Lolis Eric Elie knows how to get right to the point. As a regular columnist at the Times Picayune, Elie has little room for verbosity, but still those few words of his printed on a little slip of newspaper are often more than enough to knock you over. He has the same effect in person.
In the early summer of 2006, I was covering a story about a group of restaurateurs, who were visiting New Orleans to learn more the levee failures. Before getting on tour buses to see the devastation, the sponsoring-organization, Share Our Strength, asked Elie to say a few words about the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. With a straight, almost deadpan-delivery, Elie asked the group to imagine a trucker crashing his 18-wheeler through the middle of their living room. The trucker gets out of his cab, looks around and says, “Wow. I feel bad about this. Tell you what, I’ll give you 50 percent for everything I’ve destroyed.” Pause. Read the rest of this entry »
