Kristy, I'm glad you have that link up. Don't worry about what to say. Speaking for myself (and for my stupid internet, having been down for two days) it is good for me to read about the lesbian harry potter margaritas in the bathroom thing (oh, hi, yeah, I drink too, in fact, i am right now) after two days of text messaging with relatives in the Big Easy and phone conversations with people who HAVE internet (and TV, but that is another topic altogether) saying "Ohmigod, have you SEEN what's going on?!?!"
Anyway. Long and short. Maybe just short. You are doing the perfect thing in response to the madness. And it is madness. And it's scary. But I hope we will all survive, especially our folks in N'w'awlins. And everywhere.
another reason i kept this post brief is that, in addition to lacking poignancy i am sure i would lack CENSOR and eventually just start SCREECHING about how utterly and completely FUCKED UP the disaster "relief" efforts are because our current administration is using so much of its fucking resources to cover its own ass...
how utterly and completely FUCKED UP the disaster "relief" efforts are because our current administration is using so much of its fucking resources to cover its own ass...
exactly. the whole thing is inconceivable. i cannot believe i continue to be surprised by the hideousness of this administration and its impact on the lives of millions of people, but somehow i am.
the magnitude of the suffering and how much of it was avoidable is beyond comprehension.
Don't even get me started. I am LIVID at my government. This situation is shameful and disgusting.
And yes, it could happen here (and has) but because of an earthquake/tsunami, earthquake/fire or something like that. The difference is that we would not have warning.
Make a disaster plan with your family (where would you meet? who would be your out-of-state contact?) Get to know your neighbors...especially those who are older or alone. Have good supplies of fresh water and canned foods.
What would you like to see happen down in New Orleans, Kristy. What would you do differently if you were part of this or a different administration. And how are you helping out now? We give money, we can give blood locally, but it's a huge and horrible situation. I've got family there... Please don't screech. Please explain what you'd do differently.
What would you like to see happen down in New Orleans, Kristy. What would you do differently if you were part of this or a different administration.
for one thing, i wouldn't blame the victims.
(the director of FEMA should be ashamed of himself.)
please send me any and all links to worthy donation sites and i will post them. perhaps this is not a huge contribution on my part, but it's something.
We all should have been helping people get out of there in the path of a storm we knew was huge and we knew was coming. Shame on our country. Specifically, I get irate that people now are saying they couldn't afford to get out. What? The how would we help aspect of this is that we are too late- the change should have gone on before it was emergent. We should be mourning the loss of possesions, of life dreams lost as buisnesses- NOT loss of life for a known threat that came about in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Off my soapbox- thanks!
Kristy - I absolutely love your blog but to blame the Bush Administration for disaster and devastation is ridiculous. There is really nobody to blame about the situation, well except the French in the 1700s. They are the ones who built the city in a bowl to begin with. Don't get me wrong, I love New Orleans, its energy, its people. My heart goes out to every single one of them. I pray for the city, the families, the future.
i am not blaming the bush administration for disaster and devastation. i am blaming the bush administration for doing a piss-poor job at preventing and relieving the situation.
this is a tragedy and, yes, emotions are running high, and i am not only saddened and stunned, i'm scared out of my wits. the situation is a disaster and the chaos is evident and our government does not have a handle on it at all. regardless of how i otherwise feel about this administration, looking at this event alone is severely disquieting.
and then when you have michael brown saying things about trying to help the people who "chose" not to leave, i want to throw up.
Here's what I would had done differently: listened to the Army Corp of Engineers when they said they needed more money to reinforce the levies so they wouldn't break in a hurricane instead of cutting their budget.
I would have had busses, boat and troops ready to move people out of New Orleans before the hurricane hit instead of leaving 100,000 poor people stuck hiding in their attics and getting raped in the Super Dome.
I would have accepted repsonsibility as a leader instead of blaming hospital patients for choosing not to evacuate.
