Sep 23, 2005

the past is a bucket of ashes....

We're so pompous

so apt to consider ourselves outside the confines of time and history and nature
every time I read about the measures to be taken to rebuild New Orleans on the very ground it stood this is all I can think of.
Don't get me wrong, I think all of this is a terrible tragedy.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the politics of displacement, the romance of the space, the reasoning behind such a move.
But the reality is that when that levy broke (and am I the only one who gets the led zeppelin song by the same name in my head EVERY time I think that phrase?) it created a toxic space that should probably be avoided for a good long time. Not built upon. It also created a toxic space in an area many believe is the epicenter of many more future storms, a toxic space that is more than likely, without massive environmental manipulation, to be under water in the next century.
But hey, we rule the planet, and we can work with that. We could take this opportunity to build upon more stable ground, but we don't HAVE to, right?

I have to admit, when I was reading about all of this at first, watching the news, experiencing this from a distance I had this eery thought, this almost sense of historical movement in which I could imagine someone saying, 50 years down the line "that was when New Orleans still existed." It made me feel like I was in a Ray Bradbury novel.

Now I think of how are all just playthings of the wind.

2 comments:

Bjetsey said...

one of the things I enjoyed about visiting Pompeii was that there was a fair-sized city (Pompei) all around the ruins of tha old city (Pompeii). Ah yes, you can just hear them telling themselves, "nothing has happened in almost 2000 years," which is of course what the original Pompeiians told themselves (truthfully) too. I was giddy with delight at the humor in that...humans are good at ignoring the obvious stupidity of repeating the same mistakes ad nauseum.

Anonymous said...

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings.