Dog park

Did anyone go to the League of Women Voters mayoral candidates forum at Temple Sinai Thursday night? Twenty-three candidates in about two hours, about twenty of whom shouldn't have even been given a stage. Anytime Kimberly Williamson-Butler spoke, the audience roared with laughter. No one else of any consequence said anything of any importance ... experience, reach across the aisle, show results, blah blah blah. Ray Nagin hawked his experience with hurricanes and cautioned that you don't want a rookie in charge when the next one comes. Wow! "I might suck, but not as bad as the new guy" is not exactly what we need right now.

Outside the temple, council district campaigners and every other sort of snake-oil salesperson were selling their salves to save the city or protest one thing or another. Media everywhere. What a zoo! And then, adding to the bizarre nature of the evening, a huge tour bus got stuck across St. Charles Avenue somehow while exiting the Loyola. Hundreds of cars backed up as people tried to escape. It was entertaining, sure, and this is a democracy, yeah, but can all those people really be serious?

Lately (actually, for quite a long time now), I've been feeling that a lot of pretty uncanny things have been happening, and so it occurred to me the other day that I feel like I'm living in a magic reality.

So, since I don't really have the energy to post anything more meaningful, here's a slice of that magic reality -- or whatever you want to call it. These are photos I took one breezy afternoon last weekend in that little dog park area on the river side of the levee where dogs go swimming and gleefully retrieve sticks their owners throw.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Happy St. Joseph's Day, Happy St. Joseph's Night, Happy Marathoning!









Oh ... and here's one more. This was taken by Chris Granger for The Times-Picayune -- a St. Joseph's altar under a blue-roofed house in Chalmette, St. Bernard Parish.