squidpants

so first off, I hope people donate to the Red Cross, at their website or on the phone, 1-800-HELP-NOW.

However, I am getting pretty pissed about this. For one thing, why did this happen? Some people probably chose to stay in New Orleans, but a lot probably couldn't, because they were sick or poor or didn't have a car and so on - why were they left behind? It's like the government said "see ya, hope you don't die." Obviously it would be difficult and costly to evacuate people, but considering the number of people who've said this would happen (FEMA, academics including GW professors, New Orleans Times-Picayune reporters, among others that I've heard mentioned on CNN), it's boggling that no one tried to evacuate them. I mean, it would have saved thousands of lives, at least. Are poor people's lives not as important? It's what it seems like now.

I think part of the problem is that the director of FEMA said that the victims bear some responsibility for staying. This guy is the director of FEMA? Come on. I read somewhere that flights were full, assuming you could afford them, and I assume it's the same way with rail and buses.

Some other interesting news - Baton Rouge is the largest city in Louisiana and may stay that way for some time. As someone rightly points out, Galveston was as big as Houston before it was hit by a hurricane in 1900. Same with Indianola, Texas, not mentioned in the article, which wasn't resettled.

People around the world are shocked and surprised at the poor response to the hurricane and its aftermath.

Local officials are furious about the slow response. New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin has told the federal government to "get off their asses". Of course, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, former head of the GOP, has been pretty quiet, saying on CNN it'll take time, etc.

Pres. Bush did say results were "not acceptable."

A pretty interesting thing from the Gawker blog, about Anderson Cooper giving hell to Sen. Mary Landrieu, which I watched on CNN. He was angry that politicians were patting each other on the back and such. She said "Anderson" maybe 80 times. And "I have the anger in my heart" was pretty corny to hear.

"The Big Disconnect," a CNN piece comparing the federal goverment's statements about the disaster to those by the mayor and other locals.

"To me, it just seems like black people are marked,"from the Post.

This piece from Ariana Huffington's blog basically blames Pres. Bush for the tragedy. Interesting. Although I read that some of the denials of funds happened in 1998, which would be the Clinton administration. I wonder if Clinton and HW Bush are wondering if they could have done anything more when they were president. Not that I think they are to blame anyway.