When the gaping sore caused by Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood was still open, the, by now, infamous article by Kristen McQueary in the Chicago Tribune would have given me severe agita:

That’s why I find myself praying for a storm. OK, a figurative storm, something that will prompt a rebirth in Chicago. I can relate, metaphorically, to the residents of New Orleans climbing onto their rooftops and begging for help and waving their arms and lurching toward rescue helicopters.

Except here, no one responds to the SOS messages painted boldly in the sky. Instead, they double down on their own man-made disaster.

The notion that New Orleans was “reborn” in a manner detached from its past is ludicrous and beneath contempt. Nothing is reborn. There’s no such thing as a blank slate. And I would not wish a Katrina scale disaster on my worst enemy, not even on a twit who tweets as Statehouse Chick.

Our recovery has been a mixed bag as opposed to the sort of success that this dim bulb at the Chicago Tribune believes it to be. If New Orleans is suddenly nirvana, she should move here and become a flack for Mayor Landrieu. She already sounds like one. Repeat after me: Nothing is reborn and there’s no such thing as a blank slate.

I used to feel compelled to rebut every bit of idiocy put out there about post-K New Orleans. I ended up with a bellyful of stupid and didn’t feel any better for going to war. It’s not worth fighting with ignoramuses who know nothing about my city or its past, present, and future. Repeat after me: Nothing is reborn and there’s no such thing as a blank slate.

In the end, Kristen McQueary is just another ignorant person who wrote a stupid piece. I’ll let others wage war on her. I, myself, am tired of my city being used as a metaphor by someone who doesn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground.

Repeat after me: Nothing is reborn and there’s no such thing as a blank slate.