Retired Archbishop Philip M. Hannan, a confidant to President John F. Kennedy and the leader of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans for more than 20 years, died on Thursday at a hospice in New Orleans. The archbishop, who delivered the eulogy for President Kennedy in 1963, was 98.

The archdiocese confirmed his death, saying he had been in declining health for several years.

It was in the late 1940s when the archbishop, Father Hannan at the time, met Kennedy, then a young Democratic congressman from Massachusetts. A priest had come to Kennedy’s office, unannounced, insisting that as a Catholic the congressman had to defend the church in Mexico against opponents in the Mexican government.

Kennedy was irate — until a colleague put him in touch with Father Hannan, who was then an assistant chancellor in the Archdiocese of Washington. Father Hannan assured Kennedy that the priest had violated protocol by directly approaching a member of Congress, and he promised to speak to the priest. That was the start of a long friendship.

“When Kennedy had a question about how politics and church teaching intersected, he would give Father Hannan a call,” said Peter Finney Jr., editor of The Clarion Herald, the New Orleans archdiocese’s newspaper. The issues they touched on included race relations and tensions between tenets faith and Constitutional mandates.

Continue at NYT

When you have the world’s largest afro, it’s not always easy to pick it.

“My arm doesn’t fit around it like it used to.”

The Guinness Book of World Records picked Aevin Dugas from Napoleonville for her full fro.

“It was very random.  My sister put my picture up on Facebook and another friend saw it, and suggested I try out for Guinness.  I did, and from there Guinness contacted me,”  Dugas said.

Aevin, who works in a group home for women with development disabilities shares the prestigious honor of being included in the the book of world records with the likes of “The Senior Citizen with the Most Piercings” and “The Woman With the Smallest Waist”.

“The whole Guinness thing is just a whole bunch of people, different people from all over the world, everywhere.  To be included, that is a big honor,” she said.

For 12 years she’s been growing out her hair.  She washes it two to three times a week.

“What kind of hair, do you know stands up on it’s own like a crown,”?

Continue at cw33

New Orleans native Tammy Fox said she was 11 or 12 years old and weighed about 70 pounds when her father, Billy, began teaching her to ride in the mid-1970s at Jefferson Downs and the Fair Grounds.

“We used to have to sneak on the racetrack after training hours,” Tammy said. “That’s how I was taught to gallop.”

“That was a long time ago with the pony,” said Billy Fox, who was a trainer at the time.

When Tammy was 16 and weighed 82 pounds, she was ready for her first race as a jockey. Billy was the trainer of Flashing Eagle, who was to run in a Churchill Downs race in 1981.

Tammy was wearing cowboy boots, because her riding boots, size 2, hadn’t arrived. “The ones that they ordered, they weren’t ready yet,” she said. “My dad was so nervous, when he threw me up, he threw me completely over the horse.”

Eventually, she got on, and Flashing Eagle won. “He took me around there,” Tammy said. “He kept me safe.”

Continue at the TP

Former mayor Ray Nagin announced today via Twitter (his new favorite form of communication) that he would be publishing his memoirs next month in a book titled Katrina’s Secrets: Storms After the Storm. On the cover: a contemplative Nagin looking out a window, somewhat reminiscent of the famous photo of President George W. Bush looking down at a flooded New Orleans from Air Force One.

The book — which seems to be self-published — carries an alternate title, Katrina’s Secrets: I, on the former mayor’s website, indicating a Part II (and III? and IV?) may be forthcoming. Lending further credence to the sequel is this pre-publication blurb from his former CAO, Dr. Brenda Hatfield: “The reader can’t help crying and laughing out loud because the narrative is so human, riveting and authentic. Only Mayor Nagin can bring us these hidden historical perspectives of Katrina. Still there are so many more secrets be told in the next volume.”

Nagin’s website describes the book thusly:

C. Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, recounts evacuation decisions, an overwhelmed city, a president’s vacillations, and successful recovery efforts. Now, Nagin’s long-awaited account, Katrina’s Secrets I: Storms after the Storm, lays out the days leading up to and following the storm.At once stirringly, elegiac and disarmingly candid, this spellbinding reckoning delivers exacting detail, while boldly exposing secrets that, until now, have been glossed over or spun out.

It’s not the first post-Katrina book from a member of the Nagin Administration. That distinction went to former sanitation director Veronica White, whose paperback How to Maximize FEMA Funding After a Natural Disasterwas published in 2009. It’s currently out of print; used copies go for $48 apiece on Amazon.com.

News of the publication caught a couple of local booksellers by surprise. At Uptown’s Maple Street Book Shop, manager and book buyer Gladin Scott said he wasn’t aware of the book, but “there’s no way we wouldn’t carry it. But he hasn’t called the store.” Amy Loewy of the Garden District Book Shop burst into laughter at the news of the memoir and said she hadn’t heard of it either, nor had Nagin or his assistants called the shop — “unless the mayor called (owner) Britton (Trice) at home.”

From Gambit

I have a love/hate relationship with New Orleans.

As with so many people I’ve interviewed over the years, my sojourn in New Orleans was supposed to be an abbreviated one. Stewart and I moved here after marrying in 1975, intending to stay only until he finished his last two years at Tulane Law School. Then we’d be off to San Francisco or D.C. or Dallas.

We had options for all of those cities, and more. But one sunny afternoon in May 1977, as we sat on the Moon Walk and gazed out over the river, the strains of a street saxophone floating on the breeze and the St. Louis Cathedral spire at our backs, we looked at each other and said, “How can we leave?”

This city is a seductress.

And like any enchantress, she can be enticing, bewildering, manipulative, scheming.

Continue at the TP

New Orleans – At first glance, there’s nothing unusual about “Kermit”, a one year old domestic cat. That is, until the lights go out.

“All of his skin glows green,” said Dr. Betsy Dresser at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species.

Kermit is part of an important research project. Scientists there genetically altered Kermit’s father, “Mr. Green Genes”, to glow green by inserting proteins from a jellyfish into its cells. But what scientists really wanted to know is if this manipulated gene would be passed on to Mr. Green Genes’ offspring.

“When we saw Kermit we all cheered because we knew then that the genes were passed on,” Dr. Dresser said. “Using this trans-genetic model we are hoping to save a lot of these endangered cats by transferring genes that are good genes.”

Scientists at the Audubon Research Center are also cloning 23 species of exotic endangered cats, including an African Wild Cat named “Jazz”. Jazz and his clone “Miles” call the research center home.

Continue at NewOrleans.com

Former Hot Boys member Juvenile was reportedly arrested over the weekend for drug possession and driving on a suspended license.

According to police in Sterlington, La., the rapper was pulled over for speeding when officers reportedly smelled some herb wafting from the rapper’s vehicle. Asked about the peculiar scent, Juvenile (aka Terius Gray) handed over a small bag of pot. He was hauled in, booked and then allowed to leave after posting $750 bail. He’s due back in court on, get this, April Fool’s Day. (E! Online)

From SOHH.com

NEW ORLEANS — It’s moving day for dozens of people living in a growing homeless camp.

The city said help for the homeless will come from area shelter and faith-based organizations. The New Orleans Mission is offering two-week vouchers to get the homeless off the streets and even further assistance, Gonzales said.

From WDSU

this rly bums me out. if it’s the grey ghost we srsly need to stop this asshole.

From Musa_asuM