Where is the world?
Where are its people?
Where is the help for us
when nature bites us?

What did we expect? Do we really expect the world to come to our aid when a natural disaster strikes us as it did in Malaysia? The answer is no. Why should the they bother helping the richest country in the world. They did not send aid in 1994, they won’t in 2005. Sure, they will send some token help, to say they did, but they will not contribute in any meaningful way.

In 1994, during the Northridge Quake aftermath, I remember that there was supposed to be a lot of foreign aid, but I never saw any of it. I was looking. It is really hypocritical of every other country that takes aid from us then not to send any kind of aid back that it can afford. Even countries that we have not helped directly should be sending aid here for the simple matter that since the US does help in disasters in such a major way everyone else does not have to shoulder the additional burden. So where is the aid?

It’s not coming… it never will. We, the US are just big ol’ softies, we help everyone. Other countries? Well, they just let it go, not in my territory, not my problem.

So, the next time a country is hit by a natural disaster let’s all remember what the world did for us and not send a dime.

No, we’ll help. Why? Because it is the right thing to do. I wonder why other countries do not think the same way?

This is an opinion. It is not meant to be an attack any group of people, but rather to shine a light on a problem in this country that is more rampant than we may have guessed.

As the media is covering the disaster that is New Orleans we are seeing scenes of people in great distress. Most of the scenes are featuring people of dark skin and ethnic origin. The reason for this is rather simple; the population of New Orleans is prominently ethnic and black. The areas hardest hit are poorer area well below sea level and thus we see many more dark skinned people than Caucasians. This has lead to a very bad assumption.

Today some black leaders have averred that the slowness of relief was because the needy people are of color. This is so wrong. Do any of the leaders really know the scope of the problem here? It is not like in Los Angeles after the 1994 Earthquake where roads were accessible (albeit precariously) and the major damage confined to a rather small area.

Katrina took the region by surprise and admittedly, they were not ready for that scale of destruction that happened. In fact, it the levee system of New Orleans had not failed this would not be nearly the issue it is. In fact look at the news footage, it is mostly of New Orleans, surrounding areas while hard hit are not in as desperate a situation.

But it takes time to mount a relief. This is not something that happen in a day, but rather weeks. In fact in LA after the ’94 quake, it was days before the National Guard made itself known. We as citizens had to police ourselves from looters.

But the assumption here that slowness of relief is because the skin color of the people affected is prominently dark is ridiculous. In fact, the rescuing faces on the news are generally light skinned. The government is doing what it can, private sector is helping in a big way, but it has nothing to do with skin color, it has to do with scope of the disaster.

How dare black leaders push for further entitlements using this disaster as an excuse. Black leaders are not helping by suggesting this, they are only hurting by promoting racist feelings in a time where people need to work together. What they should be doing is telling their constituents to be strong, work as best they can to help themselves and be proactive, not to just wait for help. They should be encouraging people to move to higher ground, places where the army can provide tents and support for the displaced. Encouraging people to be calm and law abiding and work with civil authorities. But to promote an attitude of racism at this point only does a disservice to the agenda they are trying to promote.

It angers me to see this type of political posturing during a time of crisis. Shame on all politician no matter the persuasion for attempting to politicize this situation. Shame on you all for you do not realize how you have hurt yourselves and your constituents. 

It has now been the better part of a week since the US has had to deal with Katrina and her destructive path. Florida was lucky and just grazed by the power that she was to have as making landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi. The scenes from the areas hit squarely by Katrina are heartbreaking, but I think you need to know, you are not seeing everything, and if you did, you may not be as upset.

I guess I have I have a unique view of the situation as I was one of those very near the epicenter of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. I was one of those people living in a tent for months after the quake, and it was a bad time, but not as bad as the media made it out to be.

The media reported the looting and riots and made it seem that the devastation was over all of LA and that all of LA was a wasteland. This was all a matter of editing by the media to show only the most salacious bits to boost their ratings. And boost them it did.

We are seeing on the news the same “devastating scenes” over and over again out of thousands of hours of footage they (the media) have shoot since Katrina passed. We see only the most desperate, most mentally distraught, most salacious of scenes to keep the audience interested and outraged, all in an effort to boost ratings.

Don’t get me wrong, what happened is bad, in fact It is far worse than what happened in Northridge because of the water situation, but what I want to stress is that you are only seeing what the media is showing you and you may not be getting all the news that is fit to view. In fact, there are stories of people helping people in simple ways that are not making it to the news. Stories of neighbors sharing their water and whatever was left in the freezer after the electricity went out. There are stories of people camping out and coming together as a community to ride through the bad times of this disaster. You are only seeing the worst of it, not any of the people helping people stories that are happening right now. I know, I lived it.

Just as in Iran where the troops are a lot more welcome than the US population has been lead to believe, so we do not see the nice things happening here, but rather only the stories of human strife and suffering. Why, because it sells advertisements, and keeps you watching.