Staggering

Of all of the unimaginable sights and sounds of the last week's hurricane disaster, possibly the most incomprehensible is the statement of the national FEMA director yesterday that they had been unaware that a situation was developing at the New Orleans convention center, and would begin to direct resources there. This was Thursday. So okay, now I know that I was not the only person not watching the television news - FEMA's honcho being the other - but even I knew those horrifying details through the web reports.

I keep playing that quote through my head trying to make it mean something different. Either it means that our country's leadership has no real ability to respond to a large-scale emergency, or it means that they are unconcerned with pursuing facts as applied to death in the streets among people who aren't of the right color or of the right economic franchise. I am not able to sort out which is the better explanation, or which is the worse truth.