I would have been on the scene to assure people that their government took its responsibilities seriously instead of playing the guitar -- or buying shoes -- or saying "eh, maybe we just shouldn't rebuild New Orleans -- it'll cost too much" after voting to cut the budget for levie repair 'cause that cost too much.
Jesus Christ, I never thought Bush was this incompetent. I didn't think anyone could be this incompetent.
and does anyone else find it disturbing that we've supposedly spent the last four years bettering our homeland security and disaster reponse systems... and then THIS happened?
FYI for those looking for information and stories coming out of NO. There is a web hosting firm in the downtown business district that has stayed open through all of this with the help of a diesel generator. The company's crisis manager is running a blog with frequent updates. There's also tons of pictures and a live feed (though I've only had mixed success connecting to that). Navigate back to the beginning of the week for some amazing and disturbing accounts from downtown.
Also, you can donate to the Red Cross through iTunes: https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/buyCharityGiftWizard
President Bush is a Cancer, just like you, Kristy! cancerian energy is known (at least of the more enlightened Cancerians) to be the Florence Nightingales of the universe--in that they often have deep compassionate care for those who may be suffering in some way shape or form--they often serve in places where care needs to be brought to bear on the hurting places. Do you really think any single President could instantly deliver help for these people? Aren't most of us trying to make things happen as quickly as possilbe for these people? Don't mourn, organize.
ugh- if you seriously want to defend the least intelligent most selfish and utterly ridiculous president in the history of this country, put your name down. I decided that I didn't want to hear about the hurricane situation since the whole thing seemed like such a mess. Yesterday I got online, and news pops up with a quote from our jackass president saying that the situation is worse than what happened in New York. My jaw dropped- talk about apples and oranges. I wonder who we will invade so that it's clear that our country will not tolerate hurricanes or countries that harbor them.
poor president bush. now he's even being blamed for the weather. melissa, if he's such a 'selfish and utterly ridiculous' president, why did we re-elect him? and please don't tell me he "stole" this election too. please.
Anonymous- The hurricane was a natural disaster. The resulting flooding was not. The levees were in the process of being raised, my understanding is that it was 80% complete before the funding was cut and diverted to (ironically) homeland security and Iraq. Here is a good article about just that. Also, the National Guard? The first responders in such a situation? They're elsewhere...So is the weather GW's fault? No. Everything else? You betcha.
Anonymous said... There's always someone to "blame" isn't there?...
um, yes. the disaster relief efforts have been woefully inadequate. it is our federal government's job to respond to such crises and they have done an "unacceptable" job. (and that term, "unacceptable"? came from bush himself.)
it is the responsibility of this administration to protect and aid its people and they aren't doing very well at it. so i am blaming them for it.
it's not like i'm blaming some uninvolved third party (or, you know, some uninvolved country) or being arbitrary. i am being critical of the people whose job it is to help.
because it will be their job to help again, and i am concerned that they won't do a good job next time, either.
Oh, and as a resident of the SF bay area, as I know many of you are, I suddenly realized that the major SF earthquake is the only event of the 3 FEMA disaster predictions that hasn't actually occurred. Today my "Earthquake Preparedness Kit" loses it's mocky quotes.
thanks for the political commentary in a comment to your own post, windbag. (hope all the douche bags that read your blog donate to the red cross. they(your "fans") are all ass kissers and hopefully this once still keep kissing your ass and do what you say and donate, windbag)
There's no one posting here named "Windbag," anonymous coward.
Bush is hands-down the worst president in my lifetime and surely one of the worst in history. That people are so willing to overlook and forgive his every move in, presumably, the name of political expediency is something I cannot get my head around. Clinton was mercilessly raked ove the coals for his personal and human failings by people who failed to recognize that he administered his job--as a government functionary!--very well. Now we have a president whose personal and moral life in no way improves on
Clinton's (and far worse, he wraps himself in the sanctimonious shroud of religion) but these same people are silent; and he does a markedly worse job administering his office--indeed, he is leaving behind him a tragic trail of mayhem and wreckage--and idiots like brave "anonymous" above are defending him.
