IDF GIVES GAZANS FINAL WARNING

YAHOO/AP - (hat tip CUANAS): "An hour after we leave the field, there will be a strategic change ... in the nature of our response to even an attempt at terror," Maj. Gen. Yisrael Ziv, the military's chief of operations, told Israel Radio. "We shall have a far more extreme reaction to any attempt."

The IDF can be more lethal and destructive in their counter-attacks now, because Israel no longer occupies Gaza.

[PROGNOSTICATIONS/GAMING/CONJECTURE: I expect this warning to go unheard by either HAMAS or the (either) inneffectual or two-faced Abbas. And, I expect this to occur while the UN general Assembly is in session between 9/14-16 - because the Palestinians (correctly) perceive the UNGA as their ally because they know that the world body (like the Arabs themselves) will always see the Palestinians as the Palestinians see themselves: as victims -- even if they are the ones intitiating attacks.

The next true test will come when Egypt - fresh off of (barely) democratic elections must decide wheter to enforce their border with Gaza, or allow HAMAS to resupply through Egypt. This will be another moment of truth for Mubarak. I would wager he will allow the border to be a sieve - just like Assad does with Syria's border with Iraq.

The next few moves on the board are also predictable: the UN - and the EU - will condemn Israel; Bush and Sharon will be further isolated as they were during the Arafat "freeze-out" period, and Israel will continue to finish the anti-terror fence - unilaterally making themselves safer and unilaterally establishing a border.

What will break this cycle of violence? The (induced) collapse of the Assad regime. This will be sort of a "discovered check" against the Jihadists: they will lose a safe-haven, and it will further isolate Iran - a benefit on all fronts. The collapse of Assad will be brought about by continued attacks along his border and within his borders by infiltarted agents and Syrian Kurds. The mayhem and chaos which will result from Assad's fall will benefit Iraq, and Israel - as HAMAS and Hiz b'Allah and Zarqawi lose a major supplier. The USA will then pressure Israel to make a quick deal with the new democratic regime in Syria, so then they can solidfy their own border with Syria and help the new Syrian regime gain some domestic stability.

ANYWAY, it all begins with the next major HAMAS attack against Israel. Then... we shall see. SO, STAY TUNED...]

KATRINAGATE

The failure of Governor Blanco to allow the Red Cross or Salvation Army into Nalwins and to resupply the 'dome or the Convention Center - and the failure of the MSM to adequately report that this was the cause of the terrible suffering we all witnessed for 4 days after Katrina hit - is a scandal and it's called BLANCOGATE!

The failure of Mayor Nagin to follow his city's Hurricane Evacuation Plan is a scandal and it's called NAGINGATE.

Together, these scandals - which togther were responsible for the horrific scenes of suffering at the Superdome and the Convention Center - are called KATRINAGATE!

Blanco and Nagin should resign IMMEDIATELY.

Welcome DISSECTING LEFT readers!

MORTALITY COMPARISONS REVEAL USA RESPONSE TO KATRINA WAS EXCELLENT

Nagin - the inept and negligent and hysterical mayor of New Orleans - who bears major responsibility for the horrific conditions in the Superdome and the Convention Center (because he FAILED to evaucate his poor citizens from the city, and because he FAILED to provide security or sustenance to those who followed his advice and sought shelter where and when he advised them to, and then failed to get his governor to allow the Red Cross or the Salvation Army in to his city to replenish sustenance for his citizens) - predicted a death toll in New Orleans alone of perhaps as many as 10,000 people.

This prediction horrified the public and made people want to BLAME SOMEONE!

The current death toll from Katrina in New Orleans - and the rest of Louisiana and Mississipp and Alabama - is less than 400. This number is SURE to go up, but it is VERY UNLIKELY that it will reach 10,000 or anything near that dire and irresponsible prediction.

BY COMPARISON: the 2003 heat-wave in Europe killed 35-40,000, (14,847 in France alone; 20,000 in Italy). [More HERE.]

And Hurricane Katrina was a HUGE natural cataclysm which wreaked huge damage to 90,000 square miles! In fact, in terms of the force and breadth of the physical destruction it wreaked, Katrina was the worst natural disater to hit a developed nation in all of human history.

I think this proves that the HYSTERICAL charges by the Left and the MSM they dominate (that the Bush Administration dropped the ball) are entirely unfounded.

In fact, if you subtract the horrifying images of the Superdome and Convention Center from the "newsreels" (and your memories) there was next-to-nothing wrong with the federal response (or the federal, state and local responses in Mississippi and Alabama, whose coasts were savaged more completely by Katrina than was the city of New Orleans). And when considers the FACT that the Superdome and Convention Center debacles were strictly the result of local and state government incompetence, it means that there was absolutely NOTHING wrong with the federal response. PERIOD.

Eventually, this truth will come out. The truth always does.

In addition, when New Orleans is restored, renovated and repopulated in RECORD TIME, this will seen as a huge triumph of the federal government's wonderful efforts (huge and comprehensive efforts which went nearly completely UNREPORTED by the MSM but which are compiled HERE by RELIEFWEB, an outfit run by the UN -- hat-tip BRAINSTER).

AND REMEMBER: the CANAL which broke and flooded New Orleans was NEW and up to standard. The Army Corps has utterly refuted the charge that the canal break and the flood which ensued was caused by a lack of funding.

WELCOME ROGER L. SIMON READERS! And welcome DAILY PUNDIT readers, too! Daily Pundit had made a similar comparison a few days ago - proof we should all read it EVERYDAY! Welcome Dr. Sanity readers! WELCOME WINDS OF CHANGE READERS! Welcome DAOU REPORT readers. AND WELCOME TRUTH LAID BEAR READERS! WELCOME MAXED-OUT MAMA READERS - SHE HAS MORE!

UPDATE: Here's a gem from one of my commenters:

It is disappointing that so many conservative bloggers have gotten caught up in the MSM's manipulation of emotions and have joined the hysterical cacophony denouncing Mike Brown and FEMA.

How come FEMA could get it right through 4 devastating hurricanes in Florida last years, with nobody howling for Mike Brown's head, and in New Orleans he couldn't do a damn thing right?

I'll tell you the difference -- Governor Jeb Bush vs Governor Katherine Babineaux Blanco. And with Nagin whining and screaming when he should have been providing LEADERSHIP.

The Federal system is based on subsidiarity, and it usually works well. The local and State authorities usually know what they have to do to provide the basic governmental functions known to the common law. The Federal government is a government of designated powers, and should only do what it is specifically chartered to do. When the dust settles, it will be clear that the Federal response was quick and effective, and that the problems in New Orleans were squarely the fault of the State and local governments.

