I was a fan of Leonard Pitts long before he won a Pulitzer. Sixteen years ago, I transcribed a passage from his newspaper column into my Random Quotes database at MondayMorningMemo.com.
I thought it might be appropriate to share today:

“We often talk about Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 in terms of failures: failures of intelligence, failures of planning, failures of communication. But these catastrophes were first and foremost failures of imagination. Did we know that a major hurricane could destroy New Orleans? Yes: it was even part of the tour guides’ spiel. Did we know terrorists wanted to bring down the World Trade Center? Yes: they made a credible attempt in 1993. And what did we do with what we knew? Nothing. Some disasters, I think, are so big and so awful they are literally beyond our power to conceive. So, we dismiss them out of hand, retreat to the ‘knowledge’ that a thing can’t happen because, well, it just can’t.”
– Leonard Pitts, July 6, 2006