None of this is going to do a darn thing to help the situation but it's going to make me feel better....
We are nation of gluttons. We want our pickups and SUV's but we haven't built a refinery since the 1970's. We consume and consume but we don't produce enough to sustain ourselves. It's like we sit at the world's dinner table and eat all the food but didn't bring anything to the party. Build a refinery in my backyard no way!
In our own arrogance what production capabilites we have are scattered but the majority were placed in areas vulnerable to major hurricanes. We've known since Camille monster storms cross the Gulf every year. We shed crocodile tears when Mitch killed 10,000 in Central America but did nothing to protect ourselves against the same calamity. I remember people in here saying thank God Gilbert went into Mexico.
We built a levee system knowing it couldn't handle a major hurricane and ever year we worried and then said, "New Orleans dodged another bullet and another bullet and another bullet." To build a major metropolitan city between 2 bodies of water BOTH of which are higher than the city itself is INSANE.
Now we talk about the poor people in the hood or the slums (the hell with political correctness call them what they are) and we bemoan what's going on. We haven't done a damn thing in years past about those slums as long as they stayed on the other side of town that was fine with us.
You call my brothers and sisters the heros of 9-11. Yet you've turned your fire departments into social agencies because paramedics are the doctors of the poor. You call us for a nose bleed rather than get in a car and go see a doctor. You want more and more from your government but you insist on paying less and less. You want more from your police departments but you handcuff them with ultra liberal courts that release them as fast as we arrest them.
We are a nation of hypocrites for the most part. What's going on in New Orleans right now is ALL our faults. You can point fingers at government, you can decry the lack of leadership, you can say shot em or feed em. That's all easy arm chair quarterbacking but the truth is as a society we made these problems and until as a society we decide to fix them not a darn thing is going to change. It's been on heck of a party folks Katrina just came to collect the check.
Now it's my Turn to Rant and Rave
Moderator: S2k Moderators
Well said Downdraft.
The problem is that the important questions do not have easy answers. And, as you point out, our "short-term" mentality and "not in my backyard" attitudes almost guarantee that we get disasters such as the current NOLA situation.
There was a government representative on TV last night (yes, we are FINALLY getting hurricane coverage on broadcast TV here) who said that the Army Corps of Engineering built the leveees to withstand Cat 3. And he pointed out that it was an economic decision. The cost of building to withstand a Cat 4 or a Cat 5 was not considered "cost justified" when the decision was made--and apparently the decision was never revisited even after the economics of the region changed from the time the original decision was made.
There are all sorts of decisions of that sort made every day across the US that affect all citizens. Some are safety decisions, others are economic decisions, etc.
We see a not of "NIMBY" (not in my back yard) here. Everyone has a cell phone but they don't work well here if at all because we don't have the towers....
I do believe, however, that we have an awful lot of people in government, etc. who are either ignorant of scientific/technological knowledge or who ignore it in favor of other interests. We take binary Yes/No approaches to complex questions and then wonder why the outcomes are not good.
In the past 50 years, a lot of responsibility has been shifted onto individuals in ways we are perhaps not aware of. We realize, of course, that our pension plans (which were defined benefit plans) have given way to 401K (defined contribution plans with uncertain/unpredictable benefits) plans. Increasingly we have been forced to take responsibility for all sorts of things that we used to see as provided by the government through tax payments, etc. When I first went to work, by the way, I worked at a minimum wage job--but I could actually live indoors and eat regularly on minimum wage. I didn't live very nicely and ate lots of macaroni, but I did have a roof over my head, food, clothing, etc. Today you cannot live on minimum wage. I'm not aguing "for" or "against" here--but I do think the issue is that people do not understand or realize the implications, do not have the mental or educational resources, and so forth.
As we speak, I'm listening to some official speaking on TV and for the past 5 minutes, he has been speaking entirely in "passive voice" sentences... The terrible thing about the passive voice construction is that it does not make responsibility clear. For example, a passive voice sentence says "fire hydrants should be shoveled after snowfall to ensure that they are available to firefighters." What the sentence should say "Go out and shovel the snow away from the fire hydrant on your street immediately after every storm! Otherwise, if there is a fire, the firefighters may not be able to find the hydrant &/or will lose precious time trying to shovel it out and an area around it so that they can connect a fire hose!"
