The magnitude was not larger than others---the problem was the skimping over the years in not financing the rebuilding of the barrier islands, the levees, etc;

New Orleans is particularly vulnerable---yet, pork barrelling alloted much money to building bridges to nowhere in Alaska, for example. Idealism and need are forgotten words in our political climate.

You have to wonder how we got to where we are as a nation given today's priorities and thinking. Probably that we had leaders and idealists at some point---some corrupt, surely---yet not of the magnitude we see today.

I won't repeat my comments re: sparcity of NG troops and Iraq.

Our revered leader had some more photo ops yesterday---interesing ones---news pictures showed mostly Black people in dire straits and his shots were hugging and commisserating with the "dear folks I have met"--all white.   And, even that is a world removed from his and his empathy.

To be fair minded---Jesse Jackson is not better---he showed up but brought a camera crew with him to cover his appearance---even some of his people yelled at him about his hypocrisy.

In the end---NO will rebuild, people will have moved to other cities, and many people--as I said earlier---will get rich on the rebuilding. It comes with our society.   Private contractors in Iraq---mucho dinero there---less for the poor folks that we urged to join the armed forces.   

I must ask---where oh where has our "morality" and "patriotism" of the WW2 years gone?    The words, even, have been comandeered to mean totally different things.   I believe we all know who has done the commandeering---and I am saddened to find that even on ex Pres. who, one might have thought, had more backbone has embraced the Bush admin. and volunteers to help whenever asked---instead of calling it for what it is. And I am not speaking of Daddy here.

Bill Hahn