“So, how are things in New Orleans?” I was asked several times Sunday. I was the guest preacher at the First Baptist Church of Andalusia, Alabama, some five hours from my house. From similar situations in other churches I have learned to come up with a quick answer to that question. Even assuming they have a real interest in the rebuilding of this city, no one has time for an in-depth 30 minute monologue.

“Anything you say about New Orleans right now is true,” I tell the questioner. “Parts of the city are lovely and prospering. Parts are being rebuilt, and some of the city looks awful, like a bomb has gone off. We used to have 135 churches. One month after Katrina, we had 35 still operating. Today, we have 100, some of them brand new, some prospering, and some struggling.”

The response to that is generally the same. “Oh, well, then you’re doing great, sounds like.”

I say, “Yeah. We’re doing great. Thanks for asking.”

Nothing snide about that answer. It’s the truth, assuming one also understands that the rebuilding of this city will continue for another quarter-century barring any further hurricanes.

In the days following Hurricane Katrina, when floodwaters were inundating most of this city and St. Bernard Parish, the awful phrase we heard again and again was “toxic soup.” It referred to the fears that the liquid under which our city was drowning was not just water, but a stew of water plus oil and sludge and who knows what else. Experts led us to fear about the health of the city after the water receded and we were able to re-enter.

Now, we learn there was no “toxic soup.”

In fact, the EPA has said the contamination of the city’s soil “did not get any worse from Katrina.” Which begs the question, of course. Just how toxic was the soil before the hurricane?

Pretty bad. According to the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research, as reported in Saturday’s (November 1, 2008) “Inside Out” section of the Times-Picayune, heavily contaminated sites across this New Orleans, primarily around the city center, expose children to five times the amount of lead considered safe for ingestion.

For decades, lead poisoning in children has been connected to various health and cognitive problems, and in some cases, is tied to criminal behavior once the children grow up. Howard Mielke, research professor with the Center, says studies have shown that elevated levels of lead in children’s bones can lead to “aggressive behavior, attention disorders, and delinquency.”

So, what to do about it? A local artist named Mel Chin has an answer. He has started a project called the Fundred Dollar Bill which will try to generate $300 million to “remediate” all the contaminated soil in New Orleans. And what is involved in “remediating” bad soil? The answer is fascinating.

Scientists have discovered an agent called Apatite 2 which, when mixed with the dirty soil, binds itself to the molecular structure of the lead, making it highly stable. Normally, when lead is ingested into the body, it breaks down and joins the various organs of the host, causing all sorts of reactions, all of them bad. But since Apatite 2 stabilizes the lead, if a human happens to take some inside the body, it retains its character and passes out as waste.

In Operation Paydirt, workers are plowing Apatite 2 into the soil of certain test playgrounds, then spreading six inches of river sediment from the Bonnet Carre Spillway (just west of the city) over the ground (as a sealant, I suppose).

If the results are good, the project will spread to other playgrounds and eventually to every area of contamination in the inner city.

Here’s to Mel Chin, an artist with a love for children and an eye for making a difference.

Just across the page from the article on Chin’s project was a photo of a sign on someone’s door: “Beware of Dog.” Underneath, someone had scribbled, “And you can’t trust the cat either.”

Speaking of scribbling.

Every city in America has a problem with graffiti. A couple of years ago, a group of concerned citizens formed themselves into a vigilante committee with the purpose of painting over all the local graffiti it can find. That’s good, right? Almost.

Over these months, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing the artistic handiwork of lawless artists appear suddenly on the sides of buildings and along fences, only to notice a day or two later that the surfaced has been repainted a dull gray. The vigilantes are on the job.

One day last week, the Times-Picayune ran a feature about a local company that invited the graffiti artists to paint a display on the side of their building. The artwork was good — these guys are gifted, no one questions that — and interesting. Later the same day, however, the vigilantes appeared and began to cover it with gray paint. The newspaper ran two photographs alongside one another, the first showing the artwork and the second showing it halfway painted over — the way it was left when the cops were called to arrest the do-gooders.

The police interviewed everyone, found the offenders with the paint brushes to be responsible citizens who had devoted themselves to keeping the city beautiful, and were left with a puzzle. Finally, they arrested the leader of the group, Fred Radtke, nicknamed “the Gray Ghost” for the color of the paint they use and the anonymity of their team (meaning, they show up, paint over the drawings, then disappear).

Fred made bail, and the incident made all the talks shows. Freddie Arnold in our office heard Fred on a call-in show one day last week. “He admitted nothing,” Freddie said, “and was adamant that he has the right to do this,” citing some city statute. “The thing is,” he added, “the city law says one has to get the permission of the property owner to clean up graffiti. This guy Fred says he got it once before and that that applies in this case.”

The owner of the store had a different opinion.

If this turns out badly — whatever that means — look for someone to try to make a cause celebre out of it. “That’s what happens when good people try to do good work today — they run afoul of bureaucracies and laws. It’s enough to discourage good people from speaking up or acting.”

But that doesn’t apply here, I think. Rather, what we have is a pretty good lesson for church folk like you and me: be careful about forcing your standards on others, no matter how excellent those standards are or how right you think you are. Some people like graffiti.

Having said that, we agree that society as a whole does have to come together and do exactly this: set standards for all to conform to. That’s how we get speeding laws and anti-litter laws and codes protecting property. This has given us laws outlawing murder, and why we need one against abortion, I say.

In any case, it’s just that we (as individuals or our little group) mustn’t take it upon ourselves to set standards for others and then insist they conform to our rules. Do-gooders like you and me must respect the right of those not sharing our values to disagree.

It’s a large subject, and not settled in a few paragraphs, but I believe I’ll cut it off with that. Feel free to chime in below.

Last note. Periodically on these pages, we comment on our do-nothing Recovery Czar for New Orleans, Dr. Ed Blakely, the man with the gold-plated resume, high salary, grand pronouncements, and tiny results to show for all the hoopla. He’s just finished two years in his high-profile position with New Orleans and at various times makes conflicting statements on his future. One day, he’s thinking of hanging it up and heading back to Australia or New Zealand, wherever he’s from and where his wife lives, and the next day, he’s angry anyone would suggest such a thing and declares he’s here for years if the mayor wants him.

Now, Mayor Nagin announces he is closing the recovery office, but may keep Blakely on in some capacity, adding that he has done the city a wealth of good. Hissoner is in a minority in that opinion, however. Most people feel the sooner Doctor Blakely heads home, the better for New Orleans.

We have grown so used to press conferences by city leaders to make major announcements on redevelopment plans and then for nothing to come from all the to-do, citizens have grown bored by anything City Hall is doing or promising.

Whatever the new president does and whoever he is, we hope he and his team will restore confidence in the federal government in that regard. We’ll work on our local government the best we can. The next mayoral election is still 2 years away.