How much money did YOU donate, anonymous? And more to the point, what other than cancerous negative energy and bile have you contributed to humanity in general?
I hate to digress from the ad hominem attacks, but if you have any interest in knowing how charities do in spending your donations, or want some ideas as to how to help, I recommend www.charitynavigator.org.
With no intention of adding any fuel to the fire, so to speak, I must play a bit of the devil's advocate. That in mind, I ask this question. Has it occurred to anyone that the sheer shock of this disaster was what kept the aid from moving quickly enough? I'm not advocating any political side, more so interested in a different perspective. For example: I believe if choices were made about staying or going, some of those decisions may have been based on previous experience. In that a hurricane of this magnitude has never created such destruction. We, as a society have had the time to take in the events and have been overwhelmed by them in many aspects. Or yet another question, is it possible that we are lashing out in anger because we're essentially helpless? We can fight back at something tangible, we have nothing to fight back at here...only ourselves if we choose to allow it.
Um...no. This is exactly the situation that FEMA was created to deal with. FEMA's response to this verges on criminal negligence -- I would say the same regardless of the political party in charge at the time.
Blaming is easy, especially when no one can begin to know all of the details. I'll bet that even my dog has thoughts on things that could or should have been done differently, so I'm not particularly impressed by hindsight.
Righteous indignation about a perceived wrong can be a good thing, if it's used as a positive force. However, I'm struck by the fact that with 33 responses to K's blog entry, no one has shed a tear for the individual victims/survivors. Most of the comments merely express angry, partisan politics. The aftermath of Katrina is unbearably heartbreaking for those affected and frankly, the lack of empathy shown here scares the hell out of me.
Let he/she who is perfect take the easy way out. I hope the others will donate their money, time and other resources to do something that's actually constructive for those in pain and need.
No one is blaming Bush for the weather. A helluva lot of us are blaming Bush for his response to this tragic, horrific thing. (And scared shitless ... wtf happens if there's an earthquake that levels San Francisco tomorrow? or Southern California? Or a terrorist attack? Who's going to protect us?)
Honestly though, I don't know what we expect from this man. This is the president who continued to read books with elementary school kids while the worst attack in the history of our country took place.
I'm thinking: the lack of response initially, and the piss poor response still happening, is all going to be used to excuse, explain, and eventually extole one thing:
Righteous indignation about a perceived wrong can be a good thing, if it's used as a positive force. However, I'm struck by the fact that with 33 responses to K's blog entry, no one has shed a tear for the individual victims/survivors. Most of the comments merely express angry, partisan politics. The aftermath of Katrina is unbearably heartbreaking for those affected and frankly, the lack of empathy shown here scares the hell out of me.
Our righteous indignation IS expression of empathy. We weep for these people, and we are sad and angry for those who lost their lives, because they are no longer here to be sad and angry for themselves. Our righteous indignation is theirs. And empathy could not be better shown.
regarding 9/11, yeah bush continued to read to the school kids. i'm sure he was already told to do so by his security team. what did you want him to do, run outside and start screaming for help? what would you have done in the first 10 minutes?
regarding future earthquakes, floods, etc., sometimes there are things that are simply out of our control. the government can only do so much. life is hard, deal with it.
regarding 9/11, yeah bush continued to read to the school kids. i'm sure he was already told to do so by his security team. what did you want him to do, run outside and start screaming for help? what would you have done in the first 10 minutes?
No, I expected him to get up, calmly walk out of the room, and go act like the leader of the "free world". Giuliani stepped up to the plate far better than our President did.
regarding future earthquakes, floods, etc., sometimes there are things that are simply out of our control. the government can only do so much. life is hard, deal with it.
