Posted on 09/02/2005 7:37:54 AM PDT by An.American.Expatriate
Edited on 09/02/2005 7:51:53 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Maybe Mayor Nagin would like to explain this picture before he and the rest of his democratic fellow travelers continue to blast the fed's.
An aerial view of flooded school buses in a lot, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005, in New Orleans, LA. The flood is a result of Hurricane Katrina that passed through the area last Monday.(AP Photo/Phil Coale)
You're preaching to the choir baby.
Surely you aren't suggesting that the entire population that is still there had means to leave and did not? That everyone there stayed behind to loot?
I already said that the city government is partly blame by not evacuating before the storm.
Don't flame me. I am so sick of Rats blaming US for everything and this situation has brought it all to a head.
I received this today, in an email. Perhaps this will allow you to not feel bad about pointing the finger, I do too, many times, but there comes a time when, perhaps, it is actually a civic responsibility.
"Go, and point out the fault."
As if particularly sensitive to the demands of Christian community life, the readings from the Lectionary's Cycle A this month provide contrasting sets of virtues and vices that foster and destroy relationships. Willingness to communicate and forgive enhances a common life of faith. Jealousy and envy, as we will see in subsequent weeks, rip communities apart.
Community life, whether in a family, intentional groupings, religious congregations, or the church itself, is the great testing ground of faith. St. Teresa of Avila thought that relationships in community were often a greater indication of one's relationship to God than the heights of mystical prayer.
An activist like Dorothy Day was wise enough to see that injustice and exploitation were as present in small service communities as in political empires.
And Jean Vanier, as committed to marginal people as anyone might be, has often observed that it takes greater charity and humility to get along with a co-laborer than with a handicapped stranger.
Paul reminds his Roman audience that love, tested in immediate relationship with our neighbor, is the fulfillment of all laws. Even dramatic sins of adultery, murder, and stealing are variations of the more domestic betrayals of deception, manipulation, and egotism.
In each case it is a lack of love, a harming of the neighbor, that occurs. This is why our one duty, our sole "debt," is to love one another.
Today's gospel provides a practical scenario on community relations:
" If your brother should commit some wrong against you, go and point out his fault, but keep it between the two of you . . . . If he does not listen, summon another, so that every case may stand on the word of two or three witnesses." Only after these careful encounters is the conflict to be referred to the entire church. Then, if recalcitrance persists, there is separation.
Sounds simple enough.
The problem is, it depends upon behaviors that do not come easily. We don't often enjoy directly confronting another person, especially someone with whom we are having difficulties.
Some families will go years before addressing a problem. Grudges or resentments within a community more often die with those who hold them rather than come to resolution in quiet conversation. Misdeeds of friends or relatives are usually discussed with anyone but the accused.
Encountering the truth with another person daunts us because it makes us face another being who cannot be reduced to our own desires or projections. We may try to make others a function of our egos, but it fails. Rather than enter the struggle, we ignore it.
If, however, we seriously love another person as an "other," and not a mere instrument of our wills, we experience the kind of self-transcendence that is required in our relationship to God.
Is it any wonder, then, that what we bind and loose on earth is somehow bound and loosed eternally? Our human relationships mirror our relationship with God. Whenever we encounter each other—not only in prayer—Jesus is in our midst.
John Kavanaugh, S. J.
The Mayor cursed and ridiculed his critics as "small thinkers", who said he should have loaded up school buses and gotten people out of the city before the hurricane.
Were they unusable 3 days before Katrina?
Wake up! The reason the residents of New Orleans did not evacuate their homes prior to the hurricane is a reason well known to the residents. The minute you leave your home, it will be robbed by your neighbor.
The weakest were going to be victimized either by the storm or their neighbor. The Storm was a possibility,the pillaging by your neighbor an absolute. Too bad the victims were victams twice.
LOL - there weren't BEFORE the storm . . .
Why don't you tell the thugs to stop shooting and that might happen.
You can yell all you want but put the blame where it belongs on stopping search and rescue -- lawless thugs from NO who have taken the opportunity to loot the city.
Anyone else hear that there was a huge gay-festival planned in N.O. this coming (Labor Day) weekend?
:)
One has to wonder just how stupid you have to be...to be a resident of Orleans. I'll bet its awful low. Free bus to leave....danger at your front door....death and misery for those who remain...and you decide that sitting in the SuperBowl would be a blast.
I beg to differ. By Friday night, NO was in the crosshairs of a Cat 3 storm on its way to Cat 5. I watched this closely because I live in Panama City and was happy (for me at least) to see the crosshairs shift west.
For the record--it's been reported that they shut down the city bus system around noon on the day the evacuation was ordered. Maybe there is a reason why they couldn't have bused the evacuees out of the area, but it certainly wasn't a lack of buses. School buses, city buses, church buses--all should have been used.
A very wise thing to do, I might add!
I assume you have seen that there is independant corroboration . . .
Did you hear the guy from some black caucus group blame the President? He claimed the NG just "stood around and did nothing" when people needed help! I nearly put my foot through the teevee screen! No mention, of course, of the goons SHOOTING AT THEM!!
You're right. It was actually taken in the desert.
The water is just a mirage.
I can't speak for the photo, but Fox News showed similar video footage a bit earlier this morning - these are NOLA school buses, according to the newscast.
This sounds so likely it's almost spooky . . .
The locals didn't call for evacuation until 10:00 am Sunday morning. They should have started 24-48 hours earlier. Traffic would have been manageable at that time.
My brother is in the medical field in northern LA. He is appalled that they didn't evacuate the hospitals on Friday or Saturday. He said many people in intensive care and newborns are probably dying because there is no power, etc, for their function.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.