Posted on 09/03/2005 9:32:43 AM PDT by aculeus
Many thanks for your kind words and your generous contribution.
Its in the Federal Register as a matter of public record.
When I signed up on FR I promised myself that if all I could come up with to post on a particular subject was "FU" then I wouldn't post anything. So I'm not going to post my FU to the BBC.
Calling someone a hero is a leftist way of damage control. Clinton was also called a hero as a means to deflect from his flaws. Watch for other media to pick up on this.
i doubt it. this has been a golden opportuinity to mock the US (particularly the GOP) and they are not going to drop it. notice the reference to a dictator being better.
"Heroic Mayor?" Somebody needs to tell the British Bureau of Communists that Hizzoner put his family on a chartered jet and hauled ass instead of leading his city through disaster.
I suspect the blacks in NO have the lowest per capita income of any major metro area in the US, about 10K. In fact, the whole state just reeks of poverty in black areas, from what I have seen.
There could be a different kind of poverty in NOLA than in some other American cities -- closer to the poverty of the rural South. That means it's not as close to collapse as a city like Detroit was, but that poor people are further from integration into the contemporary workplace than in some other cities.
What may do some good are limited and specifically targeted ideas adapted to local conditions. But what the BBC, the Guardian and the rest have to offer from thousands of miles away is indignation and condescension. They have a lot of that stockpiled, but their opinions really don't count for much.
NO was sort of like Venezuela. The middle class was very thin. And there was very little of the disinterested civic culture down there. You grabbed all you could for your family and clan. The Yankee Protestant ethos was thinner here on the ground than any place else in America, or its cultural derivatives, and just didn't influence the place much at all. But frankly I don't know why blacks in NO were less integrated into the market economy than in other metros areas. I don't pretend to be an expert. All I know is that the black income here was way below the black income in other metro areas, while the white income reflected national norms or above. The white per capita income was 31K, the black 10K. I doubt there is any wider gap in the nation. Class and race were almost synonyms down there. Thank heavens that is no longer true of the nation as a whole.
This goes alot toward explaining why blacks are seen as the "problem minority" by many whites in the Norteast and Upper Midwest, while "Mexicans" are seen as the "problem minority" by whites in California and Arizona.
This mayor issued and SOS and told everybody thats its every man for himself. His conduct was shameful.
I lived in Chicago for five years. I used to smoke dope with some of the street urchins, cultural exchange and understanding you know. LA is going the way of OC. The most heavily black areas in LA are now middle to upper middle class, in Ladera Heights, Baldwin Hills, and the more chic parts of Inglewood. The dirty little secret is that Hispanics tend to drive out the black underclass.
By the way, my battery died in an Hispanic zone of LA yesterday (the Hispanic part of Echo Park, granted not a really rough area, but well, not OC). Hispanics towed me to Autozone, changed my battery, dealt with a corroded metal transmitter that was attached to the battery, that was very difficult to remove. Hispanics with their babies were everywhere, and waved and smiled at the maroned Anglo. What was the tip I gave the guys who helped me out? What was in my wallet. All of it. Every last bill. Maybe 120 bucks or so. I ddin't count it out.
Good point. It's easy to dislike Yankee Protestant do-gooders, and "good government" civic reformers. But every now and then cities do need people like that to clean things up. After a while, they overstep the limits and get thrown out themselves, but without them corruption and complacency can become an accepted way of life.
Philadelphians have complained about the same problem. Local elites, perhaps influenced by Quaker quietism, stayed out of government and let first the bosses, then the demagogues run things. That meant more corruption, less community, and a tendency to lag behind other comparable cities.
That's one reason why we have a two party system -- to clean up the messes that accumulate over time. Even the sort of people that are real pains, can perform a valuable function once a generation or so.
Agreed - fire (and mud slides) are much more frightening than hurricanes, which do provide ample warning to get the hell out of the way. I lived through a couple of hurricanes last summer in Gainesville, FL. Lots of wind damage and power outages - enough to make me move back to Michigan. I don't see how people stay voluntarily in harms way. When you lose your basic instinct for survival, then what hope is there for you????
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