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More Spears means more tabloid news

Louisiana’s good press following the election of Gov. Bobby Jindal came to a screeching halt the day news broke that Britney Spears’ kid sister, Jamie Lynn (left), was pregnant. Paparazzi already feasting on Britney’s personal woes in Hollywood jumped at the chance to hound their new target. And it didn’t take long for Jamie Lynn to start making the gossip pages: At a recent lunch outing to La Carreta in Amite, Jamie Lynn stiffed the waiter and didn’t leave a tip, a faux pas noted by The New York Post. The Post quoted a waitress at the restaurant who said Spears “isn’t well-liked here.” Ouch.

Cody digs Kershaw

Screenwriter du jour Diablo Cody of Juno fame chose Sammy Kershaw’s (right) ode to small town-lovin’ “Chevy Van” as part of her iTunes celebrity playlist. This modest uptick for the Vermillion Parish native and country music star comes after a rough October. First he lost his bid for lieutenant governor, then three days later wife Lorrie Morgan filed for divorce. Writes Cody, “The girl in this song is surprisingly easy, but then if you lived in a town with a ‘dirt road Main Street,’ you might be desperate to bag Sammy Kershaw, too.”

The timeout heard around the world

The numbers that matter to most Tiger fans are 38-24, the score by which they beat Ohio State in the BCS Championship game, but the number that local legal eagle Stephen Babcock (left) will remember is 300. That’s roughly how many newspapers and television stations across the globe carried the story of the plucky, unopposed motion he filed to delay a court hearing in state district court in West Baton Rouge Parish because it would have meant missing the big game. Both his client and the plaintiff’s attorney had tickets to the game, so needless to say they were in full agreement of the motion. Still, Babcock expected some professional ribbing. “I knew there would be some older, crabby lawyers—who have the opinion our profession has to always be adversarial, starched, buttoned down and formal—who would furrow their eyebrows at it,” Babcock says. “But I don’t practice law that way.”