New Orleans - The beginning of the end?

[Tim Gratz]

David wrote:

Your questions are irrelevant.

Can you quit the rhetoric (I now use it in a different sense!) and kindly explain why you consider it irrelevant to question why the City of NO did not use available buses to evacuate poor people without independent transportation? Or why a delay in an ordered evacuation is not relevant? In the Keys, the decision to order an evacuation is normally made when the expected landfill of the hurricane is over 48 hours away. I know. I have seen at least five or six mandatory evacuations in the last few years.

[Mark Stapleton]

Craig,

A very interesting piece you quoted. Good post.

Tim,

That was the lamest link to the assassination I've ever heard. Trust me Tim, humor isn't your long suit .

Tom,

Thanks for your informative posts. However, I respectfully submit that a distinct vein of "Yankee v. South" runs through many of your posts. I thought the civil war was over.

It appears that the focus of retribution may have been trained too harshly on President Bush. I plead guilty. While President Bush displayed a perplexed helplessness on television, an image at odds with a decisive leader, much of the blame for administrative failure lies with City officials and the Governor. (However, I still believe the President has been a reckless failure on foreign policy.)

It's hard to believe that a nation as technologically advanced as the U.S. can find itself stumbling over bureaucratic red tape caused by competing Federal and State jurisdictions at a time of national emergency. Is this a fair comment? If so, it prevents the executive from exercising national leadership in times of emergency. As a foreigner, it seems that the United States of America is a misnomer. Shouldn't it be called the "Loosely Allied States of America" or maybe just the "States of America"?

[John Dolva]

My prayers are with those who suffer. I hope Tom's doing OK.

I've been scouring the net trying to find out what Kennedy might have done. It seems the history of disater relief in the US has for 60 odd years been a see saw between a 'pick up the pieces' response and a proactive one. The Kennedy years appears to have been a period when the federal government through Kennedys influence took a more responsibility oriented approach. Johnson short circuited that approach and it was resumed under Carter, then a swing again and back to a mitigating response under Clinton. The history I was following doesn't go beyond the Clinton years, but perhaps once again it has swung to a 'pick up the pieces' response?

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There is no shadow to His turning -- "God's work on earth must truly be our own." : John F. Kennedy

In 1961 a young president declared that "we would bear any burden, pay any price to secure the blessings of liberty.

Some words from Kennedy(from various speeches and writings, sorted in such a way to help me answer the question "what would Kennedy have done?"):

"Wisdom requires the long view.

Our task is not to fix the blame for the past, but to fix the course for the future.

I am reminded of the story of the great French Marshal Lyautey, who once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow-growing and would not reach maturity for a hundred years. The Marshal replied, "In that case, there is no time to lose, plant it this afternoon."

When written in Chinese, the word crisis is compounded of two characters-one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.

To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required--not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

...will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.

And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved. All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring these problems which divide us.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country

It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.

....not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom.

....our success or failure, in whatever office we may hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions:

First, were we truly men of courage--with the courage to stand up to one's enemies--and the courage to stand up, when necessary, to one's associates--the courage to resist public pressure, as well as private greed?

Secondly, were we truly men of judgment--with perceptive judgment of the future as well as the past--of our own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others--with enough wisdom to know that we did not know, and enough candor to admit it?

Third, were we truly men of integrity--men who never ran out on either the principles in which they believed or the people who believed in them--men who believed in us--men whom neither financial gain nor political ambition could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust?

Finally, were we truly men of dedication--with an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and compromised by no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest.

....................

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

....................

All my life I’ve known better than to depend on the experts. How could I have been so stupid, to let them go ahead?"

JFK 1963 - end of an era?

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Tim wrote:

John wrote (quoting JFK):

To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required--not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

John, take a look at the thread I started on "Adventures in Missions". That group sends out short-term missionaries that not only attempt to proselytize but also work with the disadvantages and places where civilization has not yet reached. It is only one of many organizations that do such things.

And of course on a nonsectarian basis the Peace Corps started by JFK continues as well.

Great quotations, of course. Without denying JFK's own wit and intellect, so amply demonstrated at his press conferences, I suspect that Theodore Sorenson deserves some credit for the rhetoric.

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Tim?

