Southern (European) Decadence - Well, I understand the annual gay Labor Day party in N'awlins was a bust this year. It seems that the Reverend Grant Storms -- using videotapes of debauchery from Southern Decadence in years past -- helped convince the Louisiana legislature to prohibit public nudity and impose mandatory 10-day jail sentences for those who get convicted. He even led a march into the iniquitous French Quarter at what was supposed to be the height of the depravity, and the cops were out in force. The result wasn't pretty, and left certain Beaverhausen readers disappointed with their annual pilgrimage.

Never fear, rowdies, because you can join the yobs from Britain for your quota of drunken revelry, says the NYTimes. Apparently the British are getting a bad name in the rest of Europe for their loutishness on holiday. Blame it on the cheap airfares -- before unification it used to be too expensive for a certain class of Britons to do their pubcrawls anywhere but the East End. Hey, even foreign uptight northerners need to let their hair down somewhere!