Today is Fat Tuesday, and just as they always do, the people in New Orleans are celebrating in the streets.
The celebratory mood isn't confined to the Crescent City. The Tower District's ninth Mardi Gras parade Sunday gave local residents a chance to get into the spirit of the pre-Lenten season, and they grabbed at the chance.
But for New Orleans residents still waiting to return home after evacuating in Hurricane Katrina's wake, this is no time to party.
Two writers on The Fresno Bee's Op-Ed page take a look today at whether this celebration is appropriate this year, just six months after the city was devastated when levees broke in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, scattering two-thirds of its residents to other parts of the country.
Eugene Robinson's piece is titled "Triumph of human spirit or waste of resources." New Orleans resident Andrei Codrescu, author of "New Orleans, Mon Amour," says New Orleaneans have to celebrate Mardi Gras, to prove to themselves, and the world, that they will come back from this devastating blow.
Whether you agree or not with New Orleans' decision to go ahead with this year's Mardi Gras celebration, you have to admire the resilience of the human spirit that allows residents to laissez les bons temps rouler ("let the good times roll"), even as much of the city is still destroyed and empty.
This indomitable human spirit, this will to overcome obstacles, is within all of us. We may only see it under the worst possible circumstances, but it's something we all have. And it's worth celebrating.
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