Warning: what I have to say here may upset you. Enter at your own risk.
I believe in individual responsibility. I've mentioned on this blog any number of times about being
Not once in my life has anyone held a gun to my head or a knife to my throat and forced me to overeat. Over thousands of days, and a couple of dozen years, I incrementally overate, and ended up a 44 year old fat guy. Back in my younger days I could lose a pound per day for weeks on end until I got where I wanted to be. Simple. But I eventually crept back up in weight. But I can't do the easy weight loss any more. Middle age stinks in that regard.
I acknowledge that it's 100% my fault that I'm overweight. And like an alcoholic that just can't give up the bottle, I am still having trouble eating little enough to lose the weight I've gained in the last 20 years. I have no one to blame but me.
I will not sue Burger King because I tend to gravitate toward their double beef Whopper with cheese when hungry and I'm out and about in the car. It's all me, not them.
I will not sue the otherwise evil Krispy Kreme empire for tempting me with their flavorful confections. If I've eaten their stuff, it's because I chose to spend money that I earned myself on something like that instead of a nice, healthy salad.
I do not like salad. I never have. I have eaten many salads in my life because intellectually I know that it is a healthier alternative to the aforementioned double beef Whopper with cheese. But to my totally unrefined palate, the Whopper beats the best salad in the world as far as flavor is concerned.
Anyway, that's all to show that I take responsibility for my own health, or lack thereof. And if you knew me personally and saw my life, you would see that I'm slowly making steps to improve my health and to lose weight. But I didn't get this way overnight, and I won't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime overnight either.
I will get to better health, but it's my job, my responsibility, to do so. No one else's.
So, why are the media and the people of New Orleans and the former residents of New Orleans still whining that the city hasn't been rebuilt in 2 years? If I was a cussing man, I would throw down some choice ones right here with regards to the idiots who think that a city of that size could have been rebuilt in this short a time.
Let me tell y'all something, I live in a danger zone for hurricanes. We've been directly hit by the north wall of two hurricanes, one a level 2 and one a level 3 (same as Katrina) within five weeks of one another in 2004. We finished all the repairs on our home from those two 2004 storms, less than three weeks ago.
If another hurricane comes at us, it is my responsibility to be ready as I can be for it.
Many of the people of New Orleans were not ready for ANY hurricane.
Remember hurricane Ivan in 2004? Well, for a while, New Orleans was in the possible track cone of Ivan. Less than a year later, Katrina comes a-callin' and what do the people of the area do?
Nothing. Or very little at best. Ivan didn't scare them into preparing; not one little bit.
When I started watching coverage of the aftermath of Katrina, after George Bush had ordered the levees to be blown up (according to Spike Lee) and parts of the city were flooded, I was astounded that the folks were standing around and whining to every camera pointed their way and wondering where the government was. I distinctly remember noticing how many people on the news where sitting or standing around smoking cigarettes.
I thought, what the heck were these morons thinking? If they could afford to buy cartons of cigarettes and thought enough about them that they carried these cigarettes out with them when their homes flooded, they could have just as easily, and for less money, bought bottled water and carried a few bottles of water each with them.
Humans can live many days without food if they have water, but these thousands of dim bulbs considered their cigarettes to be the valued possessions of choice and brought out their cigarettes and lighters when their homes flooded.
The disaster in New Orleans is the kind of natural disaster that has caused mass migrations of people since man has been on earth. Anyone with two brain cells left in their heads, rubbing together to cause a little warmth and a couple of basic thoughts knows this.
Heck, I know this, and I'm a product of Louisiana's public schools system myself!
Yet all I hear this week as today's dubious anniversary approached is how shameful it is that the Bush administration hasn't had New Orleans completely rebuilt by now.
If you think this, you are an idiot in my mind. The 67 Billion that the has been spent and sent is just a drop in the bucket to what needs to happen for this city to be back to the way it was before Katrina.
And you are 10 kinds of an idiot if you thing New Orleans will ever be like it was before Katrina. Ever. Well, maybe in 50-100 years, but two years? Come on people, use your brain. It couldn't happen regardless of how much money they throw at the city.
If you came to our home in Florida, we could put you in our Ford Taurus and drive you around places in central Florida where there are still oceans of FEMA trailers, with many of them still occupied by folks whose homes where too damaged from hurricanes years ago.
And you expected New Orleans to be rebuilt, all homes rebuilt, dispersed people to have been moved back in, and the city back to pre-Katrina ways of living in two years?
If so, again, you are 10 kinds of an idiot.
Also, what about south Mississippi an Alabama?
New Orleans didn't get the worst of the winds of Katrina, the levees broke and floods caused the most damage.
WHOLE TOWNS IN MISSISSIPPI WERE WIPED OFF THE EARTH. Where are the news reports about them? If New Orleans could have been rebuilt in this time, then small Mississippi and Alabama towns that got hurt worse than New Orleans surely could have been rebuilt too, right?
Where's the outrage for the small Mississippi and Alabama towns that don't even exist any more?
Why haven't Brad Pitt and Sean Penn brought their moronic selves and their ever present camera crews to show the devastation of south Mississippi and Alabama? Why aren't they outraged over the loss of whole communities and broadcasting their self-serving statements from places that were once thriving small American towns, but are no more?
The people of New Orleans bear the responsibility to the damage to their lives by having chosen to live in a hurricane-prone area.
Just as I and my family do here on the east coast of Florida. Just as people in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas bear the responsibility for choosing to live in tornado-prone areas. You get my drift.
Our home wasn't destroyed, but had many thousands of dollars of damage done in hurricanes Jeanne and Frances. We've had many tropical storms hit us and the outer edges of several other full-fledged hurricanes, but we did what we could, we paid others to fix the rest, and we had supplies and were as prepared as we could be for the hard living after each one.
We lost power for days or weeks on end, we struggled to find simple things like ice to help keep what food we had from spoiling in the 95 degree F heat and 95 percent humidity with no air conditioning.
In short, we dealt with it, because it's part of living here. It's a nice place to live and I have an almost dream engineering job here that pays half-way decent and we get to design and build some things that are completely unique in this world. Part of the price to live here is to deal with the tropical weather, such as tropical storms and hurricanes that WILL occasionally hit.
New Orleans is in an earthen bowl, mostly below sea level.
If people choose to live there, they have to deal with the occasional hurricanes that WILL hit them too.
Whining about the US government not doing enough makes the whiners look like idiots. Anyone with half a brain knows the government is slow and spotty. Always has been and probably always will be.
Besides, everybody hates whiners. Whiny kids are annoying, whiny adults are like fingers on a chalk board.
These people chose to live in a hurricane-prone area, therefore it was their responsibility to have supplies, an escape plan if necessary, and a little bit of guts and back bone.
I regret all the loss of life there, just as even around here a few people died in the hurricanes that hit our area.
But stop being such crybabies, pick yourselves up and get on with your life.
Quit sitting around and expecting others to swoop in and make things like they were before the storm. That will never happen, and you are dumb if you think otherwise.
I'll shut up now.
End of rant.
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