And we know of your anguish. We share it.

One of the most studied organizations in the world is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA as it is known colloquially. Because of NASA’s unique mission as an agency, spaceflight, it is an organization that must deal with excessive risk-taking and the gravest of consequences whilst toeing the line of government bureaucracy and red tape. These two polar opposites have a pull on the agency that few other organizations in the world experience and as such the agency is an interesting case study on organizational learning, especially in the wake of major malfunctions that led to the loss of two space shuttle crews in-flight.

NASA has experienced two in-flight malfunctions which have led to the loss of a crew: the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia. Challenger was lost in flight on January 28, 1986 during launch when a rubber O-ring on the solid rocket booster failed and caused ignited propellant to breach the hull of the shuttle’s external fuel tank, causing an explosion and breakup of the orbiter. The temperature at launch was unseasonably cold for the launch site at Cape Kennedy, Florida and the manufacturer of the O-ring had repeatedly warned NASA engineers of the risk of the rubber freezing and possibly generating propellant “blowback” during ignition. The explosion killed all seven astronauts onboard Challenger and halted the Space Shuttle program for two years while an investigation was conducted by a Presidential panel chaired by former Secretary of State Williams Rogers, or the Rogers Commission as the panel is known colloquially. The Rogers Commission determined a historical culture of complacency in contingency planning combined with pressure from various sources outside of the agency on the shuttle’s launch schedule led to the ultimately fatal circumstances of Challenger’s launch.

Before the loss of Challenger, NASA had never lost a crew in-flight and only suffered one other fatal accident to a spacecraft, the loss of Apollo 1 in a ground fire in 1967 that killed three astronauts. A similar panel was convened then and warned NASA of the same hamartia the Rogers Commission reiterated nineteen years later, one summarized by Dr. Diane Vaughn’s iconic phrase in a paper examining NASA after Challenger: normalization of deviance. In short, organizational learning is hindered by the capacity of an organization to rationalize deviant behavior to the end that the culture that pervades does not consider the behavior deviant. In NASA’s case, Apollo 1 was a result of moving too quickly in an attempt to defeat the Soviet Union in the Space Race. Shortcuts learned in earlier spaceflight programs were used to design the Apollo capsule and the safety culture devolved as the collective pressure began to build on the agency to deliver a man to the moon before the Soviets.

Flash-forward to 1986, where normalization of deviance reared its ugly head again as NASA attempted to launch spacecraft at a record pace. The safety culture, now comfortably removed from Project Apollo and fifty launches into the shuttle program, accepted the O-ring risk as nominal and green-lighted the launch. In many organizations a near-fatal accident is enough to permanently change the learning culture of a firm interminably much less the death of three crew members. However, with death so close to each crew on launch, orbit, and reentry; NASA seemed to have forgotten how scarring that scene was amidst the successes of landing ten men on the moon with a much-improved Apollo capsule and fifty successful shuttle launches. While this is not a common situation for organizations to encounter, when the stakes are highest the collective knowledge obtained by an organization should include the necessary precautions to prevent fatalities at the highest level. Unfortunately for NASA the cycle of deviance continued and seventeen years after Challenger impacted the Atlantic Ocean in pieces, Columbia’s loss reminded NASA of the cost of forgetting failure.

Space Shuttle Columbia suffered irrecoverable damage to her left wing during liftoff of the STS-107 mission. A piece of foam from the left strut of the external fuel tank that separates the orbiter from the tank broke off and punctured a hole in the heat shield on the left leading wing of Columbia. During the orbiter’s sixteen days in orbit the wing was not checked for damage and on February 1, 2003 Columbia began descent into the Earth’s atmosphere for reentry and landing. During reentry a blanket of ionized air surrounding the orbiter due to friction from the entry velocity of the spacecraft and temperatures can reach in upwards of 3,000 degrees. To prevent vehicle disintegration a heat shield made up of carbon heat tiles and thermal blankets surrounds the orbiter’s critical components and absorbs the heat generated by reentry.

