Another entry to my worship materials workbook, these quotes for on the theme of non-violence.
"Do you know, Fontanes, what astonishes me۬most in the world? The inability of force to۬create anything. In the long run the sword is۬always beaten by the spirit."۬ Napoleon Bonaparte
"That which distinguishes us from all the animals is our capacity to be nonviolent.۬And we fulfill our mission only to the extent that we are nonviolent and no more."۬ M.K. Gandi, "Nonviolence: The Greatest Force"
"Power can guarantee the interests of some, but it can never foster the good of all.۬Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all the others."۬ Thomas Merton, "Blessed are the Meek"
Overcoming Violence and War: September 2005 Archives
Unitarian Universalists take stands on issues of the day. This is not new. It is a practice that has deep roots in our faith tradition. We don't take stands on the issues of the day because we have substituted "liberal politics" for "liberal religion" as some would contend. Unitarianism and Universalism were both ethical religions, and Unitarian Universalism is decidedly ethical in its stated principles, and as a preferred orientation of most of its adherents. When Unitarian Universalist congregations are searching for a minister they take a €˜theological orientation poll." This consists of choosing from among a group of possible Unitarian Universalist positions what best describes ones theology. One can choose more than one. In most congregations, Ethical religion and Ethical Christian have been high vote getters. Ethical Christians believe that the ethics taught by Jesus are important to living ones life, while Ethical Religionists do not need to specify which ethical teacher they follow. I suspect a lot of people check both.
We distinguish between personal ethics and social ethics. Personal ethics has to do with how we as individuals conduct our lives in relation to the world, and how we relate to other people. For religious people, personal ethics would involve how the apply the precepts of their religion in the choices that they make in life.
For example, our religion might teach the virtue of generosity. What does that mean in practice? What do we give to others? how much? to whom? and why? What do we expect in return. To we give with conditions? To we give to deserving poor? What does it mean to be generous to a fault?
But most religious communities also have teachings and traditions relative to how we relate to the larger community. If the religion teaches that one must do justice and walk humbly with that which abides, how does a religious community respond to injustice in society. If the religion teaches that it is the peacemakers who are blessed, how does one contribute toward a more peaceful world.
Our considered ethical responses to social injustice, war and the misuse of power by authorities constitutes our social ethics, and Unitarian Universalists have historically been a religious community that understood their responsibility toward the larger community. Some have said this is gift of the Puritans, who labored to bring about a Holy Commonwealth. Whatever the source, we have never been a tradition that cultivated inner peace, and personal virtue, and ignored community.
Some criticize Unitarian Universalists for being too political. If I understand, the criticism is that they experience their congregation as being overtly partisan for political liberals and against political conservatives. I think that it is possible that some congregational leaders are unclear about religious community and social ethics, and engage in Democratic Party politics in the church. I have never seen open partisanship by a minister or board member, but I believe that it happens.
I have seen a lay persons abuse candles of joy and concern to make a political action announcement, or blast some political leader for their politics. (I have always found support when I openly criticized the practice and asked the congregation to covenant not to allow such abuse.) There are those who abuse our faith community, congregational leaders must set firm guidelines to prevent such abuse.) Most congregations in my experience know the difference between ethical witness and political mobilization.
It is also possible that some Unitarian Universalists are uncomfortable with social ethical stance taking. For a congregation to conclude that the war in Iraq is wrong is consistent with our faith communities historic values. Some might accuse that congregation of being involved in politics, but they are wrong.
Gandhi once remarked "To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. ۬۬That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means."
I have witnessed Unitarian Universalists becoming involved in opposition to war and injustice for forty years, and at every juncture I have also witnessed considerable resistance on the part of some Unitarian Universalists to their congregation or their Association taking a stance no matter that the decision was democratically decided according to the established procedures of the Association.
A more serious criticism concerns how our community converses about differences relative to social ethical stances. There is too much divisive squabbling and self righteousness that these procedures. How we talk with one another about social justice, anti-oppression and the justice of a particular war is too often charged with emotion. Our goal must be to discuss these questions and come to a majority vote without raising our differences to the level of emotional conflict. Some good people who have social consciences with draw from the process because some emotionally changed opponent has just read them out of the faith because of difference over words and their meaning.