For 100 years New Orleans has declined to police any neighborhood except the Quarter and the District, and like the Democrat party anywhere, they prefer their voters poor, stupid, dependent, but only if necessary dead.

UPDATE: Brown has resigned from FEMA. The Left, and the MSM they dominate, will declare this is an admission of guilt. BUT IT IS NOT. He has UNJUSTLY become a huge liability to his boss's boss, and is falling on his sword for his boss.

IRAQ, KATRINA AND THE DEMOCRAT'S FATAL DIVIDE

On one side of the Party you have Leftie Dove Democrat Senator Russ Feingold, who was opposed to the Iraq War (as he was opposed to the 1991 Gulf War), and who has proposed setting a deadline for withdrawal.

Another part of the party is represented by Centrist-liberal Senator Joe Biden, who was in favor of the Iraq War (unlike the Gulf War which he opposed), but has consistently criticized the Bush Administration and consistently called for MORE TROOPS to be sent to Iraq, as if that would improve security; (the military people in charge do NOT believe we need more troops; one reasonmthey give is that a bigger footprint would only create more supply needs, and it is the supply-lines which are our weakest points/targets; therefore, they argue, more troops would only make us more vulnerable - but nevermind: Joe Biden thinks he knows better than the generals in charge!).

There are NO DEMOCRAT HAWKS anymore.

The divide between the Feingold/Kucinich/Dean wing of the party and the Biden/Hillary wing is UNBRIDGEABLE.

Even if the primaries are restructured to prevent the activist/Leftist wing of the party to pick a nominee early (by spacing them out again, and by making the larger states - with more expensive campaign hurdles - have more influence in order to weed out the "grassroots leftists, and allow a centrist to have chance at winning the nomination), the left will eiother stay home or vote for a third party candidate.

This inner structural weakness is compounded by demographic facts which make it tougher and tougher for the Democrats to win nationally: the red states are growing while the blue counties are shrinking.

I do not believe ANY potential candidate in the Democrat Party can bridge the inner gap and win in November (by gaining votes in red states).

That's why I believe the Democrats are in MAJOR NEGATIVE ATTACK MODE. Their ONLY hope is to destroy the GOP.

If Bush nominates a black woman to the SCOTUS, he'll peel off enough black voters to make the Democat Party as powerful as the Whigs, and about half as relevant.

PREDICTION: By the time the 2006 elections come up, Iraq will be seen as a huge victory - (check out this NYTIMES GRAPHIC for proof that most things are going very VERY WELL there!) - and New Orleans and the Gulf Coast will likely be well on their way to recovery. (And, after the dust has settled and water receded, most of the blame for the less than perfect first 4 days of recovery effort will be seen as due to incompetence and bad decision-making by Blanco and Nagin, and NOT incompetence or callousness by Buhs or anyone at FEMA or DHS.)

As a result, the GOP will pick up seats in Congress. YES: THE GOP WILL GAIN AGAIN, in spite of the MSM carrying the water for the Left by saying over-and-over-and-over-and-over that Bush is a failure.

POLL: MOST BRITS WANT NEW LIMITS ON ABORTIONS

FROM DISSECTING LEFTISM: Britain: Abortion laws too lax:

"Powerful public support for an overhaul of the 40-year-old abortion laws has emerged from a Daily Telegraph survey of the nation's attitudes to the key ethical and moral issues of the day. Only 27 per cent of those questioned believed that the current 24-week legal limit for termination should be retained. Fifty eight per cent said abortions should not be carried out after the 20th week of pregnancy, with women more likely than men to favour tighter controls."

A 20 week limit would be in absolute accordance with ROE v. WADE - which held that states could only limit abortions which occur BFORE viability; 20 week old preemies routinely survive.

BUSH SHOULD NOMINATE JANICE ROGERS BROWN, NOW!

If Bush named eminently qualified federal circuit Judge Rogers Brown to replace O'Connor now, he would prove -- once and for all -- that neither he or the GOP "hates black people" as the demagogues on the Left charge.

The Dems and the Left are SHAMELESSLY using Katrina in a last ditch desperate demagogic attempt to stop the current leakage of blacks to the GOP - which if it continues would doom the party to defeat after defeat for decades.

More here.

BUSH DECLARES 9/16 "A NATIONAL KATRINA PRAYER DAY"

BBC: "US President George W Bush has declared Friday 16 September a national day of prayer and remembrance for the victims of Hurricane Katrina." I bet the ACLU sues to stop it.

UPDATED: ABBAS AND ASSAD BOTH CANCEL NY VISITS

These two items make me VERY suspicious, and a little worried:

1 - Assad has just canceled his NY visit - scheduled to allow him to attend the opening of the UN.

2 - Abbas did the same thing earlier in the day (blaiming it on "unrest" in Gaza).

SO... WHAT DO THEY KNOW? Or fear? I think they might know something very bad is planned to coincide with the UN General Assembly convention - and/or the anniversary of 9/11. AND: while a lot of our resources are focused on the Gulf Coast.

I hope the FBI is reading this...

[ASIDE: Ariel Sharon will be attending. If he cancels, then I am staying out of town!]

UPDATE - 9/9/05: BBC: "French President Jacques Chirac has been advised by his doctors not to travel by air for six weeks, the Defence Ministry said. The advice means the French leader is set to miss the UN general assembly in New York on 14-16 September."

My "gaming" of these (now three) major, sudden cancellations is becoming more serious; now I must wonder aloud: Is this too a cover story?! Has Chirac and France's intel' community's vast contacts in the "radical" and "militant" Arab-Muslim world led them to discover that a major attack on NY and/or the UN is planned to coincide with the General Assembly convention?! I believe that IF this were the case that the French intel' agencies would inform the CIA and FBI - so this scenario is UNLIKELY. Nevertheless, this rash of last minute cancellations is puzzling. Maybe it's really due to the VOLKER REPORT - which has proven that the UN is a hugely inept, wasteful and thoroughly corrupt organization (which is responsible for the biggest financial scandal of all time! $100BILLION stolen!) - having also made the UN opening a bad PR event and therefore a waste of time.

UPDATE #2 - 9/9: "Reuters" - "Iran's speaker cancels US trip over visa delay. The speaker of Iran's parliament yesterday cancelled plans to visit New York for a UN meeting because of delays in receiving a US visa, state television quoted a senior official as saying. "

Hmmm... This beginning to get interesting...

