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Friday, August 31, 2007
John Hawkins :: Townhall.com Columnist
It's Time To Get Over Katrina Already
by John Hawkins
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Two years after Katrina, everywhere you turn, there are people carping, whining, and kvetching. Just why hasn't the pity party for the citizens of New Orleans run out of booze and chips yet?

It's not as if hurricanes are a once a millennium event in the United States. In fact, residents of Florida have so many of them that they don't even cancel a barbecue for anything under a Category 3.

Moreover, people lose their homes in this country every day of the year. If it isn't a hurricane, it's an earthquake. If it isn't an earthquake, it's a tornado. If it isn't a tornado, it's a fire. If it isn't a fire, it's a flood. Yet nobody sits and frets about John Doe, age 58, who lost his house in a flash flood two years ago or Jane Doe, age 60, who had her house blown away by a twister back in 2005.

But, we're all supposed to eternally sit around and weep tiny little tears of sadness for the people who really took it on the chin in a hurricane because they chose to live in a city shaped like a soup bowl on the coast. Let me tell all the citizens of New Orleans something that should have been told to them 18 months ago: it's time to stop playing the sympathy card and get over it.

Nobody is owed a living for the rest of his life because he had a bad break two years ago. Yet, we still have people affected by Katrina who have FEMA paying their rent. How sad and pathetic is it that these shiftless people are still leaching off their fellow citizens? Since when is being in the path of a hurricane supposed to give you a permanent "Get Out of Work Free" card?

Is that just too honest for some people? Is it just “too mean?" Well, if your house burns down tomorrow and you're still living on the dole two years from now, are your real friends going to pat you on the back and tell you that you should keep suckling at the government teat for as long as you can or are they going to give you a kick in the behind and tell you to get a job? A real friend would be honest enough to tell you the truth and more people should do the same for Katrina victims.

Want to know another person who needs to be told the truth? It's New Orleans resident Erick Ventura, who said this,

"America really doesn't give a s*** about New Orleans. We forget. The bridge that collapsed [in Minnesota] -- it's gone, it's yesterday's news. The miners -- if they're not digging a sixth hole, we forget about them. We as a society, we really don't give a d*mn."

Guess what, buddy? You're right; nobody does "give a s*** about New Orleans" any more other than a few saints and a lot of manipulative Democrats looking for a political issue they can exploit. That's the nature of life. Today you're here, tomorrow you are gone, and 99% of the time everyone other than your closest family members have practically forgotten that you existed two weeks later -- but at least New Orleans got $127 billion, more than we spent on the Marshall Plan, before people moved on to something else. That's more than most of us get to say after something bad happens to us and it's why the citizens of New Orleans should be thanking the rest of America for our generosity instead of griping.

"Oh, but what about the poor government response to Katrina?" What about it? It's over and done with and it's not as if Karl Rove launched the hurricane at New Orleans with his Vast Right Wing Conspiracy weather machine. It was an act of God. It happens all the time, all over the United States, and all over the world.

Moreover, look at Ray Nagin. This guy's hurricane strategy went something like this,

"Go to the Superdome if there's an emergency! There's no food, water, or doctors there, but what could go wrong? We could bus people out of here, but we left all the buses on a flood plain! Now, all the hard work is done and all I have to do is sit back and wait for my ‘Mayor Of The Year’ award for doing such a great job handling the crisis!"

Believe it or not, Mr. "Chocolate City" is also encouraging people to rebuild in the same areas that flooded before, even though everybody knows another hit from a Katrina-sized storm would just submerge the city again.

Yet despite the fact that Nagin is to competence what Paris Hilton is to chastity, the citizens of New Orleans saw fit to re-elect him as mayor. So, why should the rest of America get all upset about how Katrina was handled when the people of New Orleans were so unconcerned about it that they brought back the man who was primarily responsible for it?

For the citizens and former citizens of New Orleans who've already moved on with your lives the best you can, God bless you and best of luck to you. But, for the rest of the Katrina victims who are still complaining that America has "forgotten me" two years later, here's a piece of advice: it's time to get over Katrina already.

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John Hawkins is a professional blogger who runs Right Wing News, Linkiest, and Viral Footage.
 
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I stopped thinking about Katrina & NO
I stopped thinking about Katrina and New Orleans at 8:30PM Sept. 23, 2005 when Hurricane Rita knocked my power out. Good thing I had a lot of camping materials and a generator. Seventeen days without power is what I consider fun.

