A few extracts from Chronicles that seem poignant at this time:

The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds – the cemeteries – and they’re a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek , Roman, sepulchres – palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay – ghosts of men and women who have sinned and who’ve died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn’t pass away so quickly here.
….
New Orleans, unlike a lot of those places you go back to and that don’t have the magic anymore, still has got it. Night can swallow you up, yet none of it touches you. Around any corner, there’s a promise of something daring and ideal and things are just getting going. There’s something obscenely joyful behind every door, either that or somebody crying with their head in their hands. A lazy rhythm looms in the dreamy air and the atmosphere pulsates with bygone duels, past-life romance, comrades requesting comrades to aid them in some way. You can’t see it, but you know it’s here.
….
Everything in New Orleans is a good idea. Bijou Temple-type cottages and lyric cathedrals side by side. Houses and mansions, structures of wild grace. Italianate, Gothic, Romanesque, Greek Revival standing in a long line in the rain.

A different note from the ever worsening news of the day:

On New Orleans’ Canal Street, dozens of looters ripped open the steel gates on clothing and jewelry stores and grabbed merchandise. The looting prompted authorities to send more than 70 additional officers and an armed personnel carrier into the city. One police officer was shot in the head by a looter but was expected to recover, authorities said. Blanco said she will ask President Bush for military troops to help keep looting under control.

A giant new Wal-Mart in New Orleans was looted, and the entire gun collection was taken, The Times-Picayune reported. “There are gangs of armed men in the city moving around the city,” said Ebbert, the city’s homeland security chief. Also, looters tried to break into Children’s Hospital, the governor’s office said.

In Biloxi, Miss., people picked through casino slot machines for coins and ransacked other businesses. In some cases, the looting was in full view of police and National Guardsmen.

May God bless those heroes who are out there now saving lives, and may God help those who are desperate and stranded.

High water risin’ – risin’ night and day
All the gold and silver are being stolen away
Big Joe Turner lookin’ East and West
From the dark room of his mind
He made it to Kansas City
Twelfth Street and Vine
Nothing standing there
High water everywhere

Donate to the Red Cross here (high traffic may make it difficult to get to their site at times).

More organizations that you can contribute to are listed here at the FEMA website.

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