NEW ORLEANS (after the storm)

In the midst of the blight surrounding us, I see signs of something I’ve never seen in my 15 years of living in New Orleans: civic pride, activism — regular people, not city employees, making their own street signs, taking hammer and nails and rebuilding their own schools. When New Orleans does rise above its current plight — and it will — it will be because of the determination of its citizens, crazy though they may be, who are rebuilding, surviving, fighting over, around and despite the government. We still love our food and drink (and the restaurateurs were the first small-business owners to reopen); we just want to be able to enjoy it for a long time to come.

‘If there was no New Orleans, America would just be a bunch of free people dying of boredom,’ wrote Andrei Codrescu, the Romanian novelist who calls the city home. More than ever, it is not boring here. It is hard, really hard, but we are not bored. We have a lot to do. And the rest of America should be grateful to us.


The Spectator.co.uk