Since the real Mardi Gras brought snow to Atlanta, my neighborhood’s Lanta Gras celebration was rescheduled, complete with floats, beads, bands, and beer.
We partied hearty at the end of the world.
I do love my neighborhood. But no matter how hard my neighbors tried, I doubt they could have offended any other religions today.
Here was a loud, alcohol-fueled party in the middle of Lent, offending every Catholic sensibility I grew up with. I watched pigs being butchered on a Saturday, offending Jews, and ate heartily on Ramadan with the Sun high in the sky, offending Muslims.
Kirkwood also loudly ignored the Administration’s war in Iran and if we didn’t offend Hindus and Buddhists, it was certainly not for lack of trying.
I do love my neighborhood. Hope they don’t need to gas up their minivans next week. Maybe some will finally take the MARTA train they moved intown to access.
Seriously, we don’t care. The people of Kirkwood must be among the very few people in the world who can afford not to care. We feel safe behind our oceans. Nearly all of us are part of the Investor Class that’s doing so well in Trumpamerica. Our kids are mostly all-grown or still school age, so they’re not going to war. The summer horrors from global warming are still months away.
What could possibly go wrong?
Can We Offend Anyone Else?
I left Lanta Gras on my e-bike, hoping to offend someone else.
I’m certain that I offended many car drivers, because the roads near the city center were all full. I was able to run my feet along curbs and get past most of them to be first in line at the traffic light. This doubtless made me very popular. Not.
Instead of riding the Beltline, like a good Atlanta e-biker, I went all the way downtown. There, I know the city fathers want bikers to use one-way stroads through downtown and they have even built enormous over-engineered bike lanes to accommodate that. Naturally I went right up Peachtree Street.
Many of the car drivers came in from the suburbs, so when the road was blocked by construction at 10th Street I headed for the rainbow crosswalk at Piedmont.
Then I avoided the Beltline again and headed home on surface streets.
What does it mean? Maybe not much of anything.
Meanwhile Israel claims to have decapitated Iran’s leaders. Iran claims the Strait of Hormuz is closed. The Administration thinks we’ll be greeted as liberators. (Don’t bet on it.) But does anyone think that if another country bombed the White House and claimed to have killed our most unpopular leaders, we would greet them as liberators? I doubt it.
What it does prove, I think, is just that this is a very large world, with many places for the disinterested to hide and pretend everything is going to be fine.
