Have We No Sense of Decency?

I am sick and tired of hearing about how everyone was caught by surprise by Katrina. You can see elsewhere on my blog that there was plenty of warning but little political will at the federal level. Hell, even that government cheerleader Wolf Blitzer agrees with me about that!

America's impotency is even more striking because the the victims in New Orleans are the most needy of all: black, poor, very young, and old. Yes, they heard the warnings to get out of town, but had no means to travel.

Basically, we are New Orleans' John. As long as the city was fun, boozy, and entertaining, we liked to hang out there, but the REAL New Orleans population is NOT the drunken tourists carrying giant beer cups down Bourbon Street, it's the 65% black population that works in the myriad of service jobs serving the biggest pimp of all: tourism.

I urge you to read Jack Shafer's piece in Slate and (I can't believe I'm writing his name here) David Brooks' editorial in the New York Times.

Have we lost all our compassion for the neediest among us? This is bad and it is embarassing and if something doesn't happen soon, there will be riots in the streets. Maybe we need a good smack up side the head.