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The Bulletin compiles news from in and around the US South. We hope these posts will provide space for lively discussion and debate regarding issues of importance to those living in and intellectually engaging with the US South.
- In the wake of the thirty four-minute power outage that interrupted the Superbowl—held February 3, 2013 at the Superdome in New Orleans—journalists identified "last-minute, multimillion-dollar . . . upgrades to the Dome’s electrical system, intended to bolster the stadium's reliability" as potential causes. As reported in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, electrical switchgear installed during these recent repairs detected a power anomaly and triggered the shutdown. Entergy continues to investigate the "root cause" of the incident. Meanwhile, Sara Kugler noted on MSNBC because the Superdome "is both a reminder of the city’s revival after Hurricane Katrina, and the suffering and loss that happened under its roof during and after the storm," the outage brought to mind the recent outages during Hurricane Isaac and the slow and unequal pace of development of the city’s electrical grid post-Katrina.
- Recent analysis reveals that residents of several southern states had to wait disproportionately longer to vote in the 2012 Presidential election than people from other areas. Black and Hispanic voters, Democrats and Independents, and those living in cities were three other groups that had longer waits than their counterparts (whites, Republicans, non-urban dwellers). As reported in The New York Times, long waiting times depressed turnout in states like Florida, where residents waited an average of forty-five minutes to cast their votes. "[M]ore than 200,000 voters in Florida 'gave up in frustration,'" according to an Orlando Sentinel report. Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia also faced long lines at the polls, and a New York Times graph reveals that seven of the eight states with the longest waiting times are in the southeast.