The aforementioned puncture in Columbia’s heat shield proved fatal to vehicle and crew as temperature sensors in the orbiter’s left wing detected a sudden heat spike and were shut down around 200,000 feet before landing. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) theorized that a flow of superheated plasma entered through the puncture in the left wing, overloaded temperature and pressure sensors in the wing and wheel wells, and then melted the aluminum assembly of the wing. With the wing assembly melted, a complete structural failure of the shuttle was imminent. Columbia began to disintegrate and was separated from the left wing outward. The crew was most likely killed by asphyxiation due to loss of life support systems or trauma incurred when the crew cabin separated from the orbiter and exposed the crew to lethal G-forces. Vehicle breakup occurred across a swath of the Southwest United States stretching from Arizona to Louisiana. Within minutes of Columbia missing her landing time at the Kennedy Space Center NASA activated the Space Shuttle Contingency Action Plan (CAP), a plan developed after the loss of Challenger that deals with the loss of an orbiter.

Much like the aftermath of the Challenger accident, a board was convened to determine the cause of vehicle loss and illustrate the failures in organizational learning that led to the mishap. Instead of a Presidential panel, the CAP allowed for the NASA Administrator to appoint a chairman of the accident investigation panel. Admiral Hal Gehman chaired what came to be known as the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, or CAIB. In a report eerily reminiscent of the Rogers Commission report seventeen years prior, CAIB highlighted the normalization of deviance which had become commonplace at NASA after a return to nominal operation. In the case of Columbia, the deadly deviance was not a frozen O-ring but rather the shedding of external tank foam that was observed on every shuttle launch. Every orbiter before Columbia had launched and returned safely with no damage suffered on ascent thus chalking the potential damage up to an acceptable risk as the elimination of foam would require a complete redesign of the external fuel tank, a project that would delay the shuttle program years and cost taxpayers millions of dollars and NASA millions more in lost payloads. NASA simply did not see the potential damage to the orbiter as enough of a risk to justify a complete shutdown to the shuttle program. In the end this normalization of deviance indeed cost NASA millions of dollars and a halt to the shuttle program, but also the irreparable loss of seven astronauts. The report also decried once again the safety culture at NASA, stating that despite lessons learned from Challenger, many personnel did not speak out on safety matters, as stopping a program with so much financial capital could signal the end of a career. CAIB concluded the organizational culture at NASA, further atrophied by the decentralization of leadership and competing interests across multiple states, was unacceptable and once again required an overhaul of the organization of the agency including the creation of a separate safety office which reports directly to an administrator who holds the ability to bring all projects to a halt in the name of safety.

With an otherwise stellar safety record in manned spaceflight NASA is a dynamic agency which learns by necessity. Every trip into orbit is a new chance to solve the universe’s undiscovered mysteries. However, in a massive stroke of irony, an organization that lends its very mission to learning about spaceflight is not very good at learning about itself. NASA has practiced an organizational philosophy that believes it is better to fix problems after a mishap than identifying them beforehand and working to correct any problems before an accident occurs; a pattern of deviant behavior that was born out of a breakneck effort to defeat the Soviets. Coupled with the massive pressure on NASA from the public and federal government at large, first politically due to the Cold War then fiscally due to the enormous cost of maintaining a fleet of orbiters many Americans see as no more complex than a U-Haul van, cracks in the proverbial heat shield of organizational learning have led to catastrophe in the past and if not corrected fully, will prove to be just as fatal as the agency looks to the International Space Station, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

But the stranger ways of earth know our pride and know our worth...

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;

He has just done things by half.

Life's been a jolly good joke on him,

And now is the time to laugh.

Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;

He was never meant to win;

He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;

He's a man who won't fit in.

- Robert W. Service, "The Men That Don't Fit In"

Let's talk failure.

As the Seattle Seahawks found out on Sunday, it's not that easy. One playcall by coach Pete Carroll led to a heartbreaking interception which literally robbed the team of the one thing they had competed for all year: back-to-back Super Bowl championships. In a split-second their season was over and suddenly 362 days of celebration until Super Bowl 50 became three hundred and sixty-two days of second-guessing by the media, fans, coaches, and most importantly themselves.

How do you respond from such a crushing blow? How do you handle the "after?" It's easy when you're the champion. But for every fairy tale to come true, someone's heart must be broken. Failure is a basic tenant of life and something we all will experience. Here's how to handle it and become a stronger, more confident team leaving the locker room when the next season begins.

