Free Republic

The storm drains of New Orleans got a thorough cleaning over the past few months and among the trash and debris, workers found 93,000 pounds of Mardi Gras beads, city officials said Thursday. The 46 tons of beads were all found in the popular downtown thoroughfare on St. Charles between Poydras Street and Lee Circle, the Times-Picayune reported. While the vast amount of Mardi Gras beads indicate good times were had in the area, city officials said it also means litter needs to be decreased. Overall, the $22 million, three-month clean-up project yielded 7.2 million pounds of debris in city...

Andre Perry, a New Orleans education consultant, said he was shocked on Sunday (Jan. 31) afternoon when he noticed that his 5-year-old son had caught a necklace of Mardi Gras beads studded with plastic Confederate flags, thrown from a float in the Krewe of Carrollton parade. "When I noticed what he caught," Perry wrote in a text message, "I took them away from him." Perry, who is African-American, said that he later did his best to help his son understand the implications of the symbol. He also posted a photo of the beads on his social media account, which attracted...