And
Not having cable for over a month and the Astros was in the World Series was not fun either.

We suffered.

Gumbo is good
New Orleans is coming along nicely. Further national attention is needed, but it's becoming less and less so. Nawlins has the people and the soul to rebuild itself.

Wishful Thinking
In a nation where many people think that they are entitled to reparations for slavery, it is unlikely we will get over Katrina anytime soon.

Both sides
make some sense here; more help is needed in many areas where Katrina hit.


The Federales were not to blame for the destruction, however.


I concur Mr. Hawkins
I think the reason this story is so hard to let go is because it has so many components to it that lefties find attractive/fit their template:

1.) The "Global Warming(tm)" aspect.
2.) The "George Bush didn't do enough" aspect.
3.) The "Women, Children and Minorites were hardest hit" aspect.
4.) Kind of fits in with 3 and 2, but the "George Bush hates black people" aspect.
5.) The "Look at how many people depend explicitly on the government and if you don't want to give them things, or take more money then you are a (racist/sexist/hatemonger/insert lefty terms here)" aspect.

I am sure there are more components to the story here, like "Americans don't care", but the simple fact is that the story is too juicy to just let die already.

Where was the government when i lost my job this past year? Instead, i had to take a month off of work and find a new job! God forbid!!! I am so discriminated against and america doesn't care that i lost my job last year and i had to get another one, boo hoo!!!

Feel the sarcasm lol.

Excuse me!!
Unless you've lost members of YOUR family, YOUR home, YOUR job, had to put aside YOUR pride so that YOUR family could be fed and clothed, lived in a tent or FEMA trailer, watched as your neighbors and whole cities were wiped away, HOW can you make such cruel and hurtful remarks. Couching it in what you imagine are cute and amusing terms makes it all the more hateful and abhorrent. Trying to deal with the insurance companies would take the patience of Job. Unless and until you come down here and SEE the conditions that still exist I don't think you have the right to even have an opinion. Granted, there are those who whine and moan and groan with their hand out, but the biggest majority only want to get on with their lives. THIS KIND OF STUFF DOESN'T HELP ONE BIT!! MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY VOLUNTEERING - THEN YOU'D SEE!

America is gonna pay $$billion fuhevah
Who do these people think they are? US farmers?

US farmers receive $30 billion/year from Uncle Sam.

Time to get these 'welfare queens' off the government dole. Time to take off the shackles of government interference and let them compete mano a mano with the rest of the world like the rest of the US workers have to.

If farmers can't cut it then we can all teach them how to fill out a Walmart job application and fill in the 'job title' of GREETER! Right?


serwerw
werwerwerwerewr

BTW
I'm from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, not New Orleans, where most of the MSM focused and still focuses all their sympathies. Their main damage was from levee flooding, ours was from wind, storm surge, and tornadoes. Katrina affected the coast from Louisiana to Alabama, not just New Orleans. Of course, we don't have Ray Nagin (thank God), to speak for us and take care of us. He's done such an exemplary job that they re-elected him. Go figure!

I have an idea
Don't build a city below sea level.

zapdoodat
Are you on drugs??

Shocking
The sheer insensitivity of this column is matched only by its stunning ignorance. If you cannot understand why Katrina was different from other natural disasters, then I can't help you.

This week's column proves once again that this young man is not ready for the big time. Please leave the commentary to adults.

Get over Katrina *shaking head*
John Hawkins is a jerk and a half. Tell the people who had their whole lives taken from them to get over it. Tell the mothers of fallen soldiers in Iraq to get over it. Tell the families of the 9/11 victims to get over it. What an insensitive ***hole. What if your mother died and someone told you to "get over it." You'd probably be PO'd. What happened to love and respect for your fellow american? May God have mercy on all of you who think we should just get over Katrina. Try living on your roof for 5 days and see if you can get over it. Try living at your local stadium or arena without even a place to use the bathroom and see how easy it is for you to get over it. People can say some stupid things sometimes. God help you if you ever need help. Not help to get to your next paycheck. Help to find a place to live, to find food or even worse to find a love one whom you haven't seen or heard from in days maybe never to hear from again. I truly find it hard to believe that this is the same America i knew growing up. After reading this thread and some of the comments, i am truely ashamed. This is how far we've fallen as a nation.

ACCIDENT???
As MellorSJ2 pointed out, people chose to live below sea level. Then when money was provided to improve the levies, it was spent elsewhere.