After the Super Bowl defeat Coach Carroll was surprisingly straightforward and frank in his explanation of the final playcall and how the Seahawks handled the defeat. In an interview with 710 AM Seattle he stated that the final outcome doesn't define you. Rather, it's how you step forward and embrace the after. Things are going to suck for a while after you lose, no matter what the stakes. The innate feeling of letting yourself and your teammates down is a painful, grating, all-too-familiar mask you must wear as the confetti colors of the other team falls around you. But the old adage that time heals all wounds is also very true. Each day will feel better and every time you lace it up after losing will give you the confidence to be better than before. Maybe it'll be fueled by competition. Maybe it'll be fueled by anger. But the more you practice, the more focused you'll be to perform at higher level. Don't be reticent. Be honest with yourself and your failure. The less time it takes to come to grips with losing, the more time you'll have to prove yourself for the next challenge.

Speaking of that next challenge, it's always going to be there. The Seahawks routed the Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII, and Coach Carroll was lambasted in the media the morning after for saying they'll take the Super Bowl win "in stride." What a difference a year makes. The natural human instinct is to celebrate victories and flush losses, but what if we were to flip that? Flush the victories, they already proved what you know (you're awesome!) Celebrate the failures. No more are you out of your comfort zone than when you fail, and those moments are the greatest opportunities to learn. Stripping your emotions to a visceral level and confronting your faults with no pretense allow fundamental changes to your process to be made and kept. Stagnation after a failure leads to more failure and a propensity to blame everyone but the most important person in the process: yourself.

In the formative years of Hyundai, the car company was a tiny manufacturer with little experience in building cars on an assembly line or knowledge of engineering processes. An ambitious plan set forth by the company called for a massive knowledge base to be accrued and independence from foreign car manufacturers to be accomplished. Hyundai engineers were sent to the four corners of the world to learn how to build a car from the ground up, and the company's first assembly plant was built in six months with workers who worked sixteen hour shifts, seven days a week. This obsessive pursuit was a practice that led to a high-knowledge, high-effort culture which has turned Hyundai into one of the most successful car companies in the world. Over the years, Hyundai evolved from an expansion team with highly motivated rookies to a division championship roster with a blend of savvy veterans and motivated players to a Super Bowl champion who were able to sign talented free agents, scout and develop talented rookies, and demand the best out of the entire organization while managing egos and keeping the basic fundamental knowledge known and strong throughout the entire company. Even in times of crisis, Hyundai stuck to their philosophy and focused the craft of perfection inwards and in the end it paid massive dividends. Knowing that failure is inevitable, even to those highly motivated enough to pursue perfection in their craft, is the best way to turn a momentary setback into a learning opportunity and reach even higher.

Super Bowl-caliber people understand what it is to fail and how to step forward after losing. The Seahawks will have the necessary time to recoup their losses and get back on the practice field, and you will too. Being one yard away from a Super Bowl or failing a math test are one in the same and the steps to getting better are the same too: be honest to yourself, make fundamental changes to what went wrong, and never shy away from your core philosophies. The recovery process is exactly that but the sooner you realize the sun is shining and the next Super Bowl is only a year away, the sooner you'll be having a blast getting focused to compete again.

Per ardua ad astra

A little kid looked at the heavens once and decided he should be there. So, with starstruck eyes and moondust in his soul he dreamt every night of golden wings and fifty miles altitude. With encouragement and dedication from his teachers and parents, he began to see his world through the eyes of those too brave to limit themselves to Earth. Convinced he would be among them, he began planning stops on his tour to the cosmos: Houston, Cape Kennedy, ISS. 

A teenager saw his dreams torn apart over a bluebird Texas sky. Too young for Challenger, he watched in shock as the proudest of orbiters settled into atoms on her way back to Kennedy and a nation began to mourn for those seven souls too brave, anew. Scrubbed of childhood wonder, the business of flight was scary, unnerving, and for the moment, grounded. Amidst the pangs of a country demanding answers, the teenager saw his dream seemingly shelved. Yet, when the doubts crept in, he stubbornly held onto the one thing he had all along: that childhood wonder. 

A young adult watched his dream re-ignite under the SRBs of STS-135 and liftoff once more on the shoulders of the Atlantis. Everything was right with the world again as four of those too brave souls ended an era of which he had grown up with. The culmination of his college career and STS were almost simultaneous, leaving a contented country and one enthused young adult with only one question: what next? There was no limit: the moon, Mars, and beyond. As a new decade dawned, that childhood wonder has served this young adult well, leading him to explore and become a citizen of faith and science. But one singular goal remains, and until that goal is achieved there will be no nights without dreams of golden wings and souls too brave. 

