This morning, we went to the church in Southeast Houston where the Red Cross was handing out checks to Louisiana evacuees. The RC already was turning people away and telling them to use a telephone number, so we left. I felt a little weird going down there--our situation isn't as bad as many, but this evacuation is getting damn expensive--but I didn't feel nearly so weird upon seeing Mercedeses, Lexusus, and BMWs with Louisiana license plates parked around the church. In other Louisiana news, the Saints just defeated the Panthers, 23-20.
I began re-reading "A Confederacy of Dunces" last night. I picked up a new copy at Barnes & Noble yesterday. This time around, the novel is tinged with sadness, given the events of the past couple of weeks. Also, I'm picking up more on the social criticism in the book about New Orleans as a backwater, living in an imaginary past and resisting progressive trends, implicit though that criticism is. Andrei Codrescu's new introduction did help with that, but it is something I faintly saw on previous readings. The book is so damn funny that its more serious subtext can easily be overlooked.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Disaster Relief
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4 comments:
When I think of New Orleans, I think of Jazz and fish food. But I've never been there. To me, New Orleans is like the elephant that is being described to me by blind men standing on different sides of it. One guy says NO is a fantastic, unique place that can never be replaced. One guy says NO is full of crime and filth and should be filled in with sand. One guy says NO is the best place to gamble -- another says our oil industry depends on it.
I don't know what to think.
What do you say New Orleans is, and what do you say about the way it's rebuilt?
Some of that is true. N.O. is unique, for sure; it is also fairly dirty and crime-ridden. The oil business has been centralizing in Houston for years, and the crickets may be chirping soon in the offices of what remains of the oil industry in New Orleans. Gambling hasn't taken off there, so I can't imagine it being the best place in which to wager. I think the biggest problem in N.O. and Louisiana generally is "the Louisiana Way," in which the place is run for the benefit of the people who run it. It leads to short-sided decisionmaking and drives away investment.
The rebuilding could be very interesting. Some parts of the city may be leveled and completely reconfigured. The touristy parts of town are essentially intact; hopefully, the residential areas can be made much more liveable for the folks who go back.
Thanks.
Do you anticipate, as a result of rebuilding, a sort of 'gentrification' of the area until many of the old residents can't afford to live there anymore?
I think a lot of the people who left won't want to live there any more, because they don't have anything to go back to. A number of people, I've heard, have been so overwhelmed by the warm welcome they've received in Texas that they don't expect to go back.
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