I’m immensely relieved to hear that my four cousins who live in New Orleans are safe and sound, and out of the city….though three of them are homeowners, one just a few blocks from Lake Pontchartrain. That part doesn’t sound good. But that’s nothing compared to their health and safety. Allen, Jen, George, and Mary—so glad you guys are okay.

The situation there is a little hard to comprehend, and I’m sure that we’re not getting a complete picture from TV news. I was convinced of this when I received this forwarded e-mail from someone in New Orleans as of yesterday. I think I’ll just let it speak for itself.

“I don’t believe in Hell, per se, but the situation in the city of
New Orleans right now has got to be as close to hell on earth as it
gets. It’s Biblical. Fucking apocalyptic.

“First there’s the “water.” It’s black. It is sludged up with
everything washed up out of the sewer system from trash to feces to
urine, all the decomposing bodies that have floated up from every
single grave and crypt in the city, gasoline, rotten food, newly
dead animals, newly dead people, and God knows what else. It is, at
least in some places, flammable. I cannot even begin to imagine the
smell.

” In and under that water, which you can’t see through, are snakes,
alligators, and swamp leeches. And live electrical wires. And
twisted glass and sheet metal. Oh, and there are balls of fire ants
floating around. The ants cling to each other in a ball to keep
from drowning, but when they make landfall on a structure, or a
person, they disperse. And dine.

“Now there are roving bands of thugs who have armed themselves to the
teeth by looting gun shops, and they are just walking around
shooting people. At night, there is no light, except for the light
from the fires that are burning in many places.

“And the water is rising.”

It does raise the question: If we can’t maintain order in a crisis in the United States, how could we possibly hope to do so in Iraq?