Katrina makes point

CW FISHER Seaport cities that are built below sea level will eventually sink. We've known this about New Orleans for three centuries. It's been a question of when, not whether. Hurricanes are something else we know a lot about, since they visit the southeast coast of America with the regularity of relatives. We can see them coming when they're miles out in the Gulf of Mexico. You'd think we'd have enough time to run. And most of us do when the call to evacuate comes. The reason many thousands of people failed to evacuate the future Lost City known now as New Orleans had nothing to do with pride or courage or the stubborn idiocy of people with roots. The reason many thousands of people failed to evacuate was because they are poor. They don't own cars. There was a plan, but the plan wasn't good enough. It cut corners where the poor were concerned. Buses weren't figured in. Those we left behind are now either shoved out of the way because they're already dead, or shot because they're looting. What they're looting are food stores. They're also looting for water. Loot away, folks. That's called survival. The reason the United States government isn't airlifting water and food and shelter is because some moron with a gun shot at an Army helicopter, the cad. So they're refiguring. Frankly, they found it insulting, and frightening. Meanwhile, the Weather Channel continues to airlift dozens of fresh reporters who do a good job of showing people baking in the sun. People, Americans actually, who are, to the embarrassment of FEMA, dying. Texas, the great nation within a nation next door, watches the Weather Channel with the rest of us, doing squat. Bush called his dad and Bill Clinton to repeat their tsunami act and raise a few funds. Babies dehydrate, bodies rot, West Nile is next. Fox News is already blaming the Democrats preemptively, for blaming the Republicans, which you know they will. The reason the Navy isn't shipping out survivors and delivering supplies is because they're with the Army, Marines and Air Force in Iraq right now. If we could have had this hurricane in their hemisphere we might have had a fighting chance. As it is we'll have to make do with what we got, and thank God that most of the victims will be the poor, the unnecessary, and the unknown. This is what our taxes pay for.