Downstate News is to publish this editorial this week. It reflects a larger concern about how throwing money at a problem is oftentimes the wrong solution. It was written when the government's response to Katrina reflected an inherent disconnect and it was clear that there was no plan in place not only for distribution and evacuation but to get NO up and running and back in business. Since then, things have not improved and the potential burden created of pulling numbers out of the air is likely to see us indebted virtually forever to places that either support terrorism (Saudi Arabia) or are in danger of taking us over (China). If neither the Democrats or Republicans are capable of rational thinking, it becomes contingent upon us to change the system....

Les Aaron


New Vision Needed.

The president has talked about “fixing the problem” and making New Orleans whole again. And we have heard endlessly about the government’s failure to respond to the needs of the people; its failure to mobilize resources and the disorganization and sense of disconnect that seem to flow from the White House to FEMA, but in all of that we’ve heard few remedies about how America should respond to the challenge of rebuilding New Orleans; nor have we heard the kind of break-through thinking needed to meet the myriad challenges we face head on
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But it is not the purpose of this editorial to condemn the past but instead to move on in order to find ways to turn a route into an opportunity to demonstrate American ingenuity to the world, to show to all of the world how Americans can rally to any cause, how we can put our best foot forward to develop practical yet far-sighted solutions to man’s needs that will serve as models to the rest of us who inhabit this planet.


It is discouraging that we as the richest nation in the world have not mobilized the forces, focused the thinking of the ‘best and the brightest’ and moved forward with dispatch. But we have not. Part of the reason has to be a lack of leadership or vision. The government’s solution has been to throw money at problems and bring in the same kind of contractors who have failed us in Iraq and expect miracles. It doesn’t work that way!

No, we must go beyond the conventional Chinese menu approach to problem definition and resolution. In point of fact, there is a real opportunity here to think outside the box, to initiate a large scale crusade to develop solutions that might apply to all of mankind in various fields of endeavor; not simply more of the same which would put us back to square one should New Orleans be challenged by another storm which in all likelihood, is an inevitability given the present circumstances.

What is needed is a whole new way of thinking about all of the needs that have not been met during this event –from new solutions to protecting wet-lands and low-lying areas to the problems of housing, distribution, evacuating large bodies of people, energy, food and water, communications and the rest..

What we need are grand-scale views that see the entirety of the challenge; that recognize that we have an opportunity to bring together all of the pieces into an organic framework or system that allows us to see the contribution of each element to the whole. We need to get beyond fixing one thing and watching the rest of the interdependent elements go down the drain. For example, we cannot fix a house and forget that that house needs to have access to a dependable energy source and water. If you fix one without the other, you have not solved the problem. And once we begin to understand the enormity of the problem and the inter-relatedness of the various functions and activities that describe the problem, we can begin to focus on the solution.

As part of this process, we should mobilize the nation’s talents to begin at the beginning. Is the concept of the levee as presently envisioned equal to the task? Do the walls that retain the lake waters of the best design? Or even more fundamentally, is New Orleans a viable concept? Does the answer consist of moving the city to a new location, to higher ground? These and other serious questions should be asked now. And we should start off with the great debate inviting others more experienced at these problems, like the Dutch and the Italians to sit in with us in order to solutions, both engineering and otherwise, that are appropriate to the challenge. In an age of communication, we have failed to use communications to embrace the larger need and that is a failure that demands to be addressed now.

As part of viewing the problems of New Orleans as part of a larger need that includes consideration of global warming and rising tides, we need to consider all possibilities before we put one dime into rebuilding.. What I am suggesting is a series of solutions that are just as viable and real for the rest of the world as they are for New Orleans. Herein lies an opportunity to be a problem-solver and a model for the world, and in the process demonstrate what can be done with the proper cooperation and the right talents being applied to the problem.

There is a concomitant need to go beyond the pedestrian level of thinking so much in evidence in this country and move onto a world stage where discussion and disagreement and argument are not only encouraged but are viewed as a way to tap into a world-wide body of expertise in order to arrive at solutions on a scale equal to the challenge..

America must get over the hubristic view that only we can solve every problem; the world is too small for that kind of thinking.

What then would be our next step once we have resolved the issues of protection for low lying areas? The logical place to begin seems to be the “home,” and the community. If we start there, we can begin to ask ourselves how do we make a difference? How do we make an area like New Orleans safer against any kind of real or perceived threat? And how do we take the lesson we have learned to expand upon it to serve a broader mission, to help not only the people in misery in New Orleans, but similar low lying areas around the world? These are only a few of the questions and challenges that have not been fully addressed. The solutions should not be developed within a vacuum either; throwing money at a problem is no solution; neither is not figuring out how to pay the price so that basic services will not be sacrificed..

One of my friends and colleagues, Gary Cook, moderator for Progressive Political, one of the foremost Internet databases for intelligent discussion of problems facing America and the world, put forth an idea that may constitute an excellent starting point for bringing some true innovative thought to the challenge.. It was his break-through approach to the concept of housing that would not only work under flood conditions, it would serve as the starting point for finding appropriate solutions leading to safety and self-sufficiency in the fundamental areas needed for survival.. It would focus thinking on the problems of providing water, energy, communications and it would provide intelligent thinking to the needs of warehousing, distribution and evacuation. Marshall’s solution would not only allow the inhabitant of this new conceptual approach to housing to feel independent but safer; at the same time, it would allow people to feel unified in staving off the effects of natural calamities or even a terrorist threat.

The concept that Gary embraces at first blush seems inordinately simple but that simplicity per se is deceptive in that elegant solutions tend to be simple and uncomplicated; yet, within it is the germ of a solution to the myriad challenges of survival amidst natural upheaval or terrorist threat.

The concept proposed by Gary forces the planner to think about the home in a totally different way as more or less a fulcrum or the pivotal point for many other activities connected to “living” that have been virtually ignored in the conventional solutions that fail to integrate the interconnectivity of various interdependent elements essential for survival of not only the community but the area as well. The idea, although radical to what we now think of as "home," does something that no prior plan does: It serves to connect what we know and understand about survival at the most elemental level to those activities needed to sustain it: energy, communications, distribution, food. And if we are starting from a zero base line, we have the option of rejecting what doesn’t fit and rejecting all of the baggage and preconceived ideas that have shaped conventional approaches in the past.

In the second part of this series, we shall strive to illustrate an approach that evolves from a common need that can be inductively applied across the board. It is a view that can be best described as holistic in that it tends to view the whole as a totality, the sum of its parts with every part interdependent to the success of the entire enterprise. . it is our attempt to describe a different way of working and a different way of seeing things that hopefully will become part of a platform for innovation and thinking that will transcend petty differences and become a model for world cooperation.

Les Aaron