We must creating safe communities for discourse and creative conflict, we must learn to base our procedures on religious principles.
Part of a long time project to compile worship resources for services in congregations of the free spirit. The following illustrate different takes on the theme of "misuse of religion to serve power.
"And I also want to say that this is the very first time I have felt that God is in the White House."۬ Gary Welby, American Republican
"We are on the right side, and God is with us, and anyone who has God on their side never loses."۬ Muhmmad Al-Mehimmad, Iraqi insurgent
"Tragic is the role of religion in contemporary society."۬ Abraham Joshua Heschel, "Religion in Modern Society"
"The names of the heroes,۬I was taught to memorize.۬They had guns in their hands,۬And God on their side. . . For you don't count the۬dead, with God on our side."۬ Bob Dylan "God on Our Side"
My results are pretty much the same on that politics test that Cranky Cindy, Lawperry, Chutney, Peacebang and John Cullihan have taken and commented on their blogs. The test designed to go beyond Democrat and Republican labels and report on what people actually believe reports that I am a " Social Liberal and and...Economic Liberal and I am best described as "a Socialist." The test reports that I exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness. [ loc: (56, -150) modscore: (6, 39)]
I am not and never have been a Democrat. I don't think of myself as a "socialist" as that word is ordinarily used either. But I do believe in public solutions to public problems, and that we have a responsibility to make equality real in society. The Unitarian Universalist Principles and Purposes are not simply good intentions, they are meant to lived and promoted in society at large.
Many UUs actually believe that our Unitarian Universalist values are guide to personal and social ethics, and yet we view the Democratic Party with some skepticism. I asked several of other UUs at the church I am serving to take the test, and they all produced similar results. I think we share a common social ethics rather than being party line "socialists."
I am a Unitarian Universalist and I vote. So do lots of other UUs. Maybe that is why we pass resolutions critical of both establishment parties at General Assembly, and maybe that is why Bill Sinkford is President of our Association.
Shawn Desjarlais tells the story of his efforts with other Native American youth to create an art form that speaks both to his indigenous roots and to his generations sense of self expression. The Native "hip hop" that Shawn and others are working to create is a distinctive beat, and style, and is explicit in its anti racism and struggle for sovereignty.
Sharon Olds has declined to attend the National Book Festival in Washington. She admits that reading her poetry and speaking to such a large audience (35000 people are expected) would have been an opportunity, and that participating in a community of writers is dear to her heart, but that participating in this Festival would be an implicit endorsement of the Bush led war against Iraq.
Olds, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and professor of creative writing at New York University, was invited along with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their works. Three years ago artist Jules Feiffer declined to attend the festival's White House breakfast as a protest against the Iraq War
We arrived at the Woolworth's
and the picket line was already in motion.
The demonstrators Black, White, young and old,
were singing songs I had never heard before,
shooting slogans about Freedom,
holding signs accusing the five and dime chain of Jim Crow,
Segregation, Racism, Bigotry,
It was 1958
and I had come to believe
that Segregation was very, very wrong
so very wrong that I must act.
Richard Hofstader wrote in 1965:
...there is a difference between the paranoid style in politics and the clinical paranoiac: although they both tend to be overheated, over-suspicious, overaggressive, grandiose, and apocalyptic in expression, the clinical paranoid sees the hostile and conspiratorial world in which he feels himself to be living as directed specifically against him: whereas the spokesman for the paranoid style finds it directed against a nation, a culture, a way of life who fate affects not himself alone but millions of others.
In order to enlist people into the religion of violence it is necessary to have an enemy, who is consciously working to destroy ones community. To create such an enemy we must suspect the motives of the other, fear that enemy because of they "hate our way of life."
In 1965 Richard Hofstader was examining the paranoid style of U.S. politician as they postured against the Soviet Union and "communism." In 2005 the religion of violence has constructed a new image of the enemy, drawing connections between such disparate movements as the Baath Party in Iraq, the corrupt stalinist oligarchy in North Korea, the nascent populist socialist movement led by Hugo Chavez, the Palestinian militants, and the theocracy in Iran. The "axis of evil" may never hold a consultation, but for the politician who has embraced the paranoid style the proof of their enemy status has been established by their existence.
