the state of the city
If you’re a New Orleanian (in any form or fashion), you know this. If you’re not, you’re probably tired of hearing it. Tough: I’ll keep saying it. Things are still broken. Four of the five stories on the front page of the T-P this morning are storm-related. Only one is possible good news: the new head of the Recovery School district is some kind of super-hero. One is a wash: The highly ineffective Road Home Program has decided to stop TV advertisements touting its success. Two are disheartening: the school district seems unlikely to have enough room for all of the 18,000 students they expect to return next year. (So that red cape will come in handy for the new school czar.) And worse yet, the levees are still a disaster, in some cases, unlikely to withstand even a Category 2 storm.
Friends are discouraged at the slow recovery, the depth of the ineptitude, the difficulty of seeing any meaningful change anytime soon, at the continuing difficulty of doing just anything. And these are people who love the city, who revel in a sunny JazzFest afternoon in the same breath as they complain about how it's not as much fun as it used to be; people who are painfully susceptible to the magic of a New Orleans dusk -
- and you can tell it’s tearing them up inside to say out loud, ”I want to leave. . . ”
Friends are discouraged at the slow recovery, the depth of the ineptitude, the difficulty of seeing any meaningful change anytime soon, at the continuing difficulty of doing just anything. And these are people who love the city, who revel in a sunny JazzFest afternoon in the same breath as they complain about how it's not as much fun as it used to be; people who are painfully susceptible to the magic of a New Orleans dusk -
- and you can tell it’s tearing them up inside to say out loud, ”I want to leave. . . ”