The hurricane and the disaster in New Orleans points out a number of serious problems--of leadership, of logistics, of the importance of planning, of the failure of some social systems, etc. etc. etc. But what to do is less apparent. However it is clear that there are no simple binary answers.
I posted elsewhere that there is a huge difference between being "poor" and just not having any money. "Poor" is a whole complex of issues that are not necessarily directly related to the amount of money in your pocket or bank account. I remember having to explain this to my daughter when she was very little. We were "broke" but we were not "poor" like many of our neighbors. Unlike our "poor" neighbors, we had good health, a value system that respected education, our health and knowledge of how to take preventative measures so that we would keep it, our self-respect, a sense of control over our futures, our destiny, useful skills, self-reliance skills, etc. In short, we could think our ways to a better situation--and in fact we did not stay in that environment long. But that experience did tell me that it is in our self-interest to do whatever we have to to "help" those who are not as "smart"--even though it sounds as though they should be making greater efforts or something. It is sort of like paying the cost of immunizations for your neighbors' kids or babysitter or something. Yeah in the grand scheme of things they should pay for their own--but if paying for theirs protects your kid from their diseases, then it's a cheap price to pay. And of course if the immunization is against something like polio, the vaccine is a lot cheaper than paying taxes to take care of a polio victim.
I agree that we have a lot of problems that need to be addressed--but we need to not just grab at the platitudes or go for the binary (yes-no, right-wrong, etc.) answers. Perhaps one thing that may come from this is some serious discussion that does not immediately descend into name-calling or accusation when people seek answers to complex questions that really don't have any "right" answers.
We might seriously propose a forum when the dust settles where people could post ideas on what needs to happen in any community for disasters... and yes, that will include listening carefully without "yelling" (but allowing "venting") to people's ideas....
I'm amazed, as I listen to a replay of President Bush's statement that "no one ever foresaw the failure of the levees." Well, I hate to tell him, but many did! His own government agencies foresaw the failure of the levees. There is some communication breakdown there--revealed on national TV!
I used to live in a community where the disaster management people publicized things like escape routes (with permanent signs) including signs on Route 1 that warned how deep the water would be under certain conditions. I now live in a community where you can't find your way around with a map half the time (the maps are dangerously inaccurate) and there is no signage indicating where shelters, police, fire, other emergency services are &/or how to get to them and so forth and where no disaster information is published because it might affect the tourist industry.
Well, I hate to tell them, but it would make me avoid the area as a tourist to know that my safety there might be compromised.
So, yeah. I can feel your frustration. As one involved in responding to emergencies, etc. it must be extraordinarily difficult to deal with people who think you are the "emergency room" or people who do totally stupid stuff and then expect you to "fix it for them."
Whether it is a house or an entire city, it has to be very frustrating when housing is built in places where the inhabits will be at risk of disaster...
Somehow turning New Orleans into some type of National Park makes some sense. I actually think there might be a way to do this that allowed some businesses and residences--but discouraging or prohibiting new construction, etc. Your family lived there for generations and you want to say? Fine. But don't have some corporation build some huge high rise corporate headquarters that requires that hundreds of new houses, etc. need to be built to house imported workers, etc. The idea sounds repellent I'm sure to people "from" New Orleans--but perhaps some compromise would be able to strike a balance that would not be draconian.
Similarly, in other parts of the country, we do need to build new power plants, put up wind farms and other forms of alternate energy generation, and yes, gasoline refineries, and LNG facilities, etc. Concentrating these things does not make a lot of sense from a variety of standpoints. You are right: if we want to drive SUVs and pickups but don't want refineries, we have to recognize that we can't have it both ways. But there needs to be a dialog on this... Some people have SUVs or other large vehicles because they actually "need" them. My daughter has 5 kids--guess what? Her family needs a 7 passenger vehicle! The only choice is a van or SUV... (I know--I've shopped.) We don't need or have a pick-up truck, but my neighbor has one because he needs it for his livelihood. And since he is hanging on by his fingernails, his truck is also his family's "personal" vehicle. I'm sure he'd love it if he could also afford a car, but ....
Yes, I'd like to see the dialogue open and would be very interested in the viewpoints of first responders, disaster management folks, etc. But I do think it should be in a separate forum. Mods?
The problem is that the important questions do not have easy answers. And, as you point out, our "short-term" mentality and "not in my backyard" attitudes almost guarantee that we get disasters such as the current NOLA situation.