Paul Vitney writing for the Common Dreams News Center writes:
"Claims that the New Orleans floods have laid bare a growing racial and economic divide in the US have, until now, been rejected by the American political establishment as emotional rhetoric. But yesterday's UN report provides statistical proof that for many - well beyond those affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - the great American Dream is an ongoing nightmare."
It is uncommon for United Nations reports contain criticism of the United States, but as this report makes clear "Poverty and social breakdown are core components of the global security threat."
Later Vitney writes:
"Child poverty is a particularly sensitive indicator for income poverty in rich countries. It is defined as living in a family with an income below 50 per cent of the national average. The US - with Mexico - has the dubious distinction of seeing its child poverty rates increase to more than 20 per cent. In the UK - which at the end of the 1990s had one of the highest child poverty rates in Europe - the rise in child poverty, by contrast, has been reversed through increases in tax credits and benefits."
As huge numbers of Americans watched the news from the Gulf Coast they saw this nations poor as humans, and were outraged by the slow government response to their plight. Many are now open to new understanding how government policies of help perpetuate and deepen that poverty.
Jeff Wilson making a comment at Coffee House writes " it's worth considering whether American society has also changed over the past couple of generations. I don't feel I'm old enough to have sufficient memory of earlier decades to make such a determination. So, let me ask it here: has American society become more or less racist? Or, if you prefer, how has racism in America changed? Is America more anti-racist than it used to be?
My short answer is that it is not better, and it is not worse, it is just different. Progress, the idea that things get better and better until they are really good is one of white America's favorite myths, and the notion that we have overcome racism in the last several decades is almost an article of faith. And there are markers that point to "progress." Schools are no longer legally segregated, lynchings are less frequent, people of color appear in the popular media in professional and leadership roles, access to public facilities is not openly denied. In the last three decades an African American middle class has grown significantly, and there is an emerging Latino/a middle class.
The images of Native people have improved. When I was a child the indigenous people were despised, "the only good Indian was a dead Indian" was standard operating procedure both in the media and in practice in most parts of the country. Now lots of folks want to be Indian, and search their genealogy for that Cherokee princess that their great, great grand-daddy picked up cheap on the way West to settle on stolen land. Middle class whites embrace native spirituality, and are sweating their way to enlightenment. White suburban youth are into hip, hop, and their parents love Halle Berry and Tiger Woods. Such are the signs of progress.
On the other hand poverty among people of color has deepened, and the gap between "whites" and "coloreds" has grown. The prison-industrial complex now captures more than a third of all young African American males; more than half of prisoners are African American. Native Americans and Latinos are also swept up by the criminal injustice system, while the majority white population experiences less prosecution and lenient sentences. (Drug use among whites and people of color is statistically similar, arrest and imprisonment is disproportionately a matter of color.)
We could go on with many other examples indicating impoverishment has increased for most people of color, and the violent repression of people of color has become the responsibility of the state rather than the mob. People of color will not soon forget that the President of the United States issued a shoot to kill order to the national guard on their way to do search and rescue in a mostly African American city.
Institutional racism has been defined as "the network of institutional structures, policies, and practices that create advantages and benefits for Whites, and discrimination, oppression, and disadvantage for people of color." In the 1950s and 1960s mass movements swept away Jim Crow, or legal segregation. During the same decades we began to see organized efforts to scare white working class people to sell their homes in the city and move to suburbs, and the practice of "red lining" by financial institutions to deprive inner city communities of finances for housing renovation. We witnessed the use of resentment and fear of people of color by a major political party to gain votes and cause a major realignment of voting patterns.
These and other policies by government, political parties, the media, and corporations are only a sample of the institutional reconstruction of racist relations in the United States since the breakup of Jim Crow legalized segregation. After the Civil War the institutional racism of slavery was replaced by the institutional racism of legalized segregation. After the civil rights upsurge institutional racism of legalized segregation was replaced by the institutionalized racism of selected criminalization and the "color blind" discrimination caused by the "wealth gap." Institutional racism has changed in America, and that change has been reflected in American's ideas about race.
