Accidental Blogger

A general interest blog

Recent posts

about

  • Ashley Revisited

    Here is a post and its follow up at Majikthise – a popular and thoughtful liberal blog which sheds more light on the conditions surrounding Ashley and her family.  I was surprised that the opinions there are squarely on the side of the parents’ decison to radically alter Ashley’s physical make-up with surgery and medication. I understand that it is important to note the degree of disability and prognosis for recovery in each case to decide the best option for the patient. Just as healthy persons have individual needs, so do the disabled. According to Majikthise, in this case the procedures were all warranted. She provides many more relevant medical details of Ashley’s condition and treatment than I was able to, based on the newspaper story. The comment threads are interesting too. (I confess I haven’t read the comments carefully, only glanced at some.)  Most commenters seem to agree that what is "convenient" for the parents in this case, is also in the best interest of Ashley.

    But I am not convinced that Ashley needed to be "cored out like an apple" to guard against everything that the parents deemed an impediment to the quality of her life. I am sure the parents had the best intentions for their daughter and made all the decisions with appropriate consultation with doctors and ethicists. I just feel that in their zeal to take control of the unfortunate situation, they resorted to some unnecessary radical steps.The irony is that there is a whole host of possible afflictions which may still plague Ashley in the future and the organs that remain inside her may some day fail and make her care a difficult thing in spite of her petite size. One blogger in one of the articles linked by Majikthise said something to the effect that those who oppose the parents’ decision "care less for the girl and more for what is inside her." That is a very curious way to look at life. We ARE to a very large extent, what is inside us.

    The only surgical procedure performed on Ashley that I am comfortable with is the hysterectomy (her ovaries are intact, I understand). It does not in any significant way enhance the "convenience" of the parents except perhaps their peace of mind. But it does have a profound effect on Ashley. Although it robs her of the ability to become pregnant and give birth, in the case of a person like Ashley, that inability is an unadulterated blessing. With an intact uterus, Ashley could experience an unexpected pregnancy due to abuse (yes, there are monsters who would take advantage of a totally helpless person), especially if she were to be institutionalized and her family was not around to look after her. Given Ashley’s severely diminished physical and mental capacity, to protect her already battered body from the ravages of pregnancy and childbirth is a prudent and compassionate medical measure, in my opinion.

    Coincidentally, while I was in the process of composing this post, Anna sent me the link to an interview on CNN with Paula Zahn where Ashley’s case was discussed with several invited guests. One of the guests was Anna’s colleague, Attorney Stephen Rosenbaum, an advocate for the disabled. Mr. Rosenbaum is also the father of a twenty one year old son who suffers from severe mental retardation. His exchange with Paula Zahn can be found by scrolling down the body of the transcript.

    Update: Thanks to Sujatha for the link to the latest development in this case.  

  • Toxic Tales From Texas

    Two events that occurred close to home yesterday have put me on edge a bit. One took place 175 miles from my home in Austin and the other unfolded a mere 5 miles away in Sugarland.

    011007r1a  (Updated photo : Dead bird on the side of Colorado highway. Link :Sujatha)

    AUSTIN —  More than 10 blocks of downtown along Congress Avenue reopened this afternoon after police said the area where 63 grackles, sparrows and pigeons were found dead and sickened posed no danger to people.

    Preliminary tests for pesticides and other harmful chemicals came back negative, said Dr. Adolfo Valadez, the medical director for Austin and Travis County Health and Human Services.

    "There is no threat to public health at this time,” Valadez said.

    Valadez said the massive shutdown of streets and buildings from Cesar Chavez Street to the Capitol was a "typical” post-9/11 precaution and wasn’t influenced by tomorrow’s start of the state’s 80th legislative session.

    Officials still aren’t sure what killed the birds, whose carcasses were found overnight scattered along Congress Avenue between Sixth and Eighth streets.

    I did not witness the birds dying and falling from the sky in the capital city. But the TV and newspaper reports were rather mystifying and unnerving. I know that Austin is a funky place, with Texas politicians and thousands of students and musicians crowding its streets (the State Capitol is adjacent to the UT campus).  Who knows what is wafting in the air in downtown Austin? But still.  Sixty three birds dying for no apparent reason?  Especially unnerving when one had just learnt that  a mysterious and menacing cloud had appeared in the skies of Sugarland, TX the same afternoon. This one turned out to be not very mysterious – just another industrial accident, a routine event in Houston and its vicinity. I didn’t see the cloud (a couple of my neighbors who were out driving, saw it) but I did hear about it on CNN Breaking News and could hear the fire trucks rushing to the afflicted area.

