"We Are not OK"

I read in the newspaper delivered to my hotel room on Saturday, that "New Orleans is Doing Fine!". I'll try and track down a link, but the paper was The Australian, a Murdoch rag. The gist of the article was that New Orleans was now up and back in business after Katrina.

When I got into the office, I noticed that Making Light was linking to "We Are Not OK" by author Poppy Z. Brite:

1. Most of the city is still officially uninhabitable. We and most other current New Orleanians live in what is sometimes known as The Sliver By The River, a section between the Mississippi River and St. Charles Avenue that didn't flood, as well as in the French Quarter and part of the Faubourg Marigny. In the "uninhabitable sections," there are hundreds of people living clandestinely in their homes with no lights, power, or (in many cases) drinkable water. They cannot afford generators or the gasoline it takes to run them, or if they have generators, they can only run them for part of the day. They cook on camp stoves and light their homes with candles or oil lamps at night.

...

9. Cadaver dogs and youth volunteers gutting houses are still finding bodies in the Lower Ninth Ward...

...

It's quite powerful stuff, and well worth reading if you want to know what the place is like after Katrina.

So which to believe? The right-wing rag or the author who lives in New Orelans? I guess you know the answer to that one already.