In what way do you mean 'rhetoric'?

rhet·o·ric (rĕt'ər-ĭk)

n.

The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.

A treatise or book discussing this art.

Skill in using language effectively and persuasively.

A style of speaking or writing, especially the language of a particular subject: fiery political rhetoric.

Language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous: His offers of compromise were mere rhetoric.

Verbal communication; discourse.

[Middle English rethorik, from Old French rethorique, from Latin rhētoricē, rhētorica, from Greek rhētorikē (tekhnē), rhetorical (art), feminine of rhētorikos, rhetorical, from rhētōr, rhetor

I trust not in the context suggested by "elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous"?

I sincerely doubt Kennedy would have uttered important words in his speeches of his own or those of others that he didn't agree with.

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Tim wrote that

John wrote:

Tim? In what way do you mean 'rhetoric'?

Of the definitions you cited, the one that best fits is, I think:

Skill in using language effectively and persuasively.

John, I absolutely agree with you and in no way was I attempting to denigrate JFK's skills as a rhetorician by suggesting that Sorenson helped draft many of his speeches. Kennedy was certainly an excellent writer in his own right. And certainly Kennedy agreed with alkl the words he uttered regardless of who authored them.

This post has been edited by Tim Gratz: Today, 08:03 AM

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Ok, no worries Tim.

[Tim Gratz]

I think this essay by a Brit now a Harvard professor is worth reading. I think we should all pay attention to the last sentence. It is certainly both worthwhile and necessary to study the problems that arose and determine how to prevent them in the future (Mark Knight's simple answer to have plans is certainly a good one) but I think our efforts at this time are best directed at how to help the victims.

I also want to add that whatever mistakes were made at the local or national level do not mean that the mayor, governor or president are evil people. Nor do I mean to assert that there should never be accountability for mistakes that were made. But I think playing the "blame game" while there are still suffering victims does not become us.

Don't call them 'acts of God'

NIALL FERGUSON, NIALL FERGUSON is a professor of history at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of "Colossus: The Price of America's Empire,"

DISASTERS HAPPEN. On Nov. 1, 1755, the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, was flattened by an earthquake that killed thousands of its inhabitants. Like the hurricane that inundated New Orleans last week, the calamity inspired not only awe at the power of nature and sympathy for the helpless victims but also all kinds of moral commentary. None was more profound than that of the French philosopher Voltaire.

To Voltaire, the destruction of Lisbon was proof that we do not live "in the best of all possible worlds" — a philosophical position associated with Gottfried Leibniz but most pithily expressed in Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man": "Whatever is, is right." According to Leibniz, evil and suffering were integral parts of the order that God had ordained. Though they might seem inexplicable to us, they were a vital part of the divine plan; the world would, paradoxically, be less perfect without them.

How many Southern preachers will venture that argument at a time when untold numbers of bodies are lying unburied in the streets of what used to be "the Big Easy," or floating in the toxic flood unleashed by Hurricane Katrina? Most, I suspect, will prefer to echo the prayer published by the United Church of Christ not long after the deluge:

"Be present, O God, with those who are discovering that loved ones have died, that homes and jobs are gone. Embrace them in your everlasting arms.

"Be present, O God, with those who suffer today in shelters, hot and weary from too little sleep and too much fear. Let them know they are not alone."

NO DOUBT those are appropriate things to be asking of God at a time like this. But they rather beg the question: Where was He when Katrina burst the levee walls? I must say I prefer clergymen who, like Leibniz, at least address this question: Why does God allow such horrors to happen?

Voltaire's answer to that question was a classic statement of the atheist position — disasters happen because there is no God. As he wrote to a friend, the Lisbon earthquake was "a cruel piece of natural philosophy! We shall find it difficult to discover how the laws of movement operate in such fearful disasters in the best of all possible worlds — where a hundred thousand ants, our neighbors, are crushed in a second on our ant heaps … dying undoubtedly in inexpressible agonies, beneath debris from which it was impossible to extricate them…. What a game of chance human life is!

"What will the preachers say?" asked Voltaire, who went on to express the hope that mankind might learn a lesson from the indiscriminate cruelty of the earthquake. It ought, he wrote, "to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike."