    SUGAR LAND — A plume of white vapor was released from an industrial plant in this Houston suburb today, prompting schools to keep students and staff indoors for a short time. A shelter-in-place order was lifted around 3 p.m.

    Three employees were hospitalized and 14 more were treated as a precaution at the Nalco plant this afternoon, officials said. It was unclear whether the leak, which occurred around 1:45 p.m., came from the facility or from a vehicle at the facility.

    By 2:30 p.m., the plume had mostly dissipated. U.S. Highway 90-A, which runs near the plant, was closed earlier but traffic was flowing on it again by 3:30 p.m.

    The chemical that leaked  was reportedly ethylene diamine, which is widely used in paints and coolants, and is a food and cattle feed additive.

    Sugar Land officials had requested earlier that five nearby schools keep students and staff indoors as a precaution after the leak was reported. Those schools were Lakeview Elementary, Sugar Mill Elementary, Sugar Land Middle School, Kempner High School and M.R. Wood. Classes are expected to resume as normal Tuesday, when a letter will be sent home to parents detailing the incident.

    A spokeswoman for the city of Sugar Land said area residents also were asked  earlier to stay indoors with windows closed, especially those in the Brookside Belknap,  Venetian Estate,  The Hill,  Hall Lake and  Mayfield Park neighborhoods.

    Nalco Energy Services makes fuel additives and oilfield chemicals. It is a unit of Illinois-based Nalco, which makes chemicals used in water treatment and for industrial processes.

    What really bothered me about the dead birds in Austin (apart from the fact that I love birds) is the following statement made by a city official:

    "It really is not unusual to see a large number of birds die off,” he said. "I think we lose sight of that because we tend to live in the city and don’t really pay too much attention to that.”

    Really? "Not unusual?"  Birds inexplicably keeling over and dying in large numbers is not unusual? Could these dead sparrows, grackles and pigeons really be Climate Canaries or Canaries in the Coal Mine of sorts, portending a peril we have not yet identified?  This is real life, not a Hitchcock movie. I hope the officials will investigate thoroughly and not just speak soothing words to avoid panic. And I wonder how they will explain this?

  • What Is Wrong With The Media (Joe)

    I am years behind on my reading.  Currently I’m on a Dave Eggers kick–he is a very entertaining writer and can make the reader think if he wants to–and I just stumbled across this gem in "Your Mother and I" in How We Are Hungry:

    I guess a lot of what we did–what made so much of this possible–was eliminate the bipolar nature of so much of what passed for debate in those days.  So often the media would take even the most logical idea, like private funding for all sports stadiums or having all colleges require forty hours of community service to graduate, and make it seem like there were two equally powerful sides to the argument, which was so rarely the case.  A logical fallacy, is what that is.  So we just got them to keep things in perspective a bit, not make everyone so crazy, polarizing every last debate.  I mean, there was a time when you couldn’t get a lightbulb replaced because the press would find a way to quote the sole lunatic in the world who didn’t want that lightbulb replaced….  Honestly, when lynchings were originally outlawed, you can bet the newspapers made it seem like there was some real validity to the pro-lynching side of things.  You can be sure that the third paragraph of any article would have said "Not everyone is happy about the anti-lynching legislation.  We spoke to a local resident who is not at all happy about it…"  Anyway, we sat everyone down, served some carrots and onion dip and in a couple hours your mother and I straightened that all out.

    Perhaps Mr. Eggers needs to go watch a bit more cable news.  Surely he does not mean to suggest that such a "fair and balanced" format often serves to obscure the truth!

  • “Plutoed”

    Pluto was recently unceremoniously bumped from the planetary line up. After being snubbed by astronomers, the erstwhile ninth planet has found glory elsewhere – in the world of wordsmiths.  The American Dialect Society has voted "Plutoed" the word of the year for 2006. The meaning of course is:

    "to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet."

    The 117-year-old American Dialect Society comprises linguists, grammarians, historians and independent scholars, among others. Members conduct the vote for fun and not in an official capacity to induct words into the English language. According to Society member Cleveland Evans, "We may no longer believe in the Roman god Pluto, but we still have a sense of personal connection with the former planet." [link]

    The runner up for 2006 was "macaca / macaca moment," the meaning of which is: an American citizen treated as an alien.

