name. Today as I write, the waters of Lake Pontchartrain, its levees burst by Hurricane Katrina, submerge the Big Easy. The scenes of devastation and misery issuing from the "city that care forgot" are horrific. Everyone knows this "natural disaster" is anything but natural. It is a function of poor planning, incompetence, neglect, greed, and racism, proving how thoroughly the fear of poverty itself translates into hating the poor, especially the black poor.