The Misery Tour

Even those of us who live in New Orleans and see the devastation from Hurricane Katrina are thunderstruck by what has happened to out home. The muck and the water marks, the body recovery symbols, discarded treasures form homes lost that are plied in streets. It goes on for miles and miles and is heartbreaking to see.
Having said that, unless one sees it firsthand he or she cannot possibly understand the depth of losses and how much help New Orleans and the Gulf region needs if we are to rebuild. Soooooooo, in a way it is to our advantage to bring in to view it all, those decision making people- politicians high rollers, etc.- who help. Already, more than 80 members of the U.S. Congress have come in to see for themselves the mess. And all of them profess sympathy and a will to lobby for the Congress to help us.
Well, politicians do promise, and do lie about their promises. But now a local tour company is carrying that one step further, to the outrage of many here. Gray Line New Orleans, has begun offering its "Hurricane Katrina: America's Worst Catastrophe!: tour to general tourists, not those who need to see it before making decisions on whether New Orleans will be rebuilt. Sigh...So the city that turned ghost, vampire and voodoo tours into a multi million dollar bonanza for such tour businesses, now has another freak show to conduct- the Hurricane Katrina disaster show. Surely, such a tour is pointless.
There are few places for tourists to stay now, no place to eat, little open for them even if they were foolish enough to sign up for the tour,. Too, the mess is being removed and the visual "thrill" that type of tourist will see is becoming less and less freakish. So much debris has been cleared and homes are being gutted and some reconstructed, that the ghoulish sites they want to view will be less and less impacting over time. Thank goodness! That freak show won't last long. And the worst damage areas have been prohinited to tours on the basis if being unsafe.
Gray Line says it "just wants to get the point across to visitors, that the disaster hurt us." But why? What is the point? It's like joining a tour to see the dead bodies after a major auto accident, or viewing the site of a plane crash. In point of fact, the reason for the tours is to enrich Gray Line's owners, not to exhibit a city in distress. Sadly, some fools come (most not "tourists", but people that have to be in New Orleans because of work or other obligation) and Gray Line will profit from the death and destruction it shows.
There has already been major interest in seeing this. On the Internet and in shops around here , people are buying Hurricane Katrina T-shirts as fast as they can be printed. And stop by any of the failed levees these days and you will see people gathered with cameras, snapping pictures of themselves next to the breech and photos of themselves in houses that were pummeled from their foundations by the powerful flow of water that surged into the city. Sigh....Humans do like the macabre.
Gray Line says it is sticking to the main roads and not allow anyone off the busses in neighborhoods to gawk at the freak show. But I again ask, "What is the point of this? Is enriching a tour company by showing the human misery and tears of a broken city really the way to rebuild New Orleans?" Better to rebuild New Orleans without the side show and in a few years bring in tourist to see and enjoy a city that is alive, not a dead one.
Let's leave this and go to a great philosophical dilemma. You know..those great questions humans have always wanted answered, like "What is the meaning of life". Yes, I have found yet another of those questions...uh...admitttedly a little less important than the former. It's the, "Should horses wear diapers" issue.
Hehe Yep, a court in Valletta, Malta may have given us the answer. The Maltese court has ruled that regulations to control horse dung (aren't you glad I used the word "dung' instead of an earthy alternative?) in streets by requiring horse owners to diaper their animals in nappies (horse diaper bags) are illegal because nappies are cruel to the horses. That's right, watch your step if in Malta.
The court magistrate hearing the case found the nappies to breach the Animal Welfare Act after veterinarians in Malta explained that a horse's tail had to be kept free to swat flies (and what about horse diaper rash?). Since many cites in Europe and American that have horse drawn carriages for tourists put diapers on horses, this could lead to a messy situation. Hmmmmmmmmmm Diapers for humans but none for horses. It brings to question which species is liberated and which full of dung!