R.S.F. America

It’s hard to believe that two full years have passed since category five hurricane “Katrina” roared along the Gulf Coast, devastating the Mississippi cities of Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Long Beach, Gulfport, Biloxi, Ocean Springs, Pascagoula and, oh yes, New Orleans. That’s in Louisiana. That would be category six…a category of people and politics that no longer need the presence of a storm to create the pretext of disaster.

You don’t hear much about all those Mississippi towns anymore because, in spite of facing equal or greater hardship than their neighbors, the people picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and got on with their lives. Not in Louisiana, though. That’s cat-six country. Most folks are just sittin’ and rockin’, still waiting for the government to come rescue them. No matter how many billions of dollars in Federal funds have already been sent or the billions more that came to the area from private donations, these ‘children of dependency’ choose to remain helpless and wait with outstretched arms to embrace still more freebies. Already, over a billion dollars [that’s billion, with a “B”] is estimated to have been wasted through fraud and abuse, with more good money about to pour in after the bad.

Who is supposed to save them, anyway? Certainly not ‘School Bus’ Nagin who sat back during the flood waiting for the Federal Government to do his job for him. Not Governor Blanco who must have been expecting the biblical Noah to show up with a big boat and pluck people from rooftops two by two…she refused Federal help until after “Katrina” nearly isolated the city . The most absurd excuse given for local administration failures [I think it was Nagin, again] was that they didn’t know where to take people if they evacuated them out of the city. Does “away from the storm” make sense to anyone? If the political powers didn’t save their hides during “Katrina”, why would someone think it might be different two years later…or three…or four?

Personally, I’m tired of hearing lame complaints and of paying for help that is never enough. And where’s all the new levee construction to protect the city from a repeat aquatic performance, next year or the year after? I thought the compassionate Left controlled Congress. Do they plan on doing any business or are they just going to keep running phony investigations? That little Dutch boy is going to get tired of holding his finger in the dike!

I’m sick of watching irresponsible louts sit back, demanding more of our tax dollars to line their pockets, as they wait for ‘The Chocolate City’ to magically appear. No wonder it’s called ‘The Big Easy’. It should be renamed ‘The Bottomless Pit’. New Orleans is supposed to be vital and fully functional once again. Wouldn’t you think there’d be a job or two available downtown and that at least some of those rocking chairs could be traded in for an honest day’s labor? Naw-w-w…it’s all President Bush’s fault, anyway!

R.S.F.