LET'S USE KELO TO REBUILD NEW ORLEANS

Kelo was a bad decision, (articles here and here). But let's USE IT anyhow - (while we can; before the most effected states (LA & MISS) pass laws banning the practices which Kelo allows: chiefly, the seizure of private land by the state in order to give it to a private developer whose redevelopment of said land will have public benefit).

Vast tracts of fouled (and previously BLIGHTED) New Orleans property should be bought by a federal government trust - (overseen by the likes of Paul Volker and Colin Powell and Rudy Giuliani and Tommy Franks and Mario Cuomo and Paul Ueberroth and real estate developers Hovnanian, Trump and Rudin).

Then -- AFTER a master plan is developed, with new state of the art utility, port, and communications infrastructure mapped out and finaced by the commission -- neighborhoods should be put up for competitive bidding by PRIVATE developers.

The private developers would submit master plans of their neighborhood redevelopment - which would have to conform to the federal master plan for the overall city and the neighborhood. And their redevelopment plans would have to conform to historical architectutral standards set up by the commission to protect the CHARACTER of the city.

Private developers redeveloping NEIGHBORHOODS en mass (or at least redeveloping several square blocks at a time) would work faster, cheaper, and bring completed projects to the market sooner than anyone or anything else.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to redesign and redevelop New Orleans in a way which will leave the mistakes of the past in the past: no more ghetto projects; no more over-crowded poverty-stricken de facto segregated blocks, no more crack-houses.

Let's use Kelo. Let's begin NOW.

UPDATE - 9/21: Welcome readers of NRO's THE BUZZ!

DEMOCRAT PARTY LEADERSHIP AND LEFTISTS SEEK TO POLITICALLY EXPLOIT KATRINA SUFFERING: the abu-ghraibing of Katrina

NYTIMES:

After 10 days of often uncertain responses to the Bush administration's management of Hurricane Katrina, Democratic leaders unleashed a burst of attacks on the White House on Wednesday, ... From Democratic leaders on the floor of Congress, to a speech by the Democratic National Committee chairman at a meeting of the National Baptist Convention in Miami, to four morning television interviews by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrats offered what was shaping up as the most concerted attack that they had mounted on the White House in the five years of the Bush presidency.

Scum. And why I - a registered Democrat since 1974 - can't support my party right now.

BUT IT GETS WORSE: "THE SHEEHAN-IZING OF KATRINA:"

MoveOn.org steps into the Bush-deranged circus,( via e-mailer Andy Bryant and U.S. Newswire - check out the advice to the MSM at the end of the release about "excellent visuals;" the NYTimes has already set aside space on its Friday front page).

Hurricane Katrina evacuees flew into the nation's capital to tell President Bush to stop blaming local officials for his mistakes and acknowledge that budget cuts and indifference by his administration led to the disaster in New Orleans and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

It could also be called the ABU-GHRAIBING of the federal response - with the images of the Superdome subbing for the images of taunted and abused Iraqi prisoners.

ONE PROBLEM: these attacks are totally false - ESPECIALLY the attack that FEMA has ANYTHING to do with the horrific scenes at the Superdome or the Convention Center.

ANOTHER THING: Why does the Left always seem to revel in EXPLOITING the victim, and never seem to priase the rescuers!?

They have for years besmirched the National Guard (as phony service - as when the lambasted Bush for joining the TANG), the US Armed Forces (and have tried FOR DECADES to cut their budget; Ben Cohen - of Ben & Jerry fame - is the CHIEF FINANCIER of Sheehan, and he has been a leader of an organization which has tried to get the Congress to cut the Pentagon budget for a decade!), and now FEMA.

Yet their own crooked and inept politicians - like Governor Blanco and Bill Clinton and Louis Freeh and Reno and Gorelick and Berger - always seem to be blameless to them.

Sheesh! WHAT HAS THE PARTY BECOME?! A home of hypocrisy, denial, obstructionism, demagoguery, fear-mongering, class-warfare, isolationism, anti-Semitism, race-baiting and propaganda for the Left.

Yuch.

NYTIMES' TOM FRIEDMAN - IDIOT

Friedman:

Besides ripping away the roofs of New Orleans, Katrina ripped away the argument that we can cut taxes, properly educate our kids, compete with India and China, succeed in Iraq, keep improving the U.S. infrastructure, and take care of a catastrophic emergency - without putting ourselves totally into the debt of Beijing.

[...] So many of the things the Bush team has ignored or distorted under the guise of fighting Osama were exposed by Katrina: its refusal to impose a gasoline tax after 9/11, which would have begun to shift our economy much sooner to more fuel-efficient cars, helped raise money for a rainy day and eased our dependence on the world's worst regimes for energy; its refusal to develop some form of national health care to cover the 40 million uninsured; and its insistence on cutting more taxes, even when that has contributed to incomplete levees and too small an Army to deal with Katrina, Osama and Saddam at the same time.

These are stupid non-sequitors, which perpetuate a couple of falsehoods: that we have a "trade deficit" with China, one which makes us indebted to them and therefore makes us weak.

The first central flaw of Friedman's is that he hypostatizes a heurisitc device: the figure known as "trade deficit." This figure is derived by subtracting the goods we sell to a country from what we buy from them - AS IF THAT WAS REAL, AND AS IF IT WAS IMPORTANT. It is NEITHER. Here's why the concept "trade deficit" is PURE BUNK (HUGE hat tip Walt Williams):

(1) American companies buy things from China. They pay for them. With Letters of credit, mostly. Effectively: CASH. That's an even-steven/square deal. There is NO IMBALANCE. They get U.S. MONEY (as much as they wanted for the goods); the US company gets the GOODS (for EXACTLY what they were willing to pay for them).

We no more have a "trade deficit" with them (because we "BUY MORE FROM THEM" then we "SELL TO THEM" then you have a "trade deficit" with your grocer when you buy groceries! YUP: you buy stuff from your grocer; you don't sell him a dang thing! You do not have a deficit with him. He gets money; you have groceries. It's an even-steven square deal. You gave him assets, he gave you goods. There is NO DEFICIT.

(2) When the deal is done, China then has MONEY. They can do with it WHATEVER they want. Very VERY often they buy US T-Bills. Because, it s a good safe investment. When they buy T-BILLS, we GET THE MONEY BACK. They get another IOU, this time with a little interest.

(3) The fact that SO VERY MUCH of the dollars that China's get from selling us stuff ends up back here is GOOD for us. And it makes it LESS likely that China will ever do ANYTHING to upset our bilateral relationship.

So Friedman is WRONG. Again. Katrina and China and Osama are as related in REALITY as Moon-beams, salad dressing and firetrucks.

