If there was ever any question as to how hard it is to get affordable property insurance in Louisiana, check out Sunday’s front page story in the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate here. Rather than being aggressive like Florida, Louisiana has chosen to sit by and do little more than give corporate welfare to insurance companies. So much more could have been done, and it’s a tragedy that Louisiana has stood by and done so little. For more on the Louisiana property crisis, check out my column of April 30, 2008.

If you’ve never heard Billy Joe Shaver sing his songs in person, you’ve really missed quite a show. Willie Nelson says “Billy Joe Shaver may be the best songwriter alive today.” His songs have been recorded by the likes of Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, the Allman Brothers, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, the Oak Ridge Boys; the list goes on and on. Billie Joe’s songs are really country poetry, as he sings about hard times, wild living, and a forty-year long passion for his late wife. He comes to Louisiana once or twice a year for a concert, and I have to admit I become both a regular and a groupie. Below are several photos of me and Billy Joe when he is in Baton Rouge singing last week. You can also hear my favorite Billy Joe Shaver song, Live Forever, on my song box this week.

I don’t understand while horses that break legs are “put down” right on the track, in full view of the fans and the TV cameras. It happened Saturday at the Kentucky Derby. Runner-up Eight Belles had to be euthanized on the track after breaking both of her front ankles, marking the first time in the Derby’s 134-year history that a horse died. At least a tent could have covered the horse while all this was going on. And do you have to kill a lame horse? There is no way to set the bones in casts and let this philly live a quite life in someone’s pasture? Hey, this is 2008, yet modern veterinary medicine can’t respond.? I just don’t understand.

I’m puzzled by how the Disney Company operates.  If you pick up the May issue of Vanity Fair off the newsstands, you will see this rather risqué picture of Hannah Montana, clutching a satin sheet to otherwise naked torso.  A Disney spokeswoman told the New York Times that “a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines.”  But then I see a picture of a young girl who looks all of 12 years old, on billboards all over China, reclining in a matching bra - and - panties set adorned with Disney signature mouse-ear design.  So is the Disney Company trying to have it one way in America and another way around the world?  I think old Walt is turning in his grave over what happened to the company he formed.

 New York Times conservative columnist William Kristol keep the Jindal for Vice President effort alive and well today (Monday) with a column touting Jindal’s benefit on a McCain ticket this fall.  Jindal had quite a week last week with appearances on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, a speech to the National Press Club, and a lengthy private dinner (reported here exclusively) at Commander’s Palace in New Orleans.  You can read the full New York Times article here.

And how about this really troubling story also from the Derby. Cops busted a couple who took a gamble by leaving their baby alone in a car while they went to watch the Kentucky Derby. Police say the 2-month-old was left unattended for more than 20 minutes during Saturday’s race. Police say the baby’s mother, Krystal Rose Downes, later told officers she thought her infant was safe enough because the car’s heat was on. She said she hadn’t endangered the baby “because after all, she didn’t leave the baby out in the cold,” and “she made sure she left the vehicle running so the heat could be kept on.”

The car was left running in a busy parking lot. Downes was arrested on misdemeanor child-endangerment charges. A real unfit mother. Charges should be greater than a misdemeanor.