There was a government representative on TV last night (yes, we are FINALLY getting hurricane coverage on broadcast TV here) who said that the Army Corps of Engineering built the leveees to withstand Cat 3. And he pointed out that it was an economic decision. The cost of building to withstand a Cat 4 or a Cat 5 was not considered "cost justified" when the decision was made--and apparently the decision was never revisited even after the economics of the region changed from the time the original decision was made.
There are all sorts of decisions of that sort made every day across the US that affect all citizens. Some are safety decisions, others are economic decisions, etc.
We see a not of "NIMBY" (not in my back yard) here. Everyone has a cell phone but they don't work well here if at all because we don't have the towers....
I do believe, however, that we have an awful lot of people in government, etc. who are either ignorant of scientific/technological knowledge or who ignore it in favor of other interests. We take binary Yes/No approaches to complex questions and then wonder why the outcomes are not good.
In the past 50 years, a lot of responsibility has been shifted onto individuals in ways we are perhaps not aware of. We realize, of course, that our pension plans (which were defined benefit plans) have given way to 401K (defined contribution plans with uncertain/unpredictable benefits) plans. Increasingly we have been forced to take responsibility for all sorts of things that we used to see as provided by the government through tax payments, etc. When I first went to work, by the way, I worked at a minimum wage job--but I could actually live indoors and eat regularly on minimum wage. I didn't live very nicely and ate lots of macaroni, but I did have a roof over my head, food, clothing, etc. Today you cannot live on minimum wage. I'm not aguing "for" or "against" here--but I do think the issue is that people do not understand or realize the implications, do not have the mental or educational resources, and so forth.
As we speak, I'm listening to some official speaking on TV and for the past 5 minutes, he has been speaking entirely in "passive voice" sentences... The terrible thing about the passive voice construction is that it does not make responsibility clear. For example, a passive voice sentence says "fire hydrants should be shoveled after snowfall to ensure that they are available to firefighters." What the sentence should say "Go out and shovel the snow away from the fire hydrant on your street immediately after every storm! Otherwise, if there is a fire, the firefighters may not be able to find the hydrant &/or will lose precious time trying to shovel it out and an area around it so that they can connect a fire hose!"
The hurricane and the disaster in New Orleans points out a number of serious problems--of leadership, of logistics, of the importance of planning, of the failure of some social systems, etc. etc. etc. But what to do is less apparent. However it is clear that there are no simple binary answers.
I posted elsewhere that there is a huge difference between being "poor" and just not having any money. "Poor" is a whole complex of issues that are not necessarily directly related to the amount of money in your pocket or bank account. I remember having to explain this to my daughter when she was very little. We were "broke" but we were not "poor" like many of our neighbors. Unlike our "poor" neighbors, we had good health, a value system that respected education, our health and knowledge of how to take preventative measures so that we would keep it, our self-respect, a sense of control over our futures, our destiny, useful skills, self-reliance skills, etc. In short, we could think our ways to a better situation--and in fact we did not stay in that environment long. But that experience did tell me that it is in our self-interest to do whatever we have to to "help" those who are not as "smart"--even though it sounds as though they should be making greater efforts or something. It is sort of like paying the cost of immunizations for your neighbors' kids or babysitter or something. Yeah in the grand scheme of things they should pay for their own--but if paying for theirs protects your kid from their diseases, then it's a cheap price to pay. And of course if the immunization is against something like polio, the vaccine is a lot cheaper than paying taxes to take care of a polio victim.
I agree that we have a lot of problems that need to be addressed--but we need to not just grab at the platitudes or go for the binary (yes-no, right-wrong, etc.) answers. Perhaps one thing that may come from this is some serious discussion that does not immediately descend into name-calling or accusation when people seek answers to complex questions that really don't have any "right" answers.
We might seriously propose a forum when the dust settles where people could post ideas on what needs to happen in any community for disasters... and yes, that will include listening carefully without "yelling" (but allowing "venting") to people's ideas....
I'm amazed, as I listen to a replay of President Bush's statement that "no one ever foresaw the failure of the levees." Well, I hate to tell him, but many did! His own government agencies foresaw the failure of the levees. There is some communication breakdown there--revealed on national TV!
I used to live in a community where the disaster management people publicized things like escape routes (with permanent signs) including signs on Route 1 that warned how deep the water would be under certain conditions. I now live in a community where you can't find your way around with a map half the time (the maps are dangerously inaccurate) and there is no signage indicating where shelters, police, fire, other emergency services are &/or how to get to them and so forth and where no disaster information is published because it might affect the tourist industry.
