Firstly, you ought to be shocked by what happened in New Orleans. It makes no sense to say that shock and outrage at the disaster is in some way a question of feeling 'entitled' to stability or 'entitled' to catastrophe. The weather cares not for wealth, but it is absolutely reasonable to assume that a wealthy state would be able to protect itself and its citizens from the weather better than a poorer state. No one with any sense would claim that America deserved the disaster more or less than any other place, and I think that the main shock and outrage has clearly been due to the way the American Federal Government failed for so long to do anything to help the predominantly poor, black townspeople who were left behind. You ought to be shocked by this failure.

In a way though, the very idea of referring to other disasters when one has just happened is utterly pointless. What do we achieve if we compare Hurricane Katrina with September 11th? Or with any other catastrophe? The problem we cause when making these comparisons is that we establish a false dialogue whereby all disasters are somehow gradable, almost ranked against each other. When we start thinking in this way, we utterly miss the point of catastrophe: the shock itself. By comparing one disaster with another, we cheapen both... and by harping on about a (completely unconnected) pet hate every single time we see a tiny similarity, we cheapen ourselves.

I could compare September 11th to the Norman Conquest of England, but what would be the point?