Opinion: In today’s pages: Two years after the hurricane
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With the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaching, six New Orleans experts comment on how far the city has come and how far it has to go. Vogue contributing editor Julia Reed writes:
Pre-Katrina New Orleans was a schizophrenic place. Insular and complacent on one hand, and resting on the laurels and the habits of its storied past, it was also world famous for elevating living in the moment to an art form. ‘Laissez les bons temps rouler’ wasn’t just a tourism slogan, but a genuine attitude. Tomorrow -- when you live between a notoriously restless river and a 40-mile lake -- may well never come.But there was a tomorrow after Katrina. And while the respect for history and joie de vivre that had set us apart from other places was not destroyed, the complacency that gnawed at New Orleans, as well as the utter disregard for the future, are all but gone.
Contributing editor and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers charts a course for the economy after the sub-prime crisis.
The editorial board encourages the U.S. to keep its promises in Afghanistan and explores a German engineer’s inexpensive ways to turn cars green.
Readers respond to the notion that the Pentagon is ‘Christianizing’ soldiers. Northridge’s Barbara Aquino says, ‘They may call themselves Christian, but those who follow the teachings of Jesus Christ strive to love their enemy and do not kill others.’