Posted on 03/13/2011 12:42:04 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
Earlier this AM CNN aired an exchange between a reporter stateside on the CNN set and a reporter in Japan.
The reporter in Japan was commenting on how calm and orderly everyone was while waiting in line at stores for water, food and gas.
He said that they had several full gas cans on their truck to get them where they were going and they felt comfortable leaving their vehicle unattended while going inside stores to buy food or to interview people.
He then compared it to his experiences during Katrina when their vehicle was completely looted of gas, food, water and even their personal gear and bags right under their noses.
He then said that the difference between the human response to the situation was almost night and day, the Japanese were very orderly and calm while the Katrina survivors were totally out of control.
I was amazed that CNN let him air such views. While completely truthful they show a side of our population we all know is there, but to speak of it, to even refer to it is viewed as racist...
The Germans are rapidly catching up with the Austrians ~ NOTE: Germany and the Benelux have substantial populations of government employees who have as their job picking up stuff. Austria and America, except for Bransom Missouri and Disneyland, do not!
” The multiple failure of the floodwalls and the Industrial Canal/IntercoastalWaterway levees stunned everyone.”
Not everyone. It was forty years ago that I was first told that, no matter how much money the feds gave NOLA for levees, the politicians spent it on booze, drugs, and whores.
I had been waiting for those levees to give way for decades.
“It’s a crush. But very orderly. No stampedes or fights, EVER.”
Sometimes there are.
Back in the day, one could find the way from K-Town to Baumholder Army post without road signs. Just follow the litter on the side of the roads. In the village where we lived. my wife would get out on Saturday morning sweeping the sidewalks As soon as she did, Germans would out of their houses so as not to be outdone. Germans are trained to follow rules. Culture matters. And deeply rooted. They say the the slovenly ways of hillbillies can be traced back to their ancesteral homes in Britain. In Central Texas, back in the day, you could easily tell a Germany farm from an “English”one. The Germans weren’t necessarily better farmers than the “English,” but their equipment was better maintained and their farms looked better. The great delusion of the liberal is that culture does not matter, that one can change culture at will without dire consequence. After all, don’t we know more than our ancestors? But my wife was outsweeping because her West Virginia grandfather always kept everything as neat as a pin, and he was doing what his dad had done, and his ancestors before him, back to somewhere in Germany. You never can tell about culture. That black music is played on the black keys of the piano may tell us something about black culture, why there are so few black mathematicians. Who knows. They are not much into discursive thinking. Their religion is not very theological.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br2D0cFE5Po featuring a Marian Williams, a gospel singer, doing a piece composed by an ancestor of mine, John Leland, based on an ancient Greek vesper he’d translated (circa 375 AD or thereabouts ~ and maybe even pre-Christian). He also worked directly with James Madison to write the First Amendment. So what is it “black culture” is based on?
There's no comparison, obviously, between the recent catastrophic tragedy in Japan and a children's animated film, but I saw some of the attitude you have described in the film "Ponyo" during a scene when a tiny island neighborhood is mysteriously flooded by unusual high tides, and how the community reacted to it.
The concrete levee walls on the Inner Harbor Industrial Canal/Intercoastal Waterway were always a federal responsibility since the canal was built in the early 1920’s by the city and accepted into the Intercoastal Waterway system. Major overhaul of these structures had ben listed as a proposed COE project since the mid-1950’s but never made the funding cut in the annual COE water projects appropriation. Earth levees on the lake shore of St Bernard Parish were also part of the federal system, I presume as part of the Mississippi River -Gulf Outlet.(MRGO) This project was built in the 1950’s to cut distance off of the outward and inbound distance vessels traveling to New Orleans Port had to travel from the Gulf of Mexico. It was also a sort of roundabout to allow speedy entry into the inner harbor by larger cargo vessels appearing that could not use the Industrial Canal. Attempts to widen the canal had been tried since about 1950 but the hundreds of homes that would have been claimed along with commercial properties in any such widening caused politicians from the 7th and 9th Wards to keep the project from ever going anywhere. This also helped undermine overhauling the canal walls because the widening project kept being pushed by the Port Authority and shipping interests. When the storm came the canal and MRGO walls and levees were subjected to a heavier surge than the flood walls further east. Fracturing of the nearly 80 year old canal wall at Tennessee St. led to the mass flooding of the lower 9th Ward and much of St Bernard. The wall fractured above Tennessee St. also. Exact location i have forgotten. The earth berm levees on the MRGO had not been continuously upgraded because the MRGO never approached the activity levels anticipated and funding for it was always limited to normal maintenance, not major rebuild and upgrade.
There is an element of local malfeasance in this story. When the flood control responsibilities for Orleans Parish switched to the COE the Orleans Parish Levee Board ceased to be considered a serious organization as it had been. It's professional staff was absorbed mostly by the Parish Water Board and the positions became a classic empty political sinecure. The Levee Board began to focus on such trivia as getting funds for a portable bridge for one of the riverboat casinos. An alert Levee Board would have noted troubling evidence of leakage under the flood walls during periods of heavy rain and the aging nature of the Industrial Canal walls.
Corruption and as I have written incompetence has certainly been part of the problems of NOLA. However, the failure of the flood control system was more from errors by experts and inattention and complacency.after all New Orleans had come through a heavy storm in 1965 with extensive but non catastrophic flooding and no breaks in the flood control structures.
Having seen a lot of county by county national election maps, I'd say red county/blue county.
You can see the cities by the blue counties.
You could. The existing term is "ethnostate". Japan is an ethnostate, meaning it is made up of people exclusively (or overwhelmingly) of one ethnic background: Japanese.
There are still many ethnostates in the world, but they are shrinking. Poland and Iceland come to mind.
Why? If you say "legacy of colonialism" how do you explain India's success. India was run by the Brits for almost 300 years. Most of Africa by various European nations for less than 100.
???
I saw that thread. I cannot believe that Freepers were on the side of the animal rights laws. That is really disheartening. Animal rights’ law! Yuk.
Did you check how long the posters had been members of FreeRepublic and what their other posts indicated?
They wear them not to keep from catching a cold, but to prevent the dishonor of giving their cold to others.
Thanks — I was wondering about that...
OK, let me be the first to say it.
R-E-P-A-R-A-T-I-O-N-S...
Guess I wasn’t the first to say it, but I did use CAPS.
I rode the Yamate-sen and changed to the Chuo-sen at Tokyo-eki during rush hour many times. The precision of schedule and operation never ceased to amaze...
But they stay inside the chalked lines...
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