<p>“There is no excuse for failing to aid the displaced, but that does NOT mean we should rush to dump billions in that rotten to the core area without scrutiny.”</p>
<p>Absolutely, but your second clause is the modifier, the first clause is the ruling principle. Regardless of what is done in New Orleans, half the people aren’t coming back - and they are mostly in Democratic-controlled cities. The Democrats should be ashamed of themselves - but they lost the capacity for shame a long time ago. ;)</p>
<p>What struck me while watching the show was how very little effort has been put into rebounding from this disaster. There are still hundreds of the dead left unrecovered among the debris for goodness sake! Contrast this with the way clean up and recovery from the 911 attacks were handled. The recovery and identification of each and every individual was seen as tantamount to moral imperative. I know that the two incidences are not completely parallel, in that the 911 disasters were more geographically contained, but still, the contrasts are remarkable. There appears to be very little effort underway to remove debris or contamination, and I’m stunned by the lack of will to seriously address the levee problem. In a very few months, hurrican season will be upon us again. There is no way of knowing where the upcoming season’s storms will hit. They could make a bee-line for the gulf coast once again, this time, destroying oil platforms off-shore for good measure. But they could also decimate the Florida coast, the Mid-Atlantic, or even the New England coast (yes, it could happen!). Who knows? But one thing’s fairly certain, the upcoming season promises to be just as active, and intense as the last (many forecasters predict even more so). While we’re allowing the gulf coast to languish in destruction, what do we do if the eastern seaboard gets punched in a similar manner? What do we do with two of our 3 major coastlines in ruin? And, if FEMA can’t even handle NO and Mississippi…?</p>
<p>I don’t think we can aford to write off NO, the way some (including myself, initially) have suggested. That’s short-sighted, and quite frankly, callous. But if the devastation had only limited itself to NO, I don’t think the crisis would be nearly so urgent. </p>
<p>Problem is, our national priorities are showing, and they are not pretty. That we are more committed to rebuilding the economy and infrastructure of Iraq than that of our own gulf coast region is indicative mind-boggling stupidity. </p>
<p>Yes, CGM, I blame this administration, and the U.S. Congress. But I also blame us, the American people for taking such a cavalier attitude toward the gulf region. I think the fact that the vast majority of those most heavily impacted are poor and minorty shows that we talk a good game about compassion and equality, but it’s mostly smack.</p>
<p>“I don’t think we can aford to write off NO, the way some (including myself, initially) have suggested. That’s short-sighted, and quite frankly, callous.”</p>
<p>There are various degrees in writing-off NO. What would be short-sighted would be to allow billions of dollars to be spent to help return the city to … its former state. The dysfunctional, corrupt, and utterly dumb management of this city has as much to do with the extent of the devastation than Katrina. The people who lived in the areas that suffered the most were prisoners of a system that had abandoned them years ago. I understand that underneath the parched roofs and shantytown homes people had roots and history, but nothing can hide the fact that the roots could we wiped out at about anytime.</p>
<p>What would be callous is to pretend that we should simply rebuilt on top of a disaster area and entrust the same morons and thieves who were supposed to correct the injustices generations ago with the task of rebuilding a smaller and better city and with federal funds.</p>
<p>Mayfield showed topographic maps illustrating parts of New Orleans that were flooded and several large areas were nowhere near the levee breaks.</p>
<p>“Some areas of New Orleans that were flooded had nothing to do with breaks in levees,” Mayfield said. “Neither did any of those on the Mississippi coast.” </p>
<p>The plans for rebuilding New Orleans that would make it resemble the Crescent City of the mid 1800’s has always appealed most to me. I figure if those areas could survive rough hurricane seasons without the levees, they would be the parts that could most practically be preserved. I am not a proponent of NOLA as it was pre Katrina, but I do respect that even with its flaws, it was home for those that lost everything. I am not for throwing good money after bad. I think category 5 levees, if possible from an engineering standpoint, are impractical from an economic one.</p>