That, unfortunately, was wishful thinking. On the contrary, the most common human response to a natural disaster is to reaffirm rather than to repudiate religious faith. Religion, after all, has its prehistoric origins in man's desire to discern some purposeful agency in the workings of nature. The Old Testament, I need hardly remind you, interprets the flood of Noah's time as a divinely ordained purge of a sinful world. Perhaps predictably, the Methodist John Wesley attributed the Lisbon earthquake to "sin … that curse that was brought upon the Earth by the original transgression of Adam and Eve."

In much the same way, religious and secular commentators alike have rushed to attach moral significance to the destruction of New Orleans.

The banal response was, of course, to blame the city, state or federal authorities for sins of omission — a charge that prompted one of the city's former planning officials to declare defensively: "We are all responsible." For a hurricane?

The old-time hellfire and brimstone reaction would have been to interpret the inundation, Wesley style, as a judgment on the city that brazenly calls itself a party town. But few Christian churches risk such strong moral medicine these days.

No such inhibitions constrain today's Islamic extremists. Associated Press reported that they "rejoiced in America's misfortune, giving the storm a military rank and declaring in Internet chatter that 'Private' Katrina had joined the global jihad. With 'God's help,' they declared, oil prices would hit $100 a barrel this year."

It would be hard to get more tasteless. Yet the same underlying impulse — to interpret the disaster as confirmation of one's own ideological position — was at work among many American liberals too. Opponents of the war in Iraq were not slow to point out that National Guardsmen who should have been on hand to rescue hurricane victims were instead failing to prevent lethal stampedes in faraway Baghdad.

And, inevitably, environmentalists could not resist portraying the storm as retribution for the Bush administration's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol. After all, our consumption of fossil fuels causes global warming, and global warming leads to more frequent "extreme weather events," not to mention rising sea levels. Could the prospect of even higher gasoline prices, as a direct result of storm damage, finally bring Americans to their senses about climate change?

Having recently shown one of my classes a map projecting the effects of rising sea levels on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States (guess which city disappears first?), I must confess that this also was my initial reaction. Only last week, after all, I was fulminating in this column about the way we pollute the world's oceans. It was only with difficulty that I banished the thought of Katrina as Neptune's vengeance.

The reality is, of course, that natural disasters have no moral significance. They just happen, and we can never exactly predict when or where. In 2003 — to take just a single year — 41,000 people died in Iran when an earthquake struck the city of Bam, more than 2,000 died in a smaller earthquake in Algeria and just under 1,500 died in India in a freak heat wave. Altogether at least 100 Americans were killed that year as a result of storms or forest fires.

Natural disasters — please, let's not call them "acts of God" — killed many more people than international terrorism that year (according to the State Department, total casualties because of terrorism in 2003 were 4,271, of whom precisely none were in North America).

On the other hand, disasters kill many fewer people each year than heart disease (around 7 million), HIV/AIDS (around 3 million) and road traffic accidents (around 1 million). No doubt if all the heart attacks or car crashes happened in a single day in a single city, we would pay them more attention than we do.

As Voltaire understood, hurricanes, like earthquakes, should serve to remind us of our common vulnerability as human beings in the face of a pitiless nature.

Too bad that today, just as in 1755, we prefer to interpret them in spurious ways that divide rather than unite us.

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Edited September 6, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

I would imagine that the tens of thousands of people earning minimum wages or waiting for welfare checks would be trapped in Pompeii.

It is a good comparison. The people of Pompeii got adequate warning when Vesuvius began erupting in 79 AD. However, thousands were killed by poisonous gases or by the falling buildings. Why? The rich got out but insisted on their slaves staying behind to protect their homes from looters. The vast majority of people killed in New Orleans were the descendants of slaves. They were not ordered to stay but they lacked the necessary funds to get out. Like the US government, the Romans believed in charity rather than a state run welfare system. One would have thought we would have made some advancements in 2000 years but in some countries that does not seem to be the case.

[Tim Gratz]

John, the poor without vehicles could have been evacuated on all the buses that the mayor let sit to be destroyed by the rising waters. What was so hard about that? Is there no poverty in England? Does everyone in England own a car?

[Craig Lamson]

I would imagine that the tens of thousands of people earning minimum wages or waiting for welfare checks would be trapped in Pompeii.

