A new proposal from the blue-ribbon commission studying ways to rebuild New Orleans has suggested that any low-lying areas of the city which were inundated with floodwaters after the levees on Lake Ponchartrain failed should be abandoned, and Eugene Robinson says that you might as well begin writing the city’s obituary. The commission “envisions a city with lots of green space and a new light rail system; it sees revitalized schools and world-class medical research centers, all protected by invincible levees. It might be a nice place to live, but it won’t be the old New Orleans. In the old days, at a jazz funeral, the ‘second line’ of followers would sing and dance the departed to heaven. The music is still playing in New Orleans, but there’s nobody to form the second line.”