Fat Tuesday, super Tuesday, the difference

Tuesday, this Tuesday, is both fat and super.

In many places in the world, though quite rarely in the continental US, carnivale is celebrated to usher in Lent on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Mardi gras (literally "fat tuesday") as we know it now, has become a jumble of medieval, pagan, early Christian, African, Latin and now commercial rites celebrated in a bacchanalian orgy of dance, drink and food.

Most of us in the north don't know much about the intricacies of how this holiday is celebrated in countries like Trinidad, Tobago, and Brazil.



And while most of us think of Mardi Gras as a bead-throwing, tit-exposing, tawdry, drunken blowout on New Orleans Bourbon Street, the actual New Orleans celebration is much more intricate, arcane, structured event which is governed by years of cultural and social rules with krewes, and spyboys, Mardi Gras Indians, secret balls and strange costumes. The Mardi Gras of St. Charles Avenue is far different than the Mardi Gras in the Vieux Carre.



Out in the country Northwest of New Orleans, Mardi Gras takes on a different twist where Christian and medieval customs are linked to ancient European rituals, outlandish stylized costumes and the Mardi Gras courir (or run). In the country, a traditional courir consists of a group of men on horseback, led by a capitaine, who leads them on a quest for the ingredients of a good gumbo. At farmhouses, drunken revelers chase live chickens, and hoist sacks of rice for the return trip to town where music, cooking and more drinking, end the day.

Super Tuesday is the closest we come to a national Presidential primary. Twenty-four states, including Connecticut, but not Louisiana, will be voting for a Democratic and Republican candidate.

It'd be interesting to be celebrating Fat Tuesday and Super Tuesday together, but we must be relieved to know that there will be no voting in Louisiana Tuesday.

Caterwauled endorses Obama

I'm happy to say I'll be voting for Barack Obama in the super Tuesday primary next week. I wish I could say I was doing it with all the enthusiasm with which I'd have voted for Dennis Kucinich, but I think I will be able to vote for Obama with significant peace of mind.

His message of hope and change are inspiring, but I feel that on the essential issues we face - the war in Iraq, civil liberties, the economy, health care, education, poverty - he will move us as far as possible from the Bush doctrine as is possible in a country now ruled by fear, xenophobia, racism, and zealotry.

I think he is more capable of this than other candidates because he exhibits the qualities of a unifying force. He's not afraid, for example, to talk about homophobia to a homophobic Christian audience in a church. He is also, ultimately, the most electable candidate.

I don't like the idea of a continued family dynasty in the White House, nor the conduct of Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. It's unfortunate that the first credible woman candidate for the office is saddled with a charismatic, out-of-control, ex-president of a husband whose liberal credibility is questionable.