All the smart people...

Post #222,233 by ChrisR 9/1/05 2:04:50 PM Reply	All the smart people... ...evacuated before the storm. Which means that those who are still in the city....
Post #222,242 by Another Scott 9/1/05 2:27:57 PM Reply	.. are destitute or invalids or hospitalized or ... :-(
Post #222,252 by ChrisR 9/1/05 3:15:29 PM Reply	Desperate times... ...bring out the best and worst in people. Guess I should be less judgemental. Each has their own story to tell. And their own level of frustration. I don't put that much creedance in the news reports, one way or the other. An individual is incompable of comprehending the swath of damage that's been done. Wonders what the long term implications are in terms of both engineering feats and for a united citizenry. Too early to tell, but both seem to be taking a beating at the moment.
Post #222,255 by jake123 9/1/05 3:22:26 PM Reply	I'm wondering if this event might not set off some soul searching in the US culture-at-large. Are the arson and looting going on in New Orleans going to cause some reflection on what it means to be an American? 'Course, that depends somewhat on whether your media actually do any reflection of their own. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #222,258 by hnick 9/1/05 3:30:28 PM Reply	Not a chance For every disaster or riot, there has been attendant looting. It's a lot like soccer games in Europe. It just takes more to get the mopes off their asses.
Post #222,261 by Andrew Grygus 9/1/05 3:39:18 PM Reply	Didn't in Los Angeles [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #222,262 by ChrisR 9/1/05 3:39:31 PM Reply	Third world country Heard the comments here and there about the area having a feel of a third world country, and that gets me thinking of why we have an image of ourselves as somehow superior to the people in the 3rd world? Take away the wealth, which is what the hurricane has done, and are we any better than any other set of people? Well, the right would say that it is our industriousness and determination that sets us apart - both of which are fed by our freedom and faith. The left would say that it is our binding compassion and ability to work together that makes us different - both of which are fed by our social contract and our respect for each other. Truth, always being fickle to pin down, probably taps into both. As for whether the media has the ability of reflection, that is easy to answer - none at all ("...which By a curious coincidence..."). In order to digest massive events we have to melodramatize things - for example, the war in Iraq seems to have come down to a question of opinion on what one thinks of Cindy Sheehan.
Post #222,265 by tuberculosis 9/1/05 4:16:13 PM 8/21/07 6:06:24 AM Reply	Naaah What you will be (and already are in some cases) seeing is right wing nut bloggers whining about how nobody is rushing to help us out even though we run around helping everyone else out. The entitlement thing. What might cause a rethink is if sympathetic riots begin in other cities around the US. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:06:24 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #222,418 by Ashton 9/2/05 6:49:22 AM Reply	Whatever else this massive boondoggle is explained-away with for some of us, it is a mere vetting of the idea that, very few Murican consumer-sheep have the foggiest idea of the complexity of a modern techno-besotted, centralized-Corporate-distribution of monopolized lines of goods. And Today: OF most of THE NECESSARY BASIC COMMODITIES, too. (Sure looks Good on spreadsheets with Bottom Lines, though. In fair weather.) Much of fact and fiction re 'the Open Society (and its Enemies' \ufffd) fills the literature of the (first) War Century: but few I've met during half that century - knew how Anything worked, if they could even find the Manual in the packing about to be thrown away. Well: Katrina is demonstrating How Easily It All Might Not Work. No ez-electricity: no water, pumps, refrigeration, battery charging, comm ... (I see: at least a hundred PhDs out of the plethora of owl-entrail readings; maybe just in the second year?) I wonder which of these will connect to the declining competence level of the 'average consumer', in about all things having to do with animal survival. Or how the ability to walk a few miles, fits in with 'fitness'. 'Common Sense' Hah! - it's neither. Now more than ever?
