Of Mardi Gras and Super Tuesday ...

We will miss Mardi Gras this year, not that we participated much when we lived in New Orleans. Susan usually went skiing in Colorado. I could usually find a party that did not require that I battle the crowds. Call us Scrooges, but I have more or less participated in 60 or so Mardi Gras and they begin to look the same after about 30 times.

This year we are in Cincinnati, interested more in “Super Tuesday” than the festivities in New Orleans. The presidential race this year is a bit more interesting than in recent years, though I can’t stand one more debate.

Today’s related story comes from AP, via KATC-3 in Lafayette:

That happy, sing-song sound heard on Bourbon Street is trickle-down economics at its best as hundreds of thousands of Carnival season visitors spend themselves silly before Fat Tuesday.

The city's tourism industry, getting back on its feet after Hurricane Katrina, is counting on a big weekend crowd to fill restaurants and hotels leading up to Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) on Feb. 5.

The payday may be big for the hotels and restaurants _ hundreds of millions of dollars in a typical Carnival _ but for rank-and-file workers it's a chance to fatten the purse with the payoff from a healthy helping of hospitality.

At Rick's Cabaret in the French Quarter, income from tips could rise 30 percent over a typical weekend for Phoebe, who snaps up tips for her dances from a largely male crowd that wanders in to eat, drink and behold the charms of scantily clad women.

"You get a lot of people who ride in the parades who will come in, party, get loose, getting ready for their rides," said Phoebe, who for privacy reasons would only identify herself by her first name. "They're happy, in good spirits and income does go up."

jbv's Competitive Edge