Richard:
I knew exactly what you were saying. This is too tight knit a group for me to think you were having fun with the situation.
Geoff: There are some signs of hope. I am just now watching CNN, which has been scathingly critical of the whole mess, and I mean really critical.
They are now jumping back from covering the repairs to the levees to the pumping out of the flooded areas to the continuing rescue of stranded folks. Their attitude is now totally positive and encouraging "quoting Wolf Blitzer of two minutes ago".
To repeat myself, it is truly sad to me that we are now doing exactly what we are capable of doing, maybe as good as anyone in the world but it is a bit late.
To ease off a bit on the locals, particularly the role of the National Guard, it does appear that the Iraqi conflict had stripped the various National Guards of a lot of equipment that could have been used to get things going faster, better.
One rather ironic part of this whole story is that goodness knows how many TV and radio networks managed to get into all of the affected areas and were able to move around and communicate extremely effectively while the various support organizations seemed to not be able to operate at all prior to the last day or so.
To close this post, Keith, thanks for your kind words.
I am a patriotic American, as all of you are patriotic citizens of your respective countries. I was still emotionally involved but decided that I needed to do some research before totally trashing my own country. Could we have done better, yes. Are we now doing what we are capable of, yes.
BTW, for all of you non US types, you will have to live with our own specific acronyms for a while. GWB, NO, LA, NG, Fema, etc. which are second nature to us
I can only hope that a measure of reason will prevail as we do what has to be done.
Thanks to all for your concerns.
Bill
__________________
Dog Robber Sends
|