'I'm just glad I saw it' (Howell Raines)

[kskiska]

New Orleans was the city of jazz, Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, the place where the US Bible Belt came unbuckled. Former New York Times editor Howell Raines laments the destruction of the Big Easy, and asks: why did President Bush do so little in response?

(snip)

For millions of Americans who grew up in strait-laced towns, the Big Easy has always been the city to dance, the one Southern place where the Bible Belt came unbuckled. A hundred years ago, the Storyville section was America's best place for the world's oldest profession and the birthplace of America's best contribution to world music, jazz. Like millions of other young people in the preacher-haunted Southland, I bought my first legal drink in the French Quarter. We went for the booze, and in that world of cobbled streets and hidden gardens, some of us glimpsed the glory and costs of pursuing art or individualism.

(snip)

…I am 62. If New Orleans is to be pumped out, its soffits re-replastered, its live oaks replanted before I'm gone, I'll be happily surprised. I'm just glad I saw it, and I'm glad my babies got out alive. For now, we wait and ponder this question. If it's gone or permanently altered, what memorial would be fitting? Surely it would not be some monument of stone, but perhaps a political memorial suitable to the city of Huey P Long and his fictional iteration Willie Stark, or a spiritual remembrance befitting the City That Care Forgot.

In both categories, the sacrifices of New Orleans need a kind of national reckoning that would enable our people to see the president who forgot to care for what he is. Every great disaster - the Blitz, 9/11, the tsunami - has a political dimension. The performance of George Bush during this past week has been outrageous. Almost as unbelievable as Katrina itself is the fact that the leader of the free world has been outshone by the elected leaders of a region renowned for governmental ineptitude. Louisiana's anguished governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, climbed into a helicopter at the first possible moment to survey what may become the worst weather-related disaster in American history. She might even have been able to stop the looting in New Orleans if the 141st Field Artillery of the Louisiana Army National Guard had not been in Iraq for the past 11 months. They are among thousands of Southern guardsmen who could have been federalised by the stroke of a pen had they not been deployed in a phony war. Even Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a tiresome blowhard as chairman of the Republican National Committee, has shone a throat-catching public sorrow and sleepless diligence that puts Bush to shame.

This president, who flew away on Monday to fundraisers in the west while the hurricane blew away entire towns in coastal Mississippi, is very much his father's son when it comes to the kinds of emergencies that used to call forth immediate White House action before its Bushite captivity. When he was president, his father did not visit Miami after Hurricane Andrew, nor for that matter, did he mind being photographed tooling his golf cart around Kennebunkport while American troops died in the first Iraq war. Now the younger Bush seems determined to show his successors how to holiday through an apocalypse. Consider the visible federal leadership presence in Louisiana on the day that the levee broke, a full day after the hurricane first hit. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the US government department charged with disaster preparation and response, issued the usual promises. Bush, for his part, urged people not to stay where they were, even if their evacuation residence might be the roofless, toilet-clogged Superdome.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1560139,00.html

[fudge stripe cookays]

1. I just have one thing to say....

:cry:

I never got to go. 2 planned visits were postponed. And now I feel completely desolate and sad because of it.

FSC

[uncertainty1999]

9. me too --

NO has always been on my list of places to see. What a pity I never made it. I hope the city rises again.

[ewagner]

2. Great article

New Orleans.....

I've only visited it once, and remember it well. Walking through one of the parks at 3AM and hearing the sound of a lonesome saxaphone on the hot May night....there was a feel to the City like none I've ever known before or since. I know what Raines is talking about.

[Gunit_Sangh]

3. I've been there several times

for conferences. Always, ALWAYS had a blast. I took my wife down there for one of the conferences when it occurred during her birthday. I took her out to eat at several of the nicest restaurants in the French Quarter for her birthday. Spent over $600 just on meals, but it was truly a spendid time.

I certainly pray that New Orleans will be rebuilt with the same charm. I would certainly go back and visit!

Please give to the relief effort!

[shrike]

4. Went to Mardi Gras, went to French Quarter fest, a smaller festival

Lot of special memories there. Found a first edition copy of "A Bright Shining Lie" at a French Quarter bookstore, bought a painting from a nice gallery owner who let us wander at will around his place despite the fact we obviously weren't well-heeled. Stayed along the river, stayed in the Garden District (all those beautiful homes), rode the St. Charles Street trolley (best deal in town) numerous times. We got an impromptu architectural tour on the trolley once from a rather colorful resident who nonetheless seemed to know a hell of a lot about New Orleans architecture. (He was probably an eccentric millionaire in disguise.)

Met people from all over the world (Africa, England) during Mardi Gras. Saw a very low-key John Goodman on one of the Mardi Gras floats (he wasn't announced as a guest celebrity.) Went to mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was a black parish; the only whites were myself and fellow tourists. Parishioners were oh so friendly, welcoming me. A gospel choir sang the mass. Later on, hubby and I rented bikes. The two guys who owned the bike shop had a George Dubya Bush day calendar, with a "statement" from Bush on each page. The four of us sat there, laughing our asses off, as my husband paged through it and read statements aloud. An elderly couple left the shop in a huff, but nobody cared.

We rode the bikes in a direction we thought was the Pontchartrain. Instead, we ended up in one of the poorest and roughest neighborhoods in New Orleans. A lot of people, young and old, gave us strange looks, like "what are you two doing here?" But most everyone nodded, smiled and said, "Good afternoon." Probably said to themselves, "those two MUST be lost."

We took a "ghost tour" of New Orleans. Even non-believers would have fun on that tour, since you learn so much about the history of the city; all the true and crazy things that went on there. While we were on the tour, the Black Crowes walked past. Yes, the band; somebody in the crowd recognized them.

Then there was the Voodoo Tour; another fun time. We met a Voodoo priestess who was an ultracool lady. Guadalupe, which I mentioned earlier, has parishioners who practice both Catholicism and Voodoo, which mixed during the slave era of New Orleans.

So many great memories. So much great food. But the best of all were the people of New Orleans. Yes, they depend on tourism, but damn they are such good hosts. So pleasant, so friendly, so interested in you as a visitor. My heart breaks for them.

[Cha]

5. Maybe if harold raines hadn't

pounded Clinton so damn hard..New Orleans would still be there?

[CTyankee]

6. Yeah, now he's cryin'

New Orleans was magic. Saying it was a city with a soul was a vast understatement.

We knew it was poor, but now we've seen the dark underbelly of its peoples' poverty. Stark tragedy.

[Lindacooks]

7. I'm glad I saw it too - drove to it 12 years ago.

[tinrobot]

8. Glad I saw it

Went there twice. Got to go to a party at Ann Rice's old house in the garden district, saw music, ate great food and took tons of pictures of great architecture.

It took centuries for that city to become one of the most distinctive in the world. How they'll ever put it back, I have no idea.