Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Quentin
QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard Sarah, I do agree that the comment made might be somewhat lacking in tacit and taste...but what you might not know is both the former President, and his First Lady, are doing public service messages here locally, for free, and working behind the scenes to raise money, and organize efforts to find housing for a lot of these folks...the National press loves to report on the stupid things famous people say, but rarely reports on the good things they do. On another note, I volunteered to hand out donated backpacks and school supplies to the kids who were registering at our schools... Their parents were some of the most rude and obnoxious people I have ever dealt with, and I worked for my States Attorney General for almost 9 years in the welfare fraud recovery and Child Support division. So you don’t need to lecture me about poverty, or disenfranchised people... I was handing out free school supplies to people wearing gold chains, and gold nugget rings that cost at least as much as I make in a month...I saw more diamond earrings and nose rings in a day than I have seen in my entire life, not the cheapy studs you get for free with a piercing, but the Zales quality stuff, all the while they are screaming at me to give their kid more free stuff... Demanding I give their kids an extra box of (fill in the blank) because they have a cousin, niece, nephew, little brother ...you get the point. One woman told me she had twins, but could only bring one of them with her today…yeah, right, and I just fell off the turnip truck! Now if they were really poor in the first place, how did they afford all that gold and diamonds? And if they need money, well, Houston has a lot of pawn shops... If you are basing your knowledge of the type of people in the Astrodome on the TV news reports, then you missed about 3/4 of the people there...all the National TV News shows are the old people in wheelchairs or on crutches...after all, these people make better TV than a 25 year old man, who has no disability at all, trying to spend his FEMA money on beer, or a line of people, none of whom are in wheelchairs, standing around on the corner of West Ridge and Kirby, running when the cops show up, tossing their baggies of meth and crack till it almost looks like it snowed...HPD has opened a store front office and holding cell on Main and Westridge for the prostitutes they round up, and increased the patrols in that area, cops are working double shifts. You wont see that on Primetime, or any nationwide TV because the producers and executives know that the public image of all there poor people needs to be kept intact, so the money and relief effort keeps going...if John Q Public realized that their tax dollars were being spent on dope and beer, they would raise all kinds of Cain...the majority of the money is being spent on stuff like that, instead of being used to rent an apartment, or buy clothes or find a job...regardless of what is being shown and written, quite a lot of these folks resent being moved again, they are under the impression they can live there till New Orleans is rebuilt...and if not there, then somewhere free....the local ABC affiliate had a lady on last night who was really mad because no one would give her a cell phone...to quote...”how are we supposed to call our loved ones and tell them where we are if nobody will give us a phone?" As if having a cell phone was a birth right, or a basic necessity and she was entitled to a free one in the first place. I don’t know, but I am pretty sure that giving out cell phones for free is not part of the FEMA plan, and it shouldn’t be...if she wants a phone, she should take one her $2000.00 master cards and buy one...but she showed not one bit of thanks for the food, clothes, and the roof over her head, all free...instead, she is complaining she doesn’t have a cell phone... Don’t know if you have ever been to New Orleans, and if you have, then I would bet you didn’t leave the French Quarter, or get too far off Bourbon Street...if you had, you would be completely shocked at how trashy and run down that city really was...most of it looked like New York ghettos in the late 50s early 60s...nothing but miles of public housing....burned out buildings and burned up, abandoned cars... We had a local TV news clip showing a pair of Crescent City's female cops, inside a New Orleans department store...looting the store...they were walking around, pushing a basket, loading up on, not food or water, but clothes and small appliances, designer shoes, hand bags...all the while watching the local hoodlums carry off the TVs and dishwashers...and when confronted by the reporter, they just shoved him out of the store, and told him they would arrest him for interfering with the police if he didn’t leave...New Orleans finest at their finest... While I do feel compassion for the truly ill, the old, and the kids who had no choice....I don’t bat a eye saying that most of the ones who stayed, got stuck, and then sat around in the superdome whining about someone having to come and get them, were the home grown criminals and the looters...don’t tell me the "poor" couldn’t get out of the city...the poor in Biloxi and other cities managed to leave...most of the superdome folks stayed because they wanted to, not because they had to...now they want someone, anyone but themselves, to fix things up for them...as far as I am concerned, if they refuse to help themselves, then tough, when December rolls around, and the Astrodome management decides to reopen the Dome for its regular schedule, then they can all get on buses back to Louisiana and go home. And I don’t know if this made the National news or not, but the local amusement park, Astroworld, part of the Six Flags corporation, is closing for good...because they rely on the Astrodome parking facility and the Astrodome and Reliant Arena to bring people into the area...and with all the crime and sudden lack of parking, added to the fact that if you do manage to find a place to park around the dome, you can almost count on having a window busted out and your stereo boosted, and the fact that HPD has stated that, if you don’t have business in the area, they would like you to stay away, their gate fare has dropped to the point they cant remain open...they lost almost a months worth of gate receipts in business because people are afraid to go near the place anymore... Bluntly put, what we expected were refugees, people who would be thankful for the help, and then set out to rebuild their life here, find a job and become a useful part of the city...what we got was a Domed Stadium full of squatters... None of whom seem to have a problem telling you they are somehow entitled to... (Fill in the blank) Ed
QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan QUOTE: Originally posted by farmer03 bla bla. bla bla bla bla. everyone's an expert after the fact. if the great masses down in that region weren't molded into dependency to sustain life, they might have been a little more motivated to help themselves thereby avoiding this entire mess. incompitance of the officials is only half the problem. How the hell is anybody down there supposed to do anything without the money? Without money, the poor folk can't do squat except pray they don't get into the path of the crap fan. New Orleans isn't that wealthy of a city. The kind of funding to keep things going is a State/ Federal assistance requirment which wasn't happening to the best of their ability. Look at Rotterdam, Netherlands; the only reason why they aren't another Atlantis is because of the flood gates and other flood systems. Japan is another country that has had to ignore costs and just go with the fact that it was a neccessary investment.
