If anyone needs a window as to how many people feel at this moment in time:

I guess the thing is, at least to me, is all the waiting. Waiting for the traffic lights to be fixed, for the streets to be fixed, for crime to subside, etc. Basically for recovery to happen as if it were the big bang....that's what I'm really waiting for...the big bang where all those post storm, 'come on back' promises will be fulfilled. Better? Stronger? I haven't seen that at all. I have seen the opposite though. If you spend enough time waiting for anything that doesn't seem to be coming it starts to feel an awful lot like rejection. Even if you know it's not rejection, wait long enough, even with encouraging words, and it will feel like rejection. I'm sure of it. And rejection is a heavy one to have around be it from a person, group, city, state, or nation makes no difference. It moves fast around you and screams at you the whole time. It's the kind of scream you feel on the back of your neck and makes your eyes feel wet. Rejection is probably the thing I'm least capable of dealing with as a person. And that's just regular ol' me, and doesn't take into account Post K me....lol. My ice is so thin because I have no patience with damn near anything anymore. I'm furious in a Zack de la Rocha way. Things just seem to get in on me. I read a lot into nothing. I imagine connections that aren't really there. I over react constantly.

Multiply this by close to 300,000, and you've got New Orleans.

The close encounters with Indianapolis fans like the ones these folks had don't help things, either.

God help us all.
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Update, 9-9 : There are too many ground zeros to count in New Orleans. Scattered, disorganized repopulation has been driven more by residents than politicians and planners. And while the territory is thousands of times larger and funding more scarce, its early planning process mirrors New York City's efforts to redevelop the World Trade Center site and surrounding neighborhood after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Loosely defined organizations are bickering about who controls what, while residents, planners and politicians debate what to build, when to build it and how to pay for it.

..."The amount of positive citizen energy that the city of New Orleans frittered away in the first six months is appalling," said Reed Kroloff, the former dean of Tulane University's architecture school, who quit the Bring New Orleans Back commission after seeing little political support for it.

Gee, you think the Shock Doctrine has anything to do with our current state of affairs? In which: the process deceptively called “reconstruction” began with finishing the job of the original disaster by erasing what was left of the public sphere.” ?

Hold the line in our city, people, no matter how ragged and worn. Overarching despair is the ultimate weapon in a arsenal of subtlety, wielded by all those who have power in this city and over this city. It ensures that only the stronger than strong will survive. Share your information on things such as the current races for city council and judgeships. Build a wall of political shame that helps ensure that the same ol' characters won't be lying in wait for everybody to forget the last things they had their hands in, only to come out smelling like roses in another election further down the political pike. Keep working together in your respective neighborhoods for change - the change directed not by other interests from outside where you are, but from yourselves.

This is damned hard. But it is still damned necessary.