From reader Andy Simpson, earlier this morning:
The internet feed from WWL was just running Gov. Blanco sitting in front of the camera, preparing for a broadcast, obviously not aware that it was already broadcasting. Tears were streaming down her face as she discussed the problems with someone off camera. Unfortunately, you couldn’t hear the person off camera, so you could only get her answers, which often didn’t make sense. The last comment was a bit of pseudo-levity — talking about how Tom Benson was going to get his new stadium. She laughed and said no one is going to go along with his plan for a retractable roof because of the need to have the stadium as a shelter.I was sitting watching this, thinking, “Isn’t that the governor?” and “She’s in bad shape emotionally.” But she pulled it together before the official broadcast and is now answering questions with great deal of composure. It was pretty touching to see her with her guard down and be reminded that she is a human who is dealing with an enormous amount of personal suffering, but also having to wear her game face.
|
Categories: Hurricane Katrina
|
August 31st, 2005 at 9:30:12 am
I have been very impressed with Governor Blanco during this crisis. You got a pretty darn good Gov in Louisiana! On another topic and almost as a public service announcement that everyone should think before making hasty generalizations…although there are a number of reports of looting and if not being done to find food to survive, it should be punished as harshly as possible, we need to be very careful about the words and terms that we use. I hate using terms like “racism” and “bias”, but people need to take a quick look at the two AP photos I have up.
Permalink: http://raywert.blogspot.com/2005/08/finding-versus-looting.html
August 31st, 2005 at 9:35:17 am
I agree looting should be ounished, but trying to survive is another story. People that would not do things under normals circumstances will do others things to survive. and let me tell ya I would do the same. As far as the captions, yeah that sucks, but honestly in this day and age it just makes the author of it look like an ass.At least to me it does.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:36:44 am
I honestly don’t know what the authorities in N.O. are bothering with the looters for at all…..these people have lost everything, have no food, and just the clothes on their backs….and if all merchandise in businesses left behind remains untouched, it will only be destroyed by rising floodwaters, so why NOT switch into survival mode, and stop worrying about what belongs to whom and just make sure that everyone’s basic necessities are covered. Would I steal formula or diapers for my baby? Absolutely. Clothes if I had none? Probably. There are those that will be greedy….but there always will be….and again…if the stuff gets left there…it’s for what?
August 31st, 2005 at 9:37:27 am
I agree. It makes the AP look very foolish…but it evidences the importance of knowing what we speak about before we speak about it. You are right.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:58:22 am
Only one of those photos is from the AP.
People taking food has even been encouraged by the police. Televisions not so much.
August 31st, 2005 at 10:02:47 am
The AFP is the moronic caption. You don’t “find” stuff in a store that doesn’t belong to you.
Carin, the problem is that people who are stupid enough to do a smash and grab for TVs today are the ones who will be robbing their neighbors for food over the next 48hrs. Things will only get worse - one woman with 5 children was reported as not wanting to go to the Superdome because some of the men getting on the bus were smuggling in razor blades. A few instructive shootings would settle things down and remind people that just because you can take things by force doesn’t mean you should.
August 31st, 2005 at 10:37:13 am
The anglo looters in tailored suites don’t get this type of publicity. You are voyuers.
If you understand the racial dynamics that are part of life in New Orleans you would see more moral ambiguity.
How many people die in the US for lack of basic quality healthcare?
You likely don’t even want to think of that.
The people looting are the ‘return of the repressed’–the underbelly of this nations consumer squalor and stupid ‘me first’ individualism.
The rich that loot the masses daily don’t get bad publicity:–the own the politicians and the media.
For many of the poor in New Orleans it’s pay-back time. Christmas has come early. Indeed, there is no ‘logic’ behind this phenomena–just as their is no sensible logic with the destructive consumerist squalor that has come to define so much of our relationships and our collective nationalist ethos.
And thusly this United States will fall: with people shooting each other for food amid a terrible chaos.
You are living in the time of slave revolt.
Stoke the fire, check your weapons, mount your horses…..ride!
August 31st, 2005 at 10:46:19 am
Wait, wouldn’t a retractable roof help?
I mean, should they have to put the city in a Louisiana stadium again during a storm, it might help to be able to open the roof after the thing has passed, so that the hot air would have at least some way of escaping. Since the inside of the stadium
Of course, the fact that this would require power, which wouldn’t be there, probably renders this moot.
August 31st, 2005 at 10:53:10 am
Perhaps Slave could explain why Canadian patients and health care workers come to the US, since socialized medicine is so great
Frankly the quasi-racist and quasi-socialist posts make no sense.
August 31st, 2005 at 12:00:11 pm
Ray Wert is the only person I see making racial remarks here…
August 31st, 2005 at 1:02:15 pm
Slave Revolt’s comments are a GREAT example of why leftism is an emotional and intellectual dead end. Reminds me of when I was in my 20s and all Marxist and cool like that, and the way that I thought I was doing analysis, when what I was actually doing was “plug and play” regurgitation.
Hey, SR, try these words: responsibility, accountability. How do the looters fit that? How do they help their community recover? What are they doing to make the situation better? How does hurting the small businesses in the town help the future? How does making excuses for bad behavior move the world forward?
August 31st, 2005 at 1:10:12 pm
Can we stop feeding the socialist idiots and focus on the problem here? I’ve seen Gov. Blanco on TV the last few days and she seemed frayed, but in control. This story is extremely worrying. The state of Louisiana is experiencing one of the worst disasters in our history, and it sounds like their (nominal) leader is breaking under the pressure. Without a steady hand, things could get much worse there. About the only solution I can see if she is emotionally, physically, or otherwise out of commission is direct military command of the entire state.
August 31st, 2005 at 2:01:37 pm
David, sorry to be tangental everyone, but is the ‘not so much’ a Firefly quote? Firefly is ace.
Please everyone, stop it with the glib ‘leftist’, ‘liberalised’, ‘neo-con-job’, ‘facist’ tags and so on. It’s getting more like Orwell’s ‘newspeak’ everyday. Slave Revolt, you’re wrong.
Socialized medicine is largely great, as UK’s flawed but free (doddering along but still functioning, just) NHS proves. Socialism is still idiocy, but there are a few things to grudgingly admire about it.
What I don’t understand is why people can’t find a pick and mix of policies they like in America, rather than shout from the roof-tops that their philosophy and creed is the best and everyone else is a fool?
I’d say I’m conservative by nature, liberal by experience. Or is the other way round? I forget.
August 31st, 2005 at 4:11:07 pm
The other offical I’ve been really impressed with is Aaron Brousard, Jefferson Parish President. Jefferson is in horrific shape, but in between reassuring people that they could rebuild but to stay out for a while, he managed to slip in a couple of little jokes to ease the tension.