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It is a good comparison. The people of Pompeii got adequate warning when Vesuvius began erupting in 79 AD. However, thousands were killed by poisonous gases or by the falling buildings. Why? The rich got out but insisted on their slaves staying behind to protect their homes from looters. The vast majority of people killed in New Orleans were the descendants of slaves. They were not ordered to stay but they lacked the necessary funds to get out. Like the US government, the Romans believed in charity rather than a state run welfare system. One would have thought we would have made some advancements in 2000 years but in some countries that does not seem to be the case.

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John, we have a pretty big welfare system in this country, and thats a big part of the problem. It saps the will of those in the system. Perhaps many of those poor will have a chance at a better life now, way from the pit they lived in in NO. Only time will tell.

Edited September 6, 2005 by Craig Lamson

[Dawn Meredith]

I notice none of the "blame Bush" crowd has answered my questions about responsibility of the mayor for his failure to evacuate his city.

Unless he has an explanation that is credible for this failure, I too hold the mayor responsible for not utilizing all the school busses.

What we are talking about is the AFTRER the fact lack of response by FEMA which is deplorable. No it's out and out murder. Listen to that video clip I supplied yesterday Mr Gratz and tell me why FEMA would behave in this murdrerous manner.

Dawn

[Guest Stephen Turner]

I would imagine that the tens of thousands of people earning minimum wages or waiting for welfare checks would be trapped in Pompeii.

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It is a good comparison. The people of Pompeii got adequate warning when Vesuvius began erupting in 79 AD. However, thousands were killed by poisonous gases or by the falling buildings. Why? The rich got out but insisted on their slaves staying behind to protect their homes from looters. The vast majority of people killed in New Orleans were the descendants of slaves. They were not ordered to stay but they lacked the necessary funds to get out. Like the US government, the Romans believed in charity rather than a state run welfare system. One would have thought we would have made some advancements in 2000 years but in some countries that does not seem to be the case.

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John, we have a pretty big welfare system in this country, and thats a big part of the problem. It saps the will of those in the system. Perhaps many of those poor will have a chance at a better life now, way from the pit they lived in in NO. Only time will tell.

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Yeah, well when your corporations "outsource" as many manufacturing jobs to China, Mexico etc so that fat cats can get even fatter, and damn the social consequences, as your country has done, your gonna need some form of Welfare System don't you think Craig? Or perhaps we should just let them all starve, that would teach them a lesson they wouldn't forget. We all got to see behind the mask last week, and it wasn't a pretty sight. And you will all be glad to hear that Britain is going down the same road, unregulated, devil take the hind-most, grab all you can, free market capitalism. We must be mad........

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Craig,

A very interesting piece you quoted. Good post.

Tim,

That was the lamest link to the assassination I've ever heard. Trust me Tim, humor isn't your long suit .

Tom,

Thanks for your informative posts. However, I respectfully submit that a distinct vein of "Yankee v. South" runs through many of your posts. I thought the civil war was over.

It appears that the focus of retribution may have been trained too harshly on President Bush. I plead guilty. While President Bush displayed a perplexed helplessness on television, an image at odds with a decisive leader, much of the blame for administrative failure lies with City officials and the Governor. (However, I still believe the President has been a reckless failure on foreign policy.)

It's hard to believe that a nation as technologically advanced as the U.S. can find itself stumbling over bureaucratic red tape caused by competing Federal and State jurisdictions at a time of national emergency. Is this a fair comment? If so, it prevents the executive from exercising national leadership in times of emergency. As a foreigner, it seems that the United States of America is a misnomer. Shouldn't it be called the "Loosely Allied States of America" or maybe just the "States of America"?

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It would appear that the subject matter of many of my ravings have been missed.

The City of Vicksburg, MS which fell to Federal Forces on the 4th of July, 1863 thereafter refused to accept or celebrate the 4th of July as any form of holiday until 1945, some 102 years later, after the end of WWII.

Not certain as to whether the State of Louisiana has ever fully recognized that the War was lost, or at least a great amount of it's citizens still have not.

(obviously, one can include MS and other states in this as well)

New Orleans, LA contained and continued to foster more resentment than virtually any other area of the South.

