Watching the news about the aftermath of Katrina is morbidly addictive. Emotions run the gamut from being appalled to feeling helpless, to feeling thankful for everything that we have (coupled with a healthy appreciation for how quickly it can be taken away.) I don’t think our modern society has witnessed a disaster of this proportion within our borders.
I followed a discussion in another forum about which was worse – 9/11/01 or Katrina? I guess it depends on what you count. We don’t have a death count for Katrina yet, but it has the potential to equal the 9/11 attacks. The disruption to the nation’s economy looks to be about equal, but it’s still too early to tell. 9/11 affected air travel for awhile – this one is affecting our everyday mode of transportation. But let’s not forget Afganistan and Iraq, supposedly the result of 9/11, according to the Shrub. If we figure in the military and civilian casualties, 9/11 had a much more global effect. I guess such comparisons are foolish – 9/11 was caused by the activity of humans and Katrina was a natural disaster (unless, of course, it was caused by global warming.)
For the first time I spent some time reading Daily Kos. One of their pundits had a very interesting analysis of the Administration’s culpability in the current disaster…
George W. Bush was once known as the C.E.O. President, a term his handlers eagerly coined in order to convey that the country would from now on be run like a business. That quickly evolved into the less flattering Enron President… then the War President… now it’s looking like we can all finally settle on one. George W. Bush: the Disaster President.