your own disaster

"the things you saw
after your own disaster,
the things that disgusted
and disappointed you,
where not created
by the disaster
but exposed by it........"


(destilated out of these words)
An ode to the New Orleans Saints
Sorry Colts fans, but Billy Sothern's thoughts about what the Saints represent post-Katrina are too good to pass up: "I have beat this drum for almost five years since the storm, trying to tell anyone who will listen that the things they saw after Hurricane Katrina, the things that disgusted and disappointed them, were not created by the storm but exposed by it and that similar ugliness existed not far from their homes, in forgotten cities from Richmond, Calif., to Camden, N.J., and everywhere in between. And I still insist that New Orleans' recovery is a bellwether for American democracy and, as New Orleans goes -- good or bad -- so goes the country. All of this is why it is difficult for me to say that a winning field goal kick in a football game has changed things at all. But it has. The kick brought the citizens of this city and region together in a way that the common experience of displacement and loss following Hurricane Katrina had failed to do."