Thursday, August 17, 2006

One Year Later

Katrina Home Bush Visited Still Stands Empty

There are a lot of "One Year After Katrina" articles out there right now, but this one really struck me yesterday when NPR ran it. It's an embarrasment, in the richest country in the world, that this is the way it's been.

I'm sorry, Ethel.

3 comments:

Suzette said...

I'm sorry. too. Get off your ass, Ethel and help yourself.

My own house was underwater in June '72 after Hurricane Agnes and when we were allowed to return, we did our own clean out and worked with what we had to get ourselves back to normal. At Xmas, we were still sitting in one room on salvaged lawn furniture moved inside and we did without and waited until the following summer to get kitchen cabinets and other building materials, at which time we got ourselves together and did our own refurbishing work.

Too bad these people in New Orleans are sitting with their thumbs up their asses waiting for someone to bail them out. It's certainly not the majority - I know quite a few from my proessional contacts who did just what I described above. Poor old Ethel is the legacy of the Nanny State mentality who was trained up to expect government intervention and cannot now help herself in the most basic way. In fact, it doesn't even occur to her to do so.

That is the real pity.

Sharon GR said...

Wow! You went through that too? Your house went underwater, thirty years ago, when you were a 74-year-old grandmother living alone? It was also reflooded a month later by a second hurricane (Rita)? People came and cleared your place out for a photo-op, just like Ethel? It was nine months before you were allowed to move back to start rebuilding your life, too?

Or are you comfortably judging other people, ignoring facts while sitting on your high horse, half a country away?

Sharon GR said...

I'm mostly sorry for Ethel that Bush stood in her home and misled her. Usually, most of us get the safe distance of having him do that from the TV or newspaper.