    Other words in the running for the honor:

    • murse: a man’s purse
    • climate canary: an organism or species whose poor health or declining numbers hint at a larger environmental catastrophe on the horizon
    • flog: a fake blog created by a corporation to promote a product or a television show

    Merriam-Webster Dictionary on the other hand, picked "truthiness" as its word of the year, 2006. That as we all learnt from Stephen Colbert means, "truth that comes from the gut, not books."

    Interestingly enough, "truthiness" was the top word of 2005 picked by the American Dialect Society.

  • The Bonsai Girl

    Nine year old Ashley has had an hysterectomy, her breast buds have been removed to prevent them from growing into their womanly size, she has been treated with massive doses of estrogen to prevent normal growth spurt – all medical procedures performed at the behest of her parents. They want Ashley to remain petite – no more than 4′-5" tall and weighing around 75lbs. What kind of monster parents are these?

    Actually, very loving parents.  Ashley suffers from "static encephalopathy," a congenital condition that  prevents her from walking, talking, holding her head up, rolling over or sitting up. She is called the "Pillow Angel" by her family. They put her on a pillow and there she remains.  She will be dependent on others for her physical care for the rest of her life. Ashley’s parents want to dispense that care themselves and wish to involve her in all activities, including family trips. They have resorted to the medical method of "growth attenuation," to make it easier for the care givers, including her siblings, to administer to her physical needs which involve lifting Ashley.

    This has given rise to a heated ethical debate. Do parents, even loving and caring ones, have the right to such "eugenics" even if it means an easier life for the child and the family members? The parents insist that it is a humane decision about which they had few compunctions. Declining interviews, Ashley’s father said by phone:

    "I cannot explain something this complicated in an interview," But, he added: "People think it must have been a horribly difficult decision" to have the treatment performed. "It really wasn’t."

    SEATTLE — This is about Ashley’s dignity. Everybody examining her case seems to agree at least about that.

    Ashley is a 9-year-old girl who has static encephalopathy — a severe brain impairment. She cannot walk or talk. She cannot keep her head up, roll over, or sit up by herself. She is fed with a tube. Her parents call her "Pillow Angel," since she stays right where they place her, usually on a pillow.

    Her parents say they feared that their angel would become too big one day — too big to lift, too big to move, too big to take along on a family outing. And so they decided to keep her small.

    In a highly unusual case that is stirring deep ethical debate in the medical community and elsewhere, doctors at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the parents involved are describing how Ashley has received treatment over the past few years designed to stunt her growth radically.

    The treatment, known as "growth attenuation," is expected to keep Ashley’s height at about 4-foot-5, and her weight at about 75 pounds for the rest of her life. Had she not been given the treatment, doctors estimate, she would have attained roughly average height and weight for a woman — 5-6 and about 125 pounds.

    The radical solution has drawn plenty of criticism and even outrage from some doctors and caregivers, who say it is a fundamental violation of a person’s dignity to impose such impairment of their growth. Some say it’s also a violation of the medical oath: First Do No Harm.

    But Ashley’s parents say the move was a humane one, allowing her to receive more care, more interaction with her younger brother and sister, and more of the loving touch of parents and others who can still carry her.

    As a result, they say in a written account posted earlier this week on the Web, "we will continue to delight in holding her in our arms and Ashley will be moved and taken on trips more frequently and will have more exposure to activities and social gatherings (for example, in the family room, backyard, swing, walks and bathtub, etc.) instead of lying down in her bed staring at TV (or the ceiling) all day long."

    The girl’s treatment has involved a hysterectomy, surgery to remove her breast buds, and subsequent high doses of estrogen.

    High-dose estrogen was used occasionally in the 1950s and 1960s, mostly on teenage girls whose parents were concerned about the social stigma of being too tall. The drugs could stop a 5-9 girl from becoming, say, 6 feet tall. As that stigma has gone out of fashion, so has the treatment, medical ethicists say.

    But Ashley’s case involves an entirely separate ethical realm, that of whether a severely disabled person’s life might be improved by having his or her growth impaired.

    Publication of the case in a national pediatric journal in October set off criticism of the parents’ decision — "eugenics," "Frankenstein-esque," "slippery slope" and "despicable" are some of the printable contributions to various Web sites on the topic.

