Friday, May 04, 2007

"New Orleans Betrayed Again"

After going 10 days without posting, I'm suddenly bubbling over with things I want to post about, but I don't have time to develop the ideas. Here's a quickie that requires no work from me:

Visit my friend Shauna Roberts' blog and read her April 30th entry, "New Orleans Betrayed Again." Here's an excerpt: "Today we learned that foreign countries offered $800,000,000 in desperately needed aid—medical teams, body bags, bottled water, food, rescue dogs, ships to house people left homeless, and more—and our federal government turned almost all of those offers down. What kind of government do we have, to allow such incompetence?"

Ironic, that our government helps its own citizens less than it helps those in other nations, yet at the same time it rejects or ignores offers of help from other nations. Grrrr.

2 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I knew other countries had offered us money and help after katrina and had assumed our government would find a way to accept it graciously. Foolish me.

Shauna Roberts said...

Later in the week, I read that some countries offered their aid directly to the state or city. Despite the fact that both entities were overwhelmed with dealing with the disaster, they were able to say "yes" and put the money to use.

During the American Library Association meeting in New Orleans last summer, I spoke to a man from Kuwait who was very proud that his country could help us. I can imagine that other countries whose aid was turned down took it as a slap in the face.