QUOTE: Originally posted by farmer03 bla bla. bla bla bla bla. everyone's an expert after the fact. if the great masses down in that region weren't molded into dependency to sustain life, they might have been a little more motivated to help themselves thereby avoiding this entire mess. incompitance of the officials is only half the problem.
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QUOTE: Originally posted by KCMOWMAN Thanks for reporting your stupidity. (on topic)
QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard QUOTE: Originally posted by CSXrules4eva I found this to be really interesting, however, I wasn't too surpised to learn that most of these quotes were from out President about New Orleans and Katrina. Here are the two that outraged me the most. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." –President Bush, on "Good Morning America," Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina (Source) So then, what you are saying is that both the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana knew the levees would breach, and went off and left over a quarter of a million people in the city anyway? Along with the Mayor making absolute no realistic plans to evacuate anyone in the first place...leaving all the cities school buses and public buses in a parking lot that flooded regular even in a light rain... In reality, no one did expect the levees to breach, they have always held before...the mayor and the governor were just playing the odds, and lost. Then they stalled, trying to fix the screw up themselves, and hoping it wasn’t as bad as it seemed…then all heck broke lose! Now they need someone, anyone but themselves, to place the blame on. As for the people in the dome...well, lets just say that, after creating a zip code and a post office inside a public arena turned shelter, so they could receive their AFDC checks and Food Stamps, providing a free medical clinic, or disbursing the truly ill to local area Hospitals, (at no charge to them), then enrolling all of the kids in public schools, feeding them free breakfast and lunch, providing transportation to and from these schools, opening and staffing three previously closed HISD public schools, hiring most of the teachers displaced, forming job fairs for those actually looking for work, providing food, cots, showers, along with all the basic necessities like toilets, toothpaste, tooth brushes, plus laundry service, giving them clothes, FEMA handing them a $2000.00 master card, and the Red Cross doing the same, (that’s $4000.00 each,) they still spend more time complaining about how no one is helping them, instead of spending that time trying to help themselves...they act and believe they are entitled to more than what has been provided so far...but funny, I don’t remember the poor folks in Florida, slammed by four storms in as many months, nor the folks in Homestead, which was wiped off the map, getting service like this, or a $4000.00 emergency relief fund card. I don’t remember the folks of New Orleans offering to open the Superdome, and then provide all the services they themselves now enjoy, to the people of Homestead...they were pretty much left on their own, and no one raised a peep about how shabbily they were treated. Trust me, with all their griping and complaining, and the rise in prostitution, home and car burglaries, car jacking, the increase in the drug traffic and crime around the Astrodome in general on the rise, adding the fact that HPD had to institute a curfew at the dome, most of us are quite ready for the Superdome folks from New Orleans to head back home....after all, 250000 of them here, and so far, only a few have managed to go on TV and say thank you to the people of Houston, all the rest of them have done nothing but complain about what hasn’t been given to them...instead of being thankful for what has been... If I sound a little upset…well, having a refugee break into your brand new car last Friday, and try to steal it, while you are in, of all places, traffic court…then yeah, I am. Moron did over $2500.00 damage to a car that cant be started without a computer chipped key, all the screwdriver he stuck in the ignition did was shut off the entire computer in the car, causing me to have to replace a window, the steering column, the ignition system, and get the computer re booted at the dealer… He did offer to give me and the cop who caught him each one of the three Red Cross Master Cards he had to pay for the damage and keep from going to jail…the cops didn’t think to much of that idea, both him having three of the cards, (along with several different TDLs under different names) or accepting one as “payment”…me neither… Ed
QUOTE: Originally posted by CSXrules4eva I found this to be really interesting, however, I wasn't too surpised to learn that most of these quotes were from out President about New Orleans and Katrina. Here are the two that outraged me the most. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." –President Bush, on "Good Morning America," Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina (Source)
QUOTE: Originally posted by CSXrules4eva "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." –President Bush, on "Good Morning America," Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina (Source)
QUOTE: 2) "What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." –Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the hurricane evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 5, 2005 (Source)
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