New New Orleans? Steve Green writes:

[W]hat we've seen there this last week is something new to us Americans. We've seen looting. We've seen riots. We've seen incivility. We've seen natural disasters. We've seen how government can screw things up, and we've seen how government tends to get to the scene too late, and with too little.

But enough about the Rodney King trial.

However, I'm not sure we've ever seen all those things wrapped up into one soggy package before. And we've certainly never seen, in modern times, an entire major city removed from our map.

Read the rest. It includes pond scum, Snake Plissken, topless Mardi Gras women, and other delights, plus wild public policy ideas.