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OBSERVATIONS ON THE DECENT, THE DIRE AND THE DESPICABLE - Page 1

Finally, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, water is flowing out of New Orleans as Lake Pontchartrain recedes to its normal stage. After the water levels inside and outside the levees equalize, much of New Orleans' real estate will still be about eight feet under, where it will remain until levees are repaired and pumps activated, likely in four to eight weeks. A huge swath of Mississippi and Alabama is also drying out from this devastating storm---a storm that left some thousand dead and wreaked incalculable human suffering on more than a million survivors, most of whom are now homeless and jobless.

In a sense, the shock this week was reminiscent of that Tuesday morning almost four years ago---but the death and destruction of 9/11 occurred in two hours, whereas Katrina's mayhem is an ongoing disaster. As it was with 9/11, our response to catastrophic events such as those witnessed this week define us as a people; it reveals, proportionally, both the best and worst of our citizens and our society.

But the media coverage has not been proportional. For five days and counting, the 24-hour news recyclers have played an endless loop of footage featuring misery and destruction accompanied by thematic tunes and graphics---surreal. Those cameras have captured loss and suffering amid misery and looting. To be sure, that's what they do best---but there is much more to this story than meets the camera eye.

How we respond to catastrophe says a lot about our character as Americans. Unfortunately, there were very few cameras this week focused on hundreds of thousands of decent people responding to very difficult circumstances with great courage and resolve. At ground level, most who lost all their material possessions remained thankful---grateful that they, their families and their friends, were alive. You know the type. Their glass is always half full and they live for the next sunrise, not the last sunset. Their stories reflect the true American spirit.

Additionally, those who suffered losses are far outnumbered by relatives, friends and strangers who have lent a hand and donated material goods, services and money. These folks have opened their churches, homes and businesses to provide shelter for refugees invited into their communities. Thousands of Americans from around the nation, professionals and laborers alike with expertise necessary for recovery efforts, have left their homes and families in order to volunteer their assistance. Countless millions are offering daily prayer for victims. As each day has passed, the ranks of those stepping forward to help their displaced countrymen have grown exponentially. This is the face of America, but the cameras have not captured these images.

This is the America that volunteered thousands of personnel and billions of dollars to help with the recovery effort in South Asia after last December's Tsunami.

Further, due in part to federal planning efforts by the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11, federal, state, and local government agencies have responded to this crisis side by side, expeditiously delivering emergency support to those who would not---or could not---evacuate in advance of the hurricane or its residual flooding. National, state and local leaders have set aside petty political differences in a unified effort to care for the immediate and intermediate needs of those left homeless. They have also begun to work out a comprehensive recovery plan for the region.

That notwithstanding, the media focus has been almost exclusively on two percent of the affected population who have yet to be evacuated---not only the TV media, but the print media as well. Friday morning, The Washington Post's headline read "A City of Despair and Lawlessness". Apparently The New York Times got the memo, too; their headline read "Despair and Lawlessness Grip New Orleans".

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OBSERVATIONS ON THE DECENT, THE DIRE AND THE DESPICABLE - Page 2

Consequently, there is plenty of media coverage on official complaints that services have not been delivered fast enough, that rescue efforts have been too slow, and that there have been competing agendas. "We are watching this devastation unfold on our televisions for days and you have to ask: where is the federal government?" queried Sen. Frank Lautenberg. "We should have had a significant amount of troops and supplies there on the ground Monday."

Apparently Mr. Lautenberg is "logistically challenged." He missed, for example, the fact that when the levees failed, President George Bush activated 15,000 National Guardsmen (5,000 more on the way), who were joined by thousands of police officers, physicians and emergency-management specialists from around the nation. Within 24 hours of the levees failing, there were 50 Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, 25 Urban Search and Rescue task forces, eight swift-water rescue teams, two Incident Support Teams, and 1,700 trucks loaded with water, ice, meals, medical supplies, generators, tents and tarps en route. Additionally, FEMA coordinated massive relief efforts with DHS, DoD, HHS and other agencies with relief capabilities---indeed, an armada is now on its way.

However, as this column has noted before, individual preparedness is the foundation of national preparedness. The federal government does not have, nor has it ever maintained, enough emergency-relief inventories to alleviate all suffering in a catastrophe of this magnitude. What it does maintain will, at best, meet only minimal needs and may not be available for days or even weeks depending on the nature of the catastrophe. FederalistPatriot.US posts an excellent resource page "Recommended Action Plan"

http://FederalistPatriot.US/useprpc/

with all you need to know about emergency preparedness measures for yourself and your family.

