This is from my friend who is a theologian:

Thanks for the link, Ted, and the ongoing commentary. I have always

valued the acuity of your vision. This nightmare is so raced, classed,

aged, and gendered. I watched two older white women from Mississippi,

my age (?), describing with dismay how their cars just floated away from

them--the Cadillac in particular got to me. I don't like to think of

myself as prejudiced by class (reverse prejudice), but I kept thinking

of all the people with no means of transportation out of NO. The white

women weren't overtly evil, and they acknowledged that by virtue of

being alive and safe they were ahead of the game. But I was irritated

at them, vexed by them, frustrated with a system of economic

distribution that privileged them (and me too, though I don't have a

Cadillac and don't want one). And it is the wanting for me. Why

can't/don't we want better for others? To chalk it up to a condition of

sin just skirts the issue; it says nothing; it turns everything into

personal repentance and personal salvation, away from the other in

need. I get why the two NO cops killed themselves; the vision of

suffering was just too overwhelming, and the despair was just too great.

On TV last night, a white woman psychologist had the nerve to caution

displaced parents in shelters about showing their emotions in front of

their children, because they might traumatize the children. I nearly

puked. I want every bloody one of the "people in charge," the

"specialists," locked up in the Superdome for a month under the same

conditions. Oh how I wish there were indeed a hell, a real,

honest-to-god hell, just to sort all this out.

I'll stop now.

P