Um, come again? You completely miss the point. It's not the potential disaster I'm talking about, but the reality that if one happened, we don't have the forces readily available to deal with it, because so much of our "national" guard is overseas fighting wars the main branches of the military don't have enough personnel to fight. 40% of the troops in Iraq are National Guard.
it continues to amaze me that instead of immediately working to help each other in tough situations, most Americans would rather point a finger at "the other side" and blame someone instead of doing all they can to help.
sure there is blame. sure things could have been done differently. they weren't. that will all be addressed when everyone is safe and taken care of.
in the mean time there are still evacuees that need housing, all over the country. still dogs and cats that haven't been rescued yet. if you would like to help with these efforts, but can't physically, even small contributions to organizations such as the Red Cross and the LA/SPCA (Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and American Humane Society (among others) can really make a difference. or find out how you can get involved in helping the evacuees that are being brought to your state.
serrephim- not trying to silence anyone, never would.
just suggesting that maybe there is a more appropriate time for the debate later, whereas perhaps now everyone (myself included) should focus our energies on how to help those affected.
getting angry at one another very rarely solves anything.
Kristy, I'm glad you have that link up. Don't worry about what to say. Speaking for myself (and for my stupid internet, having been down for two days) it is good for me to read about the lesbian harry potter margaritas in the bathroom thing (oh, hi, yeah, I drink too, in fact, i am right now) after two days of text messaging with relatives in the Big Easy and phone conversations with people who HAVE internet (and TV, but that is another topic altogether) saying "Ohmigod, have you SEEN what's going on?!?!"
ReplyDeleteAnyway. Long and short. Maybe just short. You are doing the perfect thing in response to the madness. And it is madness. And it's scary. But I hope we will all survive, especially our folks in N'w'awlins. And everywhere.
another reason i kept this post brief is that, in addition to lacking poignancy i am sure i would lack CENSOR and eventually just start SCREECHING about how utterly and completely FUCKED UP the disaster "relief" efforts are because our current administration is using so much of its fucking resources to cover its own ass...
ReplyDeletehow utterly and completely FUCKED UP the disaster "relief" efforts are because our current administration is using so much of its fucking resources to cover its own ass...
ReplyDeleteexactly. the whole thing is inconceivable. i cannot believe i continue to be surprised by the hideousness of this administration and its impact on the lives of millions of people, but somehow i am.
the magnitude of the suffering and how much of it was avoidable is beyond comprehension.
:(
Don't even get me started. I am LIVID at my government. This situation is shameful and disgusting.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, it could happen here (and has) but because of an earthquake/tsunami, earthquake/fire or something like that. The difference is that we would not have warning.
Make a disaster plan with your family (where would you meet? who would be your out-of-state contact?) Get to know your neighbors...especially those who are older or alone. Have good supplies of fresh water and canned foods.
We will have to take care of ourselves.
What would you like to see happen down in New Orleans, Kristy. What would you do differently if you were part of this or a different administration. And how are you helping out now? We give money, we can give blood locally, but it's a huge and horrible situation. I've got family there... Please don't screech. Please explain what you'd do differently.
ReplyDeleteanother place to donate to help the animals:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.noahs-wish.org/index.htm
It's awful....there are no words to describe it.
ReplyDeleteWhat would you like to see happen down in New Orleans, Kristy. What would you do differently if you were part of this or a different administration.
ReplyDeletefor one thing, i wouldn't blame the victims.
(the director of FEMA should be ashamed of himself.)
please send me any and all links to worthy donation sites and i will post them. perhaps this is not a huge contribution on my part, but it's something.
We all should have been helping people get out of there in the path of a storm we knew was huge and we knew was coming. Shame on our country. Specifically, I get irate that people now are saying they couldn't afford to get out. What? The how would we help aspect of this is that we are too late- the change should have gone on before it was emergent. We should be mourning the loss of possesions, of life dreams lost as buisnesses- NOT loss of life for a known threat that came about in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Off my soapbox- thanks!
ReplyDeleteKristy - I absolutely love your blog but to blame the Bush Administration for disaster and devastation is ridiculous. There is really nobody to blame about the situation, well except the French in the 1700s. They are the ones who built the city in a bowl to begin with. Don't get me wrong, I love New Orleans, its energy, its people. My heart goes out to every single one of them. I pray for the city, the families, the future.
