Sorry for the Silence

I don't know about all of you, but this week has just stunned me.

I can't eat a bite of food without feeling a bit of guilt, without wishing I could make dinner for every soul in the devastation. Nothing I've been able to do thus far feels like enough. Hell, even though they really only want guest housing close to the Southeast, I've signed my home up for temporary housing for refugees.

And the anger inside me for the lack of planning for the poor blacks or perhaps the poor in general, the staggering sums of money that go to this "security" program or that but which pays no attention to the kind of insecurity delivered by a natural disaster.

Decisions like telling everyone to go to the SuperDome long after it was closed to new people, or telling them to go to the Convention Center when no one was there to lead or feed or bus them to a new location, like not noticing that more than a third of the city had NO ability to evacuate.

The decision the other day to suspend rescue efforts and turn the attention to looting. Then, today, with Bush and the governor of Louisiana saying "Zero tolerance" and "shoot to kill" even if the looting was of people breaking into storefronts to get water and food.

But, I've got to get back here. And I apologize for my absence. Your thoughts, as always, interest me.