David comments below that he believes it is too early for New Orleans jokes. Apparently, Laura Bush disagrees:

“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”

On the same subject, Sean Penn is a joke no matter where he goes

So if I can’t make tasteless jokes about New Orleans (whoops, I think I just did), then how about tasteless jokes about looters?

Well, I’ve managed to insult Laura Bush, Sean Penn, New Orleans, and looters. I think I should stop this post while I’m ahead.

An interesting article about the town of Valmeyer Il. After the great flood of 1993, they moved the entire town to a higher (and dryer) location.

Also, google now has satellite imagery of the aftermath. Someone has already taken advantage of this by making a user-supplied informational map of the area.

1. When discussing looting, it’s interesting to see who the media describes as a looter and who is described as finding something.
2. This country has become very good at closing the barn doors after the cows leave. As was pointed out by my good friend Rez. O. Lution, FEMA had labelled a hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the worst potential disasters that could hit the country, and this was not an entirely unexpected phenomenon. Why did they hole everyone up in the superdome, a building right in the middle of the hurricane, near the coast, and likely to lose power (which it did)? Why are they evacuating the city after the hurricane has washed through? The people who were stuck in the superdome were those who couldn’t make it out of the city due to health or logistical reasons (nowhere to go or no transportation). The city and/or FEMA should have rented a fleet of buses and simply bused them all to a nearby army base before the hurricane. An empty barracks has the advantage of having beds and backup power generators, and most importantly, is outside the city. The Navy and the National guard should have been ready to go before Katrina hit, instead of trickling in slowly after the disaster. It’s incredible to me that in all the time we spend worrying about catastrophes, we spend so much time thinking about response that we never think about mitigation in the first place.

What amazes me the most about Hurricane Katrina is not that it flooded a city, it’s that the city (New Orleans in this case), being entirely under sea level, is not going to have the flood waters recede anytime soon without massive human intervention. I keep thinking of pompeii. The city as it once was is essentially lost. If/when they do decide to rebuild New Orleans, it will essentially be a new city on the same spot. The scope of this disaster is truly mindblowing – an entire city is essentially lost in a day or two. Other than Pompeii, I can’t think of another time in history this has happened. (You could argue that Atlantis is an exception, but I’m talking about real events).

So, is it too soon for New Orleans jokes?