I'm home today, beginning the holiday weekend a bit early. Hurray! S and I got home last evening (me later than her), but we got our TV fix and channel-flipped between CNN and MSNBC and their coverage of Hurricane Katrina until midnight or so. Even after only a few hours of watching, I was on overload and tilt! I just can't fathom what all those poor people are going through.
This morning, I sat down here at the computer to surf. I immediately went to CNN and MSNBC. I found a journalist's blog on MSNBC that touched my heart. Her name is Hoda Kotb and she says this:
...It's really heartbreaking — this is a city that is so vibrant and so full of life.I think Hoda's comments are timely and should be well-taken. We aren't in those peoples' shoes and we have no idea what they're going through.
...The pictures of the people on their rooftops, the pictures of the people being rescued — I don't know them, but I know just who they are [my emphasis]. Because New Orleans is a very poor city. It's a city that has a poverty rate of 30 to 40 percent and the people that you're seeing in those pictures are people who, I bet, had no way out. They just didn't. The house is all they have. So they're hanging on for dear life. And then suddenly, they're on the attic with an ax, cutting their way out, so they can be on the rooftop and pray that some stranger comes by and saves them.
When you look in the Super Dome and you see all those people in there, and you're wondering, “Why didn't they leave? Why didn't they just leave?” You know, a lot of those people couldn't. They don't own cars. They don't have means, they don't have money. They don't have anything.
There are some people who just decided, “I was born here and I'm going to die here.”
Contrast her comments with those of Michael Brown, head of FEMA, reported here:
The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday those New Orleans residents who chose not to heed warnings to evacuate before Hurricane Katrina bear some responsibility for their fates [my emphasis again].So, why is he making those "I-don't-make-judgments" judgmental comments when he OBVIOUSLY has a HUGE JOB to do? Why is he yapping at the media folks when he should be DOING HIS JOB! Get to work, Mr. Brown! We, the taxpayers, are PAYING YOU to do a job!
"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said.
"So, we've got to figure out some way to convince people that whenever warnings go out it's for their own good," Brown said. "Now, I don't want to second guess why they did that. My job now is to get relief to them."
On a lighter note, looking at the moon phase calculator this morning, I see that it's a new moon; good time for planting, as I recall. Maybe S and I will do some yard work this weekend?
Aaaaannd ... I played the piano for a bit this morning. I sight-read through one of Bach's English Suites preludes which I want to polish. Last Sunday, S asked me to also learn Debussy's "The Sunken Cathedral" or "La Cathedral Engloutie." Wow! It just struck me how timely or untimely that request is! She is a spooky one!
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