Biloxi Blues...Or the hurricane that came to wake the nation

It would simply be impossible to post this week without talking about Katrina. The devastation in many ways is unimaginable, impossible to grasp hundreds of miles away, and yet feels incredibly immediate. Katrina was a storm of biblical proportion, in every way possible. What I wonder is, when the flood waters recede will America be offered a chance to renew our covenant? Our commitment to humanity, peace, and the welfare of life on Earth? - or will our time prove to have expired? We know now what they knew too in Noah's time - we could have done more to prevent this flood, we could have protected ourselves and each other and avoided some of this devastation, but we refused to look stubbornly passed our own personal desires and aspirations, ignoring the social, economic, and environmental responsibilities that come with being citizens of the planet. So the South will rebuild, New Orleans, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida. Rebuilding is not an unfamiliar task in Southern history, and if memory is any way to judge the future, perhaps this reconstruction, as it unmasks the hidden (or not so hidden) racism and classist tendencies of American society, will bring with it a brighter future.