Well, I hate to tell them, but it would make me avoid the area as a tourist to know that my safety there might be compromised.
So, yeah. I can feel your frustration. As one involved in responding to emergencies, etc. it must be extraordinarily difficult to deal with people who think you are the "emergency room" or people who do totally stupid stuff and then expect you to "fix it for them."
Whether it is a house or an entire city, it has to be very frustrating when housing is built in places where the inhabits will be at risk of disaster...
Somehow turning New Orleans into some type of National Park makes some sense. I actually think there might be a way to do this that allowed some businesses and residences--but discouraging or prohibiting new construction, etc. Your family lived there for generations and you want to say? Fine. But don't have some corporation build some huge high rise corporate headquarters that requires that hundreds of new houses, etc. need to be built to house imported workers, etc. The idea sounds repellent I'm sure to people "from" New Orleans--but perhaps some compromise would be able to strike a balance that would not be draconian.
Similarly, in other parts of the country, we do need to build new power plants, put up wind farms and other forms of alternate energy generation, and yes, gasoline refineries, and LNG facilities, etc. Concentrating these things does not make a lot of sense from a variety of standpoints. You are right: if we want to drive SUVs and pickups but don't want refineries, we have to recognize that we can't have it both ways. But there needs to be a dialog on this... Some people have SUVs or other large vehicles because they actually "need" them. My daughter has 5 kids--guess what? Her family needs a 7 passenger vehicle! The only choice is a van or SUV... (I know--I've shopped.) We don't need or have a pick-up truck, but my neighbor has one because he needs it for his livelihood. And since he is hanging on by his fingernails, his truck is also his family's "personal" vehicle. I'm sure he'd love it if he could also afford a car, but ....
Yes, I'd like to see the dialogue open and would be very interested in the viewpoints of first responders, disaster management folks, etc. But I do think it should be in a separate forum. Mods?
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HurriCat
-
inotherwords
- Category 2
- Posts: 773
- Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2004 9:04 pm
- Location: Nokomis, FL
Nice rant, Downdraft.
I'd like to append that rant with one of my own about how we could have and should have been funding and steering the nation and the world away from oil and into renewable energy sources. While we're currently watching the social hell unfold before our eyes, the economic hell is yet to come, but it's coming. And very quickly.
I'd like to append that rant with one of my own about how we could have and should have been funding and steering the nation and the world away from oil and into renewable energy sources. While we're currently watching the social hell unfold before our eyes, the economic hell is yet to come, but it's coming. And very quickly.
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soonertwister
- Category 5
- Posts: 1091
- Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2003 2:52 pm
We shouldn't forget that the entire city of New Orleans was ordered to evacuate prior to the hurricane because of just the possibility for the catastrophe we are seeing now. And many thousands of people did not leave, many because they had no ability to do so, many more for other reasons.
We couldn't have gotten everyone out before the hurricane if we had sent a division of soldiers there to force them out. Everyone in New Orleans had to be aware of what could happen, but they refused to act because it had never happened before.
My heart is ripped to shreds over what's happening there, it's the most horrible of horrible events. We should reserve our anger for those who truly deserve it - the mayor who didn't practice or observe his own emergency plans, the people who could leave and refused to do so, the car rental agencies who wouldn't rent vehicles to people who wanted to leave, the hotels that want to boot people so others can arrive to watch a stupid sporting event...
You get the picture. The US government and our non-profits are mobilizing the greatest mass rescue operation ever attempted in our land, but they cannot do these things overnight. The President has no authority to impose martial law in New Orleans except at the request of the governor of Louisiana under our laws.
Huge numbers of people are trying. Vast resources are being deployed. We should think about what things we can do to help now, and discuss our failures later. It serves little useful purpose at this time, pandora's box has already been opened and emptied.
We couldn't have gotten everyone out before the hurricane if we had sent a division of soldiers there to force them out. Everyone in New Orleans had to be aware of what could happen, but they refused to act because it had never happened before.
My heart is ripped to shreds over what's happening there, it's the most horrible of horrible events. We should reserve our anger for those who truly deserve it - the mayor who didn't practice or observe his own emergency plans, the people who could leave and refused to do so, the car rental agencies who wouldn't rent vehicles to people who wanted to leave, the hotels that want to boot people so others can arrive to watch a stupid sporting event...
