brimful, who lives all the way in California, gets it. I still have a tiny bit of hope for America, as long as our national dialogue soon refocuses on how to make America better.
It is bad enough that the handling of Katrina was so deplorable. What’s far worse is the notion that the nation grew tired of talking about it. Or worse yet that, even now, knowing everything we know about how this disaster was exacerbated by flagrant mishandling, do people choose to talk about the looting that occurred during the hurricane. I know it’s wrong to make snap judgments, but when people find the first noteworthy topic about Katrina to be the looting, I immediately hold those people under deep suspicion and question their awareness about the world, the country, and the administration currently governing us.
I don’t mean to rant, but then again, maybe I do. It bothers me that there isn’t still widespread ranting about this. It bothers me that elected officials can discuss that the war in Iraq was one mistake after another and claim it is now of paramount importance to fix that and turn the tide. Yet, those same officials are dodgy and shuffle their feet, and would be all too happy to pretend there is nothing left to be done in New Orleans.
Actually, I think it’s fairly simple. They need to maintain their delusions to pretend they’re safer than New Orleanians.
1) I am not even worthy of mention on this blog, where you have been keeping us all informed from the inside about how New Orleans is far from recovered.
2) Even still, I appreciate it, and I want you to know that one of the reasons I even vaguely get it is because I read your blog regularly (sorry I don’t comment more frequently, but I think you can pretty much add a “WORD!” comment from me to nearly every post you write).
3) If Sophmom is talking about elected officials, I don’t know anything about that, because I really do not understand the way they think. But if you are talking about the average citizen in, say, middle-to-upper-class cities/suburbs, the sad fact is that they are safer. And I think that is what incenses me, that a lot of people are still not acknowledging this sad fact. The sad fact is that New Orleans was, in so many ways, abandoned by government. There is a lot of “oh, people in this region have recovered from Katrina, so why hasn’t New Orleans gotten it together?” going around. New Orleans was abandoned by government AND the nation in a way that many other places in the US would not have been abandoned. More needs to be made of that reality. I’m not really articulating it well, but I hope you know what I am saying.
Brimful,
After wading through the moronic, to the racist, to the out and out misanthropic comments many have left around the internets in the last few days, it’s nice to hear that somewhere someone understand a little of our plight.
Thanks, you made my day.