NEW ORLEANS, LA, USA - Walking to and fro for work each day, I pass through the Fauberg Marigny ("the Marigny") and the French Quarter ("the Quarter"). At this time of year, many of the balconies and a number of the houses are festooned with banners, bunting, flags and tinsel, all in Mardi Gras colors (purple, green and gold.) Some houses have carnaval masks larger than life, usuallly also in the colors, and you can see harlequins and mannikins on the balconies in suspended states of revelry. It's a nice touch, to be found only in New Orleans.
When I ask a local vendor or two who I have met at my office, suburbanites to a person, who live in Metairie, Jefferson or Gretna, they remember that there's a story around the colors, but can't tell me what that story might be or what the colors stand for. They suggest I look it up on the Web.
.... More
RDR 01.28.02: Rod, our Full-time Man in The Big Easy gives you his Super Bowl and Mardi Gras warm-up. "The New Orleans Way."
RDR 01.21.02: A special treat for our 300th issue celebration: "A Mattie Lennon Sampler". Find out why our contributor from Dublin, Ireland keeps them coming back!
RDR 01.14.02: RADIO RAHEEM takes stock of "Seven Years at the Same Place"
DAY ONE:
REVENGE
KEVIN CAREY
There is an unwritten law of 7/24 media coverage that the more intractable the problem the more welcome it is. Problems with answers have short screen lives whereas a really difficult problem allows any number of academics, politicians, and nutters to expatiate, blather and rant, as is their respective wont, all day and night but preferably all night when there is a large gap to fill. If such a question cannot easily be contrived then the next best thing is a relatively easy question where the answer is withheld, shall we say, out of a sense of playfulness.
Such is the case of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of Prisoners of War. It would be so much easier if their clauses could be put onto the screen for our unhurried and careful perusal. Such being the case, we would find that, regardless of a formal declaration of war, all those captured in Afghanistan by 'Coalition' forces are deemed to be prisoners of war unless and until an open, customary process of law is utilised to determine otherwise. Even if President Bush had not foolishly declared a "War" on terrorism which makes the Conventions' interpretation even clearer than it otherwise might be, the Al Qaida/Taliban captives at Guantanamo Bay are Prisoners of War. End of story.
... More
G21 STUFF: We know. You want to let people know that you KNOW.
One way of doing that is buying our "stuff." Wear it, drink from it, click over it.
This Pull-down Menu will hyperjump you to all our great features. Try it!
AMERICAN DREAMS:
Room with a Bath
RUDOLPH JAMES
Having a convenient place to piss in the middle of the night is very important. I had lost my apartment and was moving around in dead-end hotels. Another waiter at the restaurant I was working in suggested a rooming house on Rampart Street.
"Hey, man," he said. "It's only eighty bucks a week. That's a lot cheaper than what you're paying for them hotels up on St. Charles Ave."
The idea sounded good to me. That was a lot cheaper, even though meeting the manager of rooming house was a little strange. This manager apparently ran several houses around the French Quarter and was well known amongst the unsettled. I called him from work to confirm our appointment...More
MY GLASS HOUSE:
The New Orleans Way - Part 2(Conclusion)
ROD AMIS
NEW ORLEANS, 5 FEBRUARY, 2002 - We had a mayoral election here in the Big Easy on Saturday. Out of the fourteen candidates in the race, only two made the runoff: former Police Chief Pennington and a "businessman" from Cox Cable named Nagin. Both are connected, one way or the other, to our outgoing mayor, Mark Morial.
Politics New Orleans-style is a nasty business, as you might imagine....More
MARDI GRAS UPDATE SCHEDULED 
The Super Bowl comes to New Orleans, the new World Headquarters of G21, your World's Magazine. So would you expect us to ignore this story?
NEW ORLEANS, LA, USA - Walking to and fro for work each day, I pass through the Fauberg Marigny ("the Marigny") and the French Quarter ("the Quarter"). At this time of year, many of the balconies and a number of the houses are festooned with banners, bunting, flags and tinsel, all in Mardi Gras colors (purple, green and gold.) Some houses have carnaval masks larger than life, usuallly also in the colors, and you can see harlequins and mannikins on the balconies in suspended states of revelry. It's a nice touch, to be found only in New Orleans.