I’ve watched with awe and horror the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, and I haven’t words to describe it. It is simply beyond my comprehension.

Yet sadly, as I contemplate how the South will recover from this disaster, in some back corner of my mind a tiny voice asks: Where are the other nations rushing to help us, as we would be rushing to help them? Could it be the rest of the world views us, smugly, as an imperialist superpower receiving our just deserts? We probably don’t need their help, and they probably know it. Still, I can’t help wondering…

Another tiny voice, refusing to be suppressed, keeps commenting: Wow, look what a few terrorists with explosives could have done to those New Orleans levees… and to New Orleans.