Whatever you think of the argument proposed by the article as a whole, this Salon essay on overdevelopment of the storm-vulnerable coast begins with a paragraph of such welcome comic relief that it's worth savoring:

Hurricane Katrina has turned New Orleans into "a wilderness," said one public health official, who begged evacuated residents not to return to the city for at least a week. Rife with poisonous water moccasins and fire ants, downed trees and power lines, without fresh drinking water, power, gas or sewage, the storm has made the battered and flooded city uninhabitable.

It's really just that second sentence, but what a doozy! The goofy confusion of its syntax (in which the storm itself is whimsically thirsty and gas-deprived, not to mention "rife" with everything from serpents to power lines) is part of the fun, but mostly it's those fire ants. Yowza! Forget about the tons of water, the tons of mud, the block upon block of wrecked homes. The strandings of families. Watch out for the fire ants, my friend. You think they're a problem when things are dry? Well, you've never met one who's just been soaked out of his nest. That there's a fire ant with NOTHING TO LOSE.

Give him room, folks, give him room...

I think I know a little bit better now what it felt like for a lot of people not in New York four years ago at nearly this time. It feels wrong for anything to be normal around here when so much misery is being inflicted on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. The governor of Louisiana is now saying the Superdome will have to be evacuated. There's upward of a thousand people sitting on rooftops, waiting for rescue by helicopter or boat. The Army Corps of Engineers is still getting the equipment in place to try to fix the busted levee.

School in Jefferson Parish may start again in a few months, they're saying, although I would bet that nobody really knows enough to make those kind of predictions.

Nothing feels normal to me here today, and it's a bit weird that I'm the only obsessed one in my office. It's strange -- as a relatively rootless "Navy Brat" who never contemplated as an adult moving anywhere south of the Virginia college I attended, I never expected to feel so attached to that part of the country.

But then, the Big Easy is pretty hard not to love, and I've been there often enough in the last few years to be sure of that...

By the way, if you're looking for more detail than the big summary stories in the national media, WWL in New Orleans has been running a pretty informative blog, updating key points of information as they come in.

As the comments to the post below indicate, my friend Rob made it well out of New Orleans and has reason to believe he'll find his house in OK condition when he returns. His neighborhood was apparently not badly flooded.

Looking for news of my old hometown of Long Beach, late last night I went to the Biloxi Sun-Herald's website and found their hurricane blog -- and discovered that my childhood friend Don is a writer for the paper now, and one of the reporters chronicling the devastation.

That prompted me to email him, and while it was great (and surprising) to hear back from him, I'm sad to report that he's one of hundreds of people who lost homes to the storm.

There's not too much detail on Long Beach proper, but the Sun-Herald's town-by-town damage page says that the First Baptist Church -- where something like 50% of my elementary and junior high school classmates attended -- was "leveled." Pretty horrible.

As if you needed it, here's the Red Cross Donation Page.

The governor of Mississippi says that Highway 90 -- which in my boneheadedness I referred to as highway 49 in this bit of sloppily written nostalgia -- has been practically "destroyed."

Probably an exaggeration. But. Damn.

I've driven up and down that stretch of road enough to take such a thing a little personally. But I'm of course actually and prosaically worried about Rob, who I hope is safely out of the city now and not in the Superdome or some such. And about his house, which he's been working on for a while, and which is, I hope, riding out the storm. And about Gritty Kitty. And about some childhood friends of mine who are now married and live in New Orleans suburbs which are quite possibly underwater right now.

It doesn't do anybody any good. But I'm thinking about them anyway.

(By the way, KF -- glad to hear things are looking OK for your people.)

We're back from the massive Wombat family wedding/beach-fest, about which more later (supplemented by photos from our redoubtable mom-in-law's camera, as ours is on the fritz -- we'll post when the CD arrives. Hopefully, the tide-pool pictures will be worth the wait).

