This just in from Alabama, where Katrina (pictured) has gone to die.
Via IB, SB and Retort.
Update: While reading Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide, I came across a mention of this Rilke poem, a portion of which reads
Denn das Schöne ist nichts
als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen,
und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht,
uns zu zerstören.
and which I think translates best as:
For beauty is nothing
but the start of a terror we can hardly bear,
and it amazes us so, because it serenely declines
to destroy us.