Mr. Lautenberg will have to cut his summer vacation short and return to Washington, though, as President Bush will be asking Congress for $10 billion to cover immediate relief expenditures for FEMA alone.

Lautenberg, however, is not alone in using this tragedy as political fodder. As President Bush was welcoming Bill Clinton to the White House yesterday to assist with fundraising for
disaster relief, former Clinton senior advisor and noted White House hatchet man Sid "Vicious" Blumenthal opined, "The Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war... The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge."

Apparently Sid has forgotten the Senate's diversion of domestic infrastructure funding to cover the 700-percent cost overrun for Ted Kennedy's Big Dig boondoggle. Perhaps that $16 billion American tax payers spent on 7.5 miles of Boston highway could have been better spent on levee improvements in New Orleans---but we digress.

The fact is, the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana have been arguing for decades with the federal government over who should foot the bill for the NO's gambit on developing ever-widening areas of the sinking swamp around the city. Every elected official in Louisiana knew that the city was on borrowed time with its category-three levees. The eventuality of a cat-four or cat-five hurricane was accepted as a "moral hazard." Indeed, Katrina ended that debate, and American taxpayers will now be saddled with the cost of the levee and the total recovery effort.

Naturally, there were also some AlGorite eco-nuts who actually blamed President Bush and Mississippi governor Haley Barbour for the hurricane. "As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi's Gulf Coast," protested Robert Kennedy Jr., "it's worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush's iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2... In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God. Perhaps it was Barbour's memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailing for the Mississippi coast." (Are we to understand that Jr. is now taking his rhetorical cues from Pat Robertson?)

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OBSERVATIONS ON THE DECENT, THE DIRE AND THE DESPICABLE - Page 3

Despite assertions about "global-warming hurricanes," renowned meteorologist Dr. William Gray, in a recent interview with Discover magazine (which has advocated the theory of human-induced global warming), begged to differ: "This human-induced global-warming thing...is grossly exaggerated... I'm not disputing there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and '40s, and then there was global cooling in the middle '40s to the early '70s. Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical...about this global-warming thing. But no one asks us." Gray was described by Discover magazine's editors as one of "the world's most famous hurricane experts." But what do they know. (For an exposition on the causes of global warming, see "The Earth Day Before Yesterday"

http://federalistpatriot.us/alexander/edition.asp?id=304

On the topic of fossil fuel, OPEC oil topped $70/barrel this week, though it costs the money-grubbing cartel a mere $4/barrel to produce. (If memory serves, we liberated this region from tyranny twice in recent history, yet no offer of reduced oil prices to help alleviate our refining crisis has been forthcoming.) President Bush will surely be blamed for our high gas prices and our limited refining capabilities---but those casting the blame are the same folks who have blocked construction of a single U.S. refinement facility since 1976.

Back in the Big Easy, the ugliest American face projected around the world this week has been that of the looters. Though they represent far fewer than one percent of those displaced by the hurricane and its flooding, their repulsive actions commanded about 50 percent of field TV broadcasts.

On Canal Street, a man sloshing through hip-deep water with ten pairs of jeans over his shoulder was asked if he was salvaging merchandise from his store. His reply? "No, that's everybody's store." Sadly, that has been the norm throughout the French Quarter, where looters have ripped iron gates from storefronts and taken everything they could lay their hands on. These loathsome creatures have filled industrial-size garbage bags with clothes and jewelry and floated them down the street on pieces of plywood, even as National Guardsman sloshed by on survivor-rescue details. Looters also targeted drug stores and at one point threatened to raid a children's hospital that hadn't been evacuated. Relief trucks have been ambushed and robbed by marauding gangs. Ambulances have been overturned. Nursing homes have been invaded. Stories of rape and murder are now emerging.

"We will do what it takes to bring law and order to our area," said Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. "I'm just furious. It's intolerable." Here we would advise Ms. Blanco that in the aftermath of a devastating natural disaster, and under a state of martial law, the NOPD should be empowered to discharge their weapons when confronted by these riotous gangs---though preferably not while CNN cameras are rolling. Alas, by this time next week, Al $harpton and Je$$e Jack$on will have landed, insisting that these hoodlums are actually the victims.

Regardless of the bleak and chaotic face the 24-hour news recyclers have put on this tragedy, the real face of America is that of a million Patriots who have courageously persevered, and tens of millions who are helping lift them up from tragedy---but that face is too mundane for news editors, whose primary concern is market share and advertising revenue.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK...

