"In other cities, charter schools exist in spite of the system. Here they are the system."

Says John White, the superintendent of New Orleans public schools. The results are encouraging. Five years ago, 23% of children scored at or...

"If I invoked the Insurrection Act against her wishes, the world would see a male Republican president usurping the authority of a female Democratic governor by declaring an insurrection in a largely African American city."

"That left me in a tough position. That would arouse controversy anywhere. To do so in the Deep South, where there had been centuries ...

"We wanted to be part of a historic event... We knew Johnny White's would be the place to be...."

"We'll probably switch to water about 10 o'clock, sober up, and see if we can help out." Life in New Orleans, spared by th...

Bush and Cheney will stay away from the GOP convention because of Hurricane Gustav.

Reports CNN. Other changes to the convention are needed: "I wouldn't call it a nightmare, but it is a very perplexing challenge,...

"This is the mother of all storms, and I’m not sure we’ve seen anything like it."

Says Mayor C. Ray Nagin , looking at Hurricane Gustav and ordering the evacuation of the City of New Orleans.

"Did the Corps fix the levees?, Is my house going to flood again?... Am I going to have to go through all this again?"

Anxiety in New Orleans. ADDED: Storm preparation... for the GOP convention.

Which law school graduation speakers would you most like to hear?

Paul Caron has a big list. I won't say which ones seem most appallingly tedious — but you can do so in the commentsd. I'll be posit...

"It said my house is pink. I would not have a pink house, I assure you."

Says Mitt Romney. Context: MR. RUSSERT: This was The Boston Globe back in December of '06. "As Governor Mitt Romney explores a p...

Orin Kerr devastates Frank Rich...

... with facts that Rich should be quite embarrassed not to have checked. ADDED: Rich also asserts that Thomas never turns a critical eye ...

Finishing the debate in transcript form, I give the win to Richardson.

I think I got about two thirds of the way through the debate last night. Here 's what I managed to write. I was just about to watch the ...

Edwards.

He said he would say he was running that then he did . Do I need to post about stuff like this? A news thing happened. Ah, what the hell. Th...

Theme? America.

No, I'm not doing a theme day here on the blog, although as I set out this morning, I felt I'd left behind three posts that look lik...

The Goldberg lecture.

I didn't make it to the Jonah Goldberg lecture on Wednesday night (though that didn't prevent a local blogger from seeing me there !...

Unintended comedy, economic news reporting division.

The NYT just needs to bring us down , for some reason. All the economic news is good, but Vikas Bajaj, on the front page of the paper today,...

A new dimension of post-Katrina anger.

There is the suffering that Hurricane Katrina caused for the people of New Orleans, but there is also the enlightenment Katrina brought abo...

Impossible to restore the complex culture of New Orleans?

Consider this: Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was a majority-black city. It also was a poor one, and most of the people hardest hit b...

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional."

Ousted FEMA director Michael D. Brown testifies before a House panel today and lays the blame on the governor and the mayor: Brown told the...

Looking for "Creeole Ladde."

A couple weeks ago, we were talking about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, here , and a reader who called himself herself "Creeole ...

"The real question - putting it baldly - is whether there is going to be a revolution."

A BBC opinionwriter muses about the American response to Hurricane Katrina: Will the American social and economic system - which creates the...

"It's like looking at a murder... The first time is bad. After that, you numb up."

Watching the re-floodin g of New Orleans. "[A] waterfall at least 30 feet wide poured over and through a dike that had been used to pat...