It’s Flags and Yellow Ribbons for Mardi Gras

This year, it’s going to be patriotic to party.

Plans for the annual Mardi Gras celebration are proceeding here despite the Persian Gulf War and some fears of domestic terrorism. Organizers expect the Feb. 12 Fat Tuesday festivities to become a flag-waving extravaganza.

The raucous pre-Lent carnival, normally a time for irreverent and uninhibited behavior, may seem a bit out of sync with events in the Gulf. But New Orleans is adjusting.

“Of course we are aware of the precarious situation in the Middle East and we will continue to monitor developments there,” Mayor Sidney Barthelemy said. “Continuing with Mardi Gras in no way diminishes our support of and concern for our troops fighting in Operation Desert Storm.”

This year “everywhere you look you’re going to see something patriotic,” said carnival entrepreneur Blaine Kern, who designs floats for Mardi Gras parades. “If we normally have a mythological character or a cartoon character on one of the floats, this year we’re going to shove American flags in their hands and put yellow ribbons all around the floats.”

Up to 225,000 special aluminum doubloons have recently been manufactured with Desert Storm emblems. And 50,000 red, white, and blue plastic cups saluting the men and women of Desert Storm will be thrown from the floats. Plans are also under way to include more than 400 spouses of local servicemen in various carnival celebrations.

“This isn’t political, it’s patriotic,” said Kern. “We want this to be one of the best carnivals ever. I think it would be a terrible thing to cancel now. If Saddam Hussein could stop Mardi Gras by making war, then that would be his victory. We want to show this little turkey that we’re ignoring him. Life goes on in New Orleans.”

One of the carnival organizations, the Krewe of Endymion, rescinded an invitation to actor Woody Harrelson to preside as grand marshal for Mardi Gras’ largest parade after a newscast showed Harrelson applauding the remarks of anti-war activist Ron Kovic at a UCLA rally. Endymion officials said Mardi Gras is a “social affair, non-political,” and that Harrelson, who plays the bumbling bartender Woody Boyd on the television show “Cheers,” “had become involved politically in America’s participation in the Persian Gulf conflict.”

Mardi Gras attracts several million visitors to New Orleans every year and in 1990 netted at least $480 million in revenue for the city.

It traditionally erupts with little concern for world events. But at least six carnival seasons in the past 150 years have been canceled because of U.S. military engagements. In World War I the carnival season was twice canceled, then again in early 1942, weeks after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. In 1951, during the first year of the Korean War, several of the older carnival organizations in the city declined to participate.