dougs digs

Here is an excerpt of a take similar to mine regarding the hell on earth being experienced in New Orleans. Even though initially I kinda wish I hadn't read this, I'm glad I did.

" . . . I see the FEMA director expressing dismay that so many people stayed behind. He’s saying that he doesn’t understand why so many people would stay despite the warnings. If that’s not political spin, then this guy is a few fries short of a Happy Meal. The math is simple on this one. If you’re told to evacuate your home on short notice to get out of the path of a Category 5 hurricane, you can’t do it without one very important thing: money. You need money to stay in a hotel, perhaps for a very long time. You need money for food. You need a car. If you have a car, it had better be big enough for your family and their luggage. Then you need gas to run the car, and gas costs money. Nowadays, gas costs an obscene amount of money. Thus, the people left behind to suffer Katrina’s wrath fall mostly into one of two categories: people who are stupid or people who are poor. We can’t do much for the former, but we have no excuse for the plight of the latter. By “we,” I mean Christians. I mean me.

My temptation is to blame this on the government. It would be easy to make a list of ways I think our government dropped the ball on this one. I could rant for hours about how the richest country in the world can’t justify the existence of poverty so severe that thousands don’t have the resources to flee when nature throws an apocalyptic fit. I could quote Howard Zinn and wax liberal and self-righteous about how ethnic minorities have been forced into the lower economic classes through oppression. I could hold my own town meeting about all this except for something literally staring me in the face: I’m typing this on a Power Mac G5 with dual processors and a 20-inch flat-screen monitor. Six months ago, I thought I “needed” his computer, which costs as much as some used cars. As much as months of food. As much as plenty of gas, even at these ridiculous prices. Tonight, watching “the least of these” cry for help from rooftops, my definition of need is starting to change. And I’m ashamed that it took the flooding of the French Quarter for me to feel bad. Stuff like this is happening all the time, all over the world.

No, I can’t give our president a tongue-lashing over this. This is as much my fault as his, or anybody else in authority. I’m a Christian, and I hang out with a bunch of other Christians. Though we’re all middle class in America, we’re rich by international standards. And we have no excuse for permitting such poverty. Why? Because we all own Bibles. We even read them sometimes, though you don’t have to read very often to know that God commands us to help the poor. He doesn’t ask nicely. It’s not extra credit when I give change to a homeless guy. It comes with the job description of being a Christian. I deserve to be fired. "

enitire article . . .