It's sad when a hurricane shows our broken country

I just saw the Oprah show so I decided to update this post. She showed the SuperDome and it looked just awful full of disease and germs. People described children raped as they went to the bathroom. It sounds unbelievable. Bodies rot on the sidewalks. They talked about gangs ruling the streets. I really don't understand if these are isolated incidents and the people reported them to get on the Oprah show, or it was widespread. Either way it reflects badly on New Orleans.

Being the Oprah show, it was also a celebrity fest with various celebrities doing good. I'm glad Oprah is part of the movement to make it fashionable for celebrities to do good. I miss Diana Princess of Wales today. She'd be there, smiling and handing out flowers. Ah, well.

The people on the Oprah show questioned if the government would have responded better if the people were richer. I question if Bush would have responded better if New Orleans had voted Republican.

The Economist hardly a bastion of environmentalism places the blame for much of the damage in New Orleans on the destruction of wetlands around New Orleans instead on Bush who IMO also shares the blame. I believe that if we don't take care of the earth, then it won't take care of us. We are still creatures part of the ecosystem of the earth. Though scientists can't yet prove any causal links between these recent disasters and global warming, I think they're all linked.

Frumiousb linked to an article about why people didn't leave:Living Paycheck to Paycheck Made Leaving Impossible - But I still didn't get it. I mean the warning was given a couple days before the hurricane. So they could just walk out, but then I talked to C who supplied the missing piece: They probably didn't take the warning seriously which is understandable, because hurricanes are unpredictable. They didn't want to leave their stuff and take the chance that the hurricane wouldn't be that bad and have their stuff stolen, or worse be stuck in the open with their elderly and infirm.

From Kynn, I learned The Red Cross wasn't allowed in NO at first They are now. It's clear the National Guard is stretched too thin, so it can't help the people in New Orleans like it should and so the Red Cross couldn't help at first.

C showed me this NY Times OP ed about the contempt of Bush for FEMA which contributed to the tragedy includin "the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients."