10/09/2015

Texas, baby. It's there, it's big, it's not going anywhere, and, if you're driving to New Orleans from New Mexico, there ain't no way around it. Of course, you actually could go around it but that would require either a sea worthy sailing vessel or a profound preference for the scenic pleasures of Oklahoma (I've long thought that the highway sign marking the Oklahoma state line should read 'Welcome to Oklahoma—It's Not Texas!!'). Being possessed of neither a sailing vessel of any degree of worthiness nor the patience for an Oklahoma detour, I decided to address the situation full on for my first ever driving trip from Santa Fe to my hometown. The Inky Prius was washed, recharged with fresh oil, pumped full of high octane Chevron petrol, and on a bright Saturday morning of mid-September in the Year of Our Lord 2015, off I went into the great semi-unknown.
10/05/2015

Not surprisingly, the arc of media fascination with New Orleans and all things Katrina-related has surged, peaked and quickly faded. The storm made landfall on the Gulf Coast on the 29th of August, 2005, conveniently providing the entire month for build-up to the tenth anniversary of the cataclysm. Media outlets around the country and around the world weighed in with reportage, retrospectives, editorials, polls, photo essays and then/now updates to assess the near-death experience of one of the world's great cities and a decade's worth of efforts to rebuild, renew and protect the City That Forgot to Care. The conclusions to be drawn present a decidedly mixed bag.