N. O. Catholic Church Leaders are Joyful

I am sure the Archdiocese of New Orleans is extremely happy with the settlement terms of the child abuse case.  While monetary awards will never compensate these individuals for the suffering they endured from these church predators, the monetary amount these victims will receive, after attorney fees are deducted, pales in comparison to the horrific acts they endured.

But the real tragedy of the settlement is that no higher ups in the Catholic Church were prosecuted or sent to jail, including New Orleans Archbishop Aymond.  These higher ups knew about these church pedophiles and simply ignored the complaints, or just repeatedly transferred these individuals to different locations.  They all served as an accessory to the crimes by covering them by whatever means deemed necessary.

All these priests reported to a supervisor and these folks were ultimately responsible for their actions and needed to deal with them.

While I am sure it is important for these abused individuals to finally find some closure to this long, drawn-out case, in reality, it is the Catholic Church who got a sweet deal.

The Bugs Know It All

Well hurricane season is over and we escaped without even one entering the gulf from the Atlantic Ocean.  To many this came as an unexpected surprise given the number of hurricanes predicted to form by national forecast organizations.  However, I was not worried as the season progressed because I relied on an old New Orleans’ wives tail to predict the chances of a serious hurricane forming in the gulf, namely, lovebugs.

Years ago, when I first moved to New Orleans, I was told by an elderly New Orleans native that the amount of lovebugs, those small nasty black bugs that collect all over the front of your car from mid-August through September, indicted the number of storms that would enter the gulf and turn into hurricanes.

And guess what, these creatures seem to be more accurate than our local weather forecasters.  For example, last year many lovebugs, and 8 storms in the gulf, and this year very, very few lovebugs and no hurricanes actually entered the gulf.  This was noteworthy because it was the first time since 2015 that no hurricanes made landfall in the U.S., and the first time since 2019 that no major hurricanes impacted Florida.

So, there you have it.  Apparently those messy lovebugs know all about hurricanes and could teach a thing or two to our local weather gurus