Yesterday I got an email from a reader from New Orleans who said, in so many words, Don't forget about us.

In recent weeks I've gotten several notes like this from Louisiana readers telling me that for all the big talk back in September the Bush administration has all but forgotten about any commitment to rebuild New Orleans and the rest of the affected area.

In truth, though, in our own little way, we have too -- we being this website. Some of that is a simple shortage of hours in the day. We're gearing up to hire two blogger-reporters, as we've told you. But not having more than one person doing the writing doesn't entirely excuse it. It's just too easy for everyone to let stories like ths fall to the background once the big headlines are gone. So we'll try to do better.

Having criticized the president, let me note prominently that just today the White House has announced its support for a $3.1 billion plan to rebuild the city's levee system. $1.5 billion is new and that is on top of $1.6 billion already committed.