New Orleans

Nothing anyone can really say that can capture it. Not even the pictures are doing it justice. The idea that an entire American city would have to be evacuated and left empty for months... inconceivable. I keep thinking back to last fall, when the wife and the boy and I spent a week there. I heard on NPR two nights ago that looters were hitting the Walgreen's at Felicity and St. Charles: that was the Walgreen's where I bought Pedialyte for the boy when he had his first ear infection.

They need money down there, in New Orleans and Gulfport and Biloxi. Give some of it to the Red Cross, Catholic Charities, the United Way, or somewhere else. If you're living in Texas, consider housing someone for a while. Info on this at Free Republic (right-wingers doing selfless things with their time and assets), Craigslist New Orleans (this may be the most amazing page I've ever seen on the web), and other places.