Weekend digest

• This morning I emptied the bookdrop and found two diet books, one book on how to pray yourself rich, one success-in-life type biography of a well-known business person, and one book about how "effective people" communicate. I should probably start paying attention to the circulation rates of these sorts of items. If there's a reliable method to gauge the general "unhappiness" of the population during a recession, this would be it.
  
  Also, I'm not sure what this means, but this title was stolen almost as soon as it arrived.
  
  



• On Wednesday, James Gill's column speculated about Gov. PBJ's next career move.

  The secret of Gov. Bobby Jindal's success may be that he can fast-talk his way into a fancy job before he has had quite enough time to be judged a flop in the last one.
  He has held so many prestigious posts in a relatively short career that he must get credit for knowing when to get out of Dodge.

  Gill goes on to suggest that Jindal may not be quite ready to run for President in 2012, but instead may be interested in replacing Michael Steele as RNC Chairman. This morning, NOLA.com points us to yet another possibility.
  
  Catholic bishops say more exorcists are needed
  
  

  Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., who organized the conference, said only a tiny number of U.S. priests have enough training and knowledge to perform an exorcism. Dioceses nationwide have been relying solely on these clergy, who have been overwhelmed with requests to evaluate claims. The Rev. James LeBar, who was the official exorcist of the Archdiocese of New York under the late Cardinal John O'Connor, had faced a similar level of demand, traveling the country in response to the many requests for his expertise.
  
  The rite is performed only rarely. Neal Lozano, a Catholic writer and author of the book "Unbound: A Practical Guide to Deliverance" about combatting evil spirits, said he knows an exorcist in the church who receives about 400 inquiries a year, but determines that out of that number, two or three of the cases require an exorcism.
  
  No one knows why more people seem to be seeking the rite. Paprocki said one reason could be the growing interest among Americans in exploring general spirituality, as opposed to participating in organized religion, which has led more people to dabble in the occult.

  
  
  Talk about your indicators of general unhappiness during a recession, right? More and more Americans are looking to magic for answers. And if that means more and more amateur witches and exorcists seeking office, then that's what it means. Whether or not it means we can still teach science to our children remains to be seen.



• Easy reference question of the day: "I can't get the internet on this computer" Answer: "Double click the blue 'E'"



• Oh and speaking of career opportunities, State Rep. Walker Hines has made quite a turnaround in seeking his.

  State Rep. Walker Hines of New Orleans announced today that he is switching his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, making the GOP the majority party in a legislative chamber for the first time in modern Louisiana history.

  
  
  A few years ago, Hines invited several local New Orleans bloggers to meet over coffee where he made some statements about his "principles" that are interesting to reflect upon now.




• This one kid came in today chewing on a plastic pen cap. He spent the whole day here and out on the basketball court without discarding it. Just chewed the hell out of it all day long.



• William Jefferson's freezer cash eclipsed by bills in a bra In which T-P reporter Bruce Alpert actually writes, "They didn't explain how she had enough room for so much cash."



• Witness recounts 'pop' that felled Glover In which read the following testimony:

  Calloway also testified Friday about his experience at the police compound, where he said officers beat, insulted and threatened him and two other men as Glover lay dying in the backseat of a car.
  
  "They said this is gonna be the judge and jury right here," Calloway, 39, testified. "They were saying stuff like they were going to cut our tendons ... push us in the river ... they kept saying we were looters, pieces of s---."
  
  Glover's brother, Edward King, grew angry with the officers and said he would find and kill the person who killed his brother.
  
  That's when an officer choked and slapped King, said Calloway, who added that he saw the officer's name tag -- at least "all the way to the little 'm.'" He pronounced the name "Schumacher" in early interviews with the FBI, an apparent reference to defendant Scheuermann.
  
  Calloway recalled Friday seeing an officer with roadway flares in his pocket -- identified by another witness as officer Greg McRae -- drive off in the car containing Glover's body. McRae's attorney has admitted his client drove the car to the levee and set it afire.
  
  Sometime later, the officer who hit King gave them an update, telling them Glover had been shot for looting and that they could get the body from the coroner, Calloway testified. The officer then instructed colleagues to give the men a bottle of water and let them go.
  
  Calloway said he and King ran in a criss-cross pattern from the police compound "because we didn't want to get shot in the back ... I never ran that fast in my life."




• I'm so old I can remember reading Josh Marshall's TPM when it was one years old. And today it is ten. Ten years seems like a long time, especially in internet years, but sometimes even the old internets still seem sort of newish to me.



• Difficult reference question of the day: "When are they gonna fix that water fountain?" Answer: Who knows? A few days ago, I took this picture of the leaking water fountain on the basketball court at Laurence Square.
  
  
  
  About 8 months ago, I took this one.
  
  



• Right now Georgia is trying to give Auburn some trouble which could further screw with the BCS picture. More importantly, it can give LSU a real shot at an SEC title should Alabama, you know, find some motivation later in the schedule when they play Auburn. Les Miles will be grazing on ULM later this evening.



• And finally, speaking of grazing, last night we made chicken enchiladas with a salsa verde, which requires many many tomatillos.
  

And that's all I got. No Saints game tomorrow so I've been scheduled for alternative activities which I sincerely hope are not rained upon.