This was due to the Federal Occupation of the City by Union Troops and the declaring of Marshall Law.

One could be arrested for even singing a song which had "Southern Sympathy".

In the event any female resident of the city any uncourteous remarks towards a Union Soldier, then she could be arrested as and treated as a prostitute.

Perhaps now, with this disaster of it's singular event proportion, some will pay considerable more attention to the "Heritage" of as well as the "Mentality" of many of the TULANE Elite.

A "society" of elite which could care less about thousands of human lives, would certainly have little qualms as to the elimination of a President of the U.S. who inflicted upon their institutions what they had fought a war and years of court battles to maintain.

Many of this elite lost their fortunates during the Civil War, only to regain it in places such as Cuba; Guatemala; Honduras; etc.

They were certainly not "happy campers" when they stood to again lose these amassed fortunes again do to the actions of another "Yankee"/Boston Preident.

Think about it!

Tom

[John Simkin]

I hope you will forget the rhetoric and respond to the facts.

My dictionary defines rhetoric as “skill in the effective use of speech”. I suppose this is therefore a compliment. I have tried to stick to the facts. For example, in a report published by the National Academy of Sciences in March, it was argued that the raising temperatures of the oceans was going to result in more and more dangerous hurricanes. The report pointed out that New Orleans was particularly vulnerable. It predicted that unless effective evacuation plans were put into place, 65,000 people would die if it suffered a category three hurricane.

This was the last of several reports sent to the Bush government. Its response was to actually cut the aid needed to protect the people of New Orleans. For example, when the Army Corps of Engineers asked Bush for $105m to reinforce the levees, he gave them $40m. The reason this money was unavailable was because he had been spent on other things, for example, giving tax cuts to the rich and running the war in Iraq. This is a question of priorities. Bush may not have read these reports (apparently he does not like reading). He also apparently did not read his briefings after Hurricane Katerina struck (he told a television interviewer that the failure of the levees had not caused the flooding in New Orleans).

This is a question of competence. If he can’t be bothered to read reports and briefings he needs to make sure that he employs intelligent people who can read. Bush has a reputation for employing cronies to do important jobs. This goes to the heart of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) debacle. The first mistake he made was to make it part of the department of homeland security, whose prime concern is terrorism, not natural disasters.

Instead of appointing a professional with experience of dealing with natural disasters, Bush selected an old political friend, Joseph Allbaugh. He immediately began cutting back on FEMA’s preparedness programmes (including those meant to protect New Orleans). Allbaugh also recruited Michael Brown as deputy director of FEMA. He also had no professional experience of disaster management. In fact his experience was in overseeing horse shows. Brown was not very good at this either and as a result lost his job. Allbaugh, who had been Brown’s college roommate, decided to give his old friend a helping hand by making him deputy director of FEMA. One can imagine what this kind of cronyism does for staff morale. Bush then increased the problem by appointing Brown to succeed Allbaugh as director of FEMA.

Here is just one example of Brown’s incompetence. When the hurricane struck the huge assault ship, the USS Bataan, was in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite the fact that it had six operating rooms and 600 hospital beds, Brown decided not to use the ship’s facilities.

I know that anything that Bush does is ok by you. I find your inability to question any of his decisions frightening and is another example of how you committed intellectual suicide years ago. Hopefully you are in a minority and America will eventually get its problems of an incompetent and corrupt government sorted out.

[Pat Speer]

Did anyone surmise a nexus between this thread and the assassination issue?

The Zapruder film was first publicly aired in 1975, as I recall, on the Gerardo Rivera Show.

Also, from memory, his theme music was the song: "The City of New Orleans".

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Tim, you're a bit wrong here. If I'm not mistaken the show that used "the City of New Orleans" as its theme song was the show named after the first words of its chorus..."Good morning, America".

And the REAL connection between the assass and the disaster is Carlos Marcello and the NO mob. New Orleans was for decades and decades firmly in the grip of organized crime. As a result a disproportionate amount of its wages went into the pockets of Marcello and his ilk--money that should have went into government projects ended up repaving roads by his farm, with him receiving a kickback. Money that should have went into the pockets of the banana boat workers went into the pockets of their protective muscle--the mafia. Gambling and prostitution were everywhere--the bars were open 24/7--and Marcello and his ilk received a piece of all of it. It is undoubted that the economic conditions of the poor were exacerbated by the corruption of the city by the likes of Marcello.

