Cape Karen
Everyone is looking for someone to blame. This most recent disaster is stirring many troubled waters.
Of course, we can't really blame anyone for a category 4-5 hurricane - unless we dare to look at global warming - but we do have to look back at all the attempts that were made over the last few years by LA senators and others who expressed to the legislature their deep concern about the aging, insufficient levee system in New Orleans.
All the legislation they presented, most of which were appeals for funding to improve the Lake Ponchartrain levee system, was pushed aside, ignored or denied, due to "lack of funds," by our government. They just didn't feel it was all that important. (Seems it is important, however, to spend billions and billions of US taxpayer dollars in Iraq to rebuild their US bombed-out country. But, that's a whole 'nother subject.)
If we look back even further, we have to question the human-enhanced erosion of the wetlands that once formed a natural barrier of protection against the devastation that we are seeing in that area today.
The rapid shrinking of our wetlands, throughout the United States, is a sad commentary on our priorities. As a popular song once put it, "...we've paved paradise to put up a parking lot." Hotels and other tourist attractions now sit all along our coastlines, where invaluable wetland eco-systems once thrived.
I've seen this happen on my native Cape Cod soil as well. I can recall driving to work along Route 28 in 1979, and watching, dumbfounded, as bulldozers scooped-out and leveled the beautiful wetlands in order to put in a parking lot for a crappy, tourist T-shirt shop - a shop that has long since gone out of business.
But, to get to my main point here: Last night, while flipping through the channels to get away from pictures of the devastation, I stopped short at C-Span because an attractive blonde woman was making an impassioned plea to our president that sounded very compelling!
That woman, it turned out, was Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu.
Not only were her appeals for honest answers succinct and compelling, but she also 'threw in' one statement that made me laugh out loud. She stated that, for a few years now, we have heard the clay figurine from Saturday Night Live called, "Mr. Bill" making public service announcements about lowland erosion and the need to repair the levee system in New Orleans.
She said, "How is it that a clay character called Mr. Bill is more informed than a man called Mr. Bush?" (Unlike me, no one laughed.)
Another statement she made was not humorous, but it was 'right on.'
I paraphrase: "The staggering financial effects that will result from this disaster will pale in comparison to the gross incompetence that has already been evidenced by our goverment."
I applaud Senator Landrieu's courage and passion as she stood alone, facing her peers, and pleaded her cause. It took tremendous courage, and an obvious great love for her communities, for her to speak out so boldly and forthrightly to our president.
If you would like to "meet" this courageous woman and read more about her efforts, you can go to her website at:
http://www.marylandrieu.com/
Posted by Karen at September 9, 2005 10:50 AM