    Medical experts could not say for certain whether the case was unprecedented, but they did say the radical treatment to inhibit growth of a profoundly disabled person had never been discussed — and debated — in mainstream medical journals before.

    "It’s simply the first reported case any of us know about," said Jeffrey Brosco, a pediatrician at the University of Miami who co-authored an editorial with Chris Feudtner criticizing the treatment in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine’s October issue.

    "I think most people, when they hear of this, would say this is just plain wrong," Brosco said. "But it is a complicated story, and when you get into this issue, you can understand the difficulties."      

  • Pat Robertson’s Soothing Words for 2007

    During yet another direct conversation with God, Pat Robertson has learnt of dire future events that will come to haunt us. He predicts a "mass killing" in the US in late 2007. Although God did not specify what kind of weapons will be used to bring about the mass destruction, Robertson thinks they will be of the nuclear variety.

    VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (AP) — Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a "mass killing" late in 2007.

    "I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

    "The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."

    Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat.

    God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

    Robertson suggested in January 2006 that God punished then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a stroke for ceding Israeli-controlled land to the Palestinians.

    The broadcaster predicted in January 2004 that President Bush would easily win re-election. Bush won 51 percent of the vote that fall, beating Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

    In 2005 Robertson predicted that Bush would have victory after victory in his second term. He said Social Security reform proposals would be approved and Bush would nominate conservative judges to federal courts. Lawmakers confirmed Bush’s 2005 nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. But the president’s Social Security initiative was stalled.

    "I have a relatively good track record," he said. "Sometimes I miss."

    In May, Robertson said God told him that storms and possibly a tsunami were to crash into America’s coastline in 2006. Even though the U.S. was not hit with a tsunami, Robertson on Tuesday cited last spring’s heavy rains and flooding in New England as partly fulfilling the prediction.

  • A New Blog in the New Year

    A.B. author Sujatha has launched her own blog to get some "Fluff ‘n’ Stuff" off her chest.  Please check it out.

    Sujatha, as readers may have noticed, has a flair for putting a humorous spin on matters that would have many others seething with anger and sarcasm or reeling from panic attacks. She plans to write about seemingly mundane matters which occasionally go unexpectedly awry. Please check out Sujatha’s account of her slippery attempts at learning to ice skate and the travails of being a mother to an aspiring ballerina. Happily for us, we won’t be losing Sujatha. She will continue to comment on more weighty matters (not that a crashing fall on ice is not serious!) on A.B.

    Sujatha describes her plans for her new blogging enterprise as:

    "An aspiring Erma Bombeck, with an Indian-American flair, I like to write about the fluff of daily life."

     

  • What Religion?(Sujatha)

    While Congressman Virgil Goode of Virginia is at it again, denigrating Congressman-elect Keith Ellison of Minnesota for wanting to take a ceremonial oath on the Koran, rather than a Bible, Mr.Ellison has managed to come up with a hard-to-assail reply: He is going to be taking his oath on a translation of the Koran once owned and initialled by no less a personage than Founding Father Thomas Jefferson.
    The Washington Post reports:

    Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he’d take his oath of office on the Koran — especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

    Yet the holy book at tomorrow’s ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We’ve learned that the new congressman — in a savvy bit of political symbolism — will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

    –snip–

    Jefferson’s copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson’s collection and has his customary initialing on the pages. This isn’t the first historic book used for swearing-in ceremonies — the Library has allowed VIPs to use rare Bibles for inaugurations and other special occasions.

    What religion, again was it, that Thomas Jefferson solely drew from, along with others, to create the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution?

  • Asymmetric Warfare or Mirror Image?

    By now we have all watched the macabre theater surrounding the execution of Saddam Hussein. The spectacle resembled a nauseating and well choreographed snuff film which played out endlessly on our TV screens in strange juxtaposition with the dignified and somber farewell to President Gerald Ford. Few in the world, especially Iraqis, are shedding tears for Saddam, a brutal dictator with much blood on his hands. But how concerned should we be about our role in facilitating his grisly end? History is replete with instances of victor’s justice and it is futile to question the ways of the mighty. The US is now the unquestionable super power of the world – to cross it, is to invite peril. But how does unfettered power affect the supreme hegemon itself? At what cost do we flex our muscle?  What poison seeds do we sow in the process?

