A brief reprieve for me, but not in the southern states

It has been a bit since I last wrote and although there have been several items to rant about I just haven't had the time or energy to do it. I finished the last deliverable for the MS degree late last Sunday evening. Yipee! I now have two Master's degrees. At least this second one isn't as useless as the first. LOL. The week I had leading up to this was really crazy! I managed to finish three assignments, hand in my letter of resignation for my job of 8 years, take a friend out for her hen night, act as a bride's maid, entertain two yound girls, and deal with the full-time job and maintaining some level of normalcy in my household. Ta da, I made it through.

Hurricane Katrina
All week long I have stared in disbelief and horror at my TV and computer screen as people have gone without food and WATER in New Orleans. I am furious about this situation on so many levels. First, it should never take five days for food and water to arrive anyplace on the face of this planet, let alone a major metropolitan area of the US. I remember hearing that air drops were not being undertaken since this was not the most efficient way to deliver food and water. EFFICIENT?!!! WTF?! People are dying, I think we can pitch deliberate planning and committee speak until food and water is delivered to these people. The federal government's response to this disaster has been nothing short of despicable. Several poles over the past few days have been conducted asking if the federal response has been adequate or inadequate. I was shocked to see that between 12-17% of the population thinks the federal government has responded appropriately! How can anyone say this when it is clear that the people unlucky enough to have listened to "authorities" and found themselves at the Superdome or the Convention Center were then subjected to something akin to Hell on Earth? How many people have died of dehydration alone? For God's sale, we are talking about people dying from not having WATER!

Will a black mark like this on our country and government ever be overcome? I think this situation has clearly shown that there is a major illness in our society. How else can a lack of response to people dying be explained? I am angry at the media which painted the people of New Orleans as being an unlawful, animalistic, dangerous mob. I don't know about you, but I would be more than a little angry if no adequate food, water, or shelter were provided for me or my family for several days. I don't know that I would be too happy to see and hear helicopters hovering around the city and not helping dying people. The US is not an under-developed nation, so we cannot pretend we don't have the resources at hand. Do you think the people stuck in New Orleans don't know this? I would feel betrayed, as though the government believed my life wasn't worth saving.

Beyond not getting basic survival supplies to the victims of the hurricane ASAP, I think the lack of organization needs to be addressed. The pleading tirade I heard from mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans was nothing short of heart-breaking. Here is a man who must feel responsible for all of the poor souls that did not leave the city, and the governmental response has still not materialized four days after the fact. Each one of his seething words thrown in the direction of the federal government was warranted. This is especially the case for Michael D. Brown, the Department of Homeland Security's Principal Federal Officer, who pretended as though the people at the Convention Center were not without food or water. Let's put his family in the convention center for several days... I wonder if he might be more aware at this point?