ReplyDeletei am not blaming the bush administration for disaster and devastation. i am blaming the bush administration for doing a piss-poor job at preventing and relieving the situation.
ReplyDeletethis is a tragedy and, yes, emotions are running high, and i am not only saddened and stunned, i'm scared out of my wits. the situation is a disaster and the chaos is evident and our government does not have a handle on it at all. regardless of how i otherwise feel about this administration, looking at this event alone is severely disquieting.
and then when you have michael brown saying things about trying to help the people who "chose" not to leave, i want to throw up.
Here's what I would had done differently: listened to the Army Corp of Engineers when they said they needed more money to reinforce the levies so they wouldn't break in a hurricane instead of cutting their budget.
ReplyDeleteI would have had busses, boat and troops ready to move people out of New Orleans before the hurricane hit instead of leaving 100,000 poor people stuck hiding in their attics and getting raped in the Super Dome.
I would have accepted repsonsibility as a leader instead of blaming hospital patients for choosing not to evacuate.
I would have been on the scene to assure people that their government took its responsibilities seriously instead of playing the guitar -- or buying shoes -- or saying "eh, maybe we just shouldn't rebuild New Orleans -- it'll cost too much" after voting to cut the budget for levie repair 'cause that cost too much.
Jesus Christ, I never thought Bush was this incompetent. I didn't think anyone could be this incompetent.
touche, el_gallo... well said...
ReplyDeleteand does anyone else find it disturbing that we've supposedly spent the last four years bettering our homeland security and disaster reponse systems... and then THIS happened?
i am stunned. and terribly sad.
FYI for those looking for information and stories coming out of NO. There is a web hosting firm in the downtown business district that has stayed open through all of this with the help of a diesel generator. The company's crisis manager is running a blog with frequent updates. There's also tons of pictures and a live feed (though I've only had mixed success connecting to that). Navigate back to the beginning of the week for some amazing and disturbing accounts from downtown.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
...and an MSNBC article about them:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9164073/
Network for Good has a long list of various charities with quick links for donation
ReplyDeletehttp://www.networkforgood.org/topics/animal_environ/hurricanes/
Also, you can donate to the Red Cross through iTunes: https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/buyCharityGiftWizard
ReplyDeleteThere's always someone to "blame" isn't there?...
ReplyDeletePresident Bush is a Cancer, just like you, Kristy! cancerian energy is known (at least of the more enlightened Cancerians) to be the Florence Nightingales of the universe--in that they often have deep compassionate care for those who may be suffering in some way shape or form--they often serve in places where care needs to be brought to bear on the hurting places. Do you really think any single President could instantly deliver help for these people? Aren't most of us trying to make things happen as quickly as possilbe for these people? Don't mourn, organize.
ugh- if you seriously want to defend the least intelligent most selfish and utterly ridiculous president in the history of this country, put your name down. I decided that I didn't want to hear about the hurricane situation since the whole thing seemed like such a mess. Yesterday I got online, and news pops up with a quote from our jackass president saying that the situation is worse than what happened in New York. My jaw dropped- talk about apples and oranges. I wonder who we will invade so that it's clear that our country will not tolerate hurricanes or countries that harbor them.
ReplyDeletepoor president bush. now he's even being blamed for the weather. melissa, if he's such a 'selfish and utterly ridiculous' president, why did we re-elect him? and please don't tell me he "stole" this election too. please.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous- The hurricane was a natural disaster. The resulting flooding was not. The levees were in the process of being raised, my understanding is that it was 80% complete before the funding was cut and diverted to (ironically) homeland security and Iraq. Here is a good article about just that. Also, the National Guard? The first responders in such a situation? They're elsewhere...So is the weather GW's fault? No. Everything else? You betcha.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteThere's always someone to "blame" isn't there?...
um, yes. the disaster relief efforts have been woefully inadequate. it is our federal government's job to respond to such crises and they have done an "unacceptable" job. (and that term, "unacceptable"? came from bush himself.)
it is the responsibility of this administration to protect and aid its people and they aren't doing very well at it. so i am blaming them for it.
it's not like i'm blaming some uninvolved third party (or, you know, some uninvolved country) or being arbitrary. i am being critical of the people whose job it is to help.
because it will be their job to help again, and i am concerned that they won't do a good job next time, either.
