Recently in Mardi Gras Category
For 37 years, Phil Johnson was the "voice" of WWL-TV (Channel 4), as he delivered the stations nightly editorial opinion. One of his classics was his oft-repeated "Mardi Gras" editorial:
And what else is there to talk about except that which everybody else is talking about…of course, Mardi Gras.It's that time again: that wonderful, crazy, colorful, crowded, happy, mixed-up but glorious time when all New Orleans forgets itself for a day, lets its hair down, puts on a rubber nose, a funny hat, and walks around laughing at the silly people in their crazy costumes.
It's a day for contrasts…a day for change.
A day when legions of quiet, timid, introspective little men forsake their cashier's windows and their neat clerk’s desks, put masks across their faces, and suddenly become Don Juan.
A day when a secretary can become Queen of England…a housewife, Annie Oakley.
Mardi Gras is fantasy in a fright wig, reality with a burnt cork on its nose, a dream with a scepter in its hand, and pompousness about to be punctured.
Mardi Gras is fun and laughter, vulgarity and coarseness, color and light, and at the end, quiet.
Mardi Gras is a state of mind, an attitude, a pose, an opinion. But at its most basic…and perhaps satisfying of all, Mardi Gras is the one day in the entire year when New Orleans can tell the world:
"We're going to have fun!" And we do.
This wasn't his only Mardi Gras editorial, however; he used to have a shorter one that went something like this:
Good evening. Today is Mardi Gras. Since noone can be serious today, we won't try. But we do reserve the right to be serious tomorrow. Good Evening
Compared to the former, the latter might seem like Mr. Johnson phoned that one in. It may be short, but that's how most New Orleanians feel.
Carnival Time at the turn of the 19th century. A parade is coming up Royal Street and turning lakebound on Canal Street. This was a common route for parades at the time. Parades no longer go through the Quarter because the crowds are too large and pose a fire hazard to the old buildings.)
Electrifying Canal Street has brought a few changes to downtown. The wires all over make for busy photographs, to be sure. The higher poles are carrying power to the buildings, and the lower wires are for the streetcars.
The monument to Henry Clay, which occupied the entire Canal Street neutral ground between St. Charles Ave. and Royal Street has been cut back dramatically. The massive round base of the monument was an obstruction to streetcars. The old mule-drawn cars could easily maneuver around the statue, but the electric streetcars need to follow their wires, so the monument had to be altered. Even with the cutback of the base, the statue was still a problem for streetcars, because they barely had room to pass. In 1901, the city decided to remove the statue from Canal Street and relocate Mr. Clay to Lafayette Park, where he remains today.
Mardi Gras to seek its first sponsor
Bad idea. Slippery slope. The vampire can't cross into your home unless you invite him in:
Any acceptable company that steps forward with $2 million to help pay for police overtime, fire protection and sanitation during next year's abbreviated eight-day Carnival will be crowned the "official sponsor of Mardi Gras 2006," Mayor Ray Nagin's office said.
No, no, no. This is such a bad idea.
The notion that you can "cancel" Carnival is nuts. For openers, you can't stop Carnival. The only thing that stopped Carnival in the 20th Century was world war. Even the police strike in 1979 didn't stop the celebration.
For ChiQuita Simms to compare Katrina to 9/11 is nuttier than her belief that New Orleanians shouldn't party. New Orleans was not attacked by people who want to destroy us. We got hit by a storm. A big, nasty, storm, to be sure, but nonetheless, it was a natural disaster. The storm wasn't discriminatory; wealthy folks in Lakeview lost all they had just like less well-off folks in Da Nint' did. The community has a lot of work ahead to bring the city back, and restoring the local economy is of the highest prioroty.
Ms. Simms wants to talk about the lack of power in some neighborhoods, the understaffed police department, and the unopened schools. Serious issues all, but they can and will be fixed. It's going to take money to do that, though. The largest industry pre-K New Orleans was tourism, and it's the easiest one to re-establish. The French Quarter and CBD are once again functioning, and those are our primary tourist destinations. It's time we got folks into the city so they can pay some sales and hotel taxes.
There's clearly a racist undercurrent to Simms' remarks which has no place when discussing Carnival. Carnival isn't about race, it's about getting New Orleans back to normal. The Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure club, who are actually in New Orleans (as opposed to whining from Atlanta), is arguing with the city about where their parade should go. That it should go on is not something they're even discussing.
Not that the remarks of Stephen Perry of the city's CVB are much more useful than those of Simms. His attitude gives NPR's Michelle Norris an opening to make him sound like he's saying "let them eat cake" when he points out that half the city has water and power. His knee-jerk reaction to Mayor Nagin's suggestion that hotels give up some of the profits they might pull in from Carnival to help the city are silly.
(via Chuck)
US chat show host could be a Zulu
DNA experts have questioned Oprah Winfrey's belief that she is a member of South Africa's Zulu nation.
The African-American chat-show host announced during a recent visit to South Africa that she had had a DNA test that had shown her to be a Zulu.
She also told South Africans she felt "at home" in the country.
"I went in search of my roots and had my DNA tested, and I am a Zulu," Ms Winfrey said at a seminar in Johannesburg last week.
Shoot, she could've just gone over to Broad Street if she wanted to be a Zulu. I'll bet the ZSA&P would even give her a float of her own. :-)
