Moment in the limelight

According to several news reports, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin considers himself important enough as to make the invective he hurled in the direction of the federal government and the President reason enough to assasinate him. During the time he should have been running his city, it seems he was busy reading Robert Ludlum novels.

The problem is not that there are stupid people in this world. The problem is that in a country that is the very symbol of democracy, the result of the system is that this kind of moron, a crybaby who will swear at the President and anyone else in sight for money instead of using his own city's emergency plan and saving some lives, gets democratically elected by a city of 500,000.

The isolated acts of heroism in this story that is at the same time both horrific and pathetic, do help restore some confidence in humanity. But not much.

A teenager who had never before driven a bus, "stealing" one and driving a busfull of people to the Astrodome is gallant heroism. Putting him behind bars and describing his actions as "an example of extreme looting" is heinous. Again, Farah is right on the money when he says that American society has possibly already decayed past the point of no return.

Every occurence is a challenge and an opportunity, on both the personal and the communal level. Let's see if we can stop blowing it.