What the Heck is Wrong with New Orleans?

Originally Posted By DVC_dad

<<<What's so wrong with having some cash around the house even if it is 90K?

I still have 52--54K in my garage and I haven't run gambling rings, sold drugs or taken bribes.

(I guess that I am still hung over from when I had a small "bank run" back during the "Y2k" scare of late '99 and I have been too lazy to deposit it)>>>




R O F L M A O !!!


Bravo!

 

Originally Posted By DVC_dad

<<<You can insult me and obfuscate all you want,>>>


ARG! That word! There it is again! I really MUST go get my dictionary!

 

Originally Posted By DVC_dad

I can't believe I drained 30 minutes out of my life to read all of these posts, when I pretty much figured what I would find.

Wow Trippy, you got some big "pills" there, I'll give you that much!

 

Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom

<<Just my simplistic 2 cents, as always, but some people are FAR less compassionate than they should be>>

I agree, but in this case the US allocated 4 Billion ( thats with a B ) to the so called "victims" of Hurricane Katrina. One Billion of which we know was wasted.

<<...and for those people I hope you live a life without disaster, because it would be a damnd shame if a tornado were to rip through your home and kill your loved ones (because THEN you might feel some sympathy towards others, as you beg for help from anyone that is around to offer it).>>

Here we go....... Speaking for my self, lets see since I grew up in Coastal Rhode Island I experienced hurricanes my entire younger life. I suppose I should have been demanding FEMA and the Imperial Federal Government give me aid when I lost power to my home for a week. Or had to stay with my parents when all those trees feel down blocking off my home for three days. My brother and his wife should have sued the Federal Government when my nephew was born during Hurricane Gloria and the hospital lost power ( as all of the rest of Providence ). I should have demanded Federal interaction when two tornados passed directly over my home ( they don't call the area where I live tornado alley for nothing ). Yes, I should feel pity for those people who stayed behind in New Orleans when I myself had to "jump" into the back of my work truck when a tornado when directly above me while I was working <sarcasm>

Give me a break, natural diseasters Happen! Deal with it!

<<This presupposes that those who stayed behind had a way out. Most did not.>>

They did. The city didn't flood till days after Hurricane Katrina struck that city. But the people who stayed behind were to busy gleefully celebrating in the French Quarter and looting stores.

Not to mention all those school buses or the fact that the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Lousianna never implemented their own Emergency Diseaster plans. I would have walked out of the city if thats what it took to get out.

 

Originally Posted By DVC_dad

My first impression of New Orleans happened in the GA Dome in Atlanta, it was back say in 1996 or so. Falcons were playing the Saints at home, and our stadium was taken over by traveling N.O. football fans.

They were the rudest, most vile fans, I left the game early because they were beating us pretty badly.

I know I can't base the entire population on the traveling football fans, but its odd how my impression seems to go along with many of the things here.

Weird!

 

Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom

<<It's fine to feel sympathy with the poor and downtrodden, but people often live down to expectations. If we make excuses for bad behavior, then some of the incentive not in indulge in bad behavior is lost.>>

Three generations of welfare recipiants? You have gotten to be kidding! What did these people expect, to sit in a chair and draw an icome through osmosis?

These so called "poor" people have been using the Imperial Federal Government as an instrument of plunder. They are more than happy to have the Federal Government take away our property ( and yes income is property ) and redistrubute it. I have no smypathy for people who are so unwilling to advance their own lot in life, but instead expect the Imperial Federal Government to provide for them from craddle to grave. How pathetic!

 

Originally Posted By DAR

If there's one thing New Orleans taught me, is that it's silly to rely on government at any level for really anything.

 

Originally Posted By Dabob2

<<<And hardly limited to New Orleans.>>>

<Yes, and Hurricane Katrina was hardly limited to New Orleans too. Several surrounding states were equally devistated some more the city of New Orleans.>

Yes, other places got hit very hard. But I believe due to New Orleans' unique bowl shape, the low-laying areas there had the highest floodwaters that lasted the longest. Also, many people from New Orleans were evacuated by bus to places like Houston, while most of those on the MS coast, for instance, were able to get away with private transportation much less far away, and able to return much more easily.

<Yet those citizens were not gleefully
looting stores or shooting at rescuers. >

Neither were most of the citizens of New Orleans.

<And though some of the citizns in those communities in surrounding states may be just as impoverished as the citizens of New Orleans, they do not have a murder rate nearly as high.>

There do tend to be higher crime rates in urban poor areas than rural poor areas. That is true nationwide.

KT, I couldn't resist cutting and pasting from you on another thread...

"Are we painting with a broad brush there? Not every gay person lives in California, just as not every gay pride parade is sexually explicit. But if thats whay you want to believe, then by all means go on believing it."

Aren't you painting with a broad brush here? Not every poor person in New Orleans is a welfare cheat or a looter. (In fact, most are hardworking, non-criminals). But if that's what you want to believe...

"But lets condemn ALL gays because those "weird" gay people in San Francisco throw sexually explicit Pride parades."

So let's condemn ALL poor people in New Orleans because of the looters that made the news? I think you can see what I'm getting at here.

I'm in agreement with you on the pride parade stuff - but perhaps this stuff is harder to see if it isn't your particular ox being gored?

