Is that you, VERNE?
Posted on 08/30/2005 3:53:30 PM PDT by Dont Mention the War
On the southern fringe of New Orleans' City Park there is a live oak with a branch that dips low, goes briefly underground, and comes up the other side still thriving.
It's ancient and gnarled, this tree, and filtered sunglight slants through its crown at dusk. It's a sublime thing.
When we talk about these majestic items that dot New Orleans' landscape we say, "is," but we may mean, "was." The reports are still scattered, the news from the ground still incomplete, but Hurricane Katrina may have annihilated New Orleans.
It looks bad to everyone. "It's impossible for us to say how many structures can be salvaged," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said late Tuesday. But can the birthplace of jazz truly be wiped from the face of the earth?
New Orleans may yet surprise. Too often the city is written off as a whiskey nirvana, where one guzzles Pimms cups at Napoleon House in the French Quarter at night, and eggs and grits at the Camellia Grill in the Riverbend at sunrise.
In truth, however, New Orleans is as sublime as it is Rabelaisian. For example - and this is a thing few tourists know - the French Quarter, home of Bourbon Street and jazz and possessor of a global reputation for parties, is in fact a National Park. Now and then, through the spokes of a horse-drawn carriage taking honeymooners up Royal Street, one can spot the distinctive, "Smokey," hat of a park ranger telling a more earnest visitor some genuine history.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
"So what happens in the North East aside from Kerry?"
Liberalism is in itself a disaster, albeit self-inflicted.
Bye...I just notified the mods. No need for that crap on this thread.
I was Biloxi a few months ago and went to the little public beach next to the casinos, sat a bench,looked around, and thought about how terrible it must have been when Camille hit.I can't believe it's happened again.
The fundamental purpose of government is to protect individual rights and secure individual liberty. It is not to serve as the gunman & enforcer for a redistributionist protection racket to bankroll irresponsible risk taking. There is no real risk in personal choices when the fall back is to approach those that have chosen to be careful, studious and reserved, in order to protect themselves and their resources, and point a government gun at them and say, "Stick'em up and hand me your wallet!", in order to pay for others refusal to bound themselves and their choices within the reality of what is wise & prudent and what they can afford.
It's easy to want to play, when you're not the one that has to pay.
Insurance companies can choose not engage in contracts and end up having to pay for it, WHY CAN'T I???
The Japanese have landfilled large sections of ocean side to make land for airports, oil refineries and industrial complexes. NO can do the same.
Don't worry.
The corrective nature of the Free Market will preclude the foolish idea of rebuilding in the current locale.
What group of shareholders would gamble on rebuilding NOLA in the Bowl?
But, perhaps, another part of you should think otherwise. Everybody lives somewhere under the specter of a natural calamity. I live in tornado alley. Others live on fault lines (active and inactive). Still others live in the woods, where forest fires happen.
Miami is exposed to not only hurricanes, but tidal waves.
For its part, New Orleans is in a flood plain. As are at least parts of every major city in the country located on a river (as most of them are -- at one time, Indianapolis was the largest city in the US not on a navigable waterway).
An "act of God" can, by definition, strike anywhere, anytime. And the Big Easy just took a helluva smiting.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the city rebuilt in essentially the same location. In fact, I would root for such an event. But with some new and very innovative re-engineering of nature...
Pray for Jackson Square...
Fine... let NO-ians fund it.
Do we REALLY need another big... BIG DIG?
New Orleans is older than the USA. Lots of history there. I don't think its residents will give it up, at least not without a fight.
I think we're going to get one, right up our ...
That post WAS NOT ADDRESSED TO YOU.
Have your keeper re-read it to you after your shock treatment.
Should the tax payer be on the Hook when San Fransisco falls apart after the next big quake hits???
I dont think so.
The problem is, Free Market forces are not being allowed to come to bear upon the decisions/risk taking of those people.
They're already projecting the expectation that we will all pay for the rebuilding of their square, frame houses, below sea level on a hurricane coast.
Is that you, VERNE?
So what happens in the North East aside from Kerry?
Ice storms.
Which are a darn sight better than the Massachusettes trio: Kerry, Kennedy, and Frank.
magnificent live oaks
Just an aside. Why is it up here in the northlands when we talk about oak trees we just say oak trees but in the south oak is usually preceeded by the word "live?"
The only time we up north discuss the mortality of an oak is when it is dead.
Please be sure and 'root' for it with your money & not with mine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.