In the meantime, I've finally managed to unpack the Sekret Booke of Quiz Questions (for security reasons, we had to take it with us), and thus can finally deliver today's cognition-corker, with apologies for those of you who are now already too far into your weekend benders to type legibly.

The last recorded instance of a particular tactic in warfare was in 1710, in a city which is now a national capital and whose name has been changed. The losing side -- and the victim of this particular tactic -- were the Swedes, who had held dominion over the city for approximately 150 years. The forces that took it from them were from a nation that (in various guises) then held hegemony over it until quite recently (with one three-year interruption).

What was this tactic? For bonus points, what is the name of the city? If you get the bonus question, you shouldn't have too much trouble figuring out the nationality of the conquering nation.

First correct answer to comments wins a surprisingly party-oriented playlist of early morning music as enjoyed by the staff of Sleep Monk Coffee Roasters in Cannon Beach, OR (featuring "Roses" by Outkast). No Googling or sending a text message to that new reference librarian you have such a crush on, even though this would be such a good excuse to start a conversation. And one guess per comment, please, although of course you can combine main-answer and bonus-answer guesses in the same one.

...a quiz this week. Really.

Just very late. Check back shortly.

Hi folks, Scott here, standing in for the Grand Wombat while he's off at some sort of wombat whing-doodle.

They debuted at the 1893 World Colombian Exposition (aka World's Fair) in Chicago, and originals are still available in collectors markets -- selling for about $30-35, if Ebay is any indication. The manufacture of the objects in question is legal in the US, but the equivalent act in would be illegal in Canada, so alternative raw materials must be used. The items are currently manufactured many foreign countries, in all 50 U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia, where there is a museum dedicated to this item.

For all the marbles, what is this thingee?

First to post the correct answer without recourse to Google or Ebay will win a pair of deluxe Shure (tm) noise-cancelling headphones that automatically sense the hottest topic in public debate and replace all talk of it with soothing nature sounds. Wouldn't you rather hear the gentle roar of the ocean than yet still more about Cindy Sheehan? The very same model used by the President and other top Administration officials!

The 2005 Booker Longlist was announced this week, and that prompts this question.

1982's winner of the prize was later adapted into a film. Other Booker winners which have been made into movies include Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda, and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. However, this film was the most popular adaptation of a Booker winner ever made.

What was the film? For bonus points, what was the original title of the novel? (In the U.S., the novel was retitled to match the film's title.)

First correct answer posted to comments wins a bowl of spaghetti which miraculously looks like the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No Googling or phoning up John Sutherland. One guess per comment, please, but comment as often as you like.

With time at the office feeling like an ever-losing battle against the backlog (while the frontlog tends ever more to join the backlog as the trivial-but-unstoppable-crisislog becomes the order of the day and I start wondering if I need to become a David Allen disciple), homelife being a combo of (mostly joyful) childcare and (mostly annoying) homecare (tonight I scrubbed the dining room floor. Actually for the love of Jebus got down on my knees and scrubbed. Because why? Because food, toddler, and gravity, goddamnit) and the occasional nanoburst of actual writing for myself, I barely respond to emails any more, let alone find the time to y'know, post things on this supposedly regularly updated Webbe-Page.

And this is going to be hardly an improvement over silence, but I've never let that stop me in the past. Here in no particular order, the hurdy and the gurdy that of late has been playing at half-volume in the back of the Wombat offices.

