Comment from AB
Time: September 8, 2005, 8:55 pm

American citizens are aching for all the Gulf Coast residents, even if our government is only aching over the belated realization of what this may mean in the next elections. I don’t know how much more indepth coverage other countries are getting, but far more cities than just Houston are accepting Katrina survivors.

Comment from Julie
Time: September 28, 2005, 6:32 pm

Are you from the US? I hate the current administration as much as the next intelligent being, but I wondered what you meant by “highlights everythign that is wrong with America.” That’s a pretty sweeping statement. I think many of the things that went wrong in New Orleans would have also happened in many other countries. There is poverty everywhere. How many of us are actually “prepared” for a disaster on this scale?

Again, I am NOT a fan of this administration, but my back does go a bit up at blanket statements about what is wrong with my country.

PS- Congrats on Knitty! The sweater, and you, are beautiful!

Comment from Bonnie
Time: October 3, 2005, 2:16 am

I’m pretty sick of the bad press out government is getting over the Katrina situation in New Orleans. I think it needs to be known that the governor of Louisiana did not want the president coming in to take over her state. She, and the mayor of New Orleans were the greatest hindrance to their people getting help in a timely manner. People who were *ordered* to evacuate, by the way, and chose to risk their lives, and the lives of those who had to come and rescue them, instead.

The criminal element in New Orleans definitely took advantage of the situation, which is something you see anywhere in the world under the same circumstances. How does this highlight everything wrong with America?

What you didn’t see was how people from clear across the country have come to the affected areas to help clean up and rebuild. Long term. You don’t see how people have banded together to help their neighbors, share what they have, and take people in need into their homes for extended periods of time, helping them rebuild their lives. You can’t see our schools taking in the children from the coastal areas, counselling them and trying to fit them into already crowded school systems, so they can have something close to a normal school year.

I would say that highlights everything that is RIGHT with America.

Bonnie Evans in Mississippi, USA

Comment from Brandy
Time: October 3, 2005, 9:53 pm

Careful. The US is huge. This is a great example of what’s wrong with bureaucracy, not America itself. This could happen anywhere. You hear “New Orleans” and think “major metropolitan area”, but its very spread out. For the Missisippian, yes they were ordered to evacuate, but many of these people did not have any transportation to do so, and those that did go to the Superdome, as they were told to do, were not provided for. That I think is where the problem lay. They herded these people in there, then neglected them. They couldn’t even buy necesities if they wanted to. There was no water, food or security provided for these people in the Superdome. It was just poor planning at its tragic worst.

I can certainly understand your disgust with the government, herding thousands into a space then failing to provide for them, but there were many layers of failure here, local, state and federal. Try not to draw conclusions about the country as a whole from this. It is a huge place, and what happens in one place, doesn’t say much about what goes on in another place. For instance, Kansas likes to teach “Intelligent Design” in their public schools. You may want to then assume that all of the US is populated by fundamentalist Christians. However, then you have people like us in Massachusetts who like to let gay people get married. Its a huge place, full of many different people. Its tough to nail down what “American” even means, if you ask me.

Comment from Julie
Time: October 4, 2005, 7:19 pm

a-MEN, Brandy. And hurrah for Massachusetts.

Trackback from best rate on a home equity line of credit
Time: July 11, 2007, 6:32 am

best rate on a home equity line of credit…

blatantly originality slavery.Whelan,…