I Was Fooling Myself

So I sit at the keyboard and begin writing this note. I sit here after a week of silence not quite sure just what will come out. I have run aground on the rocks of despair and can't find my voice.

Too many issues collide here. Too many problems that need focused attention instead of photo-ops and cynical spin and slap-on-the-back solutions that masquerade as public policy these days.

As lethal, toxic sludge is pumped into Lake Pontchartraine, as Administration spin masters mobilize to avoid the finger of accountability that points in their direction, as insiders descend like carrion crows to scoop up reconstruction contracts, as incompetent pretenders are fully revealed and sent slinking silently back to the beltway, and as we find just how little we got for those billions pumped into the Department of Homeland Security, I see little hope for change.

I come from an era when we flew to the moon. I come from a time when we let freedom ring from every mountainside. That world was far from perfect, but we believed in always doing better. We believed in progress. And as a result, I always thought that we were different.

Katrina and everything that has happened since suggests how badly I was fooling myself.

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