President Bush and the federal government refuse to name it, but August 29th will always be Katrina Day. A day to remember and mourn the catastrophic destruction that was unleashed upon the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. It changed the lives of millions of people forever.

We have Pearl Harbor Day. We have Valentine's Day. We have a fucking Secretary's Day. Listen, Katrina Day should be a paid holiday, a federal holiday. I say this not in the spirit of getting something for nothing. Quite the opposite. This holiday should exist to give back to our communities. Certainly, there is no way to enforce this. But maybe this is the spirit that John F. Kennedy tried to foster when he said "ask not what you can do for your country, but what you can do for your country." Well, this day of rememberance should not be about our country, but our communities.

August 29th should be a day that people can promise to give something back to their community, to acknowledge that they are each fortunate to be alive and living in America. The suffering that this natural disaster exposed millions of people to is a daily experience in some countries. If we can't give one day back to help our communities, then what is the point at all?