[lit-ideas] choosing to say

From: Eternitytime1@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2005 13:59:48 EDT
For those who wondered why more people didn't leave NOLA, today's  
WashingtonPost has a good article, with interviews of those who had to or chose 
 to 
stay. Here's the link (registration is required) : 
_http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR20050903015
08.html._ 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301508.html.)
  

Here  are excerpts:
"To those who wonder why so many stayed behind when push came  to water's 
mighty shove here, those who were trapped have a simple  explanation: Their 
nickels and dimes and dollar bills simply didn't add up  to stage a quick 
evacuation mission."
.....
The two smooth-faced boys  on the floor, sitting on their backpacks, looked 
more energetic than most. Corey  Wise, 17, and Jermaine Wise, 18, were once 
residents of New Orleans's 17th  Ward.'Our family was already in a financially 
depressive situation before the  
hurricane,' Jermaine said.  He calculated where the family -- their  mother, 
Marie, is divorced -- stood financially before the wind, water and  
destruction.
'We had $300 between us,' he said, nodding toward his brother.  'Mom had 
about $225 worth of savings. That was our emergency savings for  anything. And 
that was a blessing.'
Their home was in a New Orleans  neighborhood called Holly Grove.
 
'A lot of drugs and violence in our neighborhood,' Corey said.  'It's  hard 
to just get up and go when you don't have anything,' Jermaine said.  'Besides, 
everything we know is in New Orleans.'"

Please read this before you completely judge them. Though I would just ask  
that you evaluate and examine the resources the people had--mental and  
physical--and ask if, having the very same resources [not the mental  knowledge 
and 
physical skills and know-how that you have], that they could  have done things 
differently. 
 
and then, look in your own communities and see if you can teach those  
different things to those who have the same mental and physical capabilities as 
 
those left behind.
 
And I leave you with this final thought, from a blog called Jesus' General  
(warning, although it has some of best satirical commentary I've seen, it's not 
 for the easily offended): Republican Jesus says:"Thanks to the President's  
Ownership Society, it is now easier for a 
rich man to go through the eye of  a needle than for a poor one to get out 
of New Orleans."

Best,
Marlena in Missouri
always looking at the other side
[lit-ideas] choosing to say

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