“Labor Creates All Wealth” “Our labor movement has no system to crush. It has nothing to overturn. It purposes to build up, to develop, to rejuvenate humanity. “It stands for the right. It is the greatest protestant against wrong. It is the defender of the weak. “Its...
holidays
Wishing America a Happier Birthday
. . . And Many Happy Returns We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights,...
Happy Mardi Gras, Y’all
* We wish everyone, wherever you be, a happy Mardi Gras. Where we are this morning—not at the Zulu or Rex parades, sorry to say, but in New York where it’s 17 degrees—it’s too cold to quite grasp that today is Mardi Gras, but this is indeed the day. The cold rain in...
Welcoming the New Year 2014
Warm good wishes to all for a healthy and prosperous new year, inwardly and outwardly. We hope your prayers will be answered, especially your prayers for peace, for a stronger, more civil nation, for understanding and cooperation between persons, parties, and nations....
On July 4, Yearning for a Progressive American Revolution
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are...
Happy Thanksgiving to You: Much to Be Grateful For
Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you and your friends and family have much to be thankful for this year, and that you’re able to spend the day with people you love. We wish you a festive gathering over a Thanksgiving dinner with good food and drink, and happy memories of...
Do They Know It’s Mardi Gras?
* Outside of New Orleans and southern Louisiana and Mobile, Alabama, Mardi Gras generally comes as news—if it comes at all—to people in the rest of the United States when they see footage on network and cable news. Oh, it must be Mardi Gras again. Look at all those...
As We Enter 2012, Best Wishes to All
May the new year bring you all the good things you wish for. We’ll be brief with our greetings and good wishes, as last night’s champagne slowly wears off, and as there’s some house-cleaning to do before guests arrive for the New Year’s Day dinner . . . For all our...
On Independence Day, with Help from a Founding Mother
“In the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would...
St. Patrick’s Day in New Orleans: Celtic Carnival
Before we write a disapproving piece about the assault on Libya, we want to share a few cheerful views of the St. Patrick’s Day parade we enjoyed from beginning to end on Thursday in Marigny and the French Quarter. (See photos after...
Happy Mardi Gras 2011
“To many New Orleanians, Mardi Gras is not just the day itself, but the season leading up to it. . . . In the two weeks before Fat Tuesday these [Mardi Gras] krewes throw their famous parades. Every night, people from every class and neighborhood make plans to meet...
Now Entering 2011: Wishes + Promises for the New Year
“Here and now I want to make myself clear about those who disparage their fellow citizens on the relief rolls. They say that those on relief are not merely jobless—that they are worthless. Their solution for the relief problem is to end relief—to purge the rolls by...
A Christmas Greeting and Good Wishes
In a year that has held good tidings and ill—the usual ingredients with some new and sometimes startling arrangements . . . We want to take a moment from our Christmas celebrations to wish you and your family and friends a good and cheerful holiday season. We wish you...
Warm Thanksgiving Wishes to You and All
First we’d like to extend a simple, sincere wish for our readers and their families, and all their friends and communities: good food, good health, pleasant company, maybe a few drinks in good fellowship, and better prospects for the days ahead. As we gather around...
Declare Independence from Endless War
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” —Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., “Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam,” Riverside Church, New York City,...
Mardi Gras, Lombardi Gras
This is a Carnival where you don’t have to say “Happy Mardi Gras” (tho’ we do, anyway)—it simply is a happy Mardi Gras, and everyone’s been in a crazy happy zone for weeks. People are changing their middle names to WhoDat. Maybe it’s ’cause “Breesus Saves,” and the...
Krewe du Vieux’s “All Fired Up,” Baby!
Postively Flamin’ Of all New Orleans’s wonderful (and some rather sedate) Carnival krewes, Krewe du Vieux is the sassiest, fiestiest, and wittiest, and it pains us to miss even one parade. Led by the great Dr. John as King, this year’s parade’s theme was “All Fired...
Entering 2010: New Year’s Wishes and Resolutions
A very merry Christmas / And a happy new year / Let’s hope it’s a good one / Without any fear —John Lennon, Yoko Ono, “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” Positive Wishes, Sincere Resolutions We’ll see if we still feel so new and happy and resolved when the champagne wears off,...
Best Wishes for a Green and Peaceful Christmas Present
And Hoping for a More Prosperous New Year for All “The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove, from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the...
Happy Mardi Gras 2009
To everyone in New Orleans—and wherever Carnival is celebrated—we send warm greetings and best wishes for abundant fun and pleasures on Fat Tuesday, for joyful forgetting and release from heavy cares, and hopes that you may come back to your daily life refreshed and reinvigorated, with not too grinding a hangover.