Posted on 08/14/2004 2:02:37 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache
It is with a heavy heart that I write this. I have no idea what is wrong with people today in this society and this country. My example I am going to use is a really really sad one.
I was in Plant City as of Thursday night which for those who do not know is just north east of Tampa/St.Pete. I went down there to help a friend of mine who owns a house who happens to be a single mother of a 2 yr old girl. She needed help boarding up her house and sandbags etc.
All finished by 2 am there and I decided I was going to go over to a portion of Tampa called locally "New Tampa", where another friend of mine was readying her home up with her brothers. It was only 30 mins away from Plant City and definitely in the "expected"path of Charley.
I wound up falling asleep there around 4 am and woke up around 6:30 am to see that everything was still a go and a green light for Tampa. We had a few more things to move outside and the sandbags because it is a low lying area that floods from regular storms.
We went out to grab something to eat at a local Wendy's where the wait in the drive thru was about 45 mins long considering everything local had closed already by 11 am. When we got back to the house we were watching storm coverage and then about 20 mins later noticed the shift in the storm. We saw that the storm itself was more than likely going to move into the Cape Coral area.
I decided it was time for me to make my decision and it was quick. 10 seconds. I got into my car and drove over to my friends home in Lakeland. Unfortunately by the time I got over there he had hauled it over to a friends house in Arcadia.
I knew I was racing against time on I-4 and that Charley was breathing down my neck. But was more than confident I would make it back to Melbourne in time before Charlie hit Central Florida...and I did.
With about 60 mph winds everything was ok here and we even managed to keep power the entire time. So we were spared and were lucky...our friends 30 miles to the west of us couldn't say the same.
So all of my phone calls were put into friends in Naples where I used to live up til March of this year,Fort Myers,Cape Coral,and Bonita Springs. All had no power and were trying to save cell batteries but were alive. But here is where the BARF ALERT comes in.
3 of them managed to in the span of 60 seconds say "this is Jeb Bush's storm...he really screwed this one up","your boy Jeb is going to have a lot of explaining to do with this one","I am sure Jeb and George will come play the healer for their own injuries they caused."
I was sicken to my stomach. Just not that these people were my friends and usually very educated and well spoken...BUT THEY MEANT IT!
I said listen...this storm was all over the news for a week. The hurricane warning had been issued within 36 hrs...evacuation orders were given...this is mother nature...science..you can't predict this kind of thing and we all saw it with our own eyes..the storm turned right...not Jeb Bush forcing it to the coast.
Every single person bought into the entire "the Bush's never know what to do when something is going on ala the morning of 9-11",obviously a Michael Moore style of brainwashing that people have sickingly adopted from his film.
If it was not bad enough to hear it was when I turned on local talk radio and listened to my fellow Floridians bash the national hurricane center,the national weather service,jeb bush,and the media for causing such huge errors in the state and ignoring other possible tracks. That Jeb Bush spoke with arrogance and cockiness that the storm was definitely going to hit Tampa.
Last I checked the NHC saved millions of lives by posting updates every 3 hrs...the national weather service saved millions of lives by posting tornado warnings and flood watches and warnings,and Jeb Bush was up for 3 straight days and still is down south trying to do whatever a HUMAN BEING can do.
The nerve of a reporter to ask him "you are down here and the cameras are here...but do you really mean it when you say you are going to make sure people get help? Do you mean it?"
Or CNN saying "well the president's trip with his brother will be more about not wanting to lose Florida and the 27 electoral votes than showing compassion", I have absolutely had it with this kind of crap. I really pray for humanity to come along one day and to stop blaming everyone else for their problems and for things out of all of our control...like category 4 hurricanes.
But I did hear one of the CNN or MSNBC reporters respond to the person who said that by asking:
"What would be said if President Bush didn't visit?"
To which the guy who had said it looks political responded:
"He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't."
I was amazed he admitted it.
Now, you're going to have to cut them loose someday. Get used to the idea. When somebody says something like that (and means it, as you said, not just running off at the mouth while under stress), it proves they believe government is GOD and that their GOD should have performed a MIRACLE for them. You really can't be friends with insane people.
Glad you're safe.
In Florida if you didn't know a hurricane was coming..you were an ill-informed moron. Sorry to say it..but this lady in Arcadia was on TV this morning and she said and I quote "we had no idea a storm was coming here..we were told Tampa and north so we went about our business...they lied to us and we lost everything"
Who lied to you? WHO?
What would they say if he didn't
go??? HMMMMMMM?????
Yo Mr. Headache... you gotta stop hangin' with those libs! Only a lib idiot BUSH HATER could say those things.
I ran into the same types of comments on the morning of 9/11, by the end of the week those same people were singing the President's praises.
Angry people search out someone to blame.
My response to those people would go something like this:
**LOL** I know George Bush is a strong and decisive person but I don't think he or any many on earth has figured out how to steer a hurricane! **LOL**
Anyway, I don't know how you can put up with friends like that. You're a better person than I.
* (this includes swing voters)*
WHY is this demographic important? There was some lame gal on FOX this morning who obviously cannot wind her watch talking about how she was undecided. Yeah, that's who I want electing my President.
>Governor Bush is a governor, not God.
WE know that - but does HE?
I've often quoted (from the film Strange Days) "The question is not are you paranoid? The question is are you paranoid enough?" Well, now I have to ammed that to "am I cynical enough?"
And yet, when I mention an IQ test and a current events test as prerequisites for voting, I'm labeled elitist.
how is it you call these people friends?
It's not just that, but the costs of fixing the damage are going to cause the economy to tank (in relative terms, ie, the GDP will be off for the third quarter).
I hate the media.
Bureaucrats and the junk ''scientists'' of the Left come to mind immediately (g!).
A small girl in Bangladesh was killed last week by a runaway fruit cart. Damn those Bush brothers! It was their fault!
I am not disagreeing with you.
But I think what this Arcadia woman meant was - that area didn't expect a direct hit, and the effects of a direct hit are alot different then the side effects (flooding, etc) of being close by.
of course, its insane to say that Bush is responsible for the storm turning - but let's not forget that alot of these people are angry, and perhaps not thinking clearly, or perhaps they are dummies.
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