We've been out for the past week and haven't had the opportunity to comment here on the horrific situation on the gulf coast. First, our hearts go out to those who have lost loved ones, friends, house or possessions (although we firmly believe that earthly goods can be replaced and are at the low end of the scale compared to losing people). Katrina is the largest disaster of any scale that we have known in our lifetime, our own American Tsunami.

We don't intend to put in photos of human suffering here, at least not on this first post. Lord knows that rescue and cleanup workers will be finding the dead for weeks and months to come. We have read that the Bush administration has put a hold on photos of dead bodies; we haven't formed an opinion about that as of yet except to say that it will be difficult, at best, to do a body count, especially for those poor and/or homeless who had no family to help identify them-a photo record would seem more than helpful.

Who's to blame? Or is it fair to consider the "Blame Game" issue at this point? We don't like the word blame in this instance. The question should more aptly be "Who is accountable?" or "Who is responsible?". The Bush administration, in answering this question but attempting to make it a petty blame game, is not acting responsibly. They and all who parrot the Bush administration talking points say "Now is not the time to point fingers' and that there will be time to look into this later after the immediate needs of the hurricane victims are met. An analogy of why this is itself an attempt to deflect blame from themselves.

You have a car and it's not in good shape. You spend money instead on vacations or large-screen televisions. Your son comes to you to ask if he can drive the car and tells you repeatedly that it has major brake and transmission problems and may break down at an inopportune time-you give him a little money but mostly ignore his requests, because you're planning to buy a yacht. The car breaks down at a dangerous place in the road, and your son calls you to ask for help. You tell your daughter to pick him up and set up warning signs before and after the car in the road so that there won't be accidents, and you let your son know his sister is coming. But your sister, although she tells you she's going, dawdles around and doesn't do as she's asked right away (she does talk a good game). Instead of you following up to make sure that things are going well, you go out of town on some junkets. The car is still in the road, and has caused accidents and death, but you don't come back from your trip to take charge; instead you have some highly inappropriate photos taken of yourself that show your indifference and lack of leadership. Your son is frustrated because he expected his sister to come right away to help move the car out of the road,