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In Reply to: Re: Jesus gets it wrong. Again. posted by Researcher on November 30, 2005 at 14:30:49:
Ask Jesus if the "belly button" of America was an innie or outie? Pierced?
Seriously, though, since when has the march-to-its-own-beat New Orleans EVER been regarded as the "belly button" of America?
It has always been a bit eccentric for America, valued for its uniqueness. Its mystique derives from being more about enjoying life a la French/Caribbean (eventually evolving its very own brand) than about hard-driving achievement a la Benjamin Franklin or the capitalist or puritan ethos.
Its "differentness" even affected the results of the disaster.
But maybe Jesus was also "home schooled" through CVC and his "vocational training" consisted in free labor for the communal maintenance.
Here's some of what Anne Rice wrote about the city shortly after the storm (excerpts from http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl090305annerice.21ad697f.html):
"Something else was going on in New Orleans. The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy. Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs.
Now nature has done [...] what "modern life" with its relentless pursuit of efficiency couldn't do. [...] Nature has laid the city waste [...].
I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.
[...] They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.
But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs. Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you."
