The City of New Orleans
Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Halfway home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.
Good night, America, how are you?
Don't you know me; I'm your native son.
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.
Arlo Guthrie's version of Steve Goodman's song, The City of New Orleans, has been a favorite song of mine since childhood. Perhaps not surprisingly, the actual city itself has been a favorite city of mine since childhood, too. I've had the pleasure of visiting New Orleans a number of times, but not a great enough number. It's a city built on style, hospitality, music, food, history and cultural diversity -- what's not to love? If it weren't for the humidity, I would probaby have lived there. As it is, my visits have to be restricted to sometime between October and March in order to avoid being totally physically miserable.
That fact alone is enough to make me feel sorry for the victims of the levee breaches which followed the passing of Hurricane Katrina. I know what it's like to be there in that crushingly brutal late summer Gulf humidity. I can only imagine, however, what it's like to be suffering through that and to be trapped in the hellhole that is now the Superdome or to be stranded on your attic or rooftop with no food, water or power, as corpses float by.
Not all the citizens of New Orleans are reacting well to this catastrophe. Who can blame them? A heartbreakingly beautiful city, far too many of its citizens are heartbreakingly impoverished. Far too many of the poor are black. And, no matter how much I love the Crescent City, to be poor and black in New Orleans is a terrible thing. The racial disparity in New Orleans is overt, if not outright anachronistic. The economic disparity is no better. The poor in New Orleans and other Gulf cities live in places and ways most Americans can't even begin to concieve.
So, of course there's looting. Of course there are guns. Of course these people, who have indeed been abandoned, recognize that they've been abandoned again and they're angry over losing what little they had and they fear that the worst is yet to come. If you were them, wouldn't you?
The worst horror of all is that this could possibly have been prevented. Among the remaining horrors is that the occupying forces in the White House couldn't be bothered to care once it happened. Another is that the National Guard and their equipment, the very personnel and equipment we have in place to protect our country, to search for and rescue our citizens, just aren't there. They were sent to fight an illegal, immoral and unethical invasion of a country which was no threat to us, but one which was poised to be a threat to Saudi Arabian oil profits. The occupation of Iraq is costing us six billion dollars a month. Imagine how fortified and prepared for natural disaster New Orleans could have been with six billion dollars -- only one month's budget for a war built on lies.
The United States of America has now had two of its cities devastated in the 21st Century, and its only 2005. How many cities were devastated under other, legally-elected administrations? I remember this country getting through the '90s without a single devastated American city. Remember when the government actually worked to prevent devastation to American cities, like when the terrorists who were going to bomb LAX and Seattle's Space Needle for New Year's 2000 were caught? And remember how they didn't bomb LAX or the Space Needle? Or how necessary measures to protect our cities from natural disasters were once routinely funded? Weren't those good times?
Salon.com is one of the few media outlets which are doing an excellent job reporting on the truth about the New Orleans disaster. Here are some links (you can read the articles by choosing the free site pass which involves sitting through a short commercial):
"No one can say they didn't see it coming" by Sidney Blumenthal
Anatomy of an unnatural disaster by Michael Scherer
Left out in the cold by Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Bush fought funding in Energy Bill for Gulf Coast protection by Michael Scherer
We must do what we can right now to help the victims of the flooding in New Orleans, but the greatest tribute we can pay to them and those who died due to indifference is to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Halfway home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.
Good night, America, how are you?
Don't you know me; I'm your native son.
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.
Arlo Guthrie's version of Steve Goodman's song, The City of New Orleans, has been a favorite song of mine since childhood. Perhaps not surprisingly, the actual city itself has been a favorite city of mine since childhood, too. I've had the pleasure of visiting New Orleans a number of times, but not a great enough number. It's a city built on style, hospitality, music, food, history and cultural diversity -- what's not to love? If it weren't for the humidity, I would probaby have lived there. As it is, my visits have to be restricted to sometime between October and March in order to avoid being totally physically miserable.
That fact alone is enough to make me feel sorry for the victims of the levee breaches which followed the passing of Hurricane Katrina. I know what it's like to be there in that crushingly brutal late summer Gulf humidity. I can only imagine, however, what it's like to be suffering through that and to be trapped in the hellhole that is now the Superdome or to be stranded on your attic or rooftop with no food, water or power, as corpses float by.
Not all the citizens of New Orleans are reacting well to this catastrophe. Who can blame them? A heartbreakingly beautiful city, far too many of its citizens are heartbreakingly impoverished. Far too many of the poor are black. And, no matter how much I love the Crescent City, to be poor and black in New Orleans is a terrible thing. The racial disparity in New Orleans is overt, if not outright anachronistic. The economic disparity is no better. The poor in New Orleans and other Gulf cities live in places and ways most Americans can't even begin to concieve.
So, of course there's looting. Of course there are guns. Of course these people, who have indeed been abandoned, recognize that they've been abandoned again and they're angry over losing what little they had and they fear that the worst is yet to come. If you were them, wouldn't you?
The worst horror of all is that this could possibly have been prevented. Among the remaining horrors is that the occupying forces in the White House couldn't be bothered to care once it happened. Another is that the National Guard and their equipment, the very personnel and equipment we have in place to protect our country, to search for and rescue our citizens, just aren't there. They were sent to fight an illegal, immoral and unethical invasion of a country which was no threat to us, but one which was poised to be a threat to Saudi Arabian oil profits. The occupation of Iraq is costing us six billion dollars a month. Imagine how fortified and prepared for natural disaster New Orleans could have been with six billion dollars -- only one month's budget for a war built on lies.
The United States of America has now had two of its cities devastated in the 21st Century, and its only 2005. How many cities were devastated under other, legally-elected administrations? I remember this country getting through the '90s without a single devastated American city. Remember when the government actually worked to prevent devastation to American cities, like when the terrorists who were going to bomb LAX and Seattle's Space Needle for New Year's 2000 were caught? And remember how they didn't bomb LAX or the Space Needle? Or how necessary measures to protect our cities from natural disasters were once routinely funded? Weren't those good times?
Salon.com is one of the few media outlets which are doing an excellent job reporting on the truth about the New Orleans disaster. Here are some links (you can read the articles by choosing the free site pass which involves sitting through a short commercial):
"No one can say they didn't see it coming" by Sidney Blumenthal
Anatomy of an unnatural disaster by Michael Scherer
Left out in the cold by Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Bush fought funding in Energy Bill for Gulf Coast protection by Michael Scherer
We must do what we can right now to help the victims of the flooding in New Orleans, but the greatest tribute we can pay to them and those who died due to indifference is to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.
posted by dave at
9/01/2005 10:42:00 AM
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