The ultimate piece of news I absorbed before falling asleep at a very late hour last night (or early this morn) was that 12 of the 13 West Virginian coalminers had been found, and that one was definitely dead. “Been found … what is that supposed to mean? Found alive?” was all I thought before plunging into one of the shortest nights of sleep in a long while. With txyankee leaving for Paris this afternoon to begin his “long commute,” the weather doing weird things and the haul of January ahead, insomnia has found me again.
This morning, I heard about this on NPR. It’s a good thing I was (reluctantly awake and) parked in a lot because my head immediately hit the steering wheel in anguish for the families of these workers. More than the news itself, my attention turns to the cruelty of raised hopes that are then dashed. The fear followed by the resignation and hope, the sudden influx of joy, and then, the immediate fall into the abyss of reality. All because of miscommunication. They’ve been found != they’ve been found alive. I cannot begin to fathom the churning soup of emotions these folks are going through. If I feel like this for them, what rushes through their heads and hearts?
Time is on my side
Yes it is …
The healing process begins. The trip from denial to acceptance, with a long lay-over in depression, is so frustrating, but extremely necessary. My only wish for the wives and families of the dead is that time is kind to them and brings them dozens of experiences to smile about.
The sleeplessness and impatience are in the trunk, much less the backseat, now.
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Kristen of From the Lake to the River, the Tulane University-sponsored legal aid group that I introduced back in September, asks me to share the following with my blog community:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW ORLEANS – From the Lake to the River: The New Orleans Coalition for Legal Aid & Disaster Relief today released An Alternative Vision for Redevelopment, Rebuilding & Reconstruction, a report to Mayor Nagin’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission that addresses a number of challenges that lie ahead of the city. The report applauds officials for organizing a number of town hall meetings to solicit public input on the rebuilding process while offering broad recommendations on how best to rebuild the city and repair systemic issues that existed pre-Katrina. The full report, which includes recommendations from a number of Tulane Law School professors, community activists, educators, social workers, and others, along with an executive summary is available at www.fromthelaketotheriver.org.
Although there is much that needs to be rebuilt in the aftermath of Katrina’s destruction, people need more than bricks and mortar if they are to return. The region also needs to create social institutions — political, economic, educational, and others — that will effectively serve all city residents. This report seeks to offer a sound basis for public policy discussions, community economic development, urban planning and political negotiating in the challenging months that lie ahead. This report outlines a set of policies that will help ensure that the rebuilding process unfolds in a way that benefits all New Orleanians. It is our hope that local, parish and state officials might develop alternative policies and positions based on the proposals, recommendations and analysis that are set forth in the following pages.
“After Katrina, non-profit organizations, civic groups and community leaders united to help provide immediate relief to evacuees who had been displaced. Now is the time to turn our attention to repairing and rebuilding the city to ensure that those who were involuntarily displaced have a place to come home to. Because of the extent, in both distance and pervasiveness, of forced evacuation, it is critical that we build a New Orleans that facilitates the return of all New Orleanians,” said Bryan Mauldin, President of From the Lake to the River.
From the Lake to the River can be contacted at 866-NOLA-AID.
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Another view of the WVa thing – not to in any way denigrate the tragedy itself, but my son and I were watching CNN for rather a long time that morning waiting for him to go in and get his wisdom teeth yanked out of his head, and the media dweebs went ON and ON and ON and ON and ON about how unthinkably horrendous this all was, in excruciating and interminable detail….while the funeral bombing in Iraq, which killed about 40 people, was relegated to a screen crawl.
This to me and son did not seem quite right.