New Yorkers Without Electricity = Good

Can you imagine any newspaper - much less the NYT - writing this about Katrina?

If they wanted to talk to a friend, they had to do it in person. If their first post-storm instincts were to check a weather app, they resigned themselves to battery-run radios.

As the full scope of the storm’s damage became obvious, it was clear these inconveniences were hardly grave. And because most children, and adults, eventually found some kind of connection via an unaffected neighbor (or Starbucks), the withdrawal was often more of a tech diet than a total fast.

But the storm provided a rare glimpse of a life lived offline. It drove some children crazy, while others managed to embrace the experience of a digital slowdown. It also produced some unexpected ammunition for parents already eager to curb the digital obsessions of their children.

The question pretty much answers itself.  What a difference a president's political party makes!  Here's a picture of how people on Coney Island are struggling.

After traveling six miles by foot and by bus to bring food home to her five children in Brooklyn’s Coney Island neighborhood, Cherry Barnett broke down in tears.

"I've had it,” she said. “I don't want to live here anymore. We can't live like this."

Down on Surf Avenue, businesses are shuttered, leaving local residents unable to get basic necessities like food, medicine, or even do laundry. Once the sun goes down, residents say it’s too dangerous to venture out anyway.

"It's very hard,” said Mary Edwards, 69, who lives in the complex. “There are no stores here anymore. There's nothing. We can't even come out of our apartments at night. We need a curfew on Coney Island."

And let's not forget that, unlike New Orleans, NYC gets pretty damned cold in the winter.  But hey, according to the NYT, it's only a minor inconvenience.