Today I am a rational, thinking creature. I was not always thus. Today I understand that weather is driven by physical forces- even if I cannot define them to the extent a meteorologist might I still comprehend those forces are not animate. Those forces have no soul or spirit driving them. And yet… the oldest part of me, the deeply buried pagan soul of me sees the destruction wrought by Katrina, or the Boxing Day tsunami, and shudders in fear of the ancient gods of my past.

I love New Orleans- she is the most flavorful and gloriously alive city in these United States. The mixture of celebratory excess, opulence, decadence, poverty, history: nothing compares. Other cities are mighty and grand and beautiful, but none are New Orleans. I have watched with dismay as her destruction unfolds before our eyes and I weep for her while inside me anger burns; resentment towards those creatures that set this in motion. It is irrational in the extreme, but I cannot resist the notion that those ancient and malevolent spirits have thrown a challenge at the doorstep of this battered city and dared her to defy them.

I recently read a comment on another site and it seemed to me as apt an expression of the American spirit as I have encountered in some time. You Americans do not gladly suffer failure. New Orleans shall rise. The gods be damned.

Do your part.

Posted on September 1st, 2005 by Zsallia
Filed under: The Present