One Year Ago, About Two Years Ago

One year ago today, I posted this:

. . . indifference, incompetence, and an unassailable sense of entitlement nearly killed one of the United States' most important cities.

Go read the step-by-step account of the disaster.

Go watch this musical howl. (And to the song which inspired it, and of the disaster which remade America.)

Go read.

New Orleans isn't optional; as long as the Mississippi flows into the Gulf of Mexico, there will be a city near its mouth, and the narrow spit of land between Lake Pontchartrain and the river is the most sensible place for it. New Orleans is a national treasure in large part because it is a national resource. We can't act like it was a mistake to build there, and we can't turn away from the task of rebuilding.

And we can't let the people who tried to kill it get away clean.

I despair of the fact that I can post it unchanged and it's still as relevant as it was then.

New Orleans is being strangled in its sickbed. There is nothing that the current administration will ever do to change that; unless you are helping, you're hurting.

Updated to add: I should have realized docbrite would have more and better things to say. Here is the updated list of 13 Reasons Why New Orleans Is Not OK.