This is a very good idea: Offer housing to Hurricane Katrina victims

I know many of my readers aren't anywhere near Louisiana, but some of you are; maybe more than I know. If you do live nearby, please consider offering a place to stay to victims of Hurricane Katrina. You can click here to find out more.

You can also send monetary donations through America's Second Harvest if the Red Cross site is down (as it was when I tried it).

A thousand other bloggers with a thousand times more savvy than me have written thousands of words about this already, and I won't make any attempts at punditry. But one thing is perfectly clear: a whole lot of people who should have been able to keep New Orleans from devolving into something straight out of the Book of Revelations have utterly failed. And a lot of people, especially those who are poor and disenfranchised already, are in dire and probably unnecessary danger.

Offerings from Ariana Huffington, Will Bunch, The New York Times, David Corn, John Nichols, and Molly Ivins point fingers at President Bush (who really has managed to seem both insincere and inept in a way that surprises even me), Louisiana state officials, and the oil companies for various aspects of the crisis.

And, probably like most everybody reading this, I'm really wishing there were more I could do than think about who's to blame and send a little money.