Today’s New York Times has a bunch of letters to the editor in response to the editorial that got me so worked up yesterday. I’d like to thank one New Orleans resident for making me laugh – in that laugh-to-keep-from-crying way – with his proposal:
Yes, if the rest of the country has decided that New Orleans is not of sufficient value to the United States to commit to its protection and rebuilding, it should let us know.
Not because we’ll need time to plan for the abandonment of our city, but because we’ll need time to prepare for our separation from the United States.
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast provide America with oil, gas, food and the perfect port for transshipping goods for import and export. We will continue to provide your country with these resources once we establish ourselves as an independent republic. The only difference will be the price you’ll pay.
You can read the rest of that letter here. There was nothing to laugh about in the brief letter from another resident:
As much as it hurt to read your editorial about New Orleans this morning, thank you for publishing it.
Yesterday morning, I was going to demolish our home in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans. Yesterday afternoon, I was going to rebuild. This morning, I just don’t know.
How is someone supposed to decide whether to return to New Orleans and salvage a life there, or to start again somewhere else? It’s beyond my ability to imagine.
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Mine, too. The logical side of me says that to deliberately build a city below sea level is the height of arrogance and stupidity – it almost invites future disasters of this scale, or even greater.
Yet to abandon a city and the life and lives that it represents is similarly unfathomable. I’m thankful that I live in a part of the world whose worst natural disasters are the occasional lake effect snowstorm and serious thunderstorms in the summer. Big deal.
Thank you for continuing to shine the light on this critical issue. I’m saddened that New Orleans has receded from the national consciousness.
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