THEY'RE TRYIN' TO WASH US AWAY: I spent another day working on the Internet access center for Katrina refugees who are expected, once again, to arrive at the Cleveland Convention Center tomorrow. (BFD just reprinted my email plea for weekend volunteers in its entirety, so I don't have to. Thanks, George.)

So I didn't actually see the Plain Dealer's Thursday spread on "Rebuilding New Orleans" until a half hour ago. Oh my God, there are still bodies in the water down there and Steven Litt thinks it's time to start talking architecture? Under a headline that says "Designing a Newer Orleans: from tragedy, opportunity"?

Yessir, massa. My tragedy, your opportunity. Guess I better just get on that plane to Cleveland.

Coincidentally, I caught Randy Newman doing "Louisiana 1927" on one of the TV fundraising shows a couple of hours earlier, and it was still playing in my head when I saw the PD.

What has happened down here is the winds have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and it rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangelne

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame what the river has done
To this poor crackers land."

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

Some things do not change, do they?