In the end, all Freidman was arguing for was... drumroll please: HIGHER TAXES. No surprise here: That's a liberal's answer for EVERYTHING. And Freidman is NOTHING if he is not a liberal. The "trade deficit" is most often used by isolationists; it's a staple of their demagogery to claim that "it will ruin our economy! And send jobs overseas"

Friedman, though, is pro-trade. So he uses the bogus figure called the "trade deficit" to argue for higher taxes on energy. It's a clever variation on an old favorite Left-wing theme. Which is why the Left loves him.

The second major flaw in Friedman's column is that he perpetuates the LIE that the Bush Administration budget cuts were somehow reposnible for some of the damage which Katrina wreaked on New Orleans. Chief of Engineers LTG Carl A. Strock of the Army Corps has flatly and repeatedly DENIED THIS on TV interviews MANY TIMES - including an appearance tonight on TV. First, the LEVEES DID NOT FAIL. A few canals failed. And the canal which failed MOST (the 17th Street Canal) was one which was COMPLETELY FUNDED AND JUST COMPLETED ACCORDING TO THE MOST RECENT DESIGN SPEC'S. Here's STOCK at a DoD briefing:

"The area where the levee leaks -- where the levee breaks occurred was at its final design configuration. So that was as good as it was going to get. And what does that mean? Actually we knew that it would protect from a Category 3 hurricane. In fact, it has been through a number of Category 3 hurricanes. The intensity of this storm simply exceeded the design capacity of this levee. And those two points-- and others were over top, but those are the two main points of trouble. But that is the basic problem here, is that this storm exceeded the design capacity. ... The other question is, in general is the civil works budget of the Army Corps of Engineers suffering because of the war in Iraq? Not in my opinion. And the reason I say that is that if you look at the funding levels of the corps from pre-war days of 2001 and 2002, it has been a fairly steady level. We are spending a lot of money and the Corps of Engineers is involved in the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're able to balance that with our human resources and it is not directly affecting our budget. "

ALSO: Clinton cut the Army Gulf Coats budgets. And the NYTIMES caslled them BAD LEGISLATION. SO - if Freidman wanted to be fair in how he applied a lie to fabricate a smear - he would have also criticized Clinton and his OWN editorial board. He did not. He deliberately used discredited line-of-attack against Bush in spite of the fact that it is false, and that he applied it in a biased way. You CANNOT get much lower than that! Only Krugman can, I think. And Herbert. And Dowd. (HEY: That has a kind of catchy ring to it: "KRUGMAN AND HERBERT AND DOWD - OH MY!"

BY THE WAY: does Friedman REALLY think that ANYONE can get elected in this country by calling for HIGHER energy prices or HIGHER engery taxes!? So, he's not only wrong on his facts, and incorrectly applying his incorrect deduction (and idiotically connecting it to the war on terror); he's suggesting that his incorrect conclusions be used to pass bad legislation which would only raise the cost of gasoline, increase unemployment and decrease personal discretionary spending. ON TOP OF THAT (as if that wasn't IDIOTIC enough) campaigning on his suggestion would cost Democrats seats! (This is the only part of it I like! And I'm a Democrat - but a Zell Miller one, NOT a Pelosi-Reid-Dean one!)

His idea - raising the gas tax - would have, though, increased the money the feds could have to spend on whatever pork-barrel projects they like. And that's music to a liberal's ears.

[ASIDE: I suggest that if Friedman really wants high taxes and pretty flood photo opp's (standing in carefully scouted floodwaters - like so many overpaid TV newsanchors!) that he move to GERMANY! He can watch as floodwaters his socialist president (chancellor), wades into floodwaters, and he can have high taxes (on gas and everything else!) and the high unemployment which high taxes cause.]

MORE AT POWERLINE.

RED CROSS: "SUPERDOME DEBACLE BLANCO'S FAULT!"

I saw this story on FOX. POWERLINE and BETSY'S PAGE and RADIOBLOGGER and ALL HEADLINE NEWS are reporting it, too.

It's a BOMBSHELL! Here's an excerpt from a transcript of an interview that Hugh Hewitt (HH) did with MAJOR GARRET (MG) - the reporter who broke the story MINUTES after the story broke:

HH: You just broke a pretty big story. I was watching up on the corner television in my studio, and it's headlined that the Red Cross was blocked from delivering supplies to the Superdome, Major Garrett. Tell us what you found out.

MG: Well, the Red Cross, Hugh, had pre-positioned a literal vanguard of trucks with water, food, blankets and hygiene items. They're not really big into medical response items, but those are the three biggies that we saw people at the New Orleans Superdom, and the convention center, needing most accutely. And all of us in America, I think, reasonably asked ourselves, geez. You know, I watch hurricanes all the time. And I see correspondents standing among rubble and refugees and evacuaees. But I always either see that Red Cross or Salvation Army truck nearby. Why don't I see that?

HH: And the answer is?

MG: The answer is the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security, that is the state agency responsible for that state's homeland security, told the Red Cross explicitly, you cannot come.

HH: Now Major Garrett, on what day did they block the delivery? Do you know specifically?

MG: I am told by the Red Cross, immediately after the storm passed.

HH: Okay, so that would be on Monday afternoon.

MG: That would have been Monday or Tuesday. The exact time, the hour, I don't have. But clearly, they had an evacuee situation at the Superdome, and of course, people gravitated to the convention center on an ad hoc basis. They sort of invented that as another place to go, because they couldn't stand the conditions at the Superdome.

HH: Any doubt in the Red Cross' mind that they were ready to go, but they were blocked?

MG: No. Absolutely none. They are absolutely unequivocal on that point.

HH: And are they eager to get this story out there, because they are chagrined by the coverage that's been emanating from New Orleans?

MG: I think they are. I mean, and look. Every agency that is in the private sector, Salvation Army, Red Cross, Feed The Children, all the ones we typically see are aggrieved by all the crap that's being thrown around about the response to this hurricane, because they work hand and glove with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When FEMA is tarred and feathered, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army are tarred and feathered, because they work on a cooperative basis. They feel they are being sullied by this reaction.

HH: Of course they are. Now Major Garrett, what about the Louisiana governor's office of Homeland Security. Have they responded to this charge by the Red Cross, which is a blockbuster charge?

MG: I have not been able to reach them yet. But, what they have said consistently is, and what they told the Red Cross, we don't want you to come in there, because we have evacuees that we want to get out. And if you come in, they're more likely to stay. So I want your listeners to follow me here. At the very moment that Ray Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans was screaming where's the food, where's the water, it was over the overpass, and state officials were saying you can't come in.

