Friends,
As Josh said, this ride has reached its end. I have been humbled and awed by the people who came to this blog to read our words and experience Katrina for these last eight months. I hope it was useful to some and calming to others.
We decided to end this blog today on the news of being honored with the most prestigious journalism award in the country. Not to bring it down, but it is a bittersweet thing to accept. I would gladly hand it back if it would prevent the death and untold suffering for which we were awarded the prize.
Let it also be known that this award only highlights the fact that we did nothing special. Any journalist that I am proud to know would have done the same thing. Some would do it for the glory and adventure, but most would because they believe in the power of words to help, to calm and to force action, especially when life spins around on you and kicks you in the guts.
Katrina chose us, we did not choose Katrina— all we had to do was show up to work.
Thank you all for reading.
Mike Keller

Dear Readers,
We have been asked by our superiors to remove the last two photographs posted to this blog and instead of editing out portions of my last post that some readers could find offensive, it has been removed in its entirety.
I have one thing to add here that Mike and I have not made sufficiently clear: Nothing shown or expressed on this blog is directly or indirectly affiliated with, linked to, as a result of or in league with the views, opinions or beliefs of the Sun Herald or any of its corporate affiliates.
Again, The Sun Herald and its corporate affiliates do not support, agree with or condone any commentary, opinion or even reporting written into or expressed on this blog.

I am humbled by the spirit of the people of south Mississippi and congratulate the Sun Herald staff for its efforts after Hurricane Katrina, which have recently been justly recognized.

I will not be going ahead with the Biloxi Banter blog.
I will repeat one thing I wrote earlier:
Our loyal readers have made this worth it. Thank you profoundly for reading.

Our Dance with Katrina is done.

Just to keep the content fresh, here's a photo of a chicano caballaro in Gulfport last week during our smallish version of the many nationwide marches protesting the "Sensenbrenner" bill that would have made undocumented immigrants felons. Mississippi Congressman Chip Pickering co-sponsored that bill. I wonder if he considered how many of those immigrants were rebuilding the Gulf Coast?
This photo by Joshua Norman