There is a rejection of the old blatant racist ideology. Today, Ideological racism among most white Americans is more a denial of their own privilege and choosing to live their lives in isolation from poverty and state violence. Most white Americans try hard to maintain the pretense that they live in a color blind America. They resent people who suggest that this social construction is self serving illusion.
On the one hand the fact that most whites reject open racism is a good thing, and it we must take notice that most people in our country today are predisposed against open racism. Most whites will support efforts that will improve the conditions of people of color. But being "blind to color" also blinds people to the working of the new forms of institutional racism, which has made the work of overcoming the economic, social, and cultural impoverishment of all Americans more difficult. Being "blind to color" means the political impotence for all but the most wealthy, it is just as true today as it was for Abraham Lincoln, "we the people" can not be half free, and half oppressed.
It is not better, it is not worse, but it is different.
(I am in debt to George Tinker for this maxim, we were having breakfast just before his Center presentation and I made some observation about progress. He said "I don't know about progress. Not better, not worse, but different.")
Last Thursday, George W. Bush declared "''there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting or price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud."
The "ethics of looting" during a catastrophe will provide many a good topic for sermons for months to come. If you were without food and water for three days would you resupply yourself from Ma's convenience store? from WalMart? If one and not the other why discriminate? We learn that New Orleans police whose homes were underwater, who were out contact with their families, and whose police station was destroyed by the storm making a Super-pharmacy into their staging area and eating the food of the shelves. Were they looters? Their authority came from necessity, and was made on the spot. They applied for no warrant. Emergencies give all us liberties not delegated by constitutions.
I am not advocating a situational ethic, I argue that human beings share a morality that gives us standards of judgement, but that we make judgments about particular choices based on the concrete situation. But in every disaster there are those who take advantage, those who loot television sets, designer clothing, alcoholic beverages, drugs are criminals along with all those who engage in "price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud."
Criminals must be prosecuted, including those who loot the people at the gasoline pumps. I agree with Derrick Z. Jackson who wrote in Friday's Boston Globe that in the midst of this national crisis:
"big oil looted the nation. The pumps instantly shot past $3 a gallon, with $4 a gallon well in sight. In a thinly disguised attempt to act as if it cared about the people wading in the water, Chevron has pledged $5 million to relief efforts. Exxon-Mobil and Shell have pledged $2 million apiece. British Petroleum and Citgo have pledged $1 million each.
This is nothing next to their wealth. Of the world's seven most profitable corporations, four are Exxon-Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Chevron. Exxon-Mobil is the world's most profitable company, making $25.3 billion last year. It and the other three corporations had combined profits last year of $72.8 billion. Exxon-Mobil is also the world's most valuable company, with a market value, according to Forbes magazine, of $405 billion. The combined market value of Exxon-Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and Chevron is nearly $1 trillion.
And that was last year. A month ago, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, and Conoco-Phillips announced record second-quarter profits of $7.6 billion, $3.7 billion, and $3.1 billion, respectively. Royal Dutch Shell's quarterly profits of $5.2 billion were up by 34 percent over the same period last year. Other well-known companies like Sunoco also had record second-quarter earnings.
If Exxon-Mobil were to maintain its current pace of profits, it would cross the $30 billion barrier for 2005. The company's chief financial officer, Henry Hubble, bragged in classic corporatese, ''Our disciplined project management and operating practices deliver the benefits of strong industry conditions to our shareholders."
Those disciplined operating practices are hardly confined to the oil fields. Everyone knows that Bush does not really mean what he says about price-gouging at the pump, since he just gave energy companies the bulk of $14.5 billion in tax breaks in the new energy bill. Surprise, surprise. In Bush's two elections, oil and gas companies gave Republicans 79 percent of their $61.5 million in campaign contributions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
If Bush really meant what he said, he would call for a freeze or cap on gasoline prices, especially in the regions affected most dramatically by Katrina. He would challenge big oil to come up with a much more meaningful contribution to relief efforts.
If Bush meant what he said! Well long time ago Woody Guthrie sang:
Yes, as through this world I've wandered۬I've seen lots of funny men;۬Some will rob you with a six-gun,۬And some with a fountain pen.
