Tropical Storm Isaac

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Tropical Storm Isaac tracking through the western Atlantic as reported late Tuesday by the National Hurricane Center in Miami:

Let's face it, it's been a while but here we are once more in the cone of the storm. This is typically the peak period of Atlantic Hurricane Season which goes from June First to November 30th. It's been a few years since we could be the target of a hurricane and the reaction I've got from my friends and neighbors was one of surprise, "It's been such a long time..."

There was a time when the bumper sticker "Another Weeekend, Another Hurricane" was quite popular as they never seemed to stop coming. This one is a long way off, maybe a week away and the way it looks now, from very far away, is that Cuba will take the brunt and likely their landlmass will do it's job and weaken the storm before it makes landfall in Florida. Currently it looks more likely to whack Miami than Key West...but a week is a very very long time in the storm prediction game.

Part Restoration, New Orleans Style

For some people the St Charles streetcar symbolized the city's return to life after Katrina. These days the street cars run all the way and their elderly gravitas looks as it always did.

The wealthy white neighborhoods of New Orleans are protesting the Times-Picayune's decision to fire reporters and publish online. That the paper comes out in print just three times a week is a sore subject. Especially as the paper was turning a profit when it made the changes.

The mansions by the lake were badly flooded and wrecked by Katrina but they have come back in grand style:

And the lakefront parks are restored and lovely.



Lots of city workers out here trimming the public nose hair.



The black neighborhoods, separate but equal look slightly different.



Quite a bit different.



Not equally restored.



"Not For Sale" says the plywood sign, spray painted.



One wonders when and how these wrecks will ever be restored.



Canal Street is back in fine fettle, where the tourists go.



Who wouldn't want to go shopping here?

And yet, even in the business district these wrecked zombie office high rises gape like rotting flesh, leprous scars in the middle of shiny bright office windows.

Wreckage amid the boardrooms.



It is a fascinating town, New Orleans.



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