More Katrina reading

On the namesake of Louisiana and the "faith-based" nature of the Bush administration, and the improvement of media perceptions in the face of local death and destruction wrought by them.

Great quote of a quote:

Ron Suskind, in a well-known article for the New York Times
Magazine, wrote that the Bush administration is a "faith-based presidency." He
quoted a senior White House official dismissing journalists and others of "the
reality-based community" and saying "We are an empire now, and when we act, we
create our own reality."

As frightening a thing as you could want a person in power to say. There's a passage in 1984, imperfectly memorized, as Winston Smith despairs: "What can you do against the lunatic who is more powerful than you, who listens politely to your well-reasoned arguments and then simply persists in his lunacy?"

This is the question facing America, it seems -- and, alas, the world.