While I'm Still Up

As you can see, I have a little case of insomnia. I've now finished my first week of classes (and am ahead on my reading and homework...woo hoo!). I have a feeling that this semester will actually be relatively light, as two of my classes are undergrad level. That's the pain of having done a B.A. instead of a B.S. I have a bit of work to make up before I can get to fun things, such as Pattern Recognition and Security. I have no classes tomorrow, and only 2.5 hours to finish for my job for the week. Hence, the insomnia isn't a problem tonight.

What brought on this second post was this article on CNN. The FEMA chief is apparently saying that the victims of Katrina bear some of the responsibility for their situation. Others have written on the role that class played in this. If you have no car, live from paycheck to paycheck with no extra money to spare, and have no insurance to replace your goods that might get stolen or destroyed, are you going to abandon everything you have because the government has called for an evacuation?

Of course, I'm sure others were thinking, "It won't be as bad as they're predicting. After all, we have these levee that have been designed to keep the water out of the city." Oh yeah, the levee. But I thought I heard a while ago that there was money to fix and reinforce the levees. Ignoring that, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." Regardless, I'm sure the President is busy doing all he can to help the victims.

Joseph Hughes has some further righteous indignation regarding President Bush's actions in the past several days. On Monday, he gave a speech where he spent 200 words on Katrina, followed by 800 words on Iraq. He declared the area a disaster zone, pointing out how dangerous Katrina was as a category 5 hurricane. Then he left to go out west for two days to discuss Medicare and Iraq. He called up 3,500 National Guardsmen in Louisiana, as well as 850 in Mississippi and 350 in Alabama. Compare that with the 30,000 and 6,000 National Guardsmen the first President Bush sent to Florida to help when Hurricane Andrew struck. Andrew killed 23 people in the U.S. The death toll of Katrina is estimated to be in the thousands. This is leadership? This is compassionate conservativism?

And then, to top everything off, you have Fred Phelps. In case you don't know Fred Phelps, he is a Baptist minister that goes to the funerals of gays with signs reminding the mourners that their lost loved ones are burning in hell. Real classy guy, let me tell you. Well, good old Fred put a new page up on his site, titled Thank God for Katrina. I thought I had seen another post somewhere about other religious groups blaming New Orleans' sinful culture for the destruction wrought by Katrina. It's dispicable. I am tempted to put a flippant, ironic come back here, but I will not out of respect for the victims of this tragedy.

Oh, and if you haven't donated, here is another link to the Red Cross's home page. You can do so there. There's also a list of places and ways to help on this page.