Friday, September 09, 2005

You may be wondering

I’m simply fascinated by the various and sundry reactions from both my side of the aisle (the good guys) and the other side of the aisle (the idiotarians) concerning this completely natural disaster.  We have a tendency to be so shortsighted when it comes to these sorts of things.  As referenced in a post earlier, it seems that our natural tendency is to blame someone. 

When the tsunami hit in the Indian Ocean in late 2004, there was an outcry concerning the “slow” relief effort of the United States, which lasted until the scope of the disaster was fully known, at which time, the government adjusted their financial support.  After Hurricane Andrew in the early 90’s, there was an uproar about the slow response of the government to aid those who had their lives uprooted in Florida.  People complained during the followup to Hurricane Jeanne just last year:

"This is just too much, this is just unbelievable," said Gladys Caldwell, who knew just how long she had waited for water and ice at a Fort Pierce distribution station.

"Two hours and 18 minutes."

We shouldn’t be surprised by the massive negative reaction of people in consideration of the scale of this disaster.  Our country hasn’t seen anything like this natural disaster in our lifetimes (at least my 31 years of memories).  This goes so far beyond what we have considered.  Some cry out that there were warnings about levees and preparedness should have been better.  I remember watching a television show on the History Channel (wait, was it TLC?) about how that scientists were just waiting for a huge hurricane to his New Orleans square.  The thing is, we thought we were prepared.  We thought we had it under control.  All of us think that about nearly everything in our own lives.  “I’ve got it covered, no problem,” we say to ourselves.  We look at others and say, “I’d have never done that, this is what I would have done,” thinking all the while that our way is best, simply because its our way.  We all view the world through our own special-made rose colored glasses.

So what should we do?  Should we disband FEMA?  Make it its own governmental bureaucracy outside of the Department of Homeland Security?  How about making some really cool origami pieces while we wait?  Remember, no less than the Washington Post proclaimed FEMA as “well-schooled in post-disaster maneuvering” following Hurricane Frances

 

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