Post #222,247 by tuberculosis 9/1/05 2:56:49 PM 8/21/07 6:05:57 AM Reply	Are the poor who lack the resources to move [link\|http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/30/email_attributed_to_.html\|http://www.boingboin...tributed_to_.html] The poorest 20% (you can argue with the number -- 10%? 18%? no one knows) of the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn't leave. The evacuation plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners knew full well that the poor, who in new orleans are overwhelmingly black, wouldn't be able to get out. The resources -- meaning, the political will -- weren't there to get them out. White per capita income in Orleans parish, 2000 census: $31,971. Black per capita: $11,332. Median household income in B.W. Cooper (Calliope) Housing Projects, 2000: $13,263. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:05:57 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #222,249 by boxley 9/1/05 3:05:28 PM Reply	no resources or will to evacuate and the last time people went to the superdome it was also a disaster. If you were in new orleans, without a car or cash for a bus out of town you were abandoned by the government you pay to keep you safe. thanx,. bill "the reason people don't buy conspiracy theories is that they think conspiracy means everyone is on the same program. Thats not how it works. Everybody has a different program. They just all want the same guy dead. Socrates was a gadfly, but I bet he took time out to screw somebodies wife" Gus Vitelli Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #222,251 by tuberculosis 9/1/05 3:09:44 PM 8/21/07 6:06:03 AM Reply	Yep - another article [link\|http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050901/2005-09-01T021157Z_01_MOL181874_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-BT-WEATHER-KATRINA-POVERTY-DC.html\|http://reuters.myway...A-POVERTY-DC.html] The legalization of gambling in Biloxi created an economic boom in the early 1990s and the city developed a reputation as a place where a person could get a decent-paying job in the casino or hospitality business. But not everyone prospered. In the devastated streets and atop the rubble piles where their homes stood before Katrina blew through, a bitter refrain is increasingly heard. Poor and low-income residents complain that they have borne the brunt of the hurricane's wrath. "Many people didn't have the financial means to get out," said Alan LeBreton, 41, an apartment superintendent who lived on Biloxi's seaside road, now in ruins. "That's a crime and people are angry about it." Many of the town's well-off heeded authorities' warnings to flee north, joining thousands of others who traveled from the Gulf Coast into northern Mississippi and Alabama, Georgia and other nearby states. Hotels along the interstates and other main roads were packed with these temporary refugees. Gas stations and convenience stores -- at least those that were open -- sold out of water, ice and other supplies within hours. But others could not afford to join them, either because they didn't own a car or couldn't raise funds for even the cheapest motel. "No way we could do that," said Willie Rhetta, a bus driver, who remained in his home to await Katrina. Resentment at being left behind in the path of one of the fiercest hurricanes on record may have contributed to some of the looting that occurred in Biloxi and other coastal communities. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:06:03 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #222,257 by Nightowl 9/1/05 3:27:00 PM Reply	Re: Are the poor who lack the resources to move [link\|http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/30/email_attributed_to_.html\|http://www.boingboin...tributed_to_.html] The poorest 20% (you can argue with the number -- 10%? 18%? no one knows) of the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn't leave. The evacuation plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners knew full well that the poor, who in new orleans are overwhelmingly black, wouldn't be able to get out. The resources -- meaning, the political will -- weren't there to get them out. God.... that sounds like what happened on the Titanic... No wonder people are so mad. Brenda "Excel is to math what a Microwave Oven is to cooking!"
Post #223,081 by GBert 9/6/05 9:35:31 AM Reply	On the Titanic it was women and children first On the Titanic, while third class passengers fared worse than first and second class, third class women and children fared better than first class men did (some [link\|http://www.anesi.com/titanic.htm\|Titanic stats]. Giovanni Have whatever values you have. That's what America is for. You don't need George Bush for that.
Post #223,160 by Nightowl 9/6/05 2:55:37 PM Reply	True, and that makes it worse yet The fact that the third class women and children didn't get out of New Orleans and other cities before the first class men makes this disaster actually worse than the Titanic in terms of taking care of the classes. Brenda "Excel is to math what a Microwave Oven is to cooking!"
Post #223,207 by Ashton 9/6/05 5:20:27 PM Reply	Astute observation, O feathered One.
Post #223,512 by GBert 9/7/05 6:06:21 PM Reply	Gives you pause don't it? When it comes to life and death, we seem to value money a lot more (and women a lot less) than we did before WWI... Have whatever values you have. That's what America is for. You don't need George Bush for that.

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