Rebuilding Babel

As I continue to put large quantities of thought into the recent events, I have a few dangling thoughts, opinions and expected impacts that I will be sharing regardless of whether anyone wants to hear them.

1) Why are we so hellbent on rebuilding New Orleans? Now, I understand that portions of New Orleans MUST continue to exist, for the sake of working refineries, housing said workers, and supporting those workers with goods and services. But why must we rebuild New Orleans to its former glory? New Orleans didn’t start as a mistake. It started as a French outpost, understandable given its strategic location, and admittedly has quite a bit of history associated with it. Incidentally, in AP History, 11th grade, I did a report on the Battle of New Orleans, the bloodiest battle of the War of 1812, though it was fought after the treaty was signed, unbeknownst to those on the front lines. Over time, however, New Orleans grew bigger than its britches, hemmed by patchwork engineering endeavors and stitched together through a system of limited levees.

Over time, it became an mistake, one which was exposed this week. But here we are, talking about doing it all over again. Listening to Bush speak of it exemplifies the sort of arrogance that Americans are known for throughout the world. We are thumbing our noses at logic here, all for the sake of proving to ourselves and the rest of the world that we will not be bullied or told what to do, even by weather. The best we can do if we rebuild is create a new system of water works and levees, perhaps stronger than before, but still prone to the same sort of disaster, simply because topography demands that vulnerability. Perhaps it will take a stronger storm or a more direct hit next time, but this sort of tragedy can be repeated so long as we continually open ourselves up for it. New Orleans wasn’t destroyed by an enemy, our defiance is now directed against nature. Surely we should rebuild the World Trade Center in some manifestation, it shows our indomitable spirit against the evils of terrorism. What does rebuilding New Orleans show?

Here’s the crux though: what prevents the state of Louisiana from sinking into the ocean without New Orleans? I don’t mean literally, but really, what else does that state have going for it? Without New Orleans, Louisiana is a larger version of Delaware, only with more alligators. If you think Louisiana was poor before, just wait until it loses its New Orleans tourism industry.

2) Louisiana could survive without New Orleans, however, though it requires opening ourselves up to a similar disaster from a financial standpoint. The talk is of more refineries now, as opportunists are bundling the skyrocketing gas prices into the human disaster to push the agenda they’ve been trying to champion for years. What dumb luck those guys stumbled upon, who would have thought they could finagle the moral high ground out of their stance? This will lead to drilling in Alaska and additional refineries, of that I am fairly certain. Gas was high before, and now it’s absurd. It will remain absurd for years. Johny Everyman, who is this week’s word of the week, thinks in terms of quick fixes, and despite the fact that it would be at least 5 years before our oil could start coming in from Alaska and refined in our new plants, he will hear the seemingly commonsense solutions of certain politicians and support the legislation.

Meanwhile, I think the good ole boy network, and the OPEC consortium is in a bit of a bind. This is also potentially the best thing that could have happened to the hybrid/alternative energy people. People will be receptive to the idea of hybrid cars, solar cells, wind power and even nuclear power as they continue to get pillaged both at home and on the road. If big oil and OPEC aren’t careful, we actually WILL decrease our reliance on fossil fuels, simply because people will soon get fed up with $5 a gallon, which is where I think we’ll be in a month. To be simplistic here, there are two parts to supply and demand, it is left as an exercise to the reader to figure out what they are. At the moment, prices are high because supply is low and demand is high. The day will come however, when supply will recover, but demand will have been lessened. Once that happens, Texas and the Gulf Coast both fall into the ocean, while Alaska sighs as its second gold rush fails to convince the rest of the country that it would be fun to live in the artic. At least OPEC takes the shock stick away from our nation’s nuts.

3) I have always been a fan of the New Orleans Saints, which is a historical curiosity for another post, and now I am afraid I won’t be the only one. I liked being the only one. You want a prediction? The notoriously inconsistent Aints start winning some games, the nation rallies behind them (as they won’t have a home game all season), and they make it into the playoffs, advancing a round or so. They give the people of New Orleans hope, and the rest of the nation feels good about itself. Then, next year they suck again, and given that Hilary Duff will again be bigger news than New Orleans, the rest of the nation will vacate the bandwagon. The people of New New Orleans will see the Saints in the repaired Superdome, which will still reek of feces, sucking like old times, and they will realize that they didn’t actually get to see any of the games in the Aints’ one good season of the past 20 years. Hopefully they’ll get some TVs in the tent communities, and the refugees will all gather round and have some good old fashion football based bonding this fall. That would bring people joy, justifiably so, I’d love to be with those people if the Saints were doing well.

4) People keep bitching about how we help all the other countries, but that they don’t help us. These are people who are sweeping under the rug the fact that the United States’ first relief promise to Indonesia was $300,000 after the tsunami, or, roughly the cost of Trent Lott’s porch. Meanwhile, they continue to ignore the fact that 50 countries have offered money and support in the recovery efforts. Will we take their help? Hell no, we’re the US, we don’t need nobody’s charity. Granted, the only reason why China offered assistance was to try to rub salt in our wounds, but we’re a friggin one man band, harmony is not in our constitution.

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