borders...

One thing I've noticed about the response to the devastation of New Orleans (see Dumb Riffs) is how the boundaries between the so-called "United" states have been emphasised in the media. Reporting has made the movement of peoples between Lousiana and Texas (for example) a pseudo-international issue. This must mean one of two things, or both:

1- That our collective consciousness isn't prepared to allow for the possibility of such a thing happening in the "developed" United States so we're carving off sections of it to create areas (or countries of excess). It doesn't compute with our realist fiction of America.

2- That the White House is twisting the media arm in order to elicit the above response.

J