Funny men with power. Funny men with connections. Funny men with an agenda.
We see unfolding in our nation reported to the people by a variety of media an important religious, moral and ethical lesson. There is a difference between the politics of domination and the ethics of mutuality. The corporate power elite sees the people of the United States as consumers. Their politicians are charged with keeping order. Their media are charged with portraying a picture of smart elites who benevolently rule happy contented consumers. But sometimes the world is turned upside down by a crisis, and we see even through the corporate media ordinary people coping with disaster in the face of bureaucrats, criminals and the grass roots of our nation responds with solidarity and compassion. Despite the attempts to portray New Orleans as a city that had descended into anarchy, needing a "strong hand," we the people instead choose empathy and compassion. Mutuality happens in the face of greed, corruption and political conspiracies. Unitarian Universalists can learn a significant lesson from the crisis, the principles of our faith community are based on an ethic of equality, mutuality and interdependence. Oftentimes, we celebrate those principles in the abstract, but in this crisis we can see how they apply on a mass scale. And we can choose to be people who live those values, or passive consumers in a corporate state who come to church to be comforted, entertained and "intellectually stimulated."
I just spoke to José Ballester, co-minister at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, Texas. Houston is the first site of the mass relocation of 25000 refugees from New Orleans. Most of the people coming to Houston are coming from the SuperDome and will be put up at Astrodome. The churches of Houston have mobilized people to greet the buses to give that human touch that these people need so much.
The churches are organizing to provide showers, food, water and care for these people who are suffering from traumatic stress (nothing post about it.) The churches in many parts of the South, Southeast, and Southwest will be mobilizing to help provide hospitality and support for evacuees. Below is the information being sent to members of that congregations. First UU is also working closely with the other churches in the city.
Other churches might find elements in FUUC plan helpful.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Many are asking what you can do to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I'm summarizing a dozen or so opportunities here. As future plans are made, we will do our best to keep you posted.
1. To offer living space for a UU family (or others), go to the Southwest UU District website, www.swuuc.org, and click on Hurricane Katrina Resources, then on Locating and Housing UU's Displaced by Hurricane Katrina (or just click on this hyperlink or copy and paste to the address line of your web browser). Or, call the church office and we will pass the information on to the folks coordinating this effort.
2. To give a financial donation, write a check to First UU Church, with "UU Gulf Coast Relief Fund" in the memo line. You may send it to the church, bring it by, or put it in the offering plate on Sunday. We will also be donating the entire offering collected on Sunday, September 11, to the Hurricane Relief Fund. We will forward these funds to the Southwest UU District and the UUA who will use the funds to support UU congregations in need, to support their members in need, and following that, other worthwhile relief efforts as determined by a grants panel.
3. Volunteer at the Emergency Aid Coalition, located close to First Church, by contacting its Volunteer Coordinator, Carol Burrus, cburrus@eachouston.org or 713-522-0879. They need help in making lunches.
4. Volunteer at the Astrodome, which is being prepared to house thousands of refugees, by visiting the web site for Harris County Citizen Corp: http://www.harriscountycitizencorps.com/.
5. For direct hands-on support in Louisiana, perhaps you can assist the North Shore UU Church in LaCombe, about a 7-8 hour drive, this weekend (yes, Labor Day weekend). They need to tie down a huge tarp (assuming someone donates one) over the exposed part of the church building. Several chain saws are needed to clear out fallen trees. Since phone lines and wireless towers are down in the area, contact the Baton Rouge UU Church at 225-926-2291 or email minister@peacestones.org for directions and/or more information.
6. Donate one or more of the following items (bring to First Church or take directly to Interfaith Ministries on Montrose at Westheimer):
Paper Goods - plates, cups, diapers, tissue
Cleaning Supplies - bleach, Top Job, Mr. Clean type products
Water - bottled drinking water (NO glass containers)
Single Serving Snacks -- Pop Tarts, Cereal Bars
Peanut Butter
Heat and Eat Foods - Chili, sew, canned pasta with sauce, canned vegetables, etc.