Sounds like an accident waiting to happen. And it will happen again.

How to not live in poverty
There are three things a person can do that will greatly decrease their chance of living in poverty.

1. Finish high school
2. Do not get married until after twenty years old
3. Do not have children until you are married

A person who follows those 3 things will rarely end up in poverty. Has no one noticed that the middle class blacks left New Orleans? It was the ones who were poor that got left behind. And one of the main reasons they are poor are because of liberal policies that hurt family values and promote a general sense of irresponsibility - not just among blacks but among liberals in general.

PopYo
I could live on a roof for 5 days and get over it in a year. If I were still grieving over my mother's death two years later in the same way that we continually get Katrina paraded in front of us again and again, I would hope that someone would tell me that I needed to get over it and learn to move on with my life.

I have Crohn's disease and epilepsy but I still have held a job my entire life and paid taxes. It has DEFINITELY not been easy but it is something called a personal sense of responsibility.

Yep, Get over it
Lets see, The big easy got hit by one storm that flooded it and because the Federal Government wasn't there right away to wipe their noses and give them free stuff they are so deprived.
Ok, if you lost someone in the hurricane, that is a bad thing. However, people seemed to have lost any sense of personal responsibility. I live in Florida and lived thru 4 hurricanes in one year. I was without power for close to a total of 3 weeks. Let me think, how much government money and aid did I directly get? Hmm? Wow, believe it or not, I got no direct government aid, that includes ice or food. Why do you think that is? Hmm? Oh that's right we have city, county and state leaders that plan for hurricanes and practice and everything. So that when one comes they have a plan and aren't so corrupt that they don't suffer from having their head up their 3rd point of contact(ask an airborne trooper). I had enough food, water and batteries for everyone in my family until things calmed down and we could once again get stuff. Great thing being prepared and self reliant.

HarvestMoon is right
Rita was no picnic. Alot of us are ready with a generator and other assorted goodies that we KNOW we will need. My girls and and I toughed it out, fixed our house and made do. Kudos to the Red Cross though. They are on my [short] list of charities worth anything. FEMA? Worthless. For fear of sounding like a racist, I must ask why all the whiners are black. My daddy used to say that the only way to get on your feet is to get off your a@@. It was good advice.

About time...
It IS about time, that someone like Hawkins tells
it like it IS. If Nagin, hadn't gotten his sorry
butt to Baton Rouge, thus, abandoning HIS people of N.O., leaving busses empty, and flooded in parking lots(300 or more) maybe it would NOT have
been such a disaster. He, the Rep., Senators, AND the Police, ARE SUPPOSED TO BE "FIRST RESPONDERS, WHO ARE THEN ASSISTED BY THE FEDS"...
BUT, they were inept and derilect in their own duties, telling Bush, initially (Landreau, I believe-who is a Clintonite) that she didn't NEED
his help. Then Nagin, etc. ALL want to blame Bush/Feds-pushing the blame off onto Brown who headed up Fema. How is it that other places ALL manage to pitch in and help, but NOT these people-who want Everything done FOR them. Get off the dole, I say, and become responsible for yourselves. Oh yeah, and quit whinning about no one caring.....Where's Jesse & Al-are they rolling up their sleeves down there helping?

About time...
It IS about time, that someone like Hawkins tells
it like it IS. If Nagin, hadn't gotten his sorry
butt to Baton Rouge, thus, abandoning HIS people of N.O., leaving busses empty, and flooded in parking lots(300 or more) maybe it would NOT have
been such a disaster. He, the Rep., Senators, AND the Police, ARE SUPPOSED TO BE "FIRST RESPONDERS, WHO ARE THEN ASSISTED BY THE FEDS"...
BUT, they were inept and derilect in their own duties, telling Bush, initially (Landreau, I believe-who is a Clintonite) that she didn't NEED
his help. Then Nagin, etc. ALL want to blame Bush/Feds-pushing the blame off onto Brown who headed up Fema. How is it that other places ALL manage to pitch in and help, but NOT these people-who want Everything done FOR them. Get off the dole, I say, and become responsible for yourselves. Oh yeah, and quit whinning about no one caring.....Where's Jesse & Al-are they rolling up their sleeves down there helping?

Katrina
Mr. Hawkins is absolutely right. Those who call his comments "mean" and "insensitive" are not really thinking about what he has said, they're just reacting. No, Katrina was no picnic; it was an almost unparalleled natural disaster. Nonetheless, there comes a time when, individually and collectively, a city and its people must pull itself up by its bootstraps, stop blaming the Bush administration because the levees didn't hold, quit whining and rebuild.

