New Orleans Again 0

The news is worse today. It reminds me of science fiction stories I read as a kid in which the nuclear war had come and gone and left the populace in a state little removed from the state described by Thomas Hobbes:

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Lucia Herndon in todays Philadelphia Inquirer had some arresting observations about the coverage of the looting by the media:

Looting occurs whenever law and order breaks down as a result of disasters natural or manmade. But since the advent of television, looting seems to be a black thing. From the Watts riots in the 1960s to today, you can count on pictures of black folk hightailing it away from some store with electronic appliances, jewelry and furniture.

You can read more at the Inquirer website. I think her observations are worth thinking about.

And, yesterday, Andrei Codrescu had a poignant comment about the fate of New Orleans, his adopted city. You can listen to it here.

Today some few persons started shooting at the helicopters that were trying to bring help.

I can’t help feeling that it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.