New Orleans

I had the pleasure of spending a couple of weeks in New Orleans for a robotics conference last year, during the Jazz festival of all things, which is undoubtedly the single best time to be in New Orleans. From my own experience, and from all accounts, New Orleans is arguably the most vibrant and laid back city in the U.S - you've gotta love the irony of one of the world's coolest cities playing host to 1500 robot geeks, but anyway - The streets were full of life, mainly a result of the incredible number of buskers and street theatre performers competing for attention. The night life was nothing short of crazy. The famous Bourbon Street was like a mix of Brunswick and Chappel streets in Melbourne, on steroids and without the sound of "doof doof" from cars slowly progressing up the street. Instead, Bourbon street was closed to cars, allowing people to stream up the 2 km stretch of road, walking from bar to bar with drinks in hand, often singing sea shanty songs. It was a fantastic atmosphere. The only reason I did not spend more time in New Orleans is because I firmly believed that if I had spent one more day eating their food, I would have died. Deep fried shrimp sure does taste good, but will also kill you. So yes, I loved New Orleans.

To now read reports from main stream sources, as well as from certain blogs, of the disaster situation that now exists in this once vibrant city, is just horrific. Senator Andrew Bartlett provides a good summary of some of these reports which if even half are true, sends shivers down my spine. Apart from the apparent thousands of lives that have been lost, what is most disconcerting is just how quickly order and respect for life has been lost in the wake of such a disaster. This vibrant city I walked around a year ago, which seemed so friendly, warm and welcoming, has reportedly turned into a lawless world of violence, fear and despair.

It makes me, as I am sure it does many, reflect on just what would happen should a similar disaster occur in an Australian city. How would Melburnians, for example, react. My gut tells me that order would not degenerate quite so quickly, or to as great an extent as it has in New Orleans - Admittedly, this is the same gut that kept telling me to eat more deep fried shrimp. I am also not sure what my gut bases it's opinion on. One hopes, I suppose, that good ol' Aussie mateship, which so regularly gets an airing when we want to pat ourselves on the back, actually comes to the fore. However, does this imply that a city like New Orleans did not have this "mateship". When the walls come tumbling down so catastrophically, I really don't know how far this concept would stretch before a majority of people start to focus purely on their own survival. I don't know. In any case, the reports coming out of New Orleans really do bring home the harsh reality, yet also comforting fact, that everyone on this planet is related by the one very common trait - being very human (for all the good and bad that it encompasses).

I truly hope New Orleans recovers from this, and the survivors are able to rebuild their lives as quickly as possible. It would be a tragic loss to all Americans to lose the coolest city they have.