It's Okay to Make a Buck, But...

I guess you can't blame these guys for wanted to make a buck, but there's part of me that thinks they're treating New Orleans like a human zoo:

NEW ORLEANS — Mountains of debris, collapsing houses, a weather-ravaged stadium: It's yours for $35 a person — $28 for kids.

Gray Line New Orleans began a bus tour Wednesday of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, and demand was high enough that the company added a third tour on the first day.

Some New Orleans residents have questioned whether such tours are morbid exploitation, or a good way to help people grasp the enormity of the disaster. Even some of those on the first tour Wednesday morning had mixed emotions.

"I felt guilty about going out and looking, but it's something we had to do," said Toni Stone of Harrisonburg, Va., who took the tour with her husband.

The three-hour tour, called "Hurricane Katrina — America's Worst Catastrophe," takes passengers down Canal Street, where many businesses remain boarded up after the floods that hit 80 percent of the city and the widespread looting that followed.

I can understand the curiosity of people who want to see where historical or tragic events occurred. I've twice stood in Dealey Plaza in Dallas where President Kennedy was shot, and last summer I visited the Fredericksburg Battlefield in Virginia. However, the events that those places represent took place many years ago. I wasn't walking through the battlefield as the wounded lay their groaning and writhing. That's kind of like what the Gray Line folks are doing.

I think it's too soon after the event, especially while people are still suffering, for these kinds of tours.