Roy Blount, Jr.: Let's hope the good times roll again

[babylonsister]

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2005-09-01-new-orleans-blount-essay_x.htm

You've got to think first of the who-knows-how-many poor people who have been killed or deprived of everything they own by this terrible storm. But if you love New Orleans, as I do, you also have to be sending up some kind of voodoo-jazz-bontemps prayer that the floods won't wash away the city's flavor.
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New Orleans is like a centuries-old frying pan that has never been soaped and retains layer upon layer of taste and character that no formula could ever re-create.

I keep wondering about the mules — the mules that pull tourists in carriages clip-clop over the French Quarter cobblestones and contribute the smell of fresh manure to the grand aromarama of olive salad, hot pastry, Tabasco, whiskey and fish — are the mules somewhere safe?

Will the oysters survive? New Orleans without oysters would be like Paris without wine.

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[YDogg]

1. Yah know, FUCK that. The people come first. Sentamentality should wait.

[babylonsister]

2. I just think it's nice to remember that this grand old city is

worth rebuilding.

[enki23]

3. they'll turn it into a gentrified tourist playground

a rightwing fucking paradise. one thing will remain the same--the black people will be making minimum wage.

[cyr330]

4. you got that right

I spent ten years in New Orleans, and the rich fucks have been buying property in the French Quarter year after year and have run out just about all the residents there who lived there year around. The rich have converted apartments into condos and have just about succeeded in turning the Quarter in fucking Disney Land. After this, it's going to be even worse--if the city ever DOES come back.