Katrina readings
I don’t personally have much to say about Katrina and the devastation of New Orleans, other than to suggest strongly that people donate. Yes, even college students. Pass on buying another video game or on going out for dinner one night and donate a few dollars.
Oh, and I want to express a bit of outrage at something a coworker said last week. This man (who I would peg at being over 40 years old) said, “I think this is the biggest natural disaster that’s occurred in my lifetime.” Let us not so quickly forget the tsunami, people. It happened, too, even if it didn’t happen in America. It doesn’t matter (and I don’t know) which was bigger and which caused more destruction; people died, and that shouldn’t be neglected to fit American-centric views of the world.
See, I don’t have much to say at all. What I do have, however, are links to interesting things to read.
“Rapper Kanye West accuses Bush of racism; NBC apologizes”:
[West] also criticized the news media, saying “I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they’re looting. See a white family, it says they’re looking for food.”
He may hit the height of his fame for that single quote.
Jason says his piece:
Class is the big deal. The reason these people are trapped and dying is because they are poor first.
How much of the slow response of the government is race-related?
Elf presents an early roundup of NOLA outrage, which includes an excellent link to Mayor Nagin’s now famous talk.
Todd Kelley hosts a link to the interview as well. Here is the transcript.
Here is a slideshow of photos from NOLA. Wonderful photography, nasty bitch of a hurricane.
An opposing opinion: “Katrina: When the apocalypse came to NOLA”:
Like I said before, the looting in New Orleans isn’t surprising. Every armchair activist and political blogger wants to pretend that this is some sort of revolt against the crappy way that the situation has been handled. To those people, I would just like to say that you are all fucking idiots.
Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that it was impossible for many people to evacuate the city. But given the fact that this was a category 5 storm that many predicted would strike New Orleans directly, you have to question the mindset of people that decided remaining in their homes was a good idea instead of heading towards a shelter. But let’s assume all of those people just couldn’t reach a shelter for some reason or another. It doesn’t explain why people are looting Canal Place, a mall in downtown New Orleans that sells almost nothing but luxury goods or the majority of the stores that have been hit. I’ve seen drug stores looted for “survival” that have bottled water, food, and toilet paper all over the place. I bet there wasn’t a single bottle of booze left though. (The Hyena)
Interesting reading, indeed.
