February 22, 2012

The Endless Party of the Party-Master-in-Chief

By Mark Browning
The streets of New Orleans have grown quiet as Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) has passed into Ash Wednesday.  Theoretically, those revelers from Tuesday all woke, a bit bleary, on Wednesday and marched off to church to mark the beginning of Lent, a season of self-denial and penitence.  In reality, we live in a culture that never wants the party to end, counting the days until St. Patrick's Day or Spring Break.  It seems human nature that we should want the self-indulgence of Tuesday without the self-denial of Wednesday. This endless-party mentality can be found writ large upon our world in a variety of settings.  In Greece, angry people flooded the streets last week, protesting violently the imposition of austerity measures.  These Greeks do not want the party to end.  Their government spent money wildly, as if Wednesday would never come.  Now the average Greek faces the brunt of the cleanup. That same don't-stop-the-party feeling animated the debacle in...(Read Full Article)