Katrina postscript...

So much has been written and I am sure there are even more telling details out there. In any event, some months after New Orleans was virtually destroyed, it was reported in the New York Times that 80 percent of all homeowners affected by Katrina were denied federallly subsidized loans that were issued for the very purpose of helping the victims re-build their homes. Somehow their financial status was too insecure (not hard to imagine given the destruction of the local economy and real estate market in particular).

Fancy this then -- taxpayer monies allocated to provide relief to affected homeowners of all stripes were instead diverted to only the wealthier of the lot, whom we can be assured already had sufficient insurance policies in place. In other words, who benefited from the taxpayers' largesse? The victims most affected by the hurricane or the insurance companies? Maybe someone knows the answers.

Should I even mention the rapidity with which Halliburton was brought into the picture, in spite of the improprieties in Iraq? That the effects of Katrina were worsened because of policies put in place supposedly to increase homeland security also remains another painful irony: one must not forget that FEMA was intentionally weakened (i.e. its resources were diverted away from natural disaster prevention/redress and towards anti-terrorism initiatives). Now there are efforts to subsume it under Homeland Security -- the very agency that was in all likelihood responsible for emasculating FEMA from the beginning.