Aftermath

When faced with the full force of Mother Nature, Humanity has no other choice but to bow, let the old girl pass, and then regroup. It is a recurring theme in the development of civilizations. No matter how permanent we think we are, no matter how strong we build our buildings, in a showdown with Mother Nature, we will lose. The other recurring theme? That we rebuild. That we learn from our mistakes. The second we're still working on, but the first we excel at -- if anything, we know how to hold on to our hope, regroup, and then rebuild.

There are so many days that I wake up and I wonder why. Humanity can be an incredible let down. You hope and you pray that common sense and decency will begin to guide people...and then you realize that common sense really isn't so common. But as I was driving in to work this morning, my heart had to swell with a renewed sense of hope and love for my fellow humans -- fellow Americans, even. The local top 40 station that I listen to was doing a pledge drive for the American Red Cross. They had pooled together every CD that they could put their hands on and, for a $500 donation, you could hear just about anything you wanted. In the span of two hours, listeners -- these people I drive to work with everyday, the same people who can't remember to use their turn signals or speed up when I'm trying to change lanes -- pledged over $30,000. So, even as looters are rowing the streets of New Orleans, there are thousands more who are pledging aid to the Red Cross -- actually helping those in need. It's incredibly humbling, and makes me proud to be here. In DC. In the States. On the planet.

My mind has also been occupied, thinking heavily about the images I saw, and the stories I read about the 1900 storm which swept over Galveston, TX. I won't recount the whole tale here -- you can read it for yourself -- but on 8 September 1900, a category 5 hurricane pounded the Texas Gulf Coast, crushing Galveston, and grinding it into so much powder. Somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 people were thought to have died during and because of that storm, coming ashore as it did well before doppler radar and mandatory evacuations. The images, captured in black and white, are haunting. Maybe even more so than the color imagery we're seeing emerge from Katrina's aftermath; the silent film clips of the Galveston devastation are equally as spooky.

Looking at those images, however, I feel a strange sense of deja vu: there is enough symmetry between the images to be scary. I encourage everyone to take a look at the images of the 1900 Storm aftermath, and keep them in mind as you watch the newscasts and read the newspapers.

It has happened before. And it will happen again -- not because of any government conspiracy, not because of some political maneuvering, and not because of global warming. It will happen again simply because it is the Nature of things.

More Navel Gazing - Southern Manifesto

In Georgia, we like to joke about our Southern bretheren on the Gulf Coast -- especially in such areas as Mobile, Pascagoula, and New Orleans. It is a wholly different way of life down there: oppressive heat and humidity in the summers; economies based on fishing and shipyards and oil refineries. They tend to have a lot less and have a much more casual approach to life...something we of the "Yankee Southern" set could learn. In more recent years, the strip of land stretching from Panama City Beach to New Orleans has become the "Redneck Riviera" -- beaches, resorts, and even casinos springing up for the tourists.

Despite the derisive tone, however, we are all Southerners. It is one of the many common traits we share, and often a source of pride among those born and raised as such. Yes, there are those among us who are still fighting the "War of Northern Aggression," and yes, there are those among us who would still own slaves, were such a thing permissible. These are the people lost in the past, refusing to join the present realities. Since the War, the South has grown into a booming economy, often times still providing the agricultural products she was depended upon prior to the War, but diversifying into many service-oriented and technical industries. While still struggling educationally, it can also no longer be said that we are a region of uneducated masses -- many of us are pursuing our degrees and getting the higher education few of us could afford before.

We still thump on our Bibles, still go to revival, and yes, there is still Country and Bluegrass. She is a region that gave birth to such things, and which fostered the growth of the blues. She is a region where a stranger can walk down a sidewalk in bright sunshine -- probably along a street named after some "peach" thing -- and get a smile and a nod from another complete stranger, something you don't usually get when venturing north of Fredericksburg, Virginia. She is also home to the best beverage that mankind has ever invented: sweetened iced tea.

Why all of the introspection about this, you ask? Well, partially to blame is the request-a-thon that I mentioned earlier. One caller, for his $500 pledge, requested "Sweet Home Alabama" -- a song I grew up with, learned to love, and still brings a smile to my lips. Also to blame is all the media coverage of those sister cities -- New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile. It got me thinking about what it actually is to be Southern; what is it that we identify with that brings us together as a culture?

The answers to those questions you can find above, but there is something more still that I can't define which makes me Southern. Part of me thinks that it is the land -- even a generation or two removed from the farm can't take that tie away. I, personally, can't keep a houseplant alive, but my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents and great-great-greatgrandparents lived off the land. It is part of my history, part of where I came from, and part of who I am. It is this background that gives me my will to survive, the strength I draw from; the women in my family have never been wilting lillies and I love that about them. Another part of me isn't sure what it is, and thinks that it is something instilled in the soul at birth, something really inescapable in the final analysis. Then again, maybe it's a little of both.

The same thing that makes me so proud of my Southern accent, of my Georgia heritage is the same thing that makes me want to weep at the images of New Orleans, southern Mississippi, and the Alabama coast. We carry with us the camraderie of shared campaigns; we survived the Founding, we survived Sherman's March, and we will also survive Katrina.

I read over this little manifesto and wonder just how many people understand this. I have to admit that even I have my doubts about New Orleans returning to her former glory, much less the Mississippi coast -- what glory there was. I wonder why, as is mentioned by Matt Towery, that when tragedy befalls New York, as on 9/11, when a tsunami sweeps away distant shores, we are inundated from every media outlet, regular programming is interrupted, and we can't escape it. But my home -- my South -- has been stricken by one of the worst natural disasters in American history, and it seems so many people can't be bothered. Yes, there are lots of headlines; yes, there are lots of images; and yes, there are media crews out there. But as Towery mentions, where are the concerts? Where are the people and nations willing to offer aid? Everyone is too damned busy trying to lay the blame. Should there have been a cohesive exit strategy? Yes. Could emergency management have responded better? Yes. But let's get one thing straight right now, folks: There is no blame here -- not really. Mother Nature did her thing and like the lesser beings that we are, we got smacked. It's time to get over it and help people who need helping.

It's time to help the South rebuild once again.

And yes, I'm smiling when I say that.

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American Red Cross
American Red Cross, Atlanta Chapter