 

Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom

The difference is that gay people are not using the Imperial Federal Government as an instrement of plunder. Nor are gay individuals using the police power of Government to leagally take from others, what would be a crime if were to do it personally. My point in the pride parade thread is that all though on the face of the matter I would agree that agencies participation should be voluntary, I wanted to point out that the hiring practices and procedures used by the majority of police and fire agencies in this country are intentional devised to filter out gay candidates. I also pointed out that these same hiring and recruiting policies used go well beyond the "don't ask, don't tell" policies of our Military.

I'm certainly NOT condemning all poor. I asked the question why New Oreans is so prone to violent crimes; ie murder, then communites in surrounding states are equally impoverished if not more impoverished yet to not have nearly as high murder rates. Poverty is not unique to New Orleans. So I don't understand why the poor pitiful people of New Orleans seem to think they are unique in all the country. On the other hand San Francisco is a "magnet" city in the gay community. To believe that every gay Pride parade in the country MUST be like San Francisco's in a gross misconception.

 

Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom

<<I'm in agreement with you on the pride parade stuff - but perhaps this stuff is harder to see if it isn't your particular ox being gored?>>

In terms of the Pride parade stuff... I torn, I'm honestly torn. I would like to say that public service involvement be voluntary....but I know personally from what I have been through, how discrimnatory hiring practices are for police and firemen. As I said, when all you recruit is Neo-Nazi's don't be surprised when they don't want to volunteer to participate in a Pride Parade. I would go as far as to say that the hiring practices are illegal.

On the other hand being in poverty is NOT a crime. We are a caring community and it bothers me when I hear someone say they could careless if New Orleans just rejoined the lower Mississippi Delta. Its a wonderful city, with incredible culture. I don't like the crime. In terms of the poverty, you can only blame everyone else in the world for so long. As some point in time the multiple generational impoverished have to "share" some responcibility in this matter. Its too easy to argue how "they" are responcible for their situation.

First off, I think those that stayed had the Constitutional Freedom to stay, but part of disobeying a Government order ( since they were told repeatedly to leave ) means you bare the responcibility for your situation after the storm. They stayed... they don't want to accept responcibilty for the consequences they encountered because they stayed. They wanted to blame President Georgia Bush, FEMA and everyone else in the world for their poor choices. The fact of the matter is that SHARE responcibilty for this situation. They brought this upon themselves. We can argue for days on how the their city and state let them down. Meanwhile about the only ones who really came to the rescue was everyone else in the country with our charity and our tax dollars. And I have already stated that I don't recall ever hearing a thank you from those being rescued..

 

Originally Posted By Dabob2

<The difference is that gay people are not using the Imperial Federal Government as an instrement of plunder.>

Seriously, KT the "Imperial Federal Government" stuff makes you sound a little "tin foil hat"-ty.

<I wanted to point out that the hiring practices and procedures used by the majority of police and fire agencies in this country are intentional devised to filter out gay candidates. I also pointed out that these same hiring and recruiting policies used go well beyond the "don't ask, don't tell" policies of our Military.>

And that point is well taken. It has also been shown in numerous undercover studies from just the past several years, that discrimination against black people in hiring is STILL pervasive, if a lot more subtle than it used to be. (One NY agency, for example, was caught using the abbrieviation "FOA" or "not FOA" on its applications; "FOA" standing for "front office appearance." None of the black applicants, even the well-dressed, obviously well-educated black people sent as decoys by the TV station doing the undercover investigation was designated "FOA." All the white applicants were, even the ones intentionally sent undercover as less qualified and even borderline slovenly. You may not want to believe it, but these things still go on.)

<I'm certainly NOT condemning all poor. I asked the question why New Oreans is so prone to violent crimes; ie murder, then communites in surrounding states are equally impoverished if not more impoverished yet to not have nearly as high murder rates. >

And that question was answered. It's the largest city in the gulf area, and urban poor areas typically have higher crime rates.

 

Originally Posted By DAR

Maybe the residents of New Orleans and various government organizations could take a note or two from Mexico.
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070821/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/tropical_weather" target="_blank">http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200
70821/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/tropical_weather</a>

 

Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom

<<And that question was answered. It's the largest city in the gulf area, and urban poor areas typically have higher crime rates.>>

So then why is New Orleans murder rate higher than every other major city in our nation? Why is New Orleans unique?

 

Originally Posted By Dabob2

I don't know. Some city has to be the highest. And it's not the highest crime city in general.

<a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004902.html" target="_blank">http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/
A0004902.html</a>

As you can see here, for total crime it ranks below Houston, Phoenix, Dallas, Detroit, Nashville, Oklahoma City, and others.

Why is it murder capital? I don't know. But to ask why post-Katrina crime was higher there than in rural areas hit by Katrina is easier to answer.

 

Originally Posted By jonvn

A few years ago, East Palo Alto was the murder capital. Detroit, DC, and other places have had the honor as well...it's not like NO has always been this way, and it will probably shift again soon enough.

 

Originally Posted By JohnS1

Now, how is a newcomer like me supposed to understand or appreciate this thread when the first post gets admin'd!!!???

 

Originally Posted By ecdc

That's weird. RTs was the first, then I followed it up, and it's my post that he quotes in the one that now appears as the second post.

Oh, now I remember. There was a reference to scantily clad women during Mardi Gras, that used a questionable word. I quoted it as a joke in my post.

Sorry about that, admins!

 

Originally Posted By RoadTrip

<<Sorry about that, admins!>>

Yup... me too for whatever I may have contributed to the deletion. I always figure you can push the line a little in World Events. It is a little hard at times to know just how far you can push it.