Remember that band? They had a big, bouncy pop hit in the '80s, ironically (in the context of recent events) titled "Walkin' on Sunshine".
The events unfolding in New Orleans and elsewhere along the gulf coast are beyond heartbreaking in their enormity. Some cynics among us are saying they had their chance to evacuate and didn't do it, but that's callous in the extreme. The fact is that far too many couldn't evacuate, many for financial reasons, many more for medical reasons. They just couldn't afford to go anywhere, or were physically unable to.
Another group of people chooses to try and develop political capital out of this catastrophe by saying the government could do more, could have been better prepared, or should have seen this coming. And they're just as bad as those that say the people who stayed deserved what they got. Worse in many respects, because the latter speak out of ignorance, while the former speak purely for political gain.
If everyone would just shut the hell up for the time being and do whatever they can to help, maybe some suffering can be relieved.
Hey, RFK Jr...how about opening up the Kennedy compound to hurricane refugees?
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Further proof that PC has become dangerous. From Instapundit
>>>THE BEST ARGUMENT YET for seeing heads roll at FEMA:
Instapundit
Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"
As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta. . . .
The firefighters, several of whom are from Utah, were told to bring backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They were told to prepare for "austere conditions." Many of them came with awkward fire gear and expected to wade in floodwaters, sift through rubble and save lives.
"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."
Oh, I don't know why people would criticize the government, just because Condi Rice was shoe shopping in New York, Dick Cheney was vacationing, and FEMA had cases of water & food ready to deliver, but some beaurocrat wouldn't give the order to deliver; National Guard units from other states were reaady to go, but the Federal government dragged it's feet giving the approval...
There's blame to be had by the local government, too: if it was a mandatory evacuation, why werent buses used for folks without cars?
Well, we all knew this was only a matter of time: "Firms with White House ties get Katrina contracts" http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/10/katrina.contracts.reut/index.html)
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