"The folks on the Gulf Coast are going to need the help of this country for a long time. This is going to be a difficult road. The challenges that we face on the ground are unprecedented. But there's no doubt in my mind we're going to succeed. Right now the days seem awfully dark for those affected---I understand that, but I'm confident that, with time, you can get your life back in order, new communities will flourish, the great city of New Orleans will be back on its feet, and America will be a stronger place for it. The country stands with you. We'll do all in our power to help you. May God bless you." ---President George W. Bush

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OBSERVATIONS ON THE DECENT, THE DIRE AND THE DESPICABLE - Page 4

ON CROSS-EXAMINATION...

"If somebody tried to build New Orleans from scratch today, he might be jailed as a wetlands molester, but he wouldn't be denied subsidized federal flood insurance. In rebuilding, it would be nice if federal subsidies at least weren't made available for
rebuilding in areas below sea level. New Orleans could then go back to being the 'Crescent City,' as it was known before its central marshlands were drained to allow hotels and high-rises at elevations five or ten feet lower than the river and bay (called a 'lake') just a few hundred yards away." ---Holman W. Jenkins Jr.

ON GLOBAL HOT AIR...

"Back in the 1970s, the hysteria was about global cooling and the prospect of a new ice age. A National Academy of Sciences report back then led Science magazine to conclude in its March 1, 1975, issue that a long 'ice age is a real possibility.'According to the April 28, 1975, issue of Newsweek, 'the earth's climate seems to be cooling down.' A note of urgency was part of the global cooling hysteria then as much as it is part of today's global warming hysteria. According to the February, 1973, issue of Science Digest, 'Once the freeze starts, it will be too late'." ---Thomas Sowell

THE BIG LIE...

"Well, George and I are leaving Crawford today. George is finished playing golf and telling his fables in San Diego, so he will be heading to Louisiana to see the devastation that his environmental policies and his killing policies have caused... And, should I dare say 'global warming?' and be branded as a 'conspiracy theorist' on top of everything else the reich-wingers say about me."          ---Peacenik protagonist Cindy Sheehan

I find that this is quite a sad really. Much of this sort of thing should have been in the hands of the Mayors to do something about it. To lay all the blame on others when it is their city and they should have insured such was covered for their cities needs is just passing the buck in order to make themselves look better. The things that are lacking in the aftermath of this storm are just as much in the hands of the city mayors as it is in the federal governments.

No one and I mean no one was fully prepared for such an event as this. This is completely understandable as no one really knows what the circumstances are or what needs will have to be met until the emergency has actually happened. It is no different than any other situation in life. If you have never experienced a given situation then you cannot fathom the extent of the situation or be completely prepared in advance for all the different scenarios that may take place.

Brothers,

I have mixed emotions about many of the things covered on television. I've worked numerous disaster areas, but never one of this magnitude with water and communications causing such barriers. Even the much smaller ones are nightmares.

After event briefing ALWAYS conclude that many things could have and should have been done better. It's not ironic that various weaknesses are always identified with each different type of disaster. On this one, a massive fleet of boats would have been nice, but most of them in the area were destroyed. The disruption of electricity and communications would have been a crushing blow to anyone trying to coordinate rescue efforts for something this massive. It's almost a given that the radios of various agencies were not compatible, and those not continually recharged in a vehicle would have only worked for 10 to 16 hours.

Something about the size of a large book will probably be written from the debriefing efforts at the end of this. I have no doubt there will be a huge list of things to do better, and massive amounts of money will be required to do them. Just standardized radio communications on a national level would be many billions of dollars, minus the cost of portable rigs to keep them charged.

Just going into a huge area like this that is still flooded would be a monumental task. I think that it's hard for most folks to understand just how large an area of devastation was involved. I'll simply say that I don't believe any agency intentionally neglected anything, and many volunteers were stopped from going in after the violence started and folks started shooting at the rescuers. I can't remember who said this, but someone said in an interview today, "It's not time for a blame game, we have our work cut out for us." Even the unpaid volunteers will be intensely interested in how to do things better in the future, and debriefing sessions are usually pretty blunt and lengthy.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Romans 4:20-21 NASB  yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.

That was Condoleeza Rice that said that about finger pointing and I must agree that this is not the time for that. This is the time for action not political games.

Well stated Tom and Roger.

I have mixed feelings also. My greatest concern is why do we have such poverty in America? This tragedy really brings it to the forefront. So many of these folks are black, and I understand that this is an area of the country where blacks are the great majority, but why are they all so poor?
Many of these people could not escape!