• Saw Wedding Crashers in a purposeful search for close-to-hand escapist fare. I wish only to inform you that the first half of the movie is extremely funny, and Vince Vaughn not so much steals ever scene as he does pulverize it with frenetic talk and then carry it away with the permission of every one else involved. There is no need, however, to remain in the theater once the plot-driving charade is exposed. If you have seen any three films aimed at an audience younger than 40 in the past twenty years, you will literally be able to recreate the entire balance of the movie in a dinner conversation with your companion, in a few short minutes, down to the "I missed my chance to find the one" montage (and the bland mope-rock played over aforementioned montage). So don't sit there and wait for it to get good again. Just leave and know you laughed exactly as much as you would have if you stayed for the whole thing, and you'll get to dinner that much earlier, which is all to the good, right?
• At The Reading Experience, critic James Wood has made a surprise appearance in the comments to a post taking to task Wood's recent (and in my view, very perceptive) review of Cormac McCarthy's new book in The New Yorker -- sorry, the original Wood piece online is gone now, but maybe one of you knows how to find an archived link? Anyway, Dan Green, the Reading Experience creator, didn't like Wood's take on McCarthy and said so, and Wood then showed up in the comments with an articulate attempt to respond. Green's failure to really rise to occasion notwithstanding, it makes for good reading, if that's the kind of thing that interests you, as it does me. (Found quite belatedly via Beatrix, and of course it was on every lit blog around last month too, which shows you where the Wombat has [not] been.)
• They were filming an episode of Rescue Me in my neighborhood and Dennis Leary said "How ya doin', kid" to my daughter as we went past him. Which I thought was nice. I'm just saying. Helena, meanwhile, was trying to see if she could give her doll a face-burn by dragging it along the pavement, so she really didn't notice.
• The Ruminator's interview with Fran Leibowitz is worth a look, if you like her, and I do, even when she's just, you know, doing that Fran Leibowitz thing (via Maud Newton).
• Once again I'm finding the Polish Poster store terrific. Last time I wasn't savvy enough to pick an artist and browse, but that's a particularly rewarding avenue.
  Posted by BT at 12:12 AM

As you can see from the comments here, Sara M. made quick work of the first round in today's double quiz. As promised, here's timewaster number two:

This nation is 90% Catholic, yet its first Prime Minister -- who is still in office -- is a practicing Muslim.

What is the country?

First correct answer posted to comments wins a 1/2-year subscription to Ferret Fancy. No Googling, for the love of the peacock angel. One guess per comment but, as usual, each comment makes the Wombat feel that much more loved, so don't hold back.

To make up for last week's absence, we're going for two quizzes today. Here's how it'll go: when we get the correct answer to part one (below), I'll post the second question, and we'll play that one out in a new string of comments? Exciting? Of course not. But it's all I have to offer. Anyway, here's part one:

Estimates of the number of worshippers in this religion range between 100,000-800,000. According to its doctrines, the most powerful angel in heaven rebelled and was cast out for his transgression. Repenting, in the form of a peacock he re-created the world. He also quenched the fires of Hell with his tears. Holy texts include the "Book of Revelation" and the "Black Book." The latter forbids lettuce, certain beans, and the wearing of dark blue. The holy day is Wednesday; practitioners do not bathe on Wednesday evenings, so as to preserve water for the dead, who use that day for washing.They have been accused of being "devil-worshippers" by adherents of other religions --although aspects of these other religions are incorporated into their doctrines. Some details about the religion (accurate or otherwise) have informed the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and Alan Moore.

Adherents of this religion belong exclusively to one ethnic group, although they make up a very small minority within that group.

To what ethnic group do these worshippers belong? For super-bonus points, name the religion itself.

The first correct answer posted to comments wins a box of Sun Maid's new Crunky Craisins(TM) -- "The Healthy Snack from the Dirty South." No Googling or digging out The Golden Bough. One guess per comment, but comment as often as the peacock angel moves you.

Once again, the Times delivers a stunner.

But some advice is simplistic or questionable, the experts say, and the families in the shows appear extreme, their children more out of control than those in most American families. Some doctors also worry that endings may not be as happy as they seem and that appearing on the shows may leave some children with emotional bruises.

In other news, a study determined that the television program Blind Date inaccurately depicted the normative interactions between single people who were meeting for the first time, and officials from the U.S. Census released data indicating that the contestants on Fear Factor deviate significantly from the American mean with regard to number of elective surgeries performed before age thirty.