Oh, and as a resident of the SF bay area, as I know many of you are, I suddenly realized that the major SF earthquake is the only event of the 3 FEMA disaster predictions that hasn't actually occurred. Today my "Earthquake Preparedness Kit" loses it's mocky quotes.
ReplyDeletethanks for the political commentary in a comment to your own post, windbag.
ReplyDelete(hope all the douche bags that read your blog donate to the red cross. they(your "fans") are all ass kissers and hopefully this once still keep kissing your ass and do what you say and donate, windbag)
O AND ANOTHER THING windbag, how much did you donate, or did you do enough by posting a link?
ReplyDeleteThere's no one posting here named "Windbag," anonymous coward.
ReplyDeleteBush is hands-down the worst president in my lifetime and surely one of the worst in history. That people are so willing to overlook and forgive his every move in, presumably, the name of political expediency is something I cannot get my head around. Clinton was mercilessly raked ove the coals for his personal and human failings by people who failed to recognize that he administered his job--as a government functionary!--very well. Now we have a president whose personal and moral life in no way improves on
Clinton's (and far worse, he wraps himself in the sanctimonious shroud of religion) but these same people are silent; and he does a markedly worse job administering his office--indeed, he is leaving behind him a tragic trail of mayhem and wreckage--and idiots like brave "anonymous" above are defending him.
How much money did YOU donate, anonymous? And more to the point, what other than cancerous negative energy and bile have you contributed to humanity in general?
I hate to digress from the ad hominem attacks, but if you have any interest in knowing how charities do in spending your donations, or want some ideas as to how to help, I recommend www.charitynavigator.org.
ReplyDeleteThere. Please continue.
With no intention of adding any fuel to the fire, so to speak, I must play a bit of the devil's advocate. That in mind, I ask this question. Has it occurred to anyone that the sheer shock of this disaster was what kept the aid from moving quickly enough? I'm not advocating any political side, more so interested in a different perspective. For example: I believe if choices were made about staying or going, some of those decisions may have been based on previous experience. In that a hurricane of this magnitude has never created such destruction. We, as a society have had the time to take in the events and have been overwhelmed by them in many aspects. Or yet another question, is it possible that we are lashing out in anger because we're essentially helpless? We can fight back at something tangible, we have nothing to fight back at here...only ourselves if we choose to allow it.
ReplyDelete-B-
bnlv,
ReplyDeleteUm...no. This is exactly the situation that FEMA was created to deal with. FEMA's response to this verges on criminal negligence -- I would say the same regardless of the political party in charge at the time.
it's too early to blame anyone. in a couple of months we can begin looking into what might have been done better.
ReplyDeleteBlaming is easy, especially when no one can begin to know all of the details. I'll bet that even my dog has thoughts on things that could or should have been done differently, so I'm not particularly impressed by hindsight.
ReplyDeleteRighteous indignation about a perceived wrong can be a good thing, if it's used as a positive force. However, I'm struck by the fact that with 33 responses to K's blog entry, no one has shed a tear for the individual victims/survivors. Most of the comments merely express angry, partisan politics. The aftermath of Katrina is unbearably heartbreaking for those affected and frankly, the lack of empathy shown here scares the hell out of me.
Let he/she who is perfect take the easy way out. I hope the others will donate their money, time and other resources to do something that's actually constructive for those in pain and need.
No one is blaming Bush for the weather. A helluva lot of us are blaming Bush for his response to this tragic, horrific thing. (And scared shitless ... wtf happens if there's an earthquake that levels San Francisco tomorrow? or Southern California? Or a terrorist attack? Who's going to protect us?)
ReplyDeleteHonestly though, I don't know what we expect from this man. This is the president who continued to read books with elementary school kids while the worst attack in the history of our country took place.