The same man who killed JFK may have indeed been the spiritual father of the current disaster.

[Dawn Meredith]

I notice none of the "blame Bush" crowd has answered my questions about responsibility of the mayor for his failure to evacuate his city.

In fact if Tim or Mr Purvis would be so kind as to supply me with an email address for the mayor and the Governor, I will "go ya one further" and write both of them a letter, asking some very pointed questions.

I just read that there may be some sort of "commission" into this matter. Given what we here know of the Warren Commission and many of us believe about the 9-11 "commission" I think we all should conduct our own citizen's "commission" and try to get some answers. Before the spin is too deep to penetrate.

I have heard all I need to from the head of Homeland (In) Security and I imagine Michael Brown is heading for the hills about now....Needless to say I believe that he needs to be immediately FIRED!!! (But I won't hold my breath).

I do want to hear why the mayor did not utilize the school busses. And I want to hear it from him, not some underling. I am sure he will be receiving many such letters.

Dawn

ps Tim: Will you be asking W and his people anything about their deficient performances?? ) (That IS a rhetorical queestion, as I fully realize that to TIm, W is never in the wrong. )

[David G. Healy]

I would imagine that the tens of thousands of people earning minimum wages or waiting for welfare checks would be trapped in Pompeii.

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It is a good comparison. The people of Pompeii got adequate warning when Vesuvius began erupting in 79 AD. However, thousands were killed by poisonous gases or by the falling buildings. Why? The rich got out but insisted on their slaves staying behind to protect their homes from looters. The vast majority of people killed in New Orleans were the descendants of slaves. They were not ordered to stay but they lacked the necessary funds to get out. Like the US government, the Romans believed in charity rather than a state run welfare system. One would have thought we would have made some advancements in 2000 years but in some countries that does not seem to be the case.

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Corporate Welfare in America far out strips 'Social Welfare'. Those that believe Social Welfare runs rampant in America need there heads examined --

To those that post in support of, 'the rise in social welfare, might they post the latest US census figures regarding said rise in "welfare rolls" -- translate that to a % of the Gross GDP and compare same to 1980/1990 figures...

[Pat Speer]

I do want to hear why the mayor did not utilize the school busses. And I want to hear it from him, not some underling. I am sure he will be receiving many such letters.

Dawn

ps Tim: Will you be asking W and his people anything about their deficient performances?? ) (That IS a rhetorical queestion, as I fully realize that to TIm, W is never in the wrong. )

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I think I can probably answer this. There were no PLANS to use the school buses. The details were too sticky. Who would drive the buses? Would the drivers be insured? Who would pay for the gas? Who would divvy up the cash to the drivers to pay for the gas? Where would the people go? What about those who missed the buses?

Since the NEED for a shelter was obvious, the use of the Superdome would be necessary no matter what. It simply made more sense to allow those with NO PLACE to go and no way to get there to go to the Superdome. The inadequate supplies in the Superdome is a different story. Water, at the least, should have been plentiful. It's important to remember here that apparently VERY FEW people died in the storm itself. The failure of the mayor to evacuate every last soul from a city of a half a million is to me a NON-ISSUE. The slow response afterwards and the National Guard's unwillingness to engage the crazed snipers, which apparently caused the death of many people drowing in attics and dehydrating in shelters, deserves examination. It is my suspicion that someone somewhere decided it would LOOK BAD for the National Guard to be firing on brown skinned people in the U.S. whilst simultaneously firing on brown skinned people in Iraq. Someone just wasn't comfortable with it. Might make W look like he's declaring war on his own people. Perhaps this was the decision of a gun shy Governor equally as concerned with how it might make her look.

Mr. Purvis is correct on New Orlean's historical resentment of the Federal Govt. In a prominent square by the French Quarter there's a column topped by a statue of Robert E. Lee. Across from the statue is a YMCA. It is an ongoing joke, said with pride, even by the black bus drivers in the NO tourist industry, that the YMCA Lee is pointing to stands for "Yanks May Come Again!"