The tragedy in New Orleans

On New Year's Eve, there was an attack on revelers who were simply out and enjoying the evening on Bourbon Street. A car made its way into the crowd and killed a number of people.

But once again, we saw some terrible reporting.  Every outlet wanted to get the scoop, and report on it from any angle that might generate interest in content on that outlet.  There were few facts, and a lot of speculation.  Maybe it was a terrorist attack? Maybe it was a more coordinated effort?

It is an absolute tragedy - no doubt about that.  

But I wanted to call out two items that I saw in the reporting.  First, I saw a quote from a contemptible Senator from Louisiana talking about this as a wakeup call, as it being one of the worst things ever, and we need to be ready for attacks like this.  The subtext wasn't lost on me.  The person had a "foreign name" so it feeds into the hysteria.  But he was a US Citizen by birth and his motives (at the time of this writing) are unknown.  And anyway, this is the same Senator who thinks that gun related deaths are a fact of life.  The fact that this incident is different in his mind is really something. 

The other thing that caught my attention was that there were barricades in place to prevent cars from going into pedestrian areas.  But these barricades were undergoing some upgrades specifically to prepare for the superbowl in a few months.  That would mean that the goal was to protect a huge moneymaker in the future at the potential expense of the present.  That gave me pause.