I don't usually comment on political matters

... but yesterday, driving home from work, listening to NPR's coverage of the situation in on the Gulf Coast, I heard a snippet from a White House press conference in which the president called on the people left homeless and bereft by the disaster to be patient.

Just be patient? Patience is for people who have shelter from the weather, a safe place to sleep, clean food and water, a sense of hope. I know relief efforts take time to get going, but it's been five days and people are dying on the streets outside the convention centre in New Orleans. If the president thinks the people on the Gulf Coast are going to be patient, he's a bigger fool than I thought, and I've never thought highly of him.

Today's reading: Cassius Dio, Historia Romana LXII.XVI-XVII

Edit: An addition piece of reading, from Slate

verso - recto