UPDATES:

Now - according to BETSY'S PAGE; the RED CROSS is confirming this on their webpage.

AND VIA POWERLINE: it was reiterated during an interview with... NPR! (click link on left side of page) the comment is about 35:40 into the show.

RANK DISTORTION FROM THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE

The crudely (naively?...primitively??) painted cover for the latest NEW YORKER magazine (9/12/05; the grandiosely titled: "REQUIEM" by Ana Juan) depicts a black jazz instrument-playing man standing on what's supposed to be a cast-iron balcony overlooking the flooded streets of the French Quarter; the floodwaters are so high that the street sign pole - (it says Bourbon Street) - is partly underwater.

ONE PROBLEM: the French Quarter remained dry, (as did MOST of ther city which was near the river).

I WONDER: Why did they run a cover that so patently distorts the truth, and that also plays into anachronistic racial and regional stereotypes?

The cover - (sort of a "poster" for the editorial content of the magazine) - reveals more about the New Yorker magazine's penchant for knee-jerk "thinking" and stereotypes, and their own narrow, facile prejudices than it reveals about New Orleans and its flood.

My guess is that they feel they have "artistic license" to depict the catastrophe in a way which their readers will find accessible - and which will reiterate and dramatize their editorial stance toward the flood. Which says a lot about the disdain they feel for the truth and their readers. They are - in effect - saying: "Why let the truth get in the way of a good cover/good story!?"

A more truthful cover might have depicted the Convention Center - itself (like the French Quarter) sitting on dry land, flooded only in a sea of self-inflicted human filth, and human misery born of the mayor's neglect; their own understandable fear, and no one able to take charge and establish order. In other words: a HUMAN tragedy caused (or at least COMPOUNDED) by HUMAN NEGLIGENCE (of Mayor Nagin), and not SIMPLY a natural disaster.

But this truth wouldn't look so nice on coffee-tables. They'd rather have a deceitful yet pretty picture under their masthead than the awful truth. I think that says everything you need to know about The New Yorker magazine.

[Inside the ON-LINE magazine, Nich Lemann - a former contributing editor to The New Yorker, and Nawlins native - can't help but speak SOME truth:

"But it’s also true that, after the levees broke, we watched every single system associated with the life of a city fail: the electric grid, the water system, the sewer system, the transportation system, the telephone system, the police force, the fire department, the hospitals, even the system for disposing of corpses. Perhaps it is all the fault of the force of the storm; I suspect that, as we move into the yearned-for realm of reliable information, we will find out that society and nature were co-conspirators in the tragedy. And the societal fault won’t all have been the federal government’s."

As someone who lived in Nawlins for a few years - and LOVES the city - I believe the truth of this observation will eventually be driven home. That the worst problems were caused by the local "government" - mostly by Nagin...

ASIDE: the LEVEES did NOT fail; a few canals did - chiefly the 17th Street CANAL. The chief of the canal system has said that it would take 20 years to reinforce the canals and make them able to hold back a category 4+ hurricane. Therefore, it is disingenuous to blame Bush - or Clinton, for that matter. This VULNERABILITY would have to have been addressed beginning in the 1980's if is was to have been corrected in time for Katrina.]

A better cover might have depicted the Superdome as an ark - as poor vulnerable people streamed in - AT THE BEHEST OF MAYOR NAGIN - BEFORE the storm - not knowing what was going to be in store for them... not knowing that this ark and its Noah would fail... It would have been a much more sadly ironic and more truthful cover.

ARAFAT'S COUSIN ASSASSINATED IN GAZA

BBC:

"Former Palestinian security chief Moussa Arafat has been shot dead in Gaza, police and doctors say. A cousin of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, he had survived at least two earlier attempts on his life. Moussa Arafat, 65, was a founder of the ruling Fatah movement, whose Revolutionary Council was due to meet later on Wednesday. ... Police said that Arafat was dragged from his house and killed on the street outside. ... His eldest son, Nimhel, a senior Palestinian security official, was either kidnapped or escaped, according to police at the scene quoted by the Associated Press news agency. ... As chief of military intelligence in the 1990s, Moussa Arafat earned a reputation for ruthlessness, including a 1996 crackdown on Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, when he shaved the heads and beards of detainees as a form of humiliation."

Er... um, let's give them a state!

NAGIN FINALLY ORDERS FORCED REMOVAL

NOLA.COM: Mayor orders forced removal of civilians

Mayor Ray Nagin today issued an emergency proclamation calling on all law officers and military members to begin using force, if necessary to compel all civilians to leave New Orleans. (CLICK HERE TO READ NAGIN'S PROCLAMATION.)

Why didn't he ENFORCE THE MANDATORY EVACUATION BEFORE the hurricane hit!? He could have. He had the authority and the means. It would have been EASIER then, too. When Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation on Sunday, he allowed too much wiggle room, and he opened the (unprovisioned) Superdome and Convention Center up as shelters.

IMHO: Becasue he failed to forcibly evacuate before the storm hiot, and because he failed to provision the shelters with food or crowd control personnel, Nagin is the blame for most of the human suffering and lawlessness (in Nawlins and in the 'Dome and the Conventions Center) for those first 72 hours. Those people should NOT have been in town, and being there they should have at least had provisions for a few days (as FEMA advises). That CANNOT be blamed on FEMA or Bush.

[Well ... not by... er um... anyone rational. Which means the Left can still do it. They are. And the MSM is helping them. Why? Because they're dominated by the Left and because the "blame game" - like the shocking images of human suffering - (and now non-stop images of pet-suffering, and photo opp's of their overpaid anchors wading in carefully scouted foul floodwaters) - it raises ratings. IOW: the MSM is exploiting Katrina for political and commercial gain. They have no shame.]

BLANCO/CNN: SUPERDOME TO BE DEMOLISHED

MICHELLE blogged that CNN reported that a spokesman for Governor Blanco said the Superdome will have to be demolished.

I don't believe it for two reasons: (1) Blanco is a useless hysterical dithering mendacious dolt; (2) CNN sucks.

I think that PERHAPS the dome of the Superdome will have to be replaced.

Some years back, I lived in Nawlins for a few years -and have frequently visited over the years. I LOVE Nawlins. I NEVER loved the Superdome. Its LACK of architectural details and stark white roof made it impossible to see the Superdome and get any sense of its scale - or any perspective. I think that when they redo the roof of the Superdome, they should also redo the facade, and give it some details - like some setbacks and columns and use larger scaled pieces at the bottom and smaller scaled pieces at the top. The Astrodome on Houstion is nicer.