What kept my dream of spaceflight alive through all these years has been my passion to explore. But even more so the efforts and sacrifices of the astronauts who I have watched fly into orbit, make the superhuman seem routine, and return to lead America into her new future. I never looked up to the heroes of culture as a child. The Mercury 7 and TFNGs were the posters on my wall. There may be a day I join them, and it will make all this dreaming a beautiful prelude. Until then, and especially today, I will work to honor the memories of those lost too soon in the ultimate act of service to Mankind. 

Get Smart: Environmental Policy Selection

Policy selection in regards to environmental issues is a complex, multi-faceted process which requires an interdisciplinary approach that mirrors the issue itself. Environmental problems often manifest themselves across social, economic, and political boundaries and the criteria selection must reflect this in order to truly begin to solve an issue. The major categories of selection criteria widely reflect the costs and burden, environmental goals reached, and the social and scientific change generated by said policy. While these criteria are contained in one of Kingdon’s streams, the process itself is a microcosm of the trident metaphor of his streams of selection. 

In today’s policy arena, the discussion of an environmental issue begins and ends with the bottom line. Efficiency, especially in regards to costs and benefits, is a major criterion for policy selection because polluters want to create a good or service in a profitable manner and policymakers do not want regulatory agencies to hamstring the economy to the point of angering their voting constituency. The Kaldor-Hicks criterion states a policy is effective if the benefits of a policy outweigh the costs. The benefit-cost analysis (BCA) is a tool grown out of the Kaldor-Hicks criterion that is used to measure how effective a policy is. An ideal policy would maximize benefits to society and polluters while minimizing costs. Often this requires an approach that combines command and control and market-based instruments. Command and control instruments seek to directly regulate a source of emissions either by the use of technology or product bans. Market-based instruments use an economic approach to incentivize pollution abatement. When implemented correctly, the distributional equity of a BCA creates a system that allows polluters to profit, reduced emissions, and less strain on regulatory agencies because of universal compliance. 

When considering environmental policy, the most successful policies are those that protect human health and the environment. In fact, some argue this should be the only measure of a successful policy. It is this argument between environmental results and distributional equity that drives a majority of the candor in the discussion of policy selection. The criterion emphasizing environmental protection use strict command and control instruments to tightly regulate polluters and prevent pollution. This selection criterion puts a major strain on industry to stay in compliance and regulatory agencies to police polluters. For this reason, environmental protection is not used as a pure selection criterion but can be very effective when used in concert with BCA to regulate highly polluted areas. Environmental protection advocates also promote the idea of environmental justice as part of this criterion as it should ideally take into account the true social impact of a policy decision and not a socioeconomic impact as highlighted by a BCA. 

In the end, an environmental policy should generate a palpable change in those who create, implement, enforce, and evaluate that decision. Thus this factor of change is used as a selection criterion in the policy selection process. Change is the hardest of the major criterion to quantify, simply because the effects of a decision can never be predicted at the beginning of the process. Ideally, a policy will generate new, innovative ways to abate pollution while maintaining profitability and be easy to duplicate and spread throughout an industry.  The true measure of change as a criterion is not in immediate returns but in how an industry responds to a policy decision and how attuned it is to making changes and continuing to innovate, even if it of their own volition. 

Efficiency is a key criterion in policy formulation because it touches all criteria needed in order to create an effective policy. In a regulatory climate mired in bureaucracy, an efficient policy decision appeals to those who want an economically feasible policy, one which maximizes benefits over costs, and produces a wave of innovation amongst polluters. An efficient policy is also a politically feasible policy. While no policy is perfect outside of a vacuum, an efficient policy has the best chance of succeeding the tests of a real world, real market situation. 

Policy is perfect in a vacuum. When applied in a simulator, any given decision can look like the right one. Unfortunately, a perfect problem does not exist. As this is such, a perfect policy will never exist. This is why economically effective criteria should be considered more heavily in the formulation of a policy. Market inefficiencies drive the need to weigh benefits and costs. By targeting these inefficiencies with tools like the BCA, policymakers have a better real world understanding of how a policy will affect those impacted. Selection criterion should be used on a sliding scale: every problem faced is different and each decision will be made separately of each other. For example, one problem may lean heavily toward environmental justice related issues while another deals with strict command and control instruments. However, in a market-based economy the policies made must be created with a heavy emphasis on the social and economic benefits and costs associated with each decision. 

