THIS MODERN WORLD

Newsweek catches up to This Modern World. And it only took them two years.

We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.

We said this wouldn’t happen. President Bush said it wouldn’t happen. He stood in Jackson Square and said, “There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans.” But it has been over three months since Hurricane Katrina struck and the city is in complete shambles.

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The price tag for protection against a Category 5 hurricane, which would involve not just stronger and higher levees but also new drainage canals and environmental restoration, would very likely run to well over $32 billion. That is a lot of money. But that starting point represents just 1.2 percent of this year’s estimated $2.6 trillion in federal spending, which actually overstates the case, since the cost would be spread over many years. And it is barely one-third the cost of the $95 billion in tax cuts passed just last week by the House of Representatives.

Total allocations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror have topped $300 billion. All that money has been appropriated as the cost of protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. But what was the worst possible case we fought to prevent?

Losing a major American city.

More.

Pajamas Media brings to mind an old joke. Man drives down the same street on his way to work every morning, and each time he does, an annoying little yappy dog comes tearing out of its yard. The dog chases down the street after his car, every morning like clockwork, all the while barking that annoying little yappy dog bark: yap yap yap yap yap yap yap. Finally one day, the man stops his car, gets out and says to the dog, “There. You caught it. Now what are you going to do with it?”

The joke ends there, but one can readily imagine the dim, confused look on the yappy dog’s face. And that seems to be where our friends at Jammies media find themselves these days. They caught the car, and they have no idea what to do next. And I have to say, it’s been a disappointment to me, personally — I expected to have great fun mocking the whole thing, but it’s not really even interesting enough to mock. It’s bad, but it’s not Ed Wood bad or Showgirls bad — it’s just boring bad.

The hubris of its founders is another matter entirely, of course.

There are some wingnuts who are working themselves into a lather over the idea of sticking it to the ACLU by — get this — sending them Christmas cards! Oh, that’ll really show those godless Commies, won’t it? Man! Can you just imagine the response of the ACLU staffer who opens up a stack of envelopes and finds them full of Christmas cards?

Actually, the response would probably go something like this: “Oh, look! Some Christmas cards! How nice!”

But it does give me an idea.

You know who does get worked up about this sort of thing?

I’ll give you a hint: his name rhymes with “Shrill O’Liely.”

And there’s every possibility that a few hundred “Happy Holiday” greeting cards would be the final push that sends him right over the edge. Because he’s clearly teetering on the brink right now anyway.

(The address is easy to find.)

It’s nearly time for the annual ritual of cartoon contest entries. I have my favorites from the last year, but it occurs to me that I may be too close to the forest to see the trees. So, your input would be enormously helpful here: do any of my cartoons from calendar year 2005 particularly stand out for you? Let me know: tomtomorrow(at)ix(dot)netcom(d0t)com.