Making Sense Out of Nonsense

I wrote the following days after Hurricane Katrina hit our lives. I think it's still important enough to republish. Sadly, I was more optimistic then than I am today. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Greetings, This is a relatively quick note to let you know that we are fine. My 86 year old mother, my dog, and I evacuated from the New Orleans area on Sunday morning. We left at 5 am and wound up in Chicago at 8:30 at night. The biggest irony was that this is my week of vacation and we were going to spend it in Pass Christian, MS, just about where Katrina hit landfall. The area was underwater for awhile and I can only assume that we would not have survived had we gone there. Initially, we were going to wait out the storm in Oxford, MS, about 2 hours south of Memphis. At a Sunday 10:30 am press conference, the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, told citizens to mandatory evacuate and not to return for five days. That was enough for us; we called a good friend in Chicago and found out ...

Just read the review of the Spike Lee version of Katrina. He said telling the story of 67% of the people is good enough. Evidently, he forgot that the area deluged by the Katrina Saga is more than just the city itself. There were at least five parishes and 1.1 million people in Louisiana that felt the impact, both residually and directly. That means that he is telling the story of 350,000 or a little less than a third. A third is still an important number, but like any statistics, it's not as meaningful as the majority. Add Mississippi and the numbers continue to decrease. We should not be surprised. Like any good Hollywood director, Spike Lee tells the story he wants. Please keep in mind, however, his version is a story.