If I lose my home in a fire, and I'm not insured, the federal government is not going to come galloping to my rescue... and my personal tragedy will have been no less that that of those who lost their homes in New Orleans.


anyone
voting to reelect Ray Nagin is probably not smart enough to know which end of the nail to hit.
Why did you vote for him??,-he is the one to blame for no preperations, before AND after.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm....
Floridians are still rebuilding after Hurricane Andrew devestated that state back in the '80s and golly, right here in South Carolina, there are areas that will never recover from the devestation of Hurricane Hugo, again in the '80s. Mississippi also got slammed by Katrina yet we do not hear from them. Why? Because all of these states picked themselves back up. Louisiana refuses to do that. All we hear is "poor, poor, pitiful us". How disgusting it is that New Orleans is still leeching off the rest of the country because they are too damn lazy to clean up their own backyard. Screw that!

There's no right to taxpayers' money!
N.O. was a perfect illustration of what you get when liberals are in charge for too long - a pathetic, corrupt, welfare haven with an incompetent mayor and shiftless citizens. Everyone knew the city was a soup bowl below sea level and a hurricane could flood it out, but the incompetent mayor and citizens did nothing to help themselves in the days before the hurricane arrived. Nobody has a right to others' property (taxpayers' money) for any reason, including being wiped out in a natural disaster. Help in the form of charity is good and those receiving it should be grateful, but they have no right to demand gov't (taxpayers') money!

This is the BEST Katrina
column I have seen to date. Yes, it is past time that someone wrote this up this way. To all of you whining, puking, liberals who live off of the government teat let me give you a clue as far as Emergency Preparedness goes. This is the order of responsibility for safety in the event of a Hurricane that is coming in your area. (FR = 1st responder, SR = 2nd responder)
1. Local citizens
2. Local city government - FR
3. Local county government - FR
4. State Government - SR
Note that the Federal Government is NOT on the list. They are NOT responsible for your safety and they are NOT a first or second responder. Up until Katrina all they did was write checks for aid and provide specific assistance WHERE REQUESTED.
Note that the primary responsibility for your safety relies with you. If a cat 4 or 5 hurricane is bearing down on you and you elect to stay on the beach and hold a hurricane party, then don’t whine when your *ss gets blown away.
And lastly, writing checks for this stuff is not authorized by the Constitution.

RPWoolf
Yes, Katrina was different. It was different because of the huge fat women sitting on the kerb surrounded by their 12 year old daughters with their babies, chanting WE WANTS HEP! instad of getting up off their fat behinds and looking after themselves.

Two weeks after 9/11 the news cameras had packed up and refused to show us any more video or film; months later in New Orleans we were still being treated to shots of wailing Black women and their fatherless babies sitting on their backsides and screaming for cash.

The difference between Katrina and New York City on 9/11 is five letters long. B L A C K.

That is why New Orleans Is Forever.

And another thing
Fort Deposit, Alabama is still rebuilding from Hurricane Ivan. Do I see my Mama and Daddy on the news every night squalling for Goodies?

They would rather die.

In fact, one thing I can vividly remember from my childhood is the rebuilding after Hurricane Hazel (in the 1950s) and Mama saying she would stick her head in the oven and turn on the gas before she would take charity. They rebuilt without it. The fat Blacks in New Orleans should take a note.

hdhouse & friends...
.....you're all wet. Hawkins is absolutely acccurate in his assessment. We're all wondering why it's taking so long for Nagin et al to get their act together and show progress.

Perhaps if Mitt Romney fixed the Olympics, he could do the same in N.O.
Nagin wants his Chocolate City to remain melted.

audi
While I can understand why you said what you did, I am compelled to mention a point you may have overlooked.

The problem is not the color of someone's skin, rather the liberal poison that has infected their minds.

Consider that many people have been told since birth that they are owed a living simply for breathing. They are owed for the sins of a handful of rich folks who died generations ago. They are owed because weak people with a false sense of guilt refuse to end the disgrace of welfare. They are owed because liberalism says they are.

Some of us were raised by parents that cared, so we never suffered the slavery of welfare. I raised my kids myself after my husband passed, and I never took a dime that I didn't work for. I did not and will never endure the shame of welfare. I was raised better than that.