Love Letters: Baton Rouge

Dear Baton Rouge,

I didn't expect to stay long.

Four years was it for me in the beginning. I'd bide my time, get a degree, and go back to the city that really needed me: New Orleans. She was the one still reeling from Katrina. She was the one who harbored the ones I loved. She was the only place I had ever known and the only place I ever thought I'd need. Ninety miles away was too far at first, but somehow it became not far away enough.

Somewhere along this crazy, silly, wonderful ride of the last eight years I fell in love with you. First in a begrudging sort of way, but then wholly. Your families invited me into their homes. You gave me a place I could blossom spiritually. You made me face my fears and failures and somehow pulled me up from the bootstraps when I thought I was done. You took a young man from New Orleans, turned him into an adult, then back into a kid again. I have a life here now. A niche I carved. The first, fledgling marks I've left on this world by myself. And it's because of you. All because of you.

The metrics will say you're not the ideal place to live. There's too much traffic, politics, and infighting to build something here. But that's the beauty of Home. The crystalline paragon we share in our minds is singularly different to each one of us, the feelings and thoughts and emotions that define "Home" are literally one in a billion. And in you I've found a Home, reinforced by every hour of every day I give to the city. A literal labor of love, imprinted upon my heart for a lifetime and forever more.

Someday I'll go. And it'll hurt. After all it's hard to look true love in the eye and leave. But dreams are dreams no matter how bad they make your heart bleed, and I've got to chase them. You should know that about me by now. But every flash of purple and gold, every hymn sang to the heavens, even every maddening traffic jam will bring me back, if only for a second. I'll be there wishing, waiting for an operator to put me on the line. To Baton Rouge. Sweet Baton Rouge. My Baton Rouge.

Love,

Paul

The Men That Don't Fit In

If they just went straight they might go far
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.

- "The Men Who Don't Fit In" by Robert Service 

After the Seattle Seahawks routed the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII, Pete Carroll was asked about his expectations for the next season. With the celebration still swirling around him, he gave an answer that was dissected across sports radio the next day, mostly in not-so-favorable terms, 

“The first meeting that we’ll have will be tomorrow. That starts tomorrow. Our guys would be surprised if we didn’t. We really have an eye on what’s coming, and that we don’t dwell on what just happened. We’ll take this in stride, and we’ll have a big celebration on Wednesday in town and enjoy the heck out of it. Everybody will enjoy the heck out of it. We won’t miss the fun part of it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t set our sights on how this is going to go...We’ll be battling and competing...We’ll get going (with the) next challenge."

The critics were outraged. Coach Carroll was taking the Super Bowl in stride? What "next challenge" is there? The crowing achievement of his career...and he's going back to work tomorrow!?

The truth is, nobody prepares you for the after. For so long, high performance individuals and teams focus on a singular goal: perfection in their craft. You try so hard to accomplish it and once you have it, it feels like you have nothing. There's a phantom itch left by the late night meetings, practice sessions, dress rehearsals, and camaraderie built up over weeks, months, or even years of preparation. The next morning you wake up with the Lombardi Trophy and the realization the thing you really craved was the feeling of "family" you had grown to know and love, and in the coming days that would be spread across a city or even across the country, never to have that moment again.

It's a stark realization I'm coming to grips with after three wonderful productions of "Fiddler On The Roof." A Super Bowl victory it is not, but the time I spent in rehearsal and waiting backstage for the roar of the audience is just as memorable to me. I forged relationships, had lots of fun, and saw the best actors and actresses our church and city had to offer turn in as dominant a performance as the Legion of Boom. And today, the day after, I woke up with that familiar feeling rising up inside of me. I gravitated to that interview by Coach Carroll as a sign of what to do next. His guiding principle of "Always Compete" has served me well and it was a joy to watch something you've applied in your life succeed on such a big stage like the Super Bowl. As I read the interview again, I smiled and it clicked.

