In order to depict something damaged, my mind kept going back to New Orleans. The images from that city after Hurricane Katrina aren't just of abandoned ruins crumbling because of neglect, they were thriving, inhabited neighborhoods filled with life and everyday activity one morning, then a desolate, deserted aftermath of a storm path and an ill-equipped government.
For this week's theme of disorder, I kept singing the chorus of Warren Zevon's "Disorder in the House," which got me thinking of homes. And that led to New Orleans. The thing about this photo is that it's not just one ruined home; it's two. The second roof on the right side of the house is not part of the original building; it's from a home around the corner that was planted on top of the lower house as the flood waters finally receded. Talk about disorder.
I post this while watching this year's Sugar Bowl, which was the reason I was in New Orleans in January 2007, when I watched Brady Quinn and Jeff Samardzija in their final game for Notre Dame. It was a good few days nonetheless.
At first I didn't want to post this one, because it's not in sharp focus. But then I realized that religion itself is a bit blurry. It's open to interpretation, subject to debate and viewed differently by nearly everyone despite drawing from many of the same texts for their beliefs.
It was taken from a moving car driven by a friend and local reporter as she took us on a tour of Lakeview, Gentilly, the Lower Ninth Ward -- the hardest-hit neighborhoods. New Orleans is still in shambles, struggling to get back on her feet after Mother Nature beat her down and her government abandoned her.
Maybe someone needs to call the bishop.
January 4, 2007: The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans remained chillingly silent. Help is still slow to come to the city's poorer -- and minority -- neighborhoods, with local and religious groups doing more to help than the government -- which was pretty silent from the beginning. Instead, Brad Pitt has had to come in to help rebuild those parts of the city.
Much of New Orleans remains devistated, but in otherwise flattened neighborhoods, there are a scattering of new houses. In some cases, the new homes are the only ones on a block -- or a series of connected blocks -- to which the owners have returned: New Orleanians in a neighborhood without neighbors.