You get the picture. The US government and our non-profits are mobilizing the greatest mass rescue operation ever attempted in our land, but they cannot do these things overnight. The President has no authority to impose martial law in New Orleans except at the request of the governor of Louisiana under our laws.
Huge numbers of people are trying. Vast resources are being deployed. We should think about what things we can do to help now, and discuss our failures later. It serves little useful purpose at this time, pandora's box has already been opened and emptied.
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Stormtrack
- Tropical Storm
- Posts: 112
- Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:11 pm
- Location: Angleton, Tx
The one thing I can convey (not from US, observing from afar) is that the political authorities are very much on the back-foot in this disaster. On the fourth day the response is, unfortunately, a shambles. There was a terrible act a few years ago which galvanised and unified, and Leaders (like the Mayor of NYC) spoke with a mild voice like granite, and pulled it together, as one.
I'm used to seeing a capital ‘L’ Leader to emerge (anyone would do right now) and take charge in a natural, humble, unforced and ennobling way, to galvanise the population into stoic unified action and monolithic purpose.
Instead, disruptions to comms, logistics and connection to the citizen has been so shattered and become so confused that even if that leader were in fact waiting in the wings, to bring natural order to the chaos, that person doesn’t seem able.
This time the attack didn't come from violent and identifiable 'outsiders', it came from the ultimate Being, in the form of the weather. This time the expected unanimity of action was somehow replaced with the opening of social chasm, promises and a fair bit of butt-covering.
Where is the spirit this time? I’d really like to see that shining very brightly right now!
That strangely missing element is a new tragedy I'm seeing from afar during this disaster. Terrible suffering, agony, unspeakable grief, sorrow and loss are all present, but where is the heart, the fire-in-the-belly pluck that counter-balances the awfulness?
Please don't let this disaster become an even greater one. Don’t just throw buckets of money at the political embarrassment, and write a 43,000 page report for a shelf in the Library of Congress.
I’m seeing ‘victims’ everywhere, both in the ruins and behind the microphones, when the courage and stamina of good-hearted people is what I really, REALLY want to see right now.
This is an opportunity to inspire.
worthless 2 cents
I'm used to seeing a capital ‘L’ Leader to emerge (anyone would do right now) and take charge in a natural, humble, unforced and ennobling way, to galvanise the population into stoic unified action and monolithic purpose.
Instead, disruptions to comms, logistics and connection to the citizen has been so shattered and become so confused that even if that leader were in fact waiting in the wings, to bring natural order to the chaos, that person doesn’t seem able.
This time the attack didn't come from violent and identifiable 'outsiders', it came from the ultimate Being, in the form of the weather. This time the expected unanimity of action was somehow replaced with the opening of social chasm, promises and a fair bit of butt-covering.
Where is the spirit this time? I’d really like to see that shining very brightly right now!
That strangely missing element is a new tragedy I'm seeing from afar during this disaster. Terrible suffering, agony, unspeakable grief, sorrow and loss are all present, but where is the heart, the fire-in-the-belly pluck that counter-balances the awfulness?
Please don't let this disaster become an even greater one. Don’t just throw buckets of money at the political embarrassment, and write a 43,000 page report for a shelf in the Library of Congress.
I’m seeing ‘victims’ everywhere, both in the ruins and behind the microphones, when the courage and stamina of good-hearted people is what I really, REALLY want to see right now.
This is an opportunity to inspire.
worthless 2 cents
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Downdraft
- S2K Supporter
- Posts: 906
- Joined: Wed Oct 09, 2002 8:45 pm
- Location: Sanford, Florida
- Contact:
No one is talking about social engineering here and THIS area says recovery and aftermath so I think what we are discussing is appropriate. The fact is now is the time to think about this because it will determine our recovery strategies. Remember we are a government elected by the people therefore our officials are us. You want to fix problems in this country stop sending people to congress that wear 1000 dollar suits and talk about helping the poor. Our government should be a cross-section of it's people not it's upper 5 percent. No one is speaking about the left or the right the issues we face as a nation go far beyond politics now. The point of my message is the party is over we move ahead as a people or we fall back into chaos. Santyana said, "those that do not remember their history will always be condemned to repeat it." Gibbon writes Rome fell not from outside invaders but from it's own citizens apathy. New Orleans and the socio-economic impacts of it are a clarion call to us as a people. We are the LAST and ONLY great hope of this world. Like it or not America is the beacon shining in the darkness but we as Americans cannot continue to make ourselves so vulnerable to castrophes such as this without understanding unless we come to terms with the risks versus the benefits we will continue to face this horror again and again.
