So what is it like living in New Orleans these days?
Chris Rose describes in the Times-Picayune.
I live in a neighborhood where you can't get a loaf of bread after 8 p.m. but where there are six or seven restaurants within walking distance serving lamb shank with rosemary grillades.
This is the strangest place on the planet. Our skin is made of leather and our hearts are hard. Welcome to the baptism of fire.
This town is rough-and-tumble now, hardscrabble and off-the-hook. We have hardened hearts, set minds, dirty clothes and bad breath here at the dawn of our dire straits.
Which explains why everyone cusses.
The Meffert Theory, as told to me, is thus: "If you were circumspect before Katrina, now you are candid. If you were candid, now you are frank. If you were frank, now you are blunt. And if you were blunt, now you are an asshole."
Thanks to Will Collier at Vodkapundit for pointing to Chris in Living On in the Aftermath