Perfecta

With the bailout of the "Big Three" US automakers now on hold, if not dead, it looks as if the legacy of the Bush administration and its party friends in Congress (let's hear it for Richard Shelby, Toyota and Honda-sponsored Senator from the right-to-keep-unions-out state of Alabama!) may well be a perfecta, allowing the decimation not only of New Orleans, but of Detroit, in a unique sequence of forces majeur, first an act of God and then the law of supply and demand, managed by incredible incompetence.  Collateral impact on the cultural life, including the musical life, of these two cities has been or certainly will be significant.  I can just imagine some voice in Washington murmuring: "if they're gonna take us down, why, we'll just take Motown down with us."