Sunday, August 30, 2009

Katrina + 4


I should have posted this link yesterday to New Orleans Times Picayune reporter Chris Rose's 4th Anniversary column. Rose's first hand account of life during the storm and its aftermath, One Dead in Attic, originally self published (I bought my first copy from Rose's wife over the phone while in NOLA doing relief work a year after the storm) published now by Simon and Schuester, is a modern day lament Psalm.

"When I am introduced as someone from New Orleans, people sometimes say: "I'm so sorry."
New Orleans. I'm so sorry.
That's not the way it was before,not the way it's supposed to be. When people find out you're from New Orleans, they're supposed to tell you about how they got drunk there once, or fell in love there, or first heard the music there that changed their lives.
At worst people would say: "I've always wanted to go there."
But now, it's just: "I'm sorry."
Man, that kills me. That just kills me."
— Chris Rose (1 Dead in Attic)

Please keep the city and all its people in prayer.

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