Jon

When Dennis Hastert makes a comment that—if you try hard to ignore what he really said—you can interpret as suggesting that New Orleans ought not to be rebuilt because it's seven feet below sea level and surrounded by water, he finds himself in the middle of a shitstorm. On the other hand, if you talk about rebuilding the World Trade Center, many people respond as though you're some kind of fanatic who ought to know better than to court such an obvious disaster.

I've already said how I feel about the World Trade Center. I'm not expressing an opinion about New Orleans because I can't grasp it yet.

But the implication seems to be that many people believe that evil men will inevitably succeed in their plans to murder thousands of innocents, but that the ability of nature to exploit an inherent vulnerability is contingent. And that kind of thinking scares the hell out of me.

I just got an email saying that the Salvation Army's emergency radio network needs ham radio operators to volunteer to go to Louisiana and Mississipi to help with the relief effort. The commitment is for at least two weeks. I think that I'd go if Leo's surgery weren't in exactly two weeks.