the way the government dropped the ball on all levels; local, state, national, is horrific.

On the other, how many times through the years were we told what a catastrophe a hurricane hitting New Orleans would cause?

Even if it seemed shortly afterward that Nawlins had dodged the bullet, just hours before Katrina struck it looked like the city-killer that has been predicted for years.

Will California react the same way when that monsterous earthquake finally goes off? You know it is coming.

I want to see the Lee documentary if only to see Ray Nagin "boasting about taking a longer shower than was probably polite in the president's "pimpmobile," otherwise known as Air Force One".

Nagin blasted off with more quotes at a recent black journalists' convention in Indy; I've come to the conclusion that Ray Nagin is not very smart.

One more comment. Joyce's piece concluded thusly: "When a white kid with dreadlocks, one of many freelance vigilantes who flocked here after the storm, started chanting, "You've seen the film, now it's time to do something!" a lady in front of me harrumphed back at him, "Yeah? Why don't you do something -- like build us a levee.""

My comment: it is unfair for the author to refer to the race of the kid with dreadlocks and not refer to the race of the lady wanted the white kid to build her a levee. Assuming that the woman is black, her attitude SPEAKS VOLUMES about the problem in New Orleans, and how hollow Nagin sounds. And this Democrat (yours truly), has no easy solution.

Why on earth would you say that maybe the reason people didn't show up was, "maybe they heard there wouldn't be alcohol served in the arena"?

Do you read your own article? Does it occur to you how insulting that statement is? Sometimes I think there is no hope for us.Maybe people should go to jail for what has and hasn't happened in New Orleans. But maybe you should question your assumptions on people.

I live in Manhattan and reacted with shock and disgust that I felt when viewing what went on in New Orleans in the weeks after Katrina hit (I was out of the country and really could not comprehend that the scenes I was watching on CNN were in the United States.)

When I came home I turned off from the whole predicament when I heard President Bush vowing to "rebuild" New Orleans "just like" New York had been rebuilt. As I live blocks from the whole in the ground that is the World Trade Center site, I immediately recognized New Orleans as a lost cause.

Sadly, Americans are now content to view dramatized films about the horrible events of our day. But they are willing to do precisely nothing to rebuild, to make progress, to make anything better. The tapes of 911 calls on 9/11 were recently made public. What they clearly show -- firemen in the towers had no ability to communicate because their hand-held radios didn't work. The police helicopter pilots knew that the towers were about to collapse but they had no "institutional" means of communicating this fact to the fire department. The workers manning the 911 phone center had no information. While there was a passable staircase in the north tower that could have saved the lives of hundreds of people -- the 911 center workers were not aware of its existence and told anyone who called to "stay put".

5 years after 9/11 Americans are content to ponder the "heroes" of the day and emote about the horror that befell the country. There is zero interest in adressing the bureaucratic problems that led to thousands of deaths that day. There is even less interest in rebuilding the site that President Bush and every other politician that has exploited 9/11 has pledged to rebuild.

Terrorism and national security is supposedly a problem that the administration and the government is completely focused on. I learned today that it would cost $2 billion to outfit American airports with sophisticated machines that could effectively screen hand baggage. That cost was deemed "too expensive" in the context of a government that is spending billions in Iraq every month.

I have complete empathy for what has gone on in New Orleans, but I am far too cynical and dejected to muster much action. Our government has totally and utterly betrayed the interests of the American people. And Americans are too preoccupied with American Idol to care very much. Until Americans demand a better government, they will get the government that they deserve.

The fundamental truth of New Orleans is that it was a disaster waiting to happen - by geography (most of the city being below river level) - by construction (the design oversight in the maximum load capacity of the base of the drainage walls) and by correction (the dredging and civil work by the Corp of Engineers that eliminated all the natural accumulation areas in the South Louisiana coast). Add a hurricane and human nature (betting this one was like all the rest and would just blow over) and you have the disaster on the Southern coast that Katrina left.

But the point that I want to make is that the tragedy was compounded by the desire to control more than anything - meaning that no one wanted (or still wants) to cede control of their little part of that world. When you look at the city, parish, state and federal agencies - who runs the show? The answer is that no one really does, everyone just wants to hold on to their part of the pie and let the others be dammed. And that, more than any other reason, is why New Orleans is in the situation that it is in today.

But the question that you have to ask is - who would you trust to handle such a job? Do you seriously want the Federal Government to have the power raze what is left of the city, declare Eminent Domain and confiscate the ruined properties and auction them off to the highest bidder? That might be the best option to bring the city back to life (and to establish areas too unsafe to be rebuilt), but who wants that degree of power in one person?

No one in the State government of Louisiana is going to be given that power with all the local politics involved and no one from a local level seems to have enough moral authority to lead such an endeavor. And given the outrageous demands of the politicians from LA after the flood for funds, who is going to be trusted to administer that amount of money?

This was a Great Fire of London moment - a time to rebuild and rationalize something that was destroyed. Sadly, that moment has passed, and no one was there to be the Wren or Hooke of New Orleans to restore the city. It would have been nice to see more leadership in the rebuilding effort - but in the end, given the byzantine complications of local political structures - what do you expect?