Katrina fall-out

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Tom Fleischman wrote:

It may have been drastic but I personally cannot abide these assholes
anymore.

You can not believe how much easier it is to read these newsgroups now
that "Jay Honeck", "Bob Noel", "Newps", "Matt Whiting", "john smith",
"Dave Stadt", "Jonathan Goodish", "Cub Driver", "Otis Winslow", "W P
Dixon", "Gig 601XL Builder" and "George Patterson" now reside in my
kill file with the other trolls. It's amazing how much of the NG's
bandwidths are wasted by the spew of these black-hearted individuals,
and how little they actually contribute to on-topic discussions.

What a coward.

Which is also very amusing, since I have long ago kill-filed mr tom, for one
of any number of reasons, but most likely, 'cause he is "just an ass." Go
ahead and add me too, tom. Wouldn't want to waste your precious, and *pure*
time.
--
Jim in NC

in article V68Te.312340$_o.140563@attbi_s71, Jay Honeck at
wrote on 9/5/05 8:34 PM:

You know, the irony of all this is what set me off about your attitude to
begin with--mostly memories of the '93 Mississippi floods (including Iowa
City) and all the nonsense that was said at that time--"What do these
people
expect? They live in a flood plain, for heaven's sake!"

Remember those people, Jay? All those smug jackasses who wondered how
anyone
could live next to a river that was absolutely, positively 100% guaranteed
to flood? I wonder how many of them were from New Orleans?

I didn't live in Iowa in '93, but the floods since then have convinced the
Feds to FINALLY make it illegal (or, at least, financially impossible) for
people to rebuild homes along the Mississippi. And they will NOT be
rebuilt with tax money when the inevitable floods hit again.

Anyone who now builds their home next to one of the world's great rivers had
better be WAY up on a bluff overlooking the river, or independently wealthy.

Which is as it should be.

Okay, so all of that was done AFTER the floods. The point I was making was
that it was as wrong to blame the victims then (many of whom were no doubt
living in family homes going back generations) as it is to blame them now.

New Orleans survived for roughly three centuries. Yeah, maybe its eventual
destruction was inevitable, but frankly, the same could be said of just
about any city, if your timeframe is large enough.

in article , cjcampbell
at wrote on 9/6/05 3:31 AM:



People who are not Americans may not know this, but federal troops are
actually prohibited from performing law enforcement duties.

Except when the president calls on them to do so. The first President Bush
sent the Guard, the Army and the Marines into L.A. in 1992 during the riots.
Every president has the power to do so.

in article , Philip S. at
wrote on 9/6/05 7:28 PM:

in article , cjcampbell
at wrote on 9/6/05 3:31 AM:



People who are not Americans may not know this, but federal troops are
actually prohibited from performing law enforcement duties.

Except when the president calls on them to do so. The first President Bush
sent the Guard, the Army and the Marines into L.A. in 1992 during the riots.
Every president has the power to do so.

Oh, and one more thing, and then I'll let the matter drop. The following
doesn't come from some liberal website--it comes from the White House:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050827-1.html

"The President today [11 days ago] declared an emergency exists in the State
of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response
efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning
on August 26, 2005, and continuing.

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security,
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster
relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and
suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide
appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under
Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public
health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the
parishes of..."

snip list of parishes

"Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its
discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of
the emergency."

"MH" == Martin Hotze writes:

MH "Jay Honeck" wrote:
There are simply no easy solutions to the problems caused by a
culture that:

MH I don't see this beeing the American culture (if one can speak
MH of an American culture; IMVHO there are too many differences
MH from east to west and esp north to south)

Jay is not referring to a general American culture, but his
perception of American inner-city "poor" culture.

"Doof" wrote in message
...
Persists? Try "has been exacerbated". Thomas Sowell has done a ton of work
and published copious materials on how progress for blacks has been
stunted since their progress peaked in the late 1950's.

Let's see. In the 1950's, there were hardly any black police, firefighters,
TV characters... let alone doctors, lawyers, judges, justices, secretaries
of state... It was legal, and widely practiced, to refuse to hire any
African Americans, or rent or sell housing to them, or serve them in
restaurants... In much of the nation, blacks were even forbidden by law to
use the public drinking fountains designated for whites. So that was quite a
"peak".

--Gary

Let's see. In the 1950's, there were hardly any black police,
firefighters, TV characters... let alone doctors, lawyers, judges,
justices, secretaries of state... It was legal, and widely practiced, to
refuse to hire any African Americans, or rent or sell housing to them, or
serve them in restaurants... In much of the nation, blacks were even
forbidden by law to use the public drinking fountains designated for
whites. So that was quite a "peak".

