The San Antonian

Scary nuns

Is Wal-Mart really scared of nuns?

What Fiesta means

A long-ish article in the E-N discusses the history of Fiesta and what it means to San Antonio. Anyone who knows me has heard me rail against Fiesta before. I hate the crowds, the mess, the closed streets and parking lots downtown. When I worked at the DA's office there was a huge spike in DWIs that was noticed.

So, while the article is pretty positive of Fiesta as a whole, there were a couple of nice nuggets from Trinity professor Char Miller:

"'We're still a city that, for all its economic boom of late, still has upwards of 20 percent to 25 percent of our population that lives below the poverty line. It's a world to which Fiesta does not speak'....

...'Stone Oak is a universe apart,' Miller says. 'Fiesta is not a physical landscape that those people inhabit. It's a population for whom Fiesta and such celebrations are considerably less important. So, I don't think Fiesta does define the city. Why should one single event define the diversity of experiences in this massive, metropolitan center? It's not the same place it was 20 or 30 years ago'.

What doesn't get mentioned is the simple idea that Fiesta is an excuse to get drunk and rowdy. Don't get me wrong, I like to drink, too. But a two week drunken festival clothed in "history" and "tradition" is all Fiesta is now.

Ghost seekers

The SA Current has this article about ghost seekers.