My dad would come out of his grave if I, for one minute, succumbed to the poisonous lie that I can't make it in America because my skin is darker than my neighbor's skin.

My parents were free. So am I, and so are my children. Work keeps us that way.

blbnan
When Katrina hit, and for some months afterward, I (and most likely many posters here) prayed and sent donations to help.

It is now two years later, and I'm sick to death of hearing about it. Did you lose loved ones? I'm sorry. Did you suffer? You have our sympathy. Now get over it!

You want to know what else sickens me about your post? Your comment that "Unless and until you come down here and SEE the conditions that still exist I don't think you have the right to even have an opinion." My money is being spent down there, but I'm not to hold an opinion? Tell you what: take care of yourselves, quit your bellyaching, put your hands back in your own pockets and out of mine! Then I'll withhold my opinion.

oops
parents that cared = parents who cared

You can only go so long
before the "wah wah wah" starts to grate on your nerves. Yes, New Orleans was different. I still can't believe the sat pictures of the city flooded. A whole freakin' city. That kind of damage can cause a major disruption. And despite the faults of some of the government help, I thought the rest of the country did an amazing job coming to the aid of those affected.

But there comes a time for weaning. There comes a point where you have to stop feeling sorry for yourself and roll up your sleeves. I agree with Hawkins that some people need to get over it. Unpopular as it is, it's the truth.

A couple of prerequisites...
The pockets dried up when the sheep re-elected the incompetent Nagin to another term.

They need to petition Nagin to step down and the Governor needs to resign as well. Its been the most corrupt state for far too long. It's well known the nature of politics down there and it's time to stop. Nagin and Blanco will just squander the money.

Also they need a Guliani-esque type mayor to reshape i.e. clean out the inept police force and instill a tough clean up the streets type police chief who will dredge up the thugs that rule New Orleans and deposit them in the can.

I went to the Gulf coast after the hurricane with a communications company. I was in Mississipi though. It was completly flattened within approx. one mile of the beach for hundreds of miles. They are moving along and you hear no whining from them. Passionate conservativism is what works, proven time and again.

In a nutshell
All this commentary is interesting but we all know the difference in the case of Katrina. We all KNOW why these people can't get it together, didn't get out to begin with, keep screaming for more money, don't get jobs, don't know what to do, want someone else, some gov'ment entity to do it for them....

know this; they will NEVER be able to do it for themselves...NEVER. It's not going to go away unless someone else does it for them. No matter how much money they're given, someone else will have to rebuild the houses, open the businesses, build the roads and everything else. They CAN'T do it. They've gone generations and generations without jobs and have been on the dole. Getting off of it and working and paying rent is just not an option. That's why they're still screaming for more money; THAT is what they do...

my 2 cents
Let's not forget that Max Mayfield of the National Weather Service called both the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana 48 hours before the hurricane hit. As did President Bush.

Let's not forget the shots of the 200 school buses sitting in the water, thanks to Mayor Nagin's inaction. (Blame Bush)

Let's not forget the decades of political corruption In Louisiana and especially in N.O. which was one of the causes of the barriers not being strong enough to withstand the storm - A goodly portion of the federal money that has been sent to N.O. for storm protection for DECADES has been siphoned off by corrupt local pols for their own pet projects - pro forma, as a matter of course. (BLAME BUSH!!)

And that is still going on - how else to explain the fact that in the 2 years since the storm $127 billion has been sent there and the city still looks like s***.

And last but not least let's not forget the simple facts that

1) The city is built in an area that gets walloped by hurricanes just about every year as a matter of course, leading to the question - why weren't they better prepared? (BLAME BUSH!!!)

2) And finally, and I apologize to those who feel that this is a racist question, but

What sense does it make to live in a city that is

a) prone to getting hit by hurricanes,
b) protected by inadequate strength-walls, thanks to years of corrption in the use of federal funds which are supposed to make sure the walls are strong enough and
c) is about 8' below sea level and surrounded by water.

What sense does it make?

New Orleans
The scale of the damage for Katrina is not imaginable unless you have been there. There are many areas that continue to be devastated, with govrnment hampering efforts to rebuild, insurance companies refuse to honor their obligations (the real fraud of Katrina), and others without insurance or ability to rebuild. And thats not New Orleans, thats Mississippii.

New Orleans was a tragedy for the nation. However, for New Orleans itself, my sympathy dissipated the moment they saw fit to re-elect Nagin and the governor of Louisiana.