I think that the roof and facade of the Superdome - and ALL of Nawlins - will be reconstructed much MO'BETTER than ever.

UPDATE: MICHELLE POSTS THIS:

This AP story contradicts CNN: NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A Superdome official insisted Tuesday there were no plans to tear down the building that housed evacuees during Hurricane Katrina and was damaged by the storm. Doug hornton, regional manager for the company that runs the Superdome, said it would take 45 to 60 days for teams to assess the damage to the indoor stadium, which included a leaking roof, problems with electrical and mechanical systems, and loads of human waste left behind after those who rode out Katrina inside were moved elsewhere. He said that while there was ``no doubt'' that the Superdome suffered damage, its structural integrity remained intact, and there was no truth to rumors that officials have decided to tear it down.``To say that the Dome has to be torn down at this point is purely conjecture and speculation,'' Thornton said.

I was RIGHT! About the Superdome AND Blanco!

CITY HAD ENOUGH BUSES TO EVACUATE AT LEAST 30,000 BEFORE HURRICANE STRUCK

ACE ASKS: IS IT Bush's Fault?

205 schoolbuses, owned and operated by the city of New Orleans (and not the federal government) sat idle asthe ocean swept into the city, and still sit in three foot deep water.

Did Karl Rove order the Mayor of New Orleans not to take the rather simple step of running those buses 24/7 to evacuate the poor (who supposedly didn't have enough money to leave)?More... And nevermind the additional 364 buses of the NO transportation system, which similarly sat in their parking lots while the levees broke.

Remind me again -- who's in charge of a city's transportation system?

Still More... Galveston, Texas had all of its available buses fueled and ready to roll should Katrina hit that city. Why didn't New Orleans!?

By my calculation, 564 buses could have taken AT LEAST 30,000 poor "personal transportation-less" people to safety on Saturday night when mandatory evacuation was ordered and BEFORE the storm struck on Sunday. If they made two trips they might have evacuated EVERYONE WHO HAD NO INDEPENDENT WAY TO EVACUATE! I blame Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco, NOT FEMA or Bush.

GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS EVERYWHERE - including the thousands helping Hurricane victims right here at home!

The US military has used helicopters to RESCUE more than 4000 people since Monday - that's 50/hour 24 hours a day for 5 days NON-STOP! Often refueling in the air to save time! Picking up stranded victims OFTEN ONE AT A TIME! This effort is HEROIC and GREAT and BRAVE and not laggardly or non-chalant. ANYONE who says the response was bad due to lack of effort is either misinformed or DELIBERATELY LYING SCUM. Here are a few articles which describe your military at work:

Guard Pours Into Gulf Region, Engineers Focus on Draining New Orleans
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2, 2005 – As National Guard vehicles forded floodwaters in downtown New Orleans today delivering critical relief supplies and helping law enforcement officials restore order, workers from the Army Corps of Engineers were focused on draining the city and repairing gaps in its levee system. Story

Full-Scale Hurricane Response Continues
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2, 2005 – Military support for the Hurricane Katrina response focused today on continuing to evacuate people stranded along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast and getting food, water and medical care to the storm's victims. Story

More Soldiers Deploy to Help with Relief
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2, 2005 – Thousands of National Guard and active-duty Soldiers from across the nation are deploying to the Gulf coast to help with Hurricane Katrina recovery operations. Story

Airmen Help on ‘Front Lines’ in New Orleans
CAMP BEAUREGARD, La., Sept. 2, 2005 – In a cramped conference room, Airmen from the 122nd Air Support Operations Squadron here operate and monitor a satellite radio linked to tactical air control party airman in New Orleans to help coordinate disaster relief efforts. Story

Navy Seabees Deploy to Support Recovery
PORT HUENEME, Calif., Sept. 2, 2005 – Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 40 began deploying a detachment of 125 personnel to Gulfport, Miss., Sept. 1 to provide humanitarian assistance and conduct debris removal in the aftermath of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Story

Coast Guard Continue Rescue Operations
ST. LOUIS, Sept. 2, 2005 – More than 4,000 people have been rescued from rooftops, flooded neighborhoods and hospitals throughout the Gulf Coast region since rescue operations began Monday, and joint-agency rescue operations are continuing day and night. Release

Arkansas National Guard Opens Centers
CAMP ROBINSON, Ark., Sept. 2, 2005 – At the request of the governor, the Arkansas National Guard is preparing to open 59 readiness centers (formerly referred to as armories) in 58 counties on Saturday and Sunday to assist with efforts to register hurricane evacuees in Arkansas. Story

Medical Team Aids Hurricane Victims
NAVAL HOSPITAL JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Sept. 2, 2005 – Medical personnel from Naval Hospital Jacksonville, Fla., boarded buses to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., Sept. 1 to rendezvous with the USS Bataan. From there, to New Orleans to provide urgently needed support to relief efforts for residents impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Story

Mobile Utilities Experts Support Relief Efforts
PORT HUENEME, Calif., Sept. 2, 2005 – Naval Facilities Engineering Command’s Mobile Utilities Support Equipment technicians deployed Aug. 31 to Gulfport, Miss., where they will assess damage and urgent utility needs for Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport. Story

FALSE, ANTI-BUSH KATRINA MEMES DEBUNKED

FALSE MEMES:

False Claim #1: "The imperfect response to this tragedy was due to GOP/BusHitler racism and the fact that those hurt by Katrina were mostly black."

FACT (This point is lifted from James Taranto of the WSJ via NRO's KJ LOPEZ) : "Here are the 2000 US Census's racial breakdowns of the populations of those five Louisiana parishes, along with Mississippi's coastal counties, which suffered a direct hit" - [only New Orleans is majority black; there may be more fatalities and certainly a greater loss of private property outside of New Orleans - but the MSM has foucsed on the city of New Orleans. In fact, one parish adjacent to New Orleans has the same total population as the city of New Orleans and has been virtually wiped out. W = white; B = black]:

Parish or county
Jefferson, La.
W69.8%
B22.9%
Orleans, La.
W28.1%
B67.3%
Plaquemines, La.
W69.8%
B23.4%
St. Bernard, La.
W88.3%
B7.6%
St. Tammany, La.
W87.0%
B9.9%
Hancock, Miss.
W90.2%
B6.8%
Harrison, Miss.
W73.1%
B21.1%
Jackson, Miss.
W75.4%
B20.9%

QUESTION: by focusing on the blacks in NOLA, is the MSM TRYING to make Bush look bad and racist? Could it be that the Left-wing partisan/pro-Democrat MSM is very concerned that the GOP is making major in-roads in the black community, and they are exploiting Katrina to diminish Bush's scuccess on this front!?

