Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

New Orleans loses it shade and its people

NY Times:

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"It's like a Weed Whacker went through here," said Joshua Mann Pailet, a photographer and gallery owner in the French Quarter.

Once shady, Esplanade Avenue is now sun-dappled. And it suddenly has a night sky.

"I don't think I've ever seen the stars in front of my house before," said Robert Tannen, an artist and urban planner whose yard on Esplanade was buried in tree branches.

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Indeed, so much of the city's outward face is currently altered, either temporarily or permanently, that its overall look is disorienting. Planners debating the best way to bring back lost neighborhoods and protect them are discussing how to sustain the city's visual integrity. Rebuilt levees, for example, will affect the sightlines and shadows on the waterfronts. For the time being, though, it is almost impossible to see past the aesthetic of cataclysm.

In flooded areas, all of civilization has been seemingly reduced to detritus. Lawns have been left lifelessly brown and unpleasantly cushiony to walk on. Marked by a grim, telltale waterline and the orange graffiti of health inspectors, houses sit uninhabitable. Cars that will not start line the streets. But most jarring and distressing is the absence of people. Of the dozens of people interviewed for this article, virtually everyone lamented the emptiness, the vast tracts of land without a heartbeat in them.

"The whole landscape of a shotgun houses has been affected citywide, the colors have been affected, everything's brownish and grayish," said Douglas Redd, a collagist and associate director of the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in the Center City neighborhood. "It was tropical, and now it's a wasteland. But the thing that's really different is there's no people around, there's no music, there's no children playing. There's no one to say 'Hi' to."

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There is more.