Living with Katrina

So we've all been living with Katrina over the past year. Some people forget about her, but she's everywhere to me. In my dreams, on the phone with my parents, tying up traffic, eating up everyone's emotional energy. She's the nightmare friend you can't get rid of.

A year later, my parents and thousands of others are living in temporary housing. For all you New Yorkers who get annoyed with their living space, keep in mind that my parents live in a one-room, 450 square foot studio and they are the lucky ones. Everything my 61 and 66 year old parents own can be fit comfortably in a minivan. Can your parents say that? For people who think I'm beating a dead horse, I ask you to explain why my parents and thousands of other law-abiding, tax paying Americans have had little comfort and little explanation from the government as to why the levee system has failed. They are made to feel they are on their own and that they are individually responsible for something the government created.

Take a look at these letters to the New York Times regarding Katrina. Just a few perspectives other than my own. We have to listen to each other in a period of history like this. It's the only way we'll know the whole story.