FALSE CLAIM #2: "BUSH TOOK THIS EVENT LIGHTLY BEFORE IT HAPPENED."

(2a) "UPI NewsTrack TopNews -- Aug. 27, 2005 at 10:05PM: Hurricane Katrina heads toward Louisiana MIAMI, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- The National Hurricane Center in Miami extended a Hurricane Watch for Louisiana and Florida Saturday as Hurricane Katrina churned across the Gulf of Mexico. President Bush late Saturday declared a state of emergency in Louisiana."

(2b) "Mandatory evacuation ordered for New Orleans -- NEW ORLEANS (AP)" [hat tip POWERLINE] — "In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin. Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last resort for people to go, including the Superdome. The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding."

The Left, and the MSM they still dominate, are trying to exploit this horrific event for political partisan gain. THEY HAVE NO SHAME.

KATRINA AND THE ROOT CAUSE OF LAWLESSNESS; and how to make NEW New Orleans a "Shining City on a Levee"

What separates lawlessness, and the social chaos which results from that lawlessness, from order is NOT just a thin blue line of police hired to enforce social norms and maintain law & order. It is the conscience of each person. The potential and the INCLINATION to do evil and to commit acts of lawlessness IS within each of us. But MOST of us control it. Our ability to control our behavior and to be "pro-social individuals" has to do with how we are RAISED and NOT OUR GENES (except perhaps in the case of clinically sociopathic criminals).

Many people are raised BADLY - with no respect for law or life. We see this most graphically in parts of Palestine where and when jihadistic parents dress their children up as sucide bombers and extol to them the "loveliness" of committing genocide.

Poverty does NOT cause children grow up badly and to behave in this way - nor does ethnicity; bad parenting does. Some of the finest parents in the history of the world were poor. Or ARE poor! Some of the worst are rich. Poor people can - and DO - raise WONDERFUL children who grow up to be good people (regardless of whether they become rich or poor themselves). And poor persecuted people can also raise wonderful kids. So racism is NO EXCUSE.

The breakdown of LAW AND ORDER in New Orleans is widespread BUT PERPETRATED by RELATIVELY FEW PEOPLE -- by THUGS and CRIMINALS - these are people who were thugs and criminals BEFORE the flood, and they are merely using the flood as an excuse to do what they ALWAYS want to do and often do when tthere is no flood and they think no one is looking!

Primarliy the lawlessness is the fault of the lawbreakers. As I have written and linked to in other posts: lawbreakers have been tolerated for way way WAY TOO LONG in New Orleans. This must stop. Adult lawbreakers must be dealt with harshly and imprisoned. Parents and schools must be made accountable for raising good LAW-ABIDING citizens.

After the clean up, and BEFORE reconstruction, we must plan a "NEW NEW ORLEANS" with better housing, better plumbing, better schools, and better jobs. Whole sections of the city will be bulldozed and perhaps the stae and the city and ther feds should declare vast tracks PUBLIC - by eminent domain - and then redeveloped with factories and schools and churches and everything that makes a city's physical plant attractive to investment, businesses, and the middleclass. I belive that New New Orleans might very well become a shining city on a hill - or levee, (HEH! - you should please PARDON the bad joke!).

With a new urban physical plant - properly zoned and financed by a combination of private and public sources - and with a new public committment to pro-social values and a new INTOLERANCE for lawlessness I am ABSOLUTELY SURE that NEW New Orleans will be mo' better than ever!

Besides the perp's themselves, the LOCAL AUTHORITIES BEAR THE MOST RESPONSIBILTY for allowing the conditions which permitted the lawlessness to be so rampant. The local government was inept and utterly incompetent. They should have been better prepared and had a plan to get poor people out of the city and to prevent looting in the otherwise vacated city. They did neither.

FOR INSTANCE, (as had been noted elsewhere), the locals could have AND THEREFORE SHOULD HAVE commandeered ALL CITY BUSES to forcibly evacuate EVERYONE BEFORE THE HURRICANE. They had the buses. They did nothing. The buses are now flooded, and useless because hey weren't even moved to higher ground for use AFTER a flood! This is UTTER INCOMPETENCE by LOCAL GOVERNMENT - (and somewhat by the state and the feds for NOT CATCHING IT BEFOREHAND).

The slowness of relief is another matter. Water and food should have been air-dropped at all central gathering locations (such as the Dome and the Convention Center) within the first 48 hours. It wasn't. For this the FEMA chief should be FIRED. But the slowness of relief is NO EXCUSE FOR LAWLESSNESS.

NOW: I think that the president ought to appoint Colin Powell and Tommy Franks and Rudy Giuliani (and a staff) nto lead a 3-man "Katrina Reconstruction Presidential Oversight Commission" to advise and assist the 3 effected governors (and all the effected mayors) and to make sure that they DO THE RIGHT THINGS with federal assistance.

My prayers are with everyone suffering from this horrific event.

GERMANY AT THE CROSSROADS: will it elect a Thatcher or a Chavez?

UK GUARDIAN (excerpts):

Sixteen years after the fall of the Berlin wall, Ellen Müller looks back with nostalgia at her life in the then communist East Germany. ... a surge of support for Germany's newest political party, the Linkspartei or Left party ... could ... determine Germany's general election in a fortnight. "All the other parties are interested in strengthening capitalism," says Mrs Müller. "We reject it." The party is the result of a merger earlier this year between east Germany's former Communist party and the Work and Social Justice party, a new group founded by disaffected activists from Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats. After a euphoric start, the Left party ... is expected to capture up to 30% of the vote. If the party does well enough, it could prevent Angela Merkel's conservatives from forming a centre-right government with the FDP, her coalition partner. ... Germany's mainstream political parties have all heaped abuse on the Linkspartei, and in particular, the party's populist star candidate, Oskar Lafontaine. A former chairman of the social democratic party, the SPD, and finance minister, Mr Lafontaine was instrumental in bringing the Social Democrats back into power after 16 years in the wilderness during the Kohl era. But he resigned from Mr Schröder's first government in 1999 in protest at the chancellor's business-friendly policies. He has been a bitter critic ever since. This summer he quit the SPD and announced he was joining the Left party, prompting claims of treachery. The party's other star candidate is Gregor Gysi, a sharp east German lawyer and the leader of the PDS, the former Communist party. ... the Linkspartei's solutions for getting Germany out of its mess include big tax increases, among them a new 50% tax rate on earnings over €60,000 (£41,000) a year. In return, the party promises a minimum wage of €1,400 a month and generous benefits for pensioners and families.

