So I finally return to New Orleans after a two month hiatus in cooler climes with no television, and what greets me? Michael Chertoff making ridiculous statements. Again. Addie Stan over at Tapped is rightly "trembling with fear" that the man who brought us the FEMA response to hurricane Katrina is in charge of the security of this country. That's just one of the many reasons that the plight of New Orleans needs to be on the national radar -- look what happened when there was warning. Over the next few weeks, we are going to over many more.  Here's the plan.

Each day, starting Monday and going through to the 29th (and probably beyond), we are going to concentrate on a different aspect of post-diluvian New Orleans. The goal is to give the reader who has been following this intermittently over the past year a bit of a refresher course. The target audience is people who are not from the New Orleans area, but who want to get up to speed in an efficient fashion.

We're starting a few weeks early because we want to do our part to set the narrative tone for the anniversary.  It is a given that we are going to read, see and hear some spectacularly stupid things a few weeks from now, but maybe we can get just a few (one?) more important fact into the broader conversation.

I'm going to kick things off by making the "case for New Orleans." I do not assume that people who don't care much are bad people, but I would like to demonstrate that there are a lot of reasons to care, and that some will apply to you. There will be posts on the state of health care (incl. mental health), re-building, where the money is and is not going (and why), the changing demographics, the national impact, etc.

So check back with us often. The pace of posting is about to pick up. And if there are things you really want to know about, email me at tpmboyd at yahoo.