I Still Got New Orleans In Me

It was a rough weekend for me as the stories coming out of New Orleans got worse and more overwhelming. What was also hard to take was the reaction of people to the tragedy. I will say that the majority of people have openend their hearts and lives to so many, but there sadly will also be those people that miss the point so much that you simply have to wonder where on earth they came from. It is those people that concern me the most, because I am at a loss of how to deal with them.

How do you resond to a former first lady that implies that living in the Astrodome is a good thing, because well these people were poor to begin with. Or when a TV personality tells the mayor of New Orleans that the country was just shocked by the level of poverty in New Orleans, as if it was hidden or even rare for this country. (Surprise Katie there are poor people in NYC city too and even a few in Idaho) Or perhaps my favorite, the law student that literally says that "life is about trial and error and this is just another example." I want to scream at them all and say that people deserve better, not just Americans but people. I want to tell them that this was an example of death being about trial and error not life. Someone needs to tell them that this is an unacceptable standard of which to hold ourselves, are we to say "Oh well, I guess we can just put that little mistake of leaving thousands to die into the error pile."

It is unacceptable in America, in Irag and in the world to hold ourselves to the pathetic standard of, we certainly tried but I guess life is just a bunch of trial and errors.

I did have a smile or two today as I heard stories from children who always prove to be much more amazing then adults. An NPR reporter described the scene of children playing cards and jumping rope in the Astrodome and I thought of all the kids I knew in New Orleans that taught me how to play "real cards" and allowed me to turn the jump rope because I was certainly not good enough to actually jump with them. A 12 year old boy told the reporter that he was a part of Houston Texas now, she asked him about New Orleans and you could just hear the smile in his voice as he said "I Still Got New Orleans In Me." That is what New Orleans is, not just a city but a thing that gets in you. I am happy to say agree that "I still Got New Orleans In Me."