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Hope Addiction After Katrina

By Shaun McGann

On a recent stretch of little sleep and too much coffee I found myself reading a story about the President visiting New Orleans and letting everyone know that Hope had started to return to the city, which I'm assuming will soon be followed by the people who were displaced by the hurricane. Which is good. Hope took a 3 year vacation from New Orleans but now she's ready to come back and see what's been going on since Katrina blew her clear out of the state.

So where has Hope been if not in New Orleans? It's certainly been all over the news, Barack Obama likes to talk about Hope in just about every speech, George Bush will bring it up anytime Iraq or Afghanistan or terror or oil prices, or the economy, or the future or just about anything not going well is the topic of conversation.

But where did this abstract concept of Hope come from? Being amped up on a bucket load of caffeine and with no real prospect of sleep, I did a little research, as much research as I could wrap my mind around (thanks infoplease.com and whitehouse.gov) looking for the word "hope" in Presidential speeches. For instance, George Washington used the word twice in his inaugural address, though, not as a concept whereas, for instance, our current President, in a speech given in Cincinnati in 2002 during the run up to the Iraq War used it seven times.

There was no mention of hope in the Gettysburg Address or the Emancipation Proclamation. Apparently Lincoln wasn't big on Hope. Yet, Richard Nixon used it five times in his Farewell Address just before a chopper flew him into the hills of New Jersey where he spent his time writing memoirs and scaring children on Halloween. For some reason, in his darkest hour, Richard Nixon was believer in Hope. All of this makes me wonder where the whole thing came from, and the best I can tell, Hope came to the United States some time in the 20th century and though it sometimes takes a sabbatical with little notice, its return is often predicted by our elected, or campaigning officials.

But it's 3 a.m. now and I have my own fears and concerns. Sure, I want to be a responsible, pro-active citizen, but I have certain things I hold out hope for myself. I hope that I one day I can steadily clear five digits in my bank account. I hope that I'm never crushed to death by frozen, blue, jettisoned toilet water from a commercial airplane; I hope that throughout the rest of my lifetime Joseph Stalin remains dead. I actively hope these, and about a thousand other things throughout the course of any given day. And there are smaller things, more insignificant things that I hope for, like the Jets making the playoffs or NBC not canceling 30 Rock.

What worries me is this: what if I'm hoping for these things too hard? Am I responsible, at least partially, for Hope leaving New Orleans in the first place? Was some combination or, even one singular hope of mine so wished for that Hope simply could not appease me and remain in New Orleans at the same time? Could my neurotic wishes and wants really shift the winds of fortune from the bayou, or even Indonesia, China, Africa, and Washington? I hope not.