Louisiana | Forthright Radio

Randy Fertel is a writer and philanthropist dedicated to the arts, education, New Orleans, and the environment. His philanthropy includes as the President of the Fertel Foundation supporting a number of causes, including The New Orleans Edible Schoolyard, Artist Corps New Orleans, YAYA (that’s Young Artists, Young Aspirations), and The Ridenhour Prizes, which recognize and encourage those who persevere in acts of truth-telling that protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society.

The prizes memorialize the spirit of Ron Ridenhour, the Vietnam veteran who wrote a letter to Congress and the Pentagon in 1969 describing the horrific events at My Lai, the infamous massacre of the Vietnam War, bringing the scandal to the attention of the American public and the world. Ridenhour went on to become an investigative journalist, and his extraordinary life and career exemplified the fearless truth-telling which the eponymous prizes now recognize. The 2024 recipients are Emma  Pildes and Tia Lessin for their documentary film, The Janes; Congressman Jamie Raskin received The Courage Prize; and The Truth Telling Prize went to Dawn Wooten, the nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center Immigration Facility in Georgia, who filed a whistleblower complaint in September 2020 after being demoted for raising concerns about inadequate medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic and non-consensual gynecological procedures performed on women in detention. Her claims have been verified by a Senate subcommittee, ICE records, and independent medical experts. If it were not for her disclosures, women in immigrant detention would still be at risk of undergoing unnecessary, non-consensual surgeries there. However, Ms. Wooten, a single mother of five, faces ongoing retaliation.

Additionally, The Fertel Foundation organized Dutch Dialogues. South Louisiana, like the Netherlands, must adapt to the threats inherent to living in a subsiding delta. The Dutch Dialogues workshops brought together Dutch engineers, urban designers, landscape architects, city planners and soils/hydrology experts together with their Louisiana counterparts to explore whether Dutch approaches to water management, landscape architecture, flood protection and urban design were relevant to New Orleans as it recovered from Hurricane Katrina.

But More pertinent to this edition of Forthright Radio are his Improv Conferences NOLA, inspired by his life-long fascination with improvisation.
Randy Fertel’s earlier books include, A Taste for Chaos: The Art of Literary Improvisation and The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans Family Memoir. His most recent book is WINGING IT: IMPROV’S POWER AND PERIL IN THE TIME OF TRUMP, just published by Spring Publications.

We spoke with him via Skype on April 9, 2024.

Articles & videos pertinent to this interview:

Inventing Improv: A Chicago Stories Special Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQLIS1ZeNgw

‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes

What War by A.I. Actually Looks Like https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/10/opinion/war-ai-israel-gaza-ukraine.html

Daniel Kahneman, Who Plumbed the Psychology of Economics, Dies at 90 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/business/daniel-kahneman-dead.html

Blender/ The Spanish Inquisition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKcuVQ8dA7c

Quinn Costello, editor & co-producer of the documentary, RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE, share his thoughts & experiences in creating this joyful exploration of the “Giant Swamp Rats Are Literally Eating Louisiana”.

Hard headed Louisiana fisherman Thomas Gonzales doesn’t know what will hit him next. After decades of hurricanes and oil spills he faces a new threat – hordes of monstrous 20 pound swamp rats. Known as “nutria”, these invasive South American rodents breed faster than the roving squads of hunters can control them. And with their orange teeth and voracious appetite they are eating up the coastal wetlands that protects Thomas and his town of Delacroix Island from hurricanes. But the people who have lived here for generations are not the type of folks who will give up without a fight. Thomas and a pack of lively bounty hunters are hellbent on saving Louisiana before it dissolves beneath their feet. It is man vs. rodent. May the best mammal win.

Award winning non-fiction filmmakers Quinn Costello, Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer have traveled to many corners of the world in search of unique stories highlighting the important environmental, scientific and cultural issues of contemporary society. With the success of documentary projects as varied as PLAGUES & PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA, THE NEW ENVIRONMENTALISTS and EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE they have gone on to screen their work at SXSW and Tribeca along with national TV broadcasts on PBS and the Sundance Channel. Along the way they have continued to pursue other sub-cultural documentary subjects, including: rogue economists, lucha libre wrestlers, ganja-preneurs and evangelical Christian surfers.
The filmmakers of RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE grew up in different parts of the country, but a passion for the swamp sealed their pact. Cajun Reeboks were donned and the journey began in search of the notorious “nutria rat”. Four years after first setting sail for Louisiana they emerged from the bayou covered in mosquito bites and an unwavering love for a place at the “End of the World” that is bursting with joy.

One person’s pest is another person’s pet.

Native to South America, nuria were introduced to the Bayou to be farmed for fur production during the Great Depression. Some escaped, and with no natural predators, they out-populated the native muskrats. Their numbers were kept somewhat in check until the anti-fur movement of the 1980s wiped out the fur market.

The population soon sky-rocketed to more than 25 million, literally eating the wetlands & causing tremendous environmental destruction. The state of Louisiana instituted the Nutria Control Program, which pays $5/tail.

Righteous Furs, a collective of fashion designers, prides themselves in utilizing nutria pelts. Their motto is “Save Our Wetlands. Wear more nutria.”

Efforts to create a nutria cuisine have been less successful.

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Rodents of Unusual Size