Mr. Robinson takes note of this year's Mardi Gras.
Down in New Orleans they're having Mardi Gras, and I don't know whether the rest of us are supposed to laugh or cry.
For my part, I couldn't personally get into it. But hey, they're doing disaster tours of NOLA, so what the hell?
Mr. Robinson has a general grip on why Margi Gras must go on.
I found this show-must-go-on consensus jarring, but I should have thought back to my time as a correspondent for The Post covering South America, specifically Brazil, and remembered how important the tradition of pre-Lenten carnival can be to a society. Carnival in Brazil is more than an officially sanctioned bacchanal, it's like a national birthright -- a guaranteed, weeklong interlude during which inhibiting rules are suspended, most societal barriers are ignored and all manner of oppressive problems are deferred.
Of course, putting problems out of your mind doesn't make them go away. It was while I was, ahem, "covering" carnival in Rio one year that I was able to see in starkest relief the racial and economic disparities in Brazilian society. There could have been no carnival without the multitudes of poor, black Brazilians who dressed up in fabulous, glittering costumes and danced through the streets as if tomorrow would never come -- and then, at cruel sunrise on Ash Wednesday, went back to being poor, black and bereft of prospects.
In a society of great inequality, this sort of scheduled outburst is socially and psychologically useful. But as he says:
Let's see: Vast tracts of the city are mold-infested and uninhabited, some neighborhoods are reduced to rubble, two-thirds of the population is dispersed around the country, more than a thousand people are dead, the levees around the city are patched together, in just three months or so a new hurricane season begins
And understand: the plan is to restore the levees to original specification: to withstand a category three storm. Contrary to initial reports,
Katrina was a category three storm. That's just not a good sign, because hurricanes are due to increase in number as part of
natural long-term cycles, and in strength due to
increases in the ocean's temperature. And the
ongoing loss of Louisiana's coastal marshlands means each storm actually
eats away at the underlying land.
At this point, I'm watching more to see what promises are made and which are kept, because I really believe New Orleans will live or die based on events of this year. No, it will be reincarnated...this year's events will determine the nature of that incarnation.
Yes, New Orleans will be reincarnated. New Orleans has continued to reincarnate itself since before the Civil War. New Orleans is not just one ethnic group. New Orleans is a mixture, a gumbo of all races, religions and creeds. We are all New Orleans natives wheather we are from Slidell or Metairie or Kenner. New Orleans is where we say we're from when asked. New Orleans is our home, our identity.
It took 100 plus years to build New Orleans. New Orleans may never be the same city again but the historical culture will remain. The best part of New Orleans are the people and no matter where they have relocated to; whether they come back or not, New Orleans will always remain. From the mimi on the porch telling stories of her youth, to the 30somethings telling their children about Sunday brunch at the Court of Two sisters, carriage rides and walks through City Park to the Museum to see King Tut. To bondfires at Christmas, crawfish boils and Sunday visits at Mama and Papa's or Granny and Gramps' house. About simpler times, laid back times. Funerals and parties; and yes all on the same day.
New Orleans is not a color or a geographical location.......New Orleans is it people and we are everywhere but we one day would like to go home. I am sorry that you are not impressed or better yet, you do not understand. There will never be another city like New Orleans.