The fucking acorn doesn’t fall too far from the fucking tree… Yesterday, the mother of our president, former first-lady Barbara Bush, gave an interview in which she implied that the hurricane was actually a good thing for the poor of New Orleans. Here’s her quote:
“What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle)–this is working very well for them.”
Maybe, I was thinking, she’d like to tell that to the families of the 22 people that tied themselves together in order to help one another through the flood, only to end up dying together… Or, maybe she’d like to tell it to Charmaine Neville, who, after saving many of her neighbors, claims to have seen “alligators eating people (and) babies floating in the water” (while Coast Guard helicopters passed overhead without stopping to help)… Or to any of the thousands of people who lost loved ones, for that matter… Or to the seven year old who had her throat slit… Or to the kids who were raped days after the flood, when the authorities refused to come in and restore order… Or just to anyone who had to swim though toxic waste… Or to anyone who lost their home, their job, their community.
How dare she sit there (chuckling) and suggest that this is “working out well” for anyone. How dare she imply that the people impacted by the hurricane somehow wanted for this to happen so that they could take further advantage of the system, like this was some big conspiracy to get at the inherited wealth of her and others. I visualize her sitting there in Kennebunkport, watching the TV with those bug-eyes of hers and thinking, “Well, aren’t they lucky,” like they’d just hit the lottery with their food stamp money. (While keeping one eye on her black maid the whole time, making sure that she doesn’t steal any of the good silver.) And you can’t tell me that race doesn’t play into it. There’s no way you can look at the images coming out of New Orleans and say something like that, unless you’re looking past the dead people in their wheelchairs and the crying, dehydrated babies, right to the color of their skin… If this had happened in Maine, she never would have made that comment. I’m certain of that.
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Hey Mark my brother is in the disaster business. At the moment he’s designing simulation training stations for disaster workers, this ones geared specifically to firefighters but they’re hoping to then expand it. He was also called in to create identification databases and programs, first for the jet that crashed here, then for 9/11.
Anyways he is beginning to email us info and analysis of disaster operations in ref to his view of this incident if you’re interested I could forward them to you if you wanted to utilize some of the analysis.
I had considered cutting and pasting but that’s such a drag to read…….
After reading that it was obvious to me where the idiot genes came from. Maybe someone needs to readjust her goiter meds.
My personal favorite is the Army helicopter pilots who answered coast guard sos and plucked people off roofs…only to be reprimanded for not delivering supplies to the military bases by their CO.
I read in the Times today that Jefferson Davies’ summer home was demolished. Sorry, John. I think Treblinka is open to tourists though.
The bigger question is did Jefferson Davis’s (maybe thats what you meant) home survive (It’s in Biloxi).. I doubt it did as it was a typical wood frame antebellum.. Toured it one summer when I was stuck in Biloxi as a kid (not much to do and the beaches suxxor).
Don’t worry. I’m sure that Bush (and the US tax payers) will rebuild it, along with Trent Lott’s beautiful home.
And, yes, Stella, if you send the stuff from your brother, I’d love to look it over… And I promise not to reprint it unless you tell me it’s OK first.
And let’s not forget Louisiana Representative Richard Baker who said after Katrina- “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.”
http://blog.dccc.org/mt/archives/003475.html
Now they don’t have to slum-clear the poor areas. Katrina did it for them.
Prepare for a Brave New Orleans™ that will be a charicture of it’s former self.
Maybe if we pray hard enough, Detroit will have a flood that will wash the projects away.
At least Detroiters know that the Federal, State, and County governments have completely forsaken them and won’t be coming to help any time soon. I don’t think I know anyone who would go to Ford Field for shelter if Kwame told them to.
We’re figuring the next disaster to hit Detroit will be the draft riots. I tried to find information about surviving riots, but the advice online is to go to the American Consulate or leave the country ASAP. Doesn’t seem like the best advice in our situation, though I hear Windsor is very nice.
John Galt wanted to know how Beauvoir did in the hurricane. Apparently, not so good. Thanks to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Admistration for keeping us abreast!
http://www.ncddc.noaa.gov/Katrina/Before_After%20Katrina/Landmarks/Papers/Beauvoir.pdf
I was just wondering whatever became of you, Ken… I was longing for the old days when you hated your job and spent most of your waking time just hanging around here… Please tell me that the new job is starting to suck and that you’re thinking of becoming an MM.com full-timer again.
You will notice that the time stamp isn’t in the middle of the afternoon like it used to be! Sorry to disappoint. The job is going great.
The link is coutesy of my sister Kelly who, as of today, used to work for NOAA and has a WAAAAYYY better memory than I could ever hope for, even if they replaced my drinking water with pure ginko biloba extract.
Perhaps your sister could take your place here during the day.
We are going to see a lot more of this soon. Localizing police and keeping Obama’s armies out will help.