But they must champion these proposed new funds in different bills written in response to two great disasters in our sister Gulf, as the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina has arrived, and BP's criminal negligence has been capped off (maybe).

I remember watching a band of New Orleans musicians sway solemnly by vast acres of stacked caskets filled with their forebears' remains. I wondered how all this beauty had evolved. I remember thinking that of course the levees would protect them – they were built by the Army Corps of Engineers, after all.

Read the complete story from the Portland Press Herald.