A lot of politicians running for office came to New Orleans to announce their candidacies or hammer a few nails before driving back to the airport and leaving the Crescent City far behind. Jimmy Carter spent significant time here. George Bush did not. He didn’t even know how to hold a hammer, grasping it right beneath the claw, where there’s no leverage.
If New Orleans is slowly being rebuilt, it is because of the tenacious spirit of its citizens, not because of photo ops by Republicans or Democrats. Billions in FEMA money is still tied up, so when I watch people in the lower ninth ward put their lives back together one clapboard and doorframe at a time, I know what this country is all about: perseverance and the willingness to have a go at it with whatever is available. We carry on, our lives held together with bailing wire, hope, and depleted savings accounts.
New Orleans always had its problems, but it doesn’t deserve neglect. Most neighborhoods are still trying to “come back,” and much of the city is still blighted. Mass transit has still not been re-established in all areas, many schools remain closed, and the city’s largest hospital for the poor has been condemned as uninhabitable.
You would think that rebuilding New Orleans would be a consistent topic in the televised debates of both parties. A million people were displaced, an infrastructure destroyed, a hundred thousand homes flooded. A proud population now lives across the nation because of Hurricane Katrina, finding work where it can. And if the economy is tanking around the country, think how hard it’s hitting the Big Easy. (Picture: Public Domain)
If New Orleans is slowly being rebuilt, it is because of the tenacious spirit of its citizens, not because of photo ops by Republicans or Democrats. Billions in FEMA money is still tied up, so when I watch people in the lower ninth ward put their lives back together one clapboard and doorframe at a time, I know what this country is all about: perseverance and the willingness to have a go at it with whatever is available. We carry on, our lives held together with bailing wire, hope, and depleted savings accounts.
New Orleans always had its problems, but it doesn’t deserve neglect. Most neighborhoods are still trying to “come back,” and much of the city is still blighted. Mass transit has still not been re-established in all areas, many schools remain closed, and the city’s largest hospital for the poor has been condemned as uninhabitable.
You would think that rebuilding New Orleans would be a consistent topic in the televised debates of both parties. A million people were displaced, an infrastructure destroyed, a hundred thousand homes flooded. A proud population now lives across the nation because of Hurricane Katrina, finding work where it can. And if the economy is tanking around the country, think how hard it’s hitting the Big Easy. (Picture: Public Domain)
3 comments:
And then y'all got the Republican caucus cock-up looming over your heads...
And I thought L.A. was crazy...
And yet for a while there I kept reading about propsals to rebuild the sports dome at an astronomical cost. We all know that sport is more important than hospitals or schools of course!
Scott, we've been crazy since Huey Long. Gov. Edwin Edwards, for example, was investigated by the feds and continually indicted for 25 years but never convicted until three years ago. He got elected four times during that period.
Lane, yes indeed, we repaired the Superdome, but the state can only treat a fraction of the mentally ill homeless population now.
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