Now let me get this straight: since the Reagan/Thatcher Revolutions the USA and the UK have had HALF the unemployment as Germany and France and twice the economic growth, and yet the Left Party in Germany wants to emulate Cuba and Venezuela and Zimbabwe - and have the government get even MORE involved in the economy (instead of reducing the size of geovernment and cutting taxes). If they do raise taxes and make the job market less free, they'll get what they deserve: a one-way ticket on the road to serfdom.

WHEN LEVEES BREAK - or "I know what it means to miss New Orleans" PART II

A levee is a barrier built to prevent overflow. A literal levee prevents an overflow of water, a flood. Figurative levees are barriers to others things; for instance, a police force is a "levee" against the "flooding" of crime. When there is no police force - or when the police force is seen as weak or unwilling to use force - criminal elements "overflow" - all hell breaks loose. And this is as tough to contain and drain as real floodwaters.

After the liberation of Baghdad, in the absence of a police force willing to use deadly force to maintain order - all hell broke loose. Now, in central Iraq, (including Baghdad) similar criminal sociopathic elements reek havoc and prey upon the general populace, trying use genocidal terror to create the chaos and power vacuum they need to establish the jihadist tyranny they crave. (THEY WILL FAIL.)

Now, in New Orleans a criminal sociopathic element is also reeking havoc upon the populace, exploiting the chaos caused by the levee failure to loot and rape and pillage and desecrate their own city. And for what: a passing selfish moment, a false sense of personal power and an inglorious glory.

We have seen this many times before - after the Rodney King verdict in 1992 in LA; after Hurricane Hugo, to name just a few recent examples. They are criminals "acting out" and they should be squashed.

Commentators who argue that the root cause is either the poverty of the perpetrators, or their hopelessness, slander poor people everywhere.

The "root cause" is BAD PEOPLE; people who are amoral and immoral - and NOT class, NOT race, and NOT creed. NO class or or race or creed is immune from people who are bad. There are criminals in every race, every class, and every creed. LOOK AT IT THIS WAY: if 15% of America is poor, then are 15% of Americans criminals!? Of course not. Poor people are most often victims of crime. And the poor suffering people stranded in Nawlins have been victimized again by the criminal element that has been hampering the relief efforts. So, WHAT'S THE ANSWER?

Applying brute force and unabiguous moral clarity to the rogues. Tolerating NO lawlessness. Rudy Giuliani cleaned up NYC this way. For too long, Nawlins has tolerated too much mayhem and lawlessness. They're suddenly reaping what for decades they sowed.

I KNOW: I lived in Nawlins, years back - when it was safer! And even then - nearly 30 years ago - you could walk 2-3 blocks in any direction and be in danger of losing your life. Part of the reason was that desperately poor and neglected people were scattered thoughout Nawlins: it's part of the levee/slavery heritage; except for the 9th Ward and the newer projects, there WERE no "ghettos"; poor people lived adjacent to planations all over the city, plantations that grew like spokes off the levees. WHITE FLIGHT since the 1970's has exacerbated the situation, and made the CITY of New Orleans poorer and poorer. The local and state government's response to this was permissiveness and the pernicious policies of LOW EXPECTATIONS. The result: a profusion of bad behavior swamped the urban poor: high incidence of teen pregnancy, of highschool dropouts; and crime.

This was NOT benign neglect. Neglect is never benign. It was MALIGNANT NEGLECT. The poor were neglected as much as the levees.

Now, eveyone should see that it was not benign; we should see that DECADES of laissez faire policies and (for all intents and purposes permitted) corruption and ineptness (born of low expectations) have left the ENTIRE city vulnerable to its worst elements - elements which probably INTENDED FROM THE VERY FIRST HURRICANE WARNING to remioan in the otherwise evacuated city JUST IN ORDER to loot.

MORE than the levees will have to be rebuilt.

The city will have to rebuild a sense of moral outrage and an intolerance for crime and anti-social behavior. Only a chastened city, with new found moral courage born of moral outrage will have the fortitude to rebuild. The city whose charm exploited the sexy allure of the liminal and the spicy scent of danger, must re-awaken or redevelop in itself more temperate and more subtle and more sophisticated enticements.

In Nawlins - a city of rich blends, this will lead to the creation of a new and "odd blend." There will have to be more overtly Puritanical standards, and an more intensified Protestant work ethic (in business and government). And this must be achieved while protecting the "le bonnes temps roulets" attitude and the cultural gumbo/racial melange which almost always ONLY arises from a relatively open society which encourages cultural exchange and experimentation.

I believe this new hybrid can be bred. If it doesn't, then the literal and figurative bayou will reclaim Nawlins, swallow it up and leave posterity only a legend of what once was.

I'm praying that the people of New Orleans (and the surrounding parishes) rise to the occasion. Just as the levees are rebuilt and the floodwaters held back, so too can their churches and schools and civic organizations "rise up" and take control, drain the city of its foul waters, and revitalize that lovely, that sweet, that sweet and pungent tropical city. Together - with a new spirit that is as strong as the mighty Mississippi, and that is just as intolerant of crime, corruption and ineptness, and that has an ambition as strong as the region is diverse - they can cook up a future as deliciously rich and as fascinatingly complex and as tantalizingly satisfying as any gumbo or etouffe or bourbon cocktail, and as intriguing as any Jazz improvization, and as complex as the jasmin, honeysuckle and stale-beer laden music-filled air itself.

It won't be easy. In the meantime, I'm praying for all the suffering people, in Nawlins and along the Gulf Coast - that their suffering is soon ended. Godspeed.

UPDATE: Nicole Gelinas at CITY JOURNAL (hat tip POWERLINE) has a great essay which reiterates some of my themes. Here's an excerpt:

The vicious looters aren’t the face of New Orleans’ poor blacks. Their victims are: the thousands of New Orleanians who made their way to shelter before the storm, and who rescued others and brought them to shelter during and after the storm—but who now cannot get the help they desperately need. This week’s looting was predictable. When Hurricane Georges, another potentially catastrophic storm (it spared New Orleans at the last minute) was about to hit in 1998, I foolishly refused to evacuate my Uptown apartment. More than one person said I should evacuate not due to the storm, but because looters would terrorize the city afterward. Was this week’s looting preventable? Failure to put violent criminals behind bars in peacetime has led to chaos in disaster.

Like I said. And RTWT. More HERE.