I think if you want to explore such issues, you make up a character and write a novel. One of the advantages of fiction is that, because it is made up, a reader can feel pity for a character without feeling the character is asking for it. This makes it easier to explore certain complex issues.

People who parade such personal information in front of me are asking for my pity, and that is embarrassing for both reader and writer. A talented writer can do better than this.

I live nearby and spend a lot of time in New Orleans. It often surprises me how many people, even people who do not live very far away, think the city is still totally destroyed.

It is simply not true. NOLA is a fun place to visit as always. The crime is a problem, but like elsewhere, usually murders are gang and drug related stuff. Stay away from that and you will be fine.

In fact, the city is a better place to visit than ever because the people there are DESPERATE for business, and so willing to go the extra mile for visitors. I promise you will never feel so appreciated as a tourist as you will in the Big Easy. It is a great trip -- how often can you travel someplace fun, knowing that every dollar you spend is breathing life into a city that needs help so very much?

As a resident of New Orleans, I also watched a once vibrant city slowly sag as history flowed the opposite direction. For New Orleans, the change was trucking, which made the Mississippi less important for national trade, and the consolidation of the oil industry in Houston, which drained the city of most of its high-paying jobs. Katrina just finished off a long, miserable process.

There is always hope, I guess, if enough people love a place to try to make it work. The key, as with gardening, is water and light. Make an area gently conducive to good business -- modest taxes, decent schools, good policing, and above all, minimal government corruption. Fortunes usually turn if one is patient enough.

Living in a 289 year-old city will teach you that.

O'Hehir states that "the pro-lifers might have a valid moral point to make, if there was any seriousness or consistency or concern about poverty and human welfare in their position."

This is logic? If I see you beating your child in a supermarket and make you stop, that means I must now raise your child for you? I think not. When a person prevents a wrong from being committed, that does not make him responsible for the intended victim.

It is funny how pro-choice people are uncomfortable assigning wrong to an individual having an abortion, but they have no problem diffusing responsibility for the child born to every person in the whole world. By the cold, hard logic of the indescribably brilliant Noam Chomsky, it follows that if an abortion occurs no one is at fault, but the birth of every child is a scandal upon the human race.

It is pro-choicers who have a myopic view of personal responsibility. If you have sex, you have to accept the consequences, not me. I don't understand why adoption is such an unthinkable option. Yes it is hard, but taking responsibility for your own actions usually is hard.

And don't accuse me of not caring about children. I will pay the taxes necessary to support them if needed. I deliver medical care to children for a living, as a matter of fact. This whole "pinched-faced loner white guy" description is nothing but a stereotype, and it is not true.

I have zero confidence in corrupt Washington to fix this admittedly embarrassing problem, but there is a chance that an unexpected hero will fix it: Big Money. Lately political candidates have raised so much money that they do not need matching funds.

Does Hillary Clinton really need the Democratic stamp of approval to win next November? Probably not. She could run as an independent Democrat and might win anyway. On the other hand, there is the risk that she would split the liberal vote and hand the election to the GOP, which is the only thing that keeps her in the fold.

Nonetheless, this last barrier won't hold forever. Eventually an Obama or a Romney will realize he or she has enough money to make it without going through the primary drag. What would really be great is if Obama met Romney in a smoke filled room and said, "The nomination is fixed against you and against me. I can't run as an independent because I would split the liberals and you can't run because you would split the conservatives. But if we BOTH ran, it would be a four way race, and either one of us could win. What do you say?"

It could happen, couldn't it?

But it is silly to say that Gore has taken the "no ego" trip. All he has done in the last 7 years is make himself the most famous out-of-office politician on earth. If he had disappeared into a Trappist monastery, you'd have me. But let's get serious -- Gore has benefited tremendously from what he has done. Fair to say he has promoted himself and the environment in the last 7 years? Yes. That he has selflessly put world interests before his own advancement? Don't make me laugh.

If I can have a number one bestseller, an Oscar, and a Nobel all in the same year and be called selfless, good God, sign me up for selfless.