The Zulus at 100 Friday, Feb 13 2009 

Uncategorized woolybugger 6:09 pm

Zulu-Logo-TypeOnly-MECH1While the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club is always an important part of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, this year they are getting special attention. The Zulus are celebrating their centennial this year. Their history is featured in a major a major exhibit at the Louisiana State Museum and both local and national media has picked up on the significance of this year’s celebration.

On Tuesday, the Times-Picayune ran a great story on the Zulu tradition of decorating coconuts to serve as “throws” during the parade and today, the New York Times ran a wonderful story accompanied by a slide show of photographs from the celebration.

Beyond the Zulus, Mardi Gras events are really heating up, but articles, photographs, and media at http://www.nola.com/ will give you a good sense, for better or for worse, of what you are missing.

 

New Orleans Happenings Thursday, Feb 5 2009 

Uncategorized , , , , , , woolybugger 3:41 pm

OK, so it’s in the single digits here this morning, so I have to think of warmer climes. Oops, the strawberries and citrus in Florida are threatened by a freeze and New Orleans is in the 30s.

However, there are a number of interesting stories about New Orleans of late:

Zatarain’s, the New Orleans-area food producer, is petitioning to have Mardi Gras made a national holiday. Read (and sign) here: http://blog.nola.com/cest-la-nola/2009/02/zatarains_spearheading_petitio.html

An observant blogger (not me) discovered that if you search for “New Orleans” in Google, you can come up with a timeline of New Orleans history, with links from specific dates to open source content, a veritable “New Orleans History 2.0″ (to use her words). For the blog and link to the timeline see:  http://blog.nola.com/cest-la-nola/2009/02/history_of_new_orleans_20.html

The NOPD is at it again. An autopsy shows that a man killed by police on New Year’s Day was shot in the back of the body nine times:  http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/man_shot_by_police_hit_nine_ti.html

And in spite of such news, Mayor Nagin and the city council have reinstituted “Disney-like” sanitation services for the French Quarter.  It’s good to see where their priorities are. Which raises some interesting questions: do tourists vote? Does the rest of the city get dumpsters? See:  http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/deluxe_quarter_cleanup_resumes.html