Lunchables or other single serving foods that DO NOT REQUIRE REFRIGERATION
Meals Ready to Eat
Personal Care Items
Formula
7. Donate phone cards (bring to First Church) so evacuees can contact their families.
8. Donate one or more backpacks for children to use for school; many have registered and will continue to register at schools in the area (as homeless children, they do not have to be residents). Bring to First Church.
9. Tell any gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender evacuees who are staying in the Houston area about the support group on Tuesday, September 6, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Montrose Counseling Center at 701 Richmond (on the 25 Richmond Avenue and the 34 Montrose Boulevard crosstown bus lines).
10. While Jose is coordinating relief efforts, Gail is setup up Chalice Circles, as well as Grief and Support groups, for survivors and their families, for volunteers, and for others of us who need support as we process our emotions during these heart-breaking times. We will provide more information on these in the next few days.
11. To learn about the fate of fellow UUs and their church homes in the path of Hurricane Katrina, visit the update page at the Southwest UU District website: http://www.swuuc.org/hurricaneupdates.html
12. Every chance you get, say a prayer (or throw your positive thoughts out to the Universe) for the victims and those of us who are trying to help in any small way we can.
We are in the process of updating our website, www.firstuu.org, with this information and will add new information as it becomes available. We will limit the number of our batch emails we send -- so make a point to check out our web site for up-to-date relief information. If you have any information you would like for us to post to our web site, please send an email to newsletter@firstuu.org with INFO FOR WEB SITE in the subject line.
By the way, the First Church office is open Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. So you can bring by your donations during these hours. Mail donations to First UU Church, 5200 Fannin Street, Houston, TX 77004.
Rev. Jose Ballester
Minister
First Unitarian Universalist Church
5200 Fannin Street
Houston, TX 77004
"Hurricanes come in two waves. First comes the rainstorm, and then comes what the historian John Barry calls the 'human storm." David Brooks writes today in the New York Times, basing his post Katrina analysis on Barry's historical account of how societies have responded to storms.
The mayor announced an evacuation of New Orleans late on Saturday, and everyone was given an equal opportunity to get in their car and drive to a hotel somewhere and save themselves. This "free enterprise" solution privileges those with means, proves very difficult for those with moderate incomes, but for the hundreds of thousands of poor it was impossible. America's privileged classes wonder why people didn't evacuate? why do they engage in unauthorized shopping. Why don't they just sit and wait for the political "leaders" to take care of them? Why? America's privileged classes need to take a field trip. Go visit the America that works in the hotels, the restaurants, the docks and warehouses of our largest port. The people who make New Orleans and other big cities work. Perhaps they should try to buy a car on money left over from paying for rent and food when earning minimum wage. Call it a learning experience.
Since America's privileged are not likely to make that effort maybe a little history instead. Brooks writes about New Orleans experience in the wake of storms:
"Then in 1927, the great Mississippi flood rumbled down upon New Orleans. As Barry writes in his account, "Rising Tide," the disaster ripped the veil off the genteel, feudal relations between whites and blacks, and revealed the festering iniquities. Blacks were rounded up into work camps and held by armed guards. They were prevented from leaving as the waters rose. A steamer, the Capitol, played "Bye Bye Blackbird" as it sailed away. The racist violence that followed the floods helped persuade many blacks to move north.
Civic leaders intentionally flooded poor and middle-class areas to ease the water's pressure on the city, and then reneged on promises to compensate those whose homes were destroyed. That helped fuel the populist anger that led to Huey Long's success. Across the country people demanded that the federal government get involved in disaster relief, helping to set the stage for the New Deal. The local civic elite turned insular and reactionary, and New Orleans never really recovered its preflood vibrancy.
We'd like to think that the stories of hurricanes and floods are always stories of people rallying together to give aid and comfort. And, indeed, each of America's great floods has prompted a popular response both generous and inspiring. But floods are also civic examinations. Amid all the stories that recur with every disaster - tales of sudden death and miraculous survival, the displacement and the disease - there is also the testing.
Civic arrangements work or they fail. Leaders are found worthy or wanting. What's happening in New Orleans and Mississippi today is a human tragedy. But take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come."
It is one week since Katrina crashed into Florida. She hit again on Monday morning. The physical damage will last for years. The human storm will last longer and be more profound than the wind storm.