I do not blame the president. I do blame the disaster planners. Don't be fooled by some of the double talk. There were many studies which forewarned of this exact scenario, but as we humans tend to do, we put things on the back burner because "it won't happen today"

For all those blamimg Bush for cutting back the engineers budget to upgrade the levees - The fact of the matter is that Bush did propose cuts, but it was congress which actually put forward much deeper cuts, so there's plenty of blame on both sides to go around.

Those levees should have been reinforced with sandbags in the days leading up to the impact! Those who could not afford to get out, or had no car, or were too sick or too old to leave, should have been evacuated out via as many Grey Hound etc, buslines that the government could have commandeered.

Once this mess is cleaned up, both our countries are going to have to take a real hard look at the poor in these two filthy rich countries. Big business and big industry is going to have to pay these poor folks a real wage, with real benefits. Give these folks a hand up, so they can feel like they are wnated and loved! Build them new homes, and gear their mortgages to their incomes, and make them no interest mortgages.

The banks can suck it up! They've gotten fat off the backs of the middle class and the poor for too long and now it's time for the pendulim to swing back!

Tax breaks don't do squat for poor people. Ten percent of nothing is still nothing!

I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I have a large collection of collectable toy cars, and I'm taking them to my friends collectables store on Tuesday for him to sell and the money is going straight to the Red Cross. I won't sit here and mouth off, and not do something myself. I'm poor myself, but I have a home, and food on my table. I have no cash to give, or I would, so I'm doing what I can. If I'm not part of the solution, then I'm part of the problem!

Sorry my friends, Jesus has spoken to me very loudly. I am so hurt, and angry over what I see.

This disaster is huge. I understand people down there are angry, and I understand there are many, many good people doing their very best to help out, and God bless them all. I'm not pointing the finger at those folks, I know it's an enormous task, and it takes more time than anyone would like.

My propblem is with our corporations and big, greedy business who are raking in record profits. Obscene profits, while paying people peanuts! People in our great countries are living in squaller. It's got to stop.

John

Bronzesnake,

Brother John, I understand completely and agree. I spent about half my life just above poverty level, but I always had food and clothes. After many years of hard work, I guess that I would now be considered lower middle class or middle class by American standards. In looking back at over 30 wonderful years with my wife, I would have to say that many of our happiest years were when we were struggling to make ends meet. I would also have many mixed emotions about addressing poverty, but I would certainly agree that it should and must be DONE!

I would have to think about this problem long and hard, and I would quickly admit that I would be biased in my thoughts because of 25 years in police work. As an example, I think that some of the worst misery and poverty results from alcohol and drug abuse. I, for one, would not be interested in buying someone their alcohol and dope. However, I would still have concerns for their families who are the first victims of alcohol and drug abuse.

Brother, I would probably fit generally into the broad category that self-help, personal dignity, and usefulness to society should be a key issue in addressing poverty. I realize this is fairly vague, but I hope that you understand what I mean. Most generally, I would subscribe to the principle that everyone works. I would obviously exclude disabled veterans and other people who earned their benefits by service and sacrifice for others. I would also have special thoughts about those who are unable to work because of illness and disability.

Regardless, I share your tears for the misery and poverty that I've seen. YES!!! - we can and should do better in helping them!!! I'm thinking about the general gist of a Scripture right now: what we do for the least, we do for JESUS!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Psalms 107:8-9 NASB  Let them give thanks to the LORD for His lovingkindness, And for His wonders to the sons of men!  For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.

Amen Tom!

I completely agree - I would never do what my own stupid government is doing - handing out "clean needles and drugs" to addicts! What's next, handing out orphins to pedophiles!!??

I am not even considering those people right now, I'm looking at the honest poor families who are being squashed under the corporate foot. The violent and criminal addicts will have to take treatment or jail. It's time to put a stop to that stupidity. This whole idea that we should treat addicts with fluffy pillows, and baby talk isn't working. That's another scocial experiment perpetrated by our mental health intilects! I know what I'm talking about. I was addicted to drugs and booze at one time, I have close friends and relatives who I love that are addicts.

I believe that many of these people are addicts because they have zero hope of any kind of decent future. I know that if these folks had a decent wage and decent living conditions with good benefits, much of this addiction would cease to exist. For the most pasr, happy, healthy people don't purposefully destroy their lives.

The task will be enormous, but it must end now. Our countries are too rich to allow this to continue.
Jesus told us to take care of the poor, and we will answer to Him directly.