BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture These people in New Orleans

MusicalMom,

I'm sure you were glad to learn that your son is safe - it must have been heart-stopping to watch the news as the storm hit shore. And I imagine you are glad to have back him with you for a while.

It must seem incomprehensible to the people in that area that a "normal" world exists anywhere. The heat, humidity, and mosquitoes only make everything worse.

Michelle,

take care you and your son!

Here are the latest news from New Orleans:

http://www.wwltv.com/

musicalmom, I am glad thay your son and the rest of the family is safe, thank God for favors. Jaga and Nancy, I am watching the coverage of the hurricane damage almost all day. It is very terrible and there are still many years of recovery. This morning it was announced that there was an offer of help from Germany. From France, the sound of silence is defening. I guess there was no bribe money involved.

Guys,

somebody remarked - that New Orlean looks like Bangladesh during the massive catactropht - when you see the way people live there now and... how some behave.

I can in some ways understand the looting - for water and food, anyway. But I truly cannot understand the gangs with AK4s etc. What on earth is going on???

But it also occurs to ne that this Gulf coast areas looks like a war zone after bombing, something that we have not experienced here before - well, not before 9-11.

One newsperson already said that he though this event would change American society in some profound way. We will see.

Ah, Nancy, you are young or you do not remember the riots of Watts back in the '60's. That was closer to a war zone! Then there were also many, many smaller riots and demonstrations around America.

News people are part of the entertainment media. That was my decision when the first "news caster" was paid a million a year to read the news.

How will it change America? Good question. For me it was the assassination of Kennedy - we did not kill presidents back then, except in our primitive, forgotten history. For my nephew the end of America came when the first space Shuttle disintegrated. For me that was far less of a tragedy than a 747 crashing. Scientists have dangerous work adn explorers chose risky activities by definition.

The most pessimistic view would be that business will use it to push prices for all commodities much higher and push the average worker down to more of a subsistence level of existence, the better to squeeze out better profits. The end result of that would be a second advent of a feudalistic society.

No, I am not that pessimistic, but I do suspect George Orwell missed 1984 by 20 years. Big Brother is here.

Kai

Kai

No, I am getting old and forgetful ... let's just say that if I had been born male I would have had to go to Vietnam (or Canada).

Entertainment industry or not, the newscasters are showing pictures of the 30-50 miles of Gulf Coast that were most affected by Katrina. Miles of rubble, homes and businesses destroyed, thousands of homeless refugees - I think this is much bigger than Watts. Physically bigger than 9-11 although clearly Mother Nature is a far different cause of the effect.

A soldier who returned home from Irag commented that what she saw in NO was much worse than anything she had seen in Irag.



That seems to be happening already. News media are warning us about all kinds of dire effects - so when those results happen, they will say it was inevitable - hmmm, a conspiracy perhaps?

Musicalmom I am glad also; you were on my mind during the storm, with your son being in Mississippi. You know they are safe when they are under our wings! Check into the traffic and cell tower situation, and gas, before you go get your son. While the situation in New Orleans is very overwhelming, I am upset at the turn things have taken with peoples behavior. Help is there and a lot more is on the way and people Really need to be as patient and calm as possible. Yes there was looting here, we lost thousands of dollars worth of stuff to the looters, but people were not running amuk and yelling and dissing the effort to help!

Well, i have my son back in GA safe & sound! We saw many things along our "road trip" that swelled my heart with pride, and broke my heart with tears.

Convoys of truck - like 15 groups of about 25 different colored trucks all driving towards Mississippi and Louisiana to help out - it was so amazing. It made me want to cry I was so touched by the amount of kindness. There were some trucks from Michigan!

People are having to boil water to bathe! Michael said when they turned on their faucets it was brown. People are begging for ice! How we take that for granted! (An airheaded radio talkshow host goes, "well if they are just using it to preserve things, take it out of their freezers." - Hello! these people don't have electricity!)

Police cars are at every gas station to make sure people don't "hoard" gas, and supervise to make sure no violence breaks out.

A man killed his sister because she bought the last bag of ice at a convenience store in Hattiesburgh.

I keep thinking back to William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" - there was one ar two boys that stayed civilized, but the rest were savages - i look at these recent pictures of New Orleans on fire and am reminded of Hell - fire, water - but none anyone can drink, dead bodies floating, and most of the people acting insane. Can't we be better than this?

Michelle,

I am so glad you and your son are back. It makes me think about all these times of the war and after war. People had to go through the terrible times but somehow many of them were able to preserve their dignity.

We had to go through terrible time in 80-es also. There was nothing in the stores in Poland. Now, it is hard for me to believe how my mother could stay so calm and assuring the whole time. We also were given lots of help from abroad, especially from friends in Germany and my mother always distributed it among friends and family without trying secretly to store it somewhere.

We survived the bad times in 80-es in Poland, we can survive it here. Just like you said - people take so many things for granted, hard to imagine. We cannot live anymore in a simple world.

"well if they are just using it to preserve things, take it out of their freezers."
Was it Rush Limbaugh again talking stupidities?