If you care about New Orleans and you click on one weblink today, please let it be this one. It's all about the lies people elsewhere are telling about Mardi Gras in New Orleans, how we're just throwing a big drunken party with orgies in the streets, and how callous we are to do this when OMG PEOPLE HAVE DIED.

Not a single one of them gets that we're doing it because people have died. Not to take anything away from those who actually lost their lives or loved ones, but everyone in south Louisiana has died a little, and this is one of our ways of coming back to life. Any purse-mouthed, dry-assed naysayers who cannot or will not understand this are cordially invited to bite a giant, sequined dick.

The pull-quotes from other papers, which don't seem to have come through in the online article (though some are referenced in the body of the story:

Krewe du Vieux parade participants "were greeted with whoops of delight from a crowd, mostly of New Orleans residents, fueled by Hurricane cocktails and marijuana smoked openly in the presence of tolerant New Orleans policemen. -- The Daily Telegraph, London. 2-13

LIES. New Orleanians don't drink Hurricanes (but you just couldn't resist that cliché, could you, Mr. London Telegraph?), and while I'm sure some pot was smoked at KdV, a New Orleans cop will not look the other way if he actually sees you firing one up.

A deep unease has settled over the Big Easy with the approach of the first Mardi Gras since Hurricane Katrina and the disturbing juxtapositions that are certain to result. Floats soon will move down boulevards that just five months ago were under water. Drunken revelers will careen across the same sidewalks where ailing and elderly storm victims dropped dead in the late-summer heat.

Some African-American leaders, whose communities were among the hardest hit when the hurricane destroyed most of New Orleans' predominantly black neighborhoods, fear that Mardi Gras celebrations led by white elites will only deepen racial tensions in this starkly segregated city. -- The Chicago Tribune, 2-9

LIES. There is no unease in town over the beginning of Mardi Gras other than the fact that fuckingFEMA (that's an official compound word now) is kicking people out of hotels just in time for the festivities to begin. In general, there is an atmosphere of, "Finally! An excuse to forget all the shit and horror and just be happy for a few days!"

LIES. The parades are not rolling along streets that flooded, nor, as far as I am aware, did any ailing and elderly storm victims drop dead on the Uptown route (the only route being used this year, with the exception of Zulu). Most people died in the Lower Ninth Ward, out East, Lakeview, Mid-City, on the I-10 overpass, and around the Superdome and Convention Center (the latter three locations due to local government's and FEMA's inability to provide food, water, or medical care). No parades will be rolling in these locations.

LIES. Mardi Gras is probably being led by "white elites" this year less than ever. Zulu, the traditional African-American parade, is the only one being allowed to keep part of its traditional route rather than having to use the shortened Uptown route as the other New Orleans parades must.

LIES. Some will disagree, but I have never felt that New Orleans was a "starkly segregated city," and I still don't. People of all races live on the same blocks, attend the same churches, go to the same parades, and, most importantly, talk to each other, something I've never experienced to this degree elsewhere. I know you've heard the chocolate city crap, but don't believe its opposite. New Orleans is not now a vanilla city, and it never will be.

After Katrina, the economic argument for Carnival doesn't really hold water, so to speak. [And isn't that just an adorable pun?] This year, the city is expecting far fewer tourists, and no one seems quite sure how the city will pay the $2.7 million it's going to have to spend on police overtime and other expenses.

Like the city of New Orleans, post-Katrina carnival has become whiter. -- The New Republic, February Issue

LIES. There are already a hell of a lot of tourists in town, and they want to spend money. Several of the krewes have already donated hundreds of thousands of dollars toward police overtime.

LIES. People who talk about "Carnival becoming whiter" sound to me like they're indulging in wishful thinking. Fortunately, they are also stuck in the past, when super-exclusive old-line krewes like Comus, Momus, and Proteus stopped parading rather than obey the integration laws passed by the city council. You know, folks, that was more than ten years ago. Comus & co., though remembered fondly, aren't a factor in modern Carnival.

I see the virtue of laughing in the face of adversity, but what I'm hearing sounds like serious denial. How does the city plan its big annual party when most of the would-be revelers are scattered to the four winds and can't come home because there's nowhere for them to live or work or send their children to school?" -- The Washington Post, 12-16

LIES. Places to live can be problematic -- though getting better -- but there are jobs galore and plenty of schools open, public and private alike.

LIES. If "most of the would-be revelers are scattered to the four winds," who were those hundreds of people I saw on St. Charles Avenue yesterday, braving the wind and the chill to catch beads as five parades rolled by in the space of an hour?

Hello, national media, Washington politicians and pundits, Charles Barkley, etc: If you're going to talk about us, all I ask is that you COME SEE US FIRST. It's not like you imagine it is, it's not like you see on TV, and it's most definitely not like you read in these lying-ass rags. You want to talk aout how we "don't need Carnival"? Well, come over here a minute and let me whisper in your ear: I want to talk about how we don't need you to be LYING SACKS OF SHIT.