    We expect and demand that the rest of the world play by established rules of peace and warfare, but we make up our own rules of engagement with imperious whim. Why are we then surprised when our enemies follow the leader? (Elaine Scarry’s article via 3 Quarks Daily) 

    "In 1998, an article by Colonel Charles J. Dunlap Jr. appeared in the United States Air Force Academy’s Journal of Legal Studies warning that a new form of warfare lay ahead. Because our military resources are so far beyond those of any other country, Dunlap argued, no society can today meet us through symmetrical warfare. Therefore, our 21st-century opponents will stop confronting us with weapons and rules that are the mirror counterparts of our own. They will instead use asymmetrical or “neo-absolutist” forms of warfare, resorting to unconventional weapons and to procedures forbidden by international laws.

    What Dunlap meant by “unconventional weapons” is clear: the category would include not only outlawed biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons (the last of which, in the view of the United States, only itself and a small number of other countries are legally permitted to have) but also unexpected weapons such as civilian passenger planes loaded with fuel and flown into towering buildings in densely populated cities.

    But the term “neo-absolutism,” as used by Dunlap, applies not just to the use of unconventional weapons but to conduct that violates a sacrosanct set of rules—acts that are categorically prohibited by international law and by the regulations of the United States Air Force, Navy, and Army (along with the military forces of many other nations)…..

    Dunlap’s article, which so accurately predicted the coming era of neo-absolutist enemies, was not recommending that the United States reciprocate by itself succumbing to neo-absolutism. Precisely to the contrary, it urged that the U.S. military begin to prepare for asymmetrical warfare (of the kind we would experience three years later on 9/11) so that it could maintain an unswerving conformity to international law while defeating its neo-absolutist opponent. Using the longstanding idiom of “chivalry”—a technical term by which international and military law pay tribute to an overarching framework of civil law that endures even in the midst of war—the article insisted that the United States must continue to be Sir Galahad even when confronted by Genghis Khan…"

    (Scarry’s article is long but well worth reading. It sheds light on some familiar aspects of the conduct of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan)

    Update: Friend, fellow blogger and e-journalist, Nandini has emailed me the following astute comments on Saddam Hussein’s execution.

    "Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a brutal dictator. The toppling of his regime and his eventual capture from a hole in the ground may have been a victory of sorts.

    But, three years later, that victory is dubious at best because his brutal regime has been replaced by a) a weak regime that is unable or unwilling to control a brutal insurgency and b) by an outside occupying force that is also unable or unwilling to sow the seeds of a civil society.

    In an order covering prisoners taken in the Battle of Princeton, Washington wrote: "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren…. Provide everything necessary for them on the road." In his Gettysburg address, Lincoln spoke of extending “malice toward none and charity for all”. The post-WWII reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan, and the establishment of the Geneva Conventions are examples of the same values in action.

    The burden of the aftermath of an armed conflict lies with the victor.

    If the Americans were “winning” the Iraq war as the Administration and its apologists like to claim, not stopping the hanging simply establishes the fact that we are not really winning it. Saddam Hussein may be “the biter bit”, but sadly, we are no less so.

    What died at the gallows along with Saddam Hussein was the sense of our own essential morality and civility."

  • The Year in Review

    Here are some of my observations on the events of the past year – related mostly to the political and social happenings in the US. To scrutinize events of the entire world would have been a daunting task. I won’t bother to provide links – please google if in doubt. All the stories are well known and many have been addressed here on A.B.

