Ben Franklin Had the Right Idea for New Orleans

NY Times ^ | September 3, 2005 | JOHN TIERNEY

[nopardons]

Yep.

[Once-Ler]

Had 9/11 been similar to our napalm attacks on Tokyo, there would be no New York. The times and its staff would have been burned to a crisp.

A silver lining in the clouds.

[Larry Lucido]

I figured you were quoting from the book version of "The Towering Inferno." Did I get it right?

[patton]

Yes, you sure did.

[Larry Lucido]

One of the few books I read back then during my teen years, along with The Godfather, Excorcist, and Airport. :-)

[patton]

LOLOLOL - smart@ass.

[patton]

" Whatever you imagine happened on Riverside Dr., near Grant's Tomb, in '72, didn't"

That is amazing ...can I steal that? because what happened in 1972 on Riverside drive...has kept me out of the church ever since. Of course, it never hapenned.

How fun you are, How smart. How nice to know everything.

[nopardons]

To quote you..."I was a little kid.............".You got the plumbing thing utterly and completely wrong. And then you stated that you "don't care", as an excuse.

At 7, I knew and understood all about the water tanks, that are ubiquitous to apartment buildings in Manhattan. If, as you claim, you lived there, why didn't you and why do you still not know?

And what has any of it to do with what's happened due to Katrina a levee breaks?

You wanna talk about flooding in Manhattan streets? Then do so! There have been enough massive water main breaks and flooding, in the past history of Manhattan, to fill several books on the subject. Ho read some.

[patton]

You ever fly?

Look down. 18, 30 floors - it is a long way down, not even real.

It doesn't get real, until you are 44 feet off the ground.

44 feet. That is when it becomes real.

Until then, you are just flying.

You actually thought I stole this?

Thanks, I think. LOL.

[nopardons]

Of course I've flown.

I've also been on quite a number of roof tops, or higher floors of Manhattan apartment buildings.

Just what exactly do you mean about things being "not real"? Just because something appears tiny, doesn't make it less "real".

[nopardons]

Just WHAT is fact and WHAT is fiction? Your personal page has a story about YOU being born in and growing up in VIRGINIA. Your wee story, in post #3, is about having grown up in Manhattan and having had a birthday party there.

In the story on your personal page, your father supposedly grew up in far upstate N.Y. and never lived in Manhattan.

Sooooooooooo, what's the fact and whats the fiction? Is there any truth in either tale?

[DB]

"The short answer is that New York was attacked by fire, not water."

That's just plain BS.

The NY attack was very localized. A couple of square miles at most. Access to the area wasn't blocked by land or water.

The hurricane wiped out thousands of square miles of civilization and infrastructure. An absolutely huge area. There is no comparison. None.

[patton]

sure, both tales are true.

[ChadGore]

Re: New Orleans in so much worse shape today than New York City was after the attacks on Sept. 11

This comparison pisses me off ! ! !

Katrina is an act of nature, absent malice.

9/11 is a premeditated, reheasred, and intentional slaughter of my people.

[ChadGore]

Re: The short answer is that New York was attacked by fire, not water.

See what I mean ? This pisses me off even more !

Acts of nature have no malice, evil intent, premeditation to slaughter my people.

9/11 was an attack, a breach of the worlds most widely recognized civil and human rights, planned, rehearsed, exacted, and applauded by our enemy.

[TC Rider]

People don't bother to protect themselves because they figure - correctly - that if disaster strikes they'll be reimbursed anyway by FEMA. It gives out money so freely that it has grown into one of the great vote-buying tools of the modern presidency. Bill Clinton set a record for declaring disasters, and then President Bush set the single-state spending record in Florida before last year's election.

That's a new twist for the NYTimes, now it's Bush's fault for being too generous with FEMA money.

[nmh]

Bump!

[phantomworker]

I understand this reasoning. It is easy to point blame, especially since hindsight is 20-20. There are many other differences between the two tragedies. The infrastructure of NY vs. the lack of infrastructure of NO, the culture of the people, the leadership...The mayor of NY clearly emerged as a world class leader compared to the mayor of NO. The outrage of the incident in NY vs the shock of mother nature, which could strike anywhere.

Except for all the media sensationalism, which is feeding off other people's misery, it is clearly shown what a great and mighty country we live in to see the outpouring of aid and donations going to the New Orleans area. Of course, it is taking too long for aid to reach that area. We are also a complacent society, but it is clear that we are stepping up to the plate to alleviate the pain of these people.

[phantomworker]

I don't mean to take sides here, but I think we are talking about a powerful form of expression called allegory.

The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form; an extended metaphor.

A story, picture, or play employing such representation. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Herman Melville's Moby Dick are allegories.

A symbolic representation: The blindfolded figure with scales is an allegory of justice.

Allegory: used only in Gal. 4:24, where the apostle refers to the history of Isaac the free-born, and Ishmael the slave-born, and makes use of it allegorically. Every parable is an allegory. Nathan (2 Sam. 12:1-4) addresses David in an allegorical narrative. In the eightieth Psalm there is a beautiful allegory: "Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt," etc. In Eccl. 12:2-6, there is a striking allegorical description of old age.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Classic NY Slimes arrogance and condescending attitude.