Katrina: Notes and Lessons Learned...

Please do not make one-million Americans a permanent dependent class... Even in these trying times allow the people the opportunity to excel. Do not lock them physically or figuratively in the Astrodome. We should be working to transport, care, and guide our people using all assets of our great nation – moral, physical, and financial.

Television Pundits and Politicians remember one thing… This is America… This is not a game of Civilization III. The government (note the lower case) does not rebuild a city. The property that remains is owned by private citizens and businesses. You cannot mandate how or where this city will be rebuilt. Government should help guide and structure the growth of our new city.

Media… I know your on-site reporters are in the thick of things. I know you have to seek experts in an event of which there are no experts. Please understand. Leadership is not grabbing a hard-hat and wading boots and personally saving one valued citizen. Many others die if the solution is not organized and effective. Sometimes it pays to assess the situation and act coherently. Please note the news on Saturday, September 3 2005. Your solutions would still have individuals heroically saving individuals. They would be doing so for weeks. In another week they would be pulling the dead from the waters. Those dead are now alive and kicking.

All voters… Learn that when you pull that lever you are supposed to be voting for leadership – not jobs, not the environment, not abortion, not military expenditures, not pretty hair, and not a particular political party. You are not simply voting ‘It’s the Economy, Stupid!’. You are not voting for jobs programs circling around safety requirements. You allowed your politicians to create ineffective employment programs to maintain your levies and dikes. We, in California, voted for unabated social and environmental programs. Much of California burned to the ground. The rest is going broke. We all voted for the rolling good times of the 90’s and created a military too small to deal with war. Vote leadership. Accept that leaders sometimes say NO.

Finally, and most importantly, we should all kneel to our God and thank him/her/it that we do not have a power and publicity grasping President… We have seen a dramatic failure in our federal form of government. The city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana were, and are, badly served by the leadership they voted in. Hard Left Libs: Please do not destroy our federal form of representative government because of a localized failure. Our President will NOT grasp the power dropped into his hand.