    • The most positive event : The Democrats’ win in the mid-term elections.
    • The most negative event: Bush remains president for two more years.
    • The most overrated political figure: Karl Rove. He had the "math" but lost the elections.
    • The most underrated political figure: Howard Dean. His leadership of the Democratic Party and 50 State strategy actually worked and no one thanked him.
    • The most overrated political event: The Iraq Study Group’s recommendations and the killing of Abu Mousab Zarqawi
    • The most overrated public figure: Laura Bush
    • The most underrated public figure: George Clooney. He has done more to bring attention to the tragedy in Darfur than all the TV networks’ reportage put together.
    • The best media moment: Bill Clinton chewing out Chris Wallace on Fox TV
    • The worst media moment: Rush Limbaugh taunting Michael J. Fox
    • The most influential media moment: George Allen’s macaca slip on You Tube.
    • The most riveting media moment: Zinedine Zidane headbutting Materazzi in the World Cup Soccer final.
    • The worst 15 minutes of fame: Representative Mark Foley of Florida, President Kim Jong Il of Korea and Kevin Federline (tied)
    • The worst moment in public: Mel Gibson and Michael Richards caught spewing racist rants
    • The worst marksman: Dick Cheney
    • The fastest rising star: Senator Barack Obama
    • The fastest falling star(s): Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Dennis Hastert and the entire corrupt and power drunk Republican Congress.
    • The best come back from oblivion: Al Gore
    • The best science / medicine news: Sharp decrease in women’s breast cancer rates
    • The worst science news: Global warming is real and it is affecting the earth in alarming ways
    • The most boring science news: NASA plans to send men (women) to the moon
    • The worst misses: The National Weather Bureau’s predictions for hurricanes (high) and December snow fall (low) in the Rockies and the midwest
    • The best expenditure of money: Warren Buffett’s philanthropic gift to the Bill Gates  Foundation.
    • The worst expenditure of money (and human lives): The Iraq war
    • The best political drama: The five US generals criticising Rumsfeld publicly
    • The worst political drama: Hugo Chavez’s "The Devil was here" speech at the UN and all of George Bush’s misleading speeches about the situation in Iraq
    • The most sinister political development: The Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan
    • The most dishonest moment: US claims that Saddam Hussein’s death by hanging was purely an Iraqi decision (really, almost all claims about Iraq made by the Bush administration)

    Can’t think of any thing more and these are my personal opinions. (I don’t feel adventurous enough to make predictions.) Please feel free to add to the list.

    A very happy New Year to all.

  • Edwards Declares in the Crescent City (Joe)

    Well, John Edwards has declared.  Big surprise, right?  And I’m sure we’ll all be shocked when Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and maybe Al Gore do the same.

    I’m no election politics expert, but it seems to me that Edwards is ready to run a strong campaign.  He declared in damaged-but-not-destroyed working-class neighborhood in New Orleans [NY Times].  This furthers the image he will try to create of himself as an outsider and a "son of a mill worker."  And of course, he’s taking advantage of what has become America’s darling city.

    Implicit in his brief remarks was criticism of the Bush
    administration’s handling of New Orleans’s foundering recovery. In Mr.
    Edwards’s telling, the city was exemplary in both positive and negative
    senses, as a symbol of citizen action and government inaction. This was
    his fourth visit since the storm, and he spent part of the
    well-photographed previous day shoveling mud outside the same house.

    Thursday,
    the ex-senator praised the army of volunteers that has gutted hundreds
    of houses and removed debris, but he pointedly omitted any recognition
    of the patchy official efforts.

    He saved his criticism of Mr.
    Bush’s New Orleans role for a question-and-answer session afterwards,
    telling reporters, “This is a place where presidential leadership would
    have been critical.”

    Asked how he would have handled New
    Orleans, Mr. Edwards responded: “I would have had somebody coming into
    my office every morning, and I would say to him, ‘What did you do in
    New Orleans yesterday?’ And then the next day, ‘What did you do
    yesterday? What steps do we need to take? What are we not doing? What
    are the people in New Orleans telling us that we’re not doing?’ ”

    Katrina-based criticism of the Administration.  How original.  He’d have done it differently, it’s not his fault that the government screwed up.  This sounds disturbingly close to the Democrats sniping at the Administration on Iraq: "It’s not our fault, they’re just incompetent, no we don’t have a plan, but did we mention that they’re incompetent?"  I don’t want to lambast Edwards, because I think he would make a good President, and I think he has a very real chance of becoming President.  At this point he deserves the benefit of the doubt, and the Times article could well be incomplete.  But I’m worried.  For as much as NOLA is America’s sweetheart city, I’ve yet to hear any encouraging news about rebuilding it — or even rebuilding the levees (which of course famously failed due to the incompetence of the Army Corp of Engineers).  We all love it (now), and we all hope it will recover (but our tax dollars are busy being thrown at the failed state we’ve created in Iraq in the absurd and counterproductive "War on Terror").

    Is there any hope for New Orleans?  I can think of two possible analogues in American history: (1) the 1906 earthquake where San Francisco was destroyed and hurriedly (and sloppily and dishonestly) rebuilt — it has, obviously, since prospered, in part because of its unique cultural appeal; and (2) the "Reconstruction" of the South after the North ravaged it in the Civil War — it never did recover, with the exception of, say, Atlanta.  Which way is New Orleans headed?