The Arkansas Blog continues to do New Orleans. The world should not forget how inadequate the federal government’s efforts here and contemplate if it would have been different had the same devastation hit Plano, Texas, or a Republican sector of Florida. Anyway, at top is a typical scene from the Lower Ninth Ward, block after block of devastation, sprinkled with FEMA trailers where homeowners are trying to make a new start. Imagine making a new start as a member of the low-wage service class of a city where the tourism business has not returned and where vast shopping malls such as River Walk have almost no shoppers. But there are some happy signs, such as the new construction shown. But all too few.

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People still eat in New Orleans, of course. We had an oyster loaf (above) at the venerable Casamento’s for lunch. (We’d quibble with their use of pan bread rather than French bread, but no quibbles with the oysters.) Plus we had some raw ones. And admired a box of fresh soft-shell crabs, moments after their delivery straight from the water by a tradesman paid in cash, on the spot. Don’t take a credit card to Casamento’s (on Magazine Streeet.) I spent some time at the brass band stage of the French Quarter festival, but my picture of the New Orleans Nightcrawlers isn’t clear enough to share.

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