Carnival Time

• We spent our Twelfth Night (and day) in the French Quarter harassing shopkeepers and playing Tiger with the rest of the LSU folk who are in town for... some sort of football contest tonight. Tiger fans are loud and rowdy... like a football crowd. And the scene in the Quarter is appropriately Carnival-like what with all the whooping and hollering and such.
  
  This sort of behavior is commonly tolerated and even celebrated by the shameless promoters of the New Orleans tourism-plantation economy who are all too happy to welcome frat boys and weekend warriors to town to break things and pee on stuff so long as they tip well and pay their hotel bills.
  
  Funny, then, how the number of complaints about this sort of thing become markedly more noticeable... and tellingly more snotty... when LSU is in town. Why is that?
  
  Anyway, LSU has Ohio State outmatched talent-wise tonight. Plus, the Tigers are healthier than they've been since early in the season. But if this thing comes down to coaching... well that heavily favors the Buckeyes.



• Also in the Carnival spirit is "Boomer" David who demonstrates for us a way in which our Carnival Royalty are "royals" in the material as well as the make-believe sense.



• Finally, today... the official second day of Carnival season... some of the neighborhood kids were sitting out on the library steps singing Indian Red this morning. Happy Mardi Gras.