Amazing! Appalling.

It's back! For a month I was unable to sign in and now I can! Whee! The mysteries of cyberlife, huh? For those who might occasionally check in here, I've just come back from a week in New Orleans with very mixed feelings. Of course, the overarching concern is the death of so much life and livelihood in the Gulf. Despite that shadow hanging over them, the people in the city keep going, as they have before in the face of disaster. The French Quarter, you'll remember, and the Garden District were spared the worst of Katrina and tourists go about their shopping, drinking, beignet eating as usual. By the time I left on Thursday, May 27th, however, I was seeing signboards outside of seafood restaurants listing specials that features fresh water fish. I had eaten oysters the first day I was there, but by the end of the week, I was relying on barbecue for the flavor of NOLA. The spill is so wide reaching in its impact that we will see changes in everything--the cost of shipping in shrimp and crab, the fishing families out of work or working on the recovery efforts, future generations having to break a long tradition on the water, and the gut wrenching effects on the waterfowl, the fish, the ocean which is the basis of our lives, whether we live along its edge or not. We must speak out and speak up. Keep the event in focus and press for real solutions. Above all, we must hold responsible those who failed to plan ahead and allowed eleven people to die and an environmental catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.