I'm thinking: the lack of response initially, and the piss poor response still happening, is all going to be used to excuse, explain, and eventually extole one thing:
The Draft.
Righteous indignation about a perceived wrong can be a good thing, if it's used as a positive force. However, I'm struck by the fact that with 33 responses to K's blog entry, no one has shed a tear for the individual victims/survivors. Most of the comments merely express angry, partisan politics. The aftermath of Katrina is unbearably heartbreaking for those affected and frankly, the lack of empathy shown here scares the hell out of me.
ReplyDeleteOur righteous indignation IS expression of empathy. We weep for these people, and we are sad and angry for those who lost their lives, because they are no longer here to be sad and angry for themselves. Our righteous indignation is theirs. And empathy could not be better shown.
Serre:
ReplyDeleteHear, hear!
Anonymous 7:13 (sounds like a bible verse - hee hee) - Shaddap. You're making really foolish and foolhardy assumptions.
I've donated money and time to the disaster relief efforts, and will soon donate blood and clothes.
And you better believe I am going to do everything I can to make sure Bush and his ex-roommate "Brownie" pay for their complete lack of empathy.
If you have compassion for the victims, just say so!
ReplyDeleteP.S. "Shaddup", riseyp? Your empathy astounds me.
anon- aka - waste of space troll
ReplyDeletego contradict yourself somewhere else and stop accusing people here of being unempathetic.
regarding 9/11, yeah bush continued to read to the school kids. i'm sure he was already told to do so by his security team. what did you want him to do, run outside and start screaming for help? what would you have done in the first 10 minutes?
ReplyDeleteregarding future earthquakes, floods, etc., sometimes there are things that are simply out of our control. the government can only do so much. life is hard, deal with it.
regarding 9/11, yeah bush continued to read to the school kids. i'm sure he was already told to do so by his security team. what did you want him to do, run outside and start screaming for help? what would you have done in the first 10 minutes?
ReplyDeleteNo, I expected him to get up, calmly walk out of the room, and go act like the leader of the "free world". Giuliani stepped up to the plate far better than our President did.
regarding future earthquakes, floods, etc., sometimes there are things that are simply out of our control. the government can only do so much. life is hard, deal with it.
Um, come again? You completely miss the point. It's not the potential disaster I'm talking about, but the reality that if one happened, we don't have the forces readily available to deal with it, because so much of our "national" guard is overseas fighting wars the main branches of the military don't have enough personnel to fight. 40% of the troops in Iraq are National Guard.
Bravo, Keri. There are always two sides to everything and we hear and see only what journalists choose to give us.
ReplyDeleteyeah right on keri. nicely done.
ReplyDeleteit continues to amaze me that instead of immediately working to help each other in tough situations, most Americans would rather point a finger at "the other side" and blame someone instead of doing all they can to help.
ReplyDeletesure there is blame. sure things could have been done differently. they weren't. that will all be addressed when everyone is safe and taken care of.
in the mean time there are still evacuees that need housing, all over the country. still dogs and cats that haven't been rescued yet. if you would like to help with these efforts, but can't physically, even small contributions to organizations such as the Red Cross and the LA/SPCA (Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and American Humane Society (among others) can really make a difference. or find out how you can get involved in helping the evacuees that are being brought to your state.
Ramblin Girl,
ReplyDeleteI think you're making a lot of assumptions of people on both sides here.
Discussing our views on the accountability or lack thereof of our government doesn't preclude us from donating our time and money to relief efforts.
Democracy dies a little each time debate or dissent is silenced.
serrephim-
ReplyDeletenot trying to silence anyone, never would.
just suggesting that maybe there is a more appropriate time for the debate later, whereas perhaps now everyone (myself included) should focus our energies on how to help those affected.
getting angry at one another very rarely solves anything.
How telling that all the "anon's" seem to be Bush supporters. I guess I'd be embarrased too!
ReplyDeletei'm ready to vote rice in 2008!
ReplyDelete