I'm back from the Big Easy, where the living isn't easy in certain parts of town.
If you lived on higher ground in, say, the Garden District or Lakeview, it's laissez les bon temps roulez!
But if you lived in the Ninth Ward, New Orleans East or Gentilly, it's the day after the storm.
The uneven recovery is frustrating to residents and vexing to outsiders. I got some insight into the problem when I overheard New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin refuse to answer a filmmaker's question after the candlelight vigil in Jackson Square.
The cameraman may have captured the video (or perhaps just the audio) of Nagin blowing past his colleague because he was off the clock. So, while his constituents are struggling 24/7 to rebuild their lives and homes, their, um, leader punches a clock.
The vigil was held in Jackson Square to expiate the sins of omission and commission of President Bush, who two years ago stood before the American people and promised to "do what it takes."
But as the Rev. Al Sharpton noted:
This disaster started with broken levees. It was continued in this square with broken promises. The government let the people down. Drive-by sympathy cannot fix the city.
Something is wrong when you can see weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but you can't see a hurricane in New Orleans. Bush can find money to rebuild Baghdad but he cannot find the will to rebuild New Orleans.
Don't blame God for the government's neglect. The hurricane was God. The levee breach was government. We will stay with you until the job is done.
In declaring "better days are ahead," Bush continues to ignore the plight of the 33,000 New Orleanians who are trapped in FEMA trailers. Homeowners, whose ability to pass on wealth to the next generation was lost in the flood, and renters, who have been locked out of public housing, know what it means to miss New Orleans.