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TPACane04
Downdraft, props to your rant. Needed to be said, and it was well stated.
Even though this is a weather board and not a political board, these two topics go hand in hand, people.
The political machine is what surveys the storms, prepares the storm forecasts, takes action on evacuation orders, etc etc. These people do not have an agenda, but they can only do so much to help....people have to HELP THEMSELVES!
One of the true crimes is the thousands of people who did NOT heed the 48-72 hour window of time to evacuate. Yes I know, some could not afford to, but I say that probably 50% of those that did not evac, COULD have if they really wanted to make sort of arrangement.
As for NOLA, it has a very low-income populace and the end result of poverty is what we see today....lawlessness, riots, shooting, etc.
I personally hope that NOLA is not rebuilt....who in their right mind would rebuild, knowing that round 2 could come today, next week, next year...only a matter of time.
And the same thing could happen (except the flooding) in Miami, Tampa Bay, Houston, name it.
Godspeed to those who lost it all and will never get it back.
Even though this is a weather board and not a political board, these two topics go hand in hand, people.
The political machine is what surveys the storms, prepares the storm forecasts, takes action on evacuation orders, etc etc. These people do not have an agenda, but they can only do so much to help....people have to HELP THEMSELVES!
One of the true crimes is the thousands of people who did NOT heed the 48-72 hour window of time to evacuate. Yes I know, some could not afford to, but I say that probably 50% of those that did not evac, COULD have if they really wanted to make sort of arrangement.
As for NOLA, it has a very low-income populace and the end result of poverty is what we see today....lawlessness, riots, shooting, etc.
I personally hope that NOLA is not rebuilt....who in their right mind would rebuild, knowing that round 2 could come today, next week, next year...only a matter of time.
And the same thing could happen (except the flooding) in Miami, Tampa Bay, Houston, name it.
Godspeed to those who lost it all and will never get it back.
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Downdraft
- S2K Supporter
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- Joined: Wed Oct 09, 2002 8:45 pm
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- Contact:
oneness wrote:We are the LAST and ONLY great hope of this world.
eh?
Correction, you are the "LAST and ONLY great hope" of your own nation".
The world is going to be ok, your country is only a recent thing.
Your absolutely right and I apologize for I meant no disrespct to any other nation or people. This is not a forum to agrue America's standing or power. Your right we need to look inward now and let the rest of the world take care of itself.
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Re: Now it's my Turn to Rant and Rave
Downdraft wrote:None of this is going to do a darn thing to help the situation but it's going to make me feel better....
I agree with this post.
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You want more and more from your government but you insist on paying less and less. You want more from your police departments but you handcuff them with ultra liberal courts that release them as fast as we arrest them.
We are a nation of hypocrites for the most part. What's going on in New Orleans right now is ALL our faults. You can point fingers at government, you can decry the lack of leadership, you can say shot em or feed em. That's all easy arm chair quarterbacking but the truth is as a society we made these problems and until as a society we decide to fix them not a darn thing is going to change. It's been on heck of a party folks Katrina just came to collect the check.
This about sums it up for me. And BTW it is entirely appropriate to discuss these matters here, IMO. That is why this thread was separated from the straight weather thread.
It is appropriate, because it should be very clear by now that in catastrophic situations, even the best laid plans are at the mercy of fluid conditions.
This should be a wake up call to those who have cocooned themselves away in their own environments thinking that what happens to others cannot happen to them. Now you don't have to see some far away calamity and smugly say, 'I'm glad I'm not there'.
As of August 29, 2005, THERE is now HERE. Just like on September 11, 2001, we should know by now that we are not immuned. Having schizophenic attitudes about the government doesn't help the condition either. Basically, WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT. All of us and if it is not working the way it needs to work, IT IS ALL OUR FAULTS.
I would like to add that as individuals, if this event in SE LA, MS and AL hasn't taught us anything, it should teach us that in dire situations, our level of preparedness and survival skills will mean the difference between life and death. If you are not versed in survival skills, NOW IS THE TIME TO LEARN.
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