I visited New Orleans on business in December 04. ie eight months before Katrina. I had visited Manhattan briefly, once before. Apart from that it was my first time in America ... and I was deeply, deeply shocked. The poverty I saw bears comparing to the poverty I have seen in India. This was different, though, because India is a country on its way up. I would never have expected to see poverty like that in one of the richest countries in the world.

I was deeply shocked because, in spite of the poverty, people were so damn NICE to me. The old man filling bags at the supermarket. The guy who picked me up from the airport in a car so run down I was sure the event planners had made a mistake and that this couldn't be an official taxi company.

When the conference I was attending was over I went on a few tours. During the first one they told us the levees were in trouble. During the second and then the third - a plantation tour - I heard and saw things that made my jaw drop in wonder at the racism being casually displayed to visitors. Some examples:

'The Irish had it so much harder than the blacks. (this was a bit of theme of all the tours I found.) At least the slaves had owners responsible for feeding them. The Irish just died in droves.'

'The slaves ate a communal meal at lunch and then for dinner they were free to prepare their own meal and after that to pursue their own interests.' Like what? I wondered? Evening classes?

At the plantations we went to no slave quarters were still in existence. Why not? someone asked. Most of the overseas visitors were interested in seeing them. 'No one's interested' we were told. Another theme of the plantation tour was how caring and kind all the plantation owners were. We were told that a famous slave uprising I asked about was not anything most of the slaves wanted anything to do with (this could be true) - they were happy being slaves. (this couldn't be true.)

When I asked for a tour with some kind of black perspective on history I was told there was only the jazz tour, that was it.

After experiencing this kind of unabashed and unremarked upon racism, and seeing with my own eyes the poverty and slum living conditions people were managing to eke out respectable looking lives in, I was not surprised at what happened with Katrina. In a country that cares so little for how its history is remembered, let alone presented to outsiders, it's not surprising to me that there is still, as yet, no national memorial to the slaves, and, by the same token, I will be shocked if Obama wins.

... and it reveals so much about the celebrities. As if Brangelina's kids won't get enough attention, anyway. I cannot understand why they would saddle their children with such names.

It also wrecks their pretensions to being 'just ordinary folks, really'. No amount of protestations, or appearing in casual jeans, or telling us they like slobbing out in front of the TV of an evening can outweigh the pretensions to grandeur and 'specialness' that you see revealed in the way they name their children: Shiloh, Apple, Lourdes ... Oh please!

To me it seems like they're telling their children 'be special and unusual and a worthwhile extension of how I like to see me ... or else!'

As an anglo Australian I am startled, puzzled and amazed by some of the waspy white names I read of in Vanity Fair or in that novel 'Prep' that came out awhile ago. Things like 'James' for a girl, and last names being given as first names. I wish I could remember some of them - Kendall maybe? What gives here? Is it in fact that a treasured family sur name is given to the child as a first name? It's awful! Kind of trying for so-ugly-it's-beautiful, except it's not.

Early poster said the following: "Character coutns

What kind of woman would have a FIFTH child with Down's syndrome, then take off on a national political campaign when the child was just an infant? The same kind of woman whose daughter would end up knocked up at 17. A miserable mother, a terrible role model, and a monster."

Sarah Palin didn't have to have five kids. She CHOSE to. Now, having chosen to, I can't believe she is making the choices she is making in regard to that family.

To the above poster I would just add that her pregnant seventeen year old daughter is now a child with 'special needs' as well, and that the child of that 'special needs' teenager is also going to have 'special needs' for a while, too.

This is one family that needs its mother to LOOK AFTER IT for a while.