The Most Powerful Woman in the World will soon have this under control. Won't she? Nancy?

Great job "Schoolbus" Nagin!

Quagmire!

Should we send in more troops or cut & run?

No More Flood for Money!

No More National Guard Troops! Let the New Orleani's handle the insurgency. Or is it a civil war now?

Congress needs to tell the Executive Branch we need an urgent date for withdrawal of troops, with a published timeline ASAP!

Where is the AP's police source on this one????

Whats our exit strategy?

Obviously this is happening because President Bush wants to eliminate blacks. Or is it because of global warming? Hmmm, this is getting real hard to figure out.

But, but, but, but, it's all run by liberals!

Oh wait...

A bit off topic, but can people please finally stop comparing murder rates in Us cities to that of Iraq? it's an irrelevant comparison. If you put 140,000 us miitary on the ground in New Orleans or Philadeplhia the murder rate would drop to 0.

Just my 2 cents

I really don't know what the answer is. New Orleans was violent before the storm, but we had a functioning city then to handle it then. Things have been so dirupted for so long, people are at their wit's end. Everyone has worked so hard to bring their communites back but the government has not stepped up to pull their end. For so many of the posters here this is just a political exercise in debate, But we in the area see the destruction and the hope and the despair. And I am sorry to disagree about Mississippi, but things aren't great there either. We of the Gulf South know that we have been forgotten by this country. There are many great Americans and world citizens that have come to help in the region and I thank them with all my heart, but the country as a whole has failed us. I spent the day yesterday in the neighborhood I grew up it. It really was a "Leave IT TO Beaver" kind of place to grow up. Now it is a shell of battered dirty houses. About a third of the houses have FEMA trailers in their yard or are inhabited. There is debris from gutted houses at the curb. I even saw a still deserted rescue boat on the curb. I helped clean out a catholic school and church. The present residents I met have beautiful spirits even with the terrible load they had to bear. They loved my t-shirt. It says "Be a new New Orleanian, Survived, Still here, gonna Be here until there's no place left... to Be." I use to ask "Where is my country?" I don't anymore.

can people please finally stop comparing murder rates in Us cities to that of Iraq? it's an irrelevant comparison.

No more relevant or irrelevant than the number 3000, or the number of days since "end of hostilities" compared to WWII, or any other metric used to compare the current war. It's relevant in that it provides a yardstick by which to measure violence, no more no less.

Thanks for the insightful and sobering post, doctorj, something too often lost in the shouting here. Last summer I spent a week in the Bay St Louis area working in a medical clinic and was blown away by the level of destruction still in evidence so long after the hurricane. The story has vanished, no longer newsworthy, and I think most folks have no idea of the level of devastation still present.

It seems every story of this nature instantly explodes onto a name-calling, finger-pointing blamefest which goes on for a while, then dies down when the next big story comes around. Meanwhile those affected carry on the best they can, gathering up what few pieces of their life they can find, looking for a way to start over.

I think America has forgotten the Gulf South, and that's a tragic thing. Once the newsworthiness of a situation such as this wears off, it's gone from the general public's eye. Some remain aware, but most forget. This country has done a disservice to you and your fellow citizens. I don't really care about blame. I think there's enough to go around, if that's what turns you on. Perhaps a change in the political climate will bring new priorities and maybe some improvement in your situation.

I realize that the pictures I had seen in the news probably do not do justice to the degree of infrastructure destruction that occurred due to hurricane Katrina. I don't want to sound off-handed but perhaps with the extent of this type of loss in 2005 one should not expect the slow wheels of government bureaucracy to work so efficiently. One can read much about how NYC recovered after 9/11 but despite the shock, the loss of basic services for any extended period of time was really nonexistent. I learned first hand last week how something as minor as a local water main break can cause concern with the delivery of other utilities such as gas. I can only imagine what problems are being discovered as services are being restored and homes are being rebuilt city-wide down there. This is not meant to be a cheap shot at NO but I think these are the times when one finds how much character your local and state-wide elected officials have. I think they are the ones primarily responsible for keeping up the pressure and coordinating efforts to get things done.

Groucho,
Thank you for the great help and heart you have brought to the region. My mom lives in Pass Christian so I know what you saw. It is not much different now, except the debris is removed. Empty lots, an occ Fema trailer. Again, THANK YOU!
Dave D,
The political situation in Louisiana is dysfunctional at best. I have fought against it my whole life. But who was it that made the decision to "leave it to the local folk" knowing full well the political culture here? All government failed. All government continues to fail. As to NYC, the area of flooding in NOLA was seven (or eight?) times the size of the entire Manhattan Island. (I say this to give you an idea of the scope of the devastation, not to compare misery.) Everyone here is tired, depressed and,like I said, at wit's end. The local government is still basically non-existent. So is the federal government. This is how it is. This is what we live with. This is America.

All of this finger pointing at the Federal Government is not going to help the people down in New Orleans or the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Most of the blame about the problems can be laid at the feet of an incompetent mayor and governor. It will be the hard work of the people in the effected areas that will change things and change them for the better.

Of course, the drive by media does not help any either. The main focus of the drive bys is still New Orleans and the conditions there. They could not give a shit about the rest of the Gulf Coast. The reason why? It is the bastion of liberalism in the South and Mississippi is still considered the hotbed of racism, plus there is a Republican government in place there. We all know badly the drive bys hate the Republicans.

As for the murder rate being high in New Orleans, look at who is running the asylum. The inmates are running it and will continue to do so in the near and perhaps the distant future. The gangs that stayed during Hurricane Katrina to loot and pillage are still there and more than 1/2 of the cops there are members of these gangs or have affiliations with them. Then there is the corruption in general.

The comparison to Iraq is bogus because including the whole of Iraq waters down the murder rate in and around Baghdad. A more apt analogy would be to call New Orleans Amreica's Baghdad with a murder rate several times higher than the rest of the country.

I can't speak for the whole gulf region, but as far as NO goes there's not a lot of sympathy here. There are surely a lot of compelling and heart-wrenching stories from genuinely good folks. DrJ said the government hasn't stepped up to pull their end...well the people of NO and La. had their chance to change their political leadership and chose the status quo. La. politics has been a cesspool of corruption and ineptitude for decades and Louisianans have just shrugged it off and made jokes.

They made their bed, now they don't want to lie in it. Choose to live in a bowl below sea-level on the shores of hurricane central and you will eventually be flooded out. Put that below sea-level bowl in the poorest, most corrupt state in the US and yor life in the aftermath of that inevitable hurricane will be a living hell.

Meanwhile the rest of the US is expected to subsidize the reconstruction of that folly in anticipation of the inevitable rematch 5, 10, or 20 years down the line when we'll all be forced to do it again.

And the best part of the story? Watching as the grievance community rise up in protest of heavy-handed tactics targeting certain demographics from whom the overwhelming majority of the murders just happen to belong when/if Nagin and the NOPD actually decide to try and stop the spate of murders.

Now that's funny!

Oh, the "You deserve it" defense. Basicly you don't have a clue and don't want a clue so I am not going to waste my breath.

When a police consultant was hired by NOPD to advise them, he found so much corruption that he suggested they lock up all the police officers and start over

Are the Sunnis or the Shites the main problem?