump signed an executive order...

The newest member of the editorial board of the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate joins Hy and Christopher to talk about the challenges - and opportunities - for the Crescent City in the upcoming election seasons. His name is well-known in journalism, both locally and nationally. Quin Hillyer has written for National Review, as well as a number of influential publications. His column has run in...

Tuesday’s 9.5 inches of snow not only shut down South Louisiana for most of the week, the blizzard also underlined the fact that increasingly volatile weather occurrences – from hurricanes to tornadoes to floods –have consistently robbed school children of necessary days in the classroom, almost on a yearly basis.   Hy and Christopher propose a solution on this week’s edition of the Founders Show....

This week, while the nation focuses upon the second inaugural of Donald J. Trump on Monday, January 20, 2025 (ironically also the Martin Luther King holiday), the Louisiana political world will be focused on the following four-day weekend in the nation’s capitol.   Hy and Christopher talk about the major event and even go into how Opera influenced Mardi Gras— a major theme of the first event of Wa...

Hy and Christopher are joined by the Rev. Byron Clay for the first segment. The famed civil rights leader and former head of the national Southern Christian Leadership Conference will be the keynote speaker for the MLK festivities and march in St. John Parish. He speaks about the need for love as an antidote to our broken politics, and emphasizes that the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King remain...

Errol Laborde, the newest columnist for the Times-Picayune, joins Hy and Christopher for our Twelfth Night/commencement to Carnival program! The New Orleans magazine, editor and producer of WYES’ Informed Sources highlights excerpts from his new monthly “Streetcar” newspaper column in the T-P Living Section, including how he played a role in (re)creating the Phunny Phorty Phellows as “Heralds of C...

In this final show of 2024, Hy and Christopher examine the top stories of the year through the lens of how they reveal the direction where local politics will travel over the coming decade. We have chosen seven different stories that give a glimpse at how the politics of the Pelican State has irrevocably changed over the last year. The City of St. George in Baton Rouge promises more incorporation...

Hy and Christopher welcome you to the Christmas edition of the Founders Show.