good evening. this is it. we are back in the lower ninth ward tonight, the one iconic post katrina new orleans neighborhood people have heard about all over the world. the old neighborhood was all still here in place five years ago tonight. that s because katrina was still offshore in the gulf, bearing down, but still at least two days out. the flood wall behind us is new. when the old one failed, this neighborhood got blown to pieces, washed away. it became, as we said, an icon for the damage and the suffering. we ll see how the lower ninth ward is faring in just a moment. we want to begin tonight instead with the economy. we got more evidence today that it slowed to an absolute crawl this spring. gross domestic product, the broadest measure there is of economic growth, was revised sharply lower for the three months that ended in june to a very weak 1.6%. and look at this stat just out from the government today. the birthrate in this country fell to its lowest level in 100 y