Katrina

First, some useful links, in case you don't already have them:
Katrina.org
Katrina.com
Red Cross

Ok, while I have misgivings about what happened - poor planning on many peoples parts - it's not time to gripe about things just now. I watch tv or listen to news on the radio and am just amazed. Not just at the level of destruction, but at people's reactions. On the one hand, you have all the humanitarian relief efforts getting started in other parts of the country and the world - all positive things, just as you'd expect.

On the other hand, you have the looting, pillaging, beatings, and rapes occuring inside the affected area. Look, I realize things are bad in there, but WHY MAKE THEM WORSE? I realize none of the affected people can get online to read this, and why do they even care about my opinion, but I don't recall reading about anything like this in Asia after the tsunami hit last December. New York city didn't have the same kind of reaction after 9/11. It's just wrong.

I realize that there are many many factors contributing to the behaviors we're seeing, and I don't want to get into it now - matters of class, race and government are best not speculated on right now - but it bears looking at in the future.

Speaking of the future, I don't know if anyone else saw it, but FX had a fictional documentary called "Oil Storm" a few months back. It traced fictional events similar to what just happened in New Orleans - and what they predicted could happen just might.

I'm predicting martial law in and around the affected areas, I'm prediciting civil unrest, and I'm predicting gas at $5+ a gallon. Things are going to get much worse before they get better.

More to come - have to get to work...