AMEN!!!!
Thank you so much for saying the words I'd like to. After two years if they haven't helped themselves, they aren't going to.

Listened to a NPR (of all things) story that talked about the kids going back to NO schools and realizing that you don't need more cops than students. NO was a cesspool long before Katrina. It will be a cesspool long after. This should've been an opportunity. Clean it out, give those folks stuck there a real opportunity in Houston, or Raleigh, or Ames. The greenies are always talking about how great the world would be without humans and how it would revert quickly to the original. Let's make NO an experiment and see what happens. Let Nagin rule over a bunch of bugs and bushes. That's what he, and all of Louisiana's politicians deserve.

The entire city when added up is
not worth 127 Billion dollars. What the feds should have done with that money is have an appraisal of property values before the storm. Use imminent domain to buy the entire city. Pay all the property owners the appraised value and give everyone still there 30 days to move. Once the 30 days are up, level the dikes, bulldoze the rest, and turn it into a wilderness preserve.

And they came here
Yes, they came here to Houston. Our crime rate is over the top. Between the "victims" and the illegals you can just imagine. Not that we didn't have our own crime before this.

When the storm came I made a donation to the Red Cross only to find out later that many "victims" used their money for tattoos, adult clubs, and who knows what else.

I wish the Houston Chronicle would walk me through the life of one of these "victims" before the storm, where they worked and lived.
I don't understand how two years later some still can't find a job. They are still having regular Americans pay their rent. Of course, ACORN is involved as well as Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. Go figure.

Old Orleans
Mr. Hawkins simply doesn't understand. Before Katrina over half the residents were on welfare. One report said something like 80 percent. Why should they change? Most of them have always, as did their parents before them, lived by crying for public dole. Bill D.

Read The Title.....
To all you whiners - read the TITLE of the column:

"It's Time To Get Over Katrina Already."

After 2 years and $127 billion, get a grip, get a life, AND MOVE ON!

Please keep in mind the following:

1. N.O. was a social/economic DISASTER for decades prior to Katrina's arrival on the scene. (Yet you you mopes insist on re-electing the same tired, inept and corrupt politicos back into office).

2. Katrina merely turned what had been a social swamp into a physical swamp. See No. 1 above.

3. It is NOT a good idea to build a saucer-shaped city 14' BELOW water level. It is an even MORE absurd idea for you to ask the rest of us "re-build" this festering disaster.

Thank you Annthem
Its never too often to be reminded that Whiners and Winners are everywhere. Sometimes they look so much alike on the surface that stating generalities becomes tempting. Congratulations to your parents, to you, and may your kids recognize their good luck and continue the family values and tradition.

Thank you, Mr Hawkins
for speaking the truth. It just shows what a sad state we are in when a disater such as Katrina is used solely for poltical gain.
I have not read, heard one word against the total lack of planning and response by the NO or state government. As far back as I can remember the first responders to any disaster are local and state. Not one word in the msm against nagin or blanco. Not to mention the idiot senator (forgot her name) who wanted to "punch President Bush in the face" for HIS lack of response.
I am also PO'd that our Coast Guard did not get more attention for the heroic work they did saving people from rooftops. The very same people that nagin failed to evacuate.
And just who was the jerk (not kayne west), I believe some state politican that commented on the lack of federal response because the citizens were black? I imagine they didn't see all those white faces of the Coast Guard risking their lives to save those black people.
As for votunteering, I signed on with the Dept of Heatlh to go and volunteer as a nurse. After speaking with returning nurses and hearing the horror stories of shootings, rapes, and looting, I decided not to go. Along with that, volunteers had to sit through hours of senistivity and diversity training before helping going out in the field. That is just plan stupid!
We should all realize that Katrina will be used in the Presidential campaign. Much will be said about FEMA and how it was managed. I doubt that one word will be said about the importance of boosting all of our first responders across the country.
One solution would be to put states, such as Louisiana, that have been under democratic control for decades under the feds. It's evident they can't manage a darn thing.

Ralph Ellison writes:
"TH, this is borderline evil."

I agree. Welfare IS borderline evil. Paying lazy people to sit on their dead butts IS borderline evil. Giving a wino another bottle IS borderline evil.

Although I admit that I'm surprised that you say so. I didn't think you had it in you.

Ralph Ellison
Evil is forcing money at gunpoint from working citizens to perpetuate crimminal behaviour and bad living habits of a select few.

I Agree With Hawkins