this year.

I’m not one for posting my feelings on world events and catastrophes, but I came across this article from The Seattle Times, posted by Rooney, and was pretty moved by it. By now most people are aware of the horrific scenes unfolding in New Orleans. Civility has been conquered, people have lost their minds, and animal instinct has gripped the populous, overflowing into the already flooded streets. Bodies lay trapped in submerged buildings, while others are still perched on balcony’s waiting for rescue. Those lucky enough (if that can really be said) live in conditions unfathomable to the western world.

They sleep in their own feces, and wade through puddles of urine. Neighbours have become enemies, while people are being shot, not over food and water, but DVD players, stereos and cell phones.

It is very difficult for me to understand how a society like ours could revert so quickly to these actions. I suppose I can understand, but I prefer to believe we are generally better than this. How the first instinct of people is to loot while their city — their home — lay submerged, burning, and destroyed escapes me. It baffles me that of all the recent devastation experienced around the world, the United States seems to be the only nation to lose all sense of control. The fact that the people of New Orleans first instinct is to look out for number one, and fuck the rest, completely saddens me. I guess Marge Simpson was wrong when she sang in A Street Car Named Marge, “You can always depend on the kindness of strangers.”

Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I am completely wrong to think community is the best way to survive times of trouble; that coming together will provide the best chance for survival. Humankind discovered a long time ago that living together was the best way to stay alive — that creating a society and community would provide the most efficient use of resources, and provide the greatest defense against forces that attack. ‘Strength in numbers’, as the old adage goes. If putting my faith in these ideals means my certain death, well, better men have died for lesser causes.

How such destruction can be caused by nature is indisputable, but how a country, that knew this hurricane was coming, was not more prepared is deplorable, disgraceful, and heart-wrenching. Perhaps there is truth in its nickname, “The City that care forgot.”

Among these scenes, and tragic sorrows, there still exists a glint of hope. An ember among the coals ready to re-ignite the flames of sensibility and society.

excerpt from The Seattle Times. Trapped in the Superdome: Refuge becomes a hellhole. By Scott Gold.

One man was lying part way on a cot, his legs flopped off the side, a forgotten blood-pressure monitor still attached to his right arm. Some had wrapped plastic bags on their feet to escape the urine and wastewater seeping from piles of trash. Others, fearing the onset of disease, had surgical masks over their mouths. An alarm had been going off for more than 24 hours, and no one knew how to turn it off.

Suddenly, incongruously, the first notes of Bach’s Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, the Adagio, pierced the desperation.

Samuel Thompson, 34, is trying to make it as a professional violinist. He had grabbed his instrument — made in 1996 by a Boston woman — as he fled the youth hostel Sunday where he had been staying in New Orleans for the past two months.

“It’s the most important thing I own,” he said.

He had guarded it carefully and hadn’t taken it out until yesterday afternoon, when he was able to move from the Superdome into the New Orleans Arena, far safer accommodations. He rested the black case on a table next to a man with no legs in a wheelchair and a pile of trash and boxes, and gingerly popped open the two locks. He lifted the violin out of the red velvet encasement and held it to his neck.

Thompson closed his eyes and leaned into each stretch of the bow as he played mournfully. A woman eating crackers and sitting where a vendor typically sells pizza watched him intently. A National Guard soldier applauded quietly when the song ended, and Thompson nodded his head and began another piece, the Andante from Bach’s Sonata in A Minor.

Like most in the shelter, Thompson’s family in Charleston, S.C., has no idea where he is and whether he is alive. Thompson figures he is safe for now and will get in touch when he can. Meanwhile, he will play, and, once in a while, someone at the sports complex will manage a smile.

“These people have nothing,” he said. “I have a violin. And I should play for them. They should have something.”