As kids, we always look for the next thing to climb. Whatever is bigger or higher or stronger, we resolve out of will, pride, or pure childish naivete to conquer. The fascination with climbing has taken us to the moon and back as humans; and it should have dawned on me earlier: it's about the climb. The goal is a waypoint, the relationships and rehearsals an anchor. What Fiddler has prepared me to do is launch myself into the next challenge and even further out of my comfort zone, knowing I have the love and support of a congregation behind me, confidence in myself inside of me, and a Life WithOut Limits in front of me. The memories I made will be just that, but everything else should not be discarded. They are the tools I'll have to use to get back to that feeling, this time with another team. The Seahawks will return next year and many things will be different. But at the heart of the team concept set forth by Coach Carroll will be the same goal: perfection at your craft. And just like my beloved cast of Fiddler, the players and coaches will approach their lives knowing what it is like to be at the top, but realizing what's truly important in the journey.

"Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans. When that's where you left your heart. The moonlight on the bayou a creole tune that fills the air. I dream about magnolias in bloom and I'm wishin' I was there." - Louis Armstrong

There hasn't always been a party on Bourbon and I am anathema to the single-mindedness of the rest of the country about New Orleans because of Bourbon, but in a city that celebrates survival in everything we do there has to be a street to do that on. I could do very much without the neon, however. The scenes you see on national TV around this time of year only tell a fraction of our story. New Orleans is the most unique of American cities: a celebration of culture rooted in a three-hundred year old mistake. We survive, we persist, and we party. Yet only the last third of that Trinity survives past state lines. You couldn't make a gumbo with only onions...

I write this at the end of another Mardi Gras season, perhaps pensive as I tend to be going into the Lenten season or just sad that the party's over. For the first time in years, I managed to make it to the French Quarter more than once as friends and family were in town. As we walked across Canal and back into history (architecturally, anyway) I caught myself skimming my hand across three hundred-year old walls as I'm prone to do. Mardi Gras is not the season for a historically-minded thinker as myself to be in the Quarter, I've come to find out. As my hand grazed alongside the walls of Arnaud's, I noticed a very pretty girl hurling chunks of blueberry-colored vomit onto those same walls. In an instant my wanderlust for historicity on Bourbon was replaced with a deep desire for hand soap. Bad call on my part. 

It's true I'm a stalwart for an old line of thinking: a line of thinking that preaches preservation, beignets, and the history behind them. Call me out on it if you want. In a city sculpted so precariously on marsh in between two water bodies, new is not a reminder of pain for many. It's a celebration of promise. For me it's the opposite. Every move off of the high ground is a risk. An adage in New Orleans should be "the further you move away from the cemeteries, the closer you are destined to be in them." Modern engineering has made us confident in our designs and dangerously at odds with Mother Nature yet sometimes she just laughs and floods the city anyway. The blame is placed, the city is rebuilt, and the celebration of new continues. In a city where survival is counterintuitive to the universe, celebration is the only force powerful enough to keep us rooted in tradition. 

I deeply appreciate those who come to New Orleans to celebrate with us. The revival of our city since Katrina has been in major part because of tourism. We love to make you feel at home. Hell, we hope you do make it your home someday. The only thing I hope you seek out when you visit are the first and second parts of my Trinity: survival and persistence. It's true we have problems. New Orleans is sinking, the murder rate is astronomical, and the Saints have to pay Jimmy Graham. When you're here we love to gloss over these things and take you out for po-boys and jazz brunch and walk it off with a lap at Audubon Park. It's the way we have come to extenuate our existence in America's most brilliant mistake. But don't think for a second we don't want to solve these problems that plague us. In these celebrations big and small we find the strength and courage to face whatever is thrown at us. Mardi Gras reinforces the feeling that we are special in this world and from there we resolve to never see the city like the world did in 2005. A Super Bowl championship throws the city into a frenzy and we realize nowhere else has such a special bond to a representation of their city like New Orleans does with their Saints.

As Lent begins, so does the time for America's most Catholic of cities to pause and reflect. For a couple of days the celebration ends and we wait. For someone who believes that new is a reminder of pain when framed in the history of New Orleans, you may think I take these days in stride. But I, like the rest of the city, realize the innate need of promise. After forty-six days a Savior will rise and JazzFest will be right around the corner. The celebration will begin anew, just in time for hurricane season.