Well, Gary, no one will argue that America has come a long ways from the Jim
Crow 1950s. And a huge percentage of blacks (and Latinos, and immigrants)
have continued to live the American Dream, and have made it out of initial
poverty through hard work and ingenuity.

But that's not what we're talking about. And if you take a long view of
black culture, the 1950s did represent something of a crest, with Jazz, the
Blues, Harlem, and all sorts of other cultural icons flying high.

In fact, some black celebrities have put forth that this era was a cultural
peak for blacks precisely *because* of segregation. All blacks were kept
apart from white society, and therefore all blacks -- from the elite, to the
dim -- were living together in relatively close proximity to one another.
This produced an amazing American sub-culture that is largely gone.

Now, the first thing that a successful black person does is get the hell out
of the inner city -- and who can blame them? Trouble is, places like
Harlem were quickly abandoned by the cultural elite, once they could leave,
leaving poverty and crime in their wake.

So, in fact, both you and Tom ("Doof") are correct.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

There are simply no easy solutions to the problems caused by a culture
that:

- Humiliates those who excel academically...
- Accepts and encourages very early, single-parent child-bearing...
- Expects males to play little or no role in child rearing...
- Has no social sanctions against absentee fathers...
- Regards working 9 to 5 for "chump change" as "selling out to the Man"
- Expects the Federal Government to fulfill every basic need...
- Sees authority figures as the enemy...
- Views the sale of drugs as an acceptable economic alternative...
- Accepts violence as a normal way to solve disputes...


I don't see this beeing the American culture (if one can speak of an
American culture; IMVHO there are too many differences from east to west
and esp north to south)

I'm not sure if you have misunderstood, so I'll try to clarify.

This is not an indictment of American society as a whole. Far from it. I
am specifically talking about the phenomenon of generation-to-generation
reliance on government support that pervades much of America's large inner
cities. The group that lives in this manner has been dubbed our
"underclass," and it is a huge problem that has been largely ignored by
politicians and people (primarily on the Left) who desperately hope that
throwing money at it will make it go away.

Television coverage of Hurricane Katrina gave the world an intimate, often
ugly view of what life is really like in the inner cities of America. I'm
mildly hopeful that this international humiliation will force our political
leaders to actually deal with the issue.

But I'm not holding my breath.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

New Orleans survived for roughly three centuries. Yeah, maybe its eventual
destruction was inevitable, but frankly, the same could be said of just
about any city, if your timeframe is large enough.

True, but it has been brought to light that many contemporary N.O. leaders
knew -- and regarded as inevitable -- that their city was living on borrowed
time in the short-term. We're not talking geologic time here; we're talking
about in a single person's life-span.

For them to have known this, and not taken any discernible action, is
criminal.

Yesterday NPR interviewed the former city planner for N.O. (she was in that
capacity until 2000, I think), and she spoke extensively about the levee
system and its known weaknesses. Unfortunately, she also admitted that the
bureaucratic boondoggles (the levees were controlled by an entirely separate
government agency, outside the control of the city) ultimately prevented the
issue of levee strengthening from ever being presented as an option to the
voters.

In short, New Orleans government completely and utterly failed the citizens
of New Orleans. They never even brought the issue to a vote, despite
knowing the danger!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:QeCTe.315690$_o.142396@attbi_s71...
Let's see. In the 1950's, there were hardly any black police,
firefighters, TV characters... let alone doctors, lawyers, judges,
justices, secretaries of state... It was legal, and widely practiced, to
refuse to hire any African Americans, or rent or sell housing to them, or
serve them in restaurants... In much of the nation, blacks were even
forbidden by law to use the public drinking fountains designated for
whites. So that was quite a "peak".

Well, Gary, no one will argue that America has come a long ways from the
Jim Crow 1950s. And a huge percentage of blacks (and Latinos, and
immigrants) have continued to live the American Dream, and have made it
out of initial poverty through hard work and ingenuity.

But that's not what we're talking about. And if you take a long view of
black culture, the 1950s did represent something of a crest, with Jazz,
the Blues, Harlem, and all sorts of other cultural icons flying high.

In fact, some black celebrities have put forth that this era was a
cultural peak for blacks precisely *because* of segregation...

So, in fact, both you and Tom ("Doof") are correct.

No, we're not both correct. Yes, it is possible to point to *some* good
things happening in virtually *any* era or circumstances (which is not to
agree with the specifics of your view on that, or the view of your unnamed,
unquoted "black celebrities"). But to summarize by saying, as "Doof" did,
that the progress of African Americans "peaked" in the 1950s is just a
travesty.

--Gary