Thursday, September 01, 2005

Katrina Thoughts

  • Anyone who donates money to a Hurricane Katrina pet-assistance organization instead of a group that helps people deserves a beating. Donate to both or donate to the important one. People come first. Animals will do fine on their own, or not, that's nature.


  • The devastation from Hurricane Katrina is indeed a terrible tragedy for people, but if no one creates a Photoshop picture of Dr. Doom standing knee-deep in water and shedding a tear I will lose all faith in human nature.


  • I hope people remember the price-gougers and who they were after a semblance of order is restored.


  • While it was good to see President Bush talk about releasing US reserves of oil to combat the most recent excuse for a gas price-hike, I would also have liked him to be more Presidential. It would have been nice to see him with sleeves rolled-up at a disaster command post pretending to give a damn instead of accepting gifts at stupid ceremonies while people were being washed away by rushing waters.
  • I hope we learn from this. Once again a disaster proved that while people and services do their best to cope, we are still woefully unable to handle a major event. If the limits are in the preparedness services we need to increase their capability. An obvious statement. Unfortunately, Disaster Services are usually on the bottom of the budget pile. A few years ago the Los Angeles Earthquake Response office was in the lowest level of the most damage-prone building of the city. The same mechanisms that are in place to deal with terror attacks are those that we use to address natural disasters and it isn't working. We can't expect everything to be all better though. We have to face up to the fact that an attack or disaster won't get better, but can only be lived through and then we carry on and rebuild.
  • I am glad to see other countries pitching in with assistance. I'm sure they aways have in the past but sooner or later during any disaster some pundit will bring up the notion that America always gives and never recieves. So far I have not seen any of that mud-slinging from the media or people in the real world and I think I won't.
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9 comments:

  1. I never thought we'd be looking back on the days when the political leaders faked that they gave a shit about national disasters by running a photo-op of them with a shovel or whatever, as a good thing and thinking "at least they used to pretend they cared."

    On a an entirely unrelated note, it just occurred to me how sad it must be for bloggers who are wondering why the rest of us are switching on verification because they don't even get responses from spammers.

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  2. I don't know how it stands now, but as of last night, the US government is TURNING DOWN offers of foreign assistance. There are teams of experts and huge packages of equipment and supplies sitting on Canadian airfields right now waiting for the word to go.

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  3. It's more than a bit obnoxious of you to be handing out orders to those who want to donate to pet rescue services. Who the hell are you to say such a thing? My pet is very dear to my heart. I will donate my money where ever I please, thank you very much.

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  4. You are a dick for saying that anyone who donates to pets deserves a beating. Fuck you for damning anyone who donates money to help something other than yourself. If you believe the money should be spent a certain way, say that. But to say they deserve a beating indicates you have some problems.

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  5. One more thing: The people caught in this thing knew the risks of living where they did. The animals did not.

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  6. Neat! Hate comments!

    Yeah, well, I hope none of you or your families are never in a situation where someone has to choose between feeding you and a cat, like like the people of No are. Then it might be a different story to you.

    Honestly? Pets are good only as emergency rations in a disaster. If you don't think that after a week of no food you would not fry up Mr. Whiskers you are deluded or on your way out of the gene pool.

    I stand by my OPINION and POSITION that HUMAN BEINGS COME FIRST. Anyone who disagrees that an animal has more value than a person has their priorities wrong.

    Yet somehow, I am not surprised that there was more reaction to my position that people should come ahead of pets and no comment at all about the Dr. Doom entry. I think that says quite a bit by itself.

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  7. You're certainly welcome to your opinon, but anyone who donates *anywhere* to help is at least making some kind of motion... how much have you done to assist, apart from grousing about the situation in your journal (I honestly don't know... you could've donated a storeful of food for all I know)... but it looks like you're just pissing in the wind at the moment. if someone's helping, they're helping.

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  8. Is your family in such a situation?

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  9. Don't be ridiculous "Anon". My family has nothing to do with this and it was a nonsense comment in this context.

    If someone is helping then they should help to effect. Donating golf clubs and bowling trophies are "helping", and those items routinely show up during every collection drive after a disaster. Is that really helping? Makes the donator feel better and cleans up garage space, I'm sure.

    Buying vittles for abandoned pets does nothing to restore homes and bring medical aid and food for people. If the pet owners fled and left their animal behind that's tragic and too bad.

    Tell me, what is going to happen to all these animals? It will be months before a dent will be put in placing them, and a majority (like most pets) won't be able to be adopted. They can't even be considered for placement without quarantine, medical exam, medicine, innoculations and spay and neuter. It would have been more of a mercy to leave them free than place them in crowded kennels, sharing disease until the Humane Society puts them to sleep.

    That is a waste of resources that could have gone to a person. Remember, people are more important than animals.

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