[Vision2020] Rebuilding New Orleans (was Of Deltas and CO2)

[Melynda Huskey]

At the risk of getting into a dung-flinging match in the monkey house, 
there is no question that we will rebuild New Orleans' levees.  New 
Orleans is *the* major port on the Gulf.  It is essentially and 
disastrously located at the mouth of the Mississippi.  Why?  Not 
because its residents are stupid; New Orleans is where it is because 
it's convenient for shipping.  Do you want coffee, Donovan?  Do you 
want gasoline, Pat?  I'm assuming, based on your posts, that you both 
eat one hell of a lot of bananas.  If you want these things, and you 
want them at a price you can afford, then, like it or not, you love New 
Orleans.  No, you adore it!  Laissez les bontemps rouler!

And just for the record, by God, New Orleans is a hell of lot more 
"special" than Lewiston.  Sure, I'd rather go down to the Clarkston 
Costco than ever pay another visit to the French Quarter, but I'm old.  
I've reached the point where I'd rather spend my Saturdays buying 
big-ass packs of toilet paper than drinking rum grenades on Bourbon 
Street at 8 o'clock in the morning.  But that's as may be.  What's at 
stake here is not *if* we rebuild but *how* we rebuild.  How do we 
recreate Louisiana's lost wetlands?  How do we stop developers from 
building millionaire McMansions on fragile beach fronts?  Will George 
W. Bush order the Army Corps of Engineers to restore the marshes?  Will 
he put some serious money into FEMA?  Will he fire that pea-brained 
political hack he appointed as FEMA's director?  And, if he fires him, 
will he replace him with a competent professional or with yet another 
Pioneer Club Brown Nose?

(For more on the less-than-stellar resume of FEMA's director, check out 
the Boulder, Colorado page of New West, www.newwest.net.  It makes for 
a mind-boggling read.)

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.auntie-establishment.com