New N'awlins

New Orleans will be rebuilt, regardless of what people are saying in the “debate.” Whoever decides to let the city sink into the sea will most likely lose the South. No political party is that stupid. The question is not so much whether it will be rebuilt but what will be rebuilt. The most attractive thing about New Orleans was its historical hodgepodge-ness. Its lack of organization made it a free-for-all party town that it was. It was the hometown of Jazz, not R&B. Unfortunately the devastation is so severe that hodgepodge-ness is not going to be able to have the resources to rebuild the city. The only groups that have the resources are the giant corporations. To give the city over to the Pepsis, the Disneys, and the Gaps means to make New Orleans into a mall, a theme park. A clean, organized and homogenized simulacrum will be erect over the ruin of the great city. It will become a “family oriented vacation destination.” It will become a theme hotel airlifted from Las Vegas. When that is done, New Orleans will truly die and become history, pop history. There will be carnivals everyday at 4 and 6, no alcohol served. When that happens, one of the culture hearts of the world will stop beating. I hope I am wrong, I pray to the gods that I don’t believe that I am wrong.