NEW ORLEANS AS METAPHOR

NOT JUST NEW ORLEANS But our entire nation is underwater now.  Forgive me if I overstretch the metaphor, but we live in times where our leaders have stretched things beyond the breaking point.  So the levee breaks. We have a flood of water, a flood of images, and flood of feelings, none of them easy to deal with.  When I see what the less fortunate must abide, I must remind myself I am swamped with lesser concerns.

NOT JUST NEW ORLEANS But I am underwater today. I swim to the surface to find a President who is only surface.  We are in the flood as New Orleans washes away, New Orleans of the South, the New Orleans of America, New Orleans the most South American of cities, the Carribean delight in life, voodoo victory and vengeance over a tight white collar.

NOT JUST NEW ORLEANS But we are awash in a coming sea of conformity.  New Orleans is home to the wild heart that will not have a cage. I take inspiration from that most holy and profane place and pray that city of wonder and we the people will not just endure but thrive again under a more kind sun. Laissez les bons temps roulez.

MORE THOUGHTS ON NEW ORLEANS
[TIMES-PICAYUNE] No one can say they didn’t see it coming.

[COOKIE JILL] LIAR, LIAR . . . hold the president accountable
[HELP HERE]

[ARSE POETICA] I can still feel the city -- the quality of air, the traffic, the whimsical color, the beautiful gardens, the depressing housing complexes, the palm trees, the coffee, the incongruently placed 70s architecture administrative buildings amid beautiful Victorian homes,  the musical singsong and market bustle, and Oh God, the Cafe du Monde, everything.

[NY TIMES] WAITING FOR A LEADER . . . [BUSH] advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.

QUESTION: What does New Orleans mean to you today?

 

Comments

[Chuck]

Hi Joe.

I just told Karen at KNAK Attack, which btw, I don't see on your female blogger list:

Maybe when Condi arrives in New Orleans with her newly purchased color coordinated outfits to "inspect the damage" she'll have a run-in with some pissed off, skin headed, swastika tatooed, Republican southern boys named Bubba.

Gasoline here in southeastern Ohio is $3.099 (as of yesterday). Lord duh-bya must be elated. His dynasty must be making money "HAND OVER FIST".

GOUGE THIS!

[Night Bird]

Hey Chuck - nice post!

Heretik, I decided to dedicate 5 minutes of my time to write the speech that Bush should say to the American People.

I am so sorry that I allowed this to happen to the people of New Orleans. I personally feel that I failed them. The Democrats of this country have consistently shown me the humanistic and decent way to treat people. I promise for the remainder of my post as POTUS to never stop fighting for the rights of the American People and for World Peace through the guidance of the Democrat and Progressive Party.

This is an unpresidented disaster, but it is also a failure of me and my government. Needing money for my elective war in Iraq and to pay for my tax cuts, I cut funding for hurricane and flood control for New Orleans by 70%.

[Chuck]

Thank you NB! Right back atcha buddy!

[Diane]

I lived in New Orleans for 21 years, and have lived across the lake from it for 12 years. It is gorgeous, seductive, corrupt, cozy, exciting, filthy, heartbreaking, original, dangerous, poetic, poverty-stricken, pathetic, over-romanticized, and important.

I would never live there again, so horiffic is the crime and the corruption. But it still takes my breath away, and it is an always-welcome escape from the right-wing, whitebread community I live in now.

I am in absolute dread of what I will see the next time I am permitted to cross the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. What has happened is so sickening, I have yet to even begin to grasp it.

[Richard DiMatteo]

What does New Orleans mean to me today? Impeachment.

[Kate]

I'm with you, Richard.