Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Spring 2008 - (Page 88) “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” — Mark Twain commentary by Charles W. Cannon photographs by Cheryl Gerber Editor’s Note: The following was written in response to an article that appeared in the Winter 2007-08 edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas by Benjamin C. Toledano, “New Orleans: An Autopsy,” a highly critical examination of the city’s social hierarchy, business community and political structure. We hope that this rebuttal furthers the dialogue on the city’s ongoing post-Katrina reconstruction. One of the most widely published post-Katrina genres nationally is the “exposé” of “the New Orleans the tourists never saw.” Early installments, immediately after the storm, came from Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune (9/15/05), George Will in Newsweek (9/12/05), and Sonja Steptoe in Time (9/12/05). All agreed that New Orleans was a disaster before the storm hit, that Katrina had done a good job of “cleansing,” and now Americans should all be happy that New Orleans would finally be off the map. But then, inexplicably, New Orleanians appeared to want to return. Yet the genre, like the city, refused to die. It developed, specialized, began to address niche audiences. In the Wall Street Journal (2/23/06), Steve Garbarino urged writers in particular to give the city a wide berth, saying their ability and will to write would be sapped there. The crowning apotheosis of the form arrived in time for the 88 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Spring 2008 second anniversary of the storm that somehow failed to end it all. Writing in Commentary, the “home of neoconservatism” (so boasts their website), Ben C. Toledano declared “Reports of the death of New Orleans as a major American city have not been greatly exaggerated; they have only been greatly delayed.” Since I am not a regular reader of the organ of Rumsfeld, Rice, and Wolfowitz, I would never have known of the essay had many of my well meaning American friends across the country not emailed it to me. They found Toledano’s “autopsy” quite convincing. Indeed, it reads so. Like an adept essay proclaiming the moon to be A street in the Faubourg Marigny made of cheese, you would have to live on the moon to prove it otherwise. As a renegade scion of one of the city’s oldest “aristocratic” families, Toledano speaks with great authority. The facts behind his analysis, though thin, are unassailable. Yet the
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