Hell on Earth, it's bricks laid by our own hands...

Katrina...back when Bill 'He's black enough' Clinton was in office, some of the right winded among us wondered if a less than high moraled woman (who really was just pimped by a Tripp) would bring down the presidency.  Now we know that it is Katrina that has ripped the facade of America off of it's rotting infrastructure to reveal how badly we've become, as a nation, as a society, as a bunch of people living in the same geographical region.  I pray that Katrina will represent a paradigm shift in the thinking ways of Americans but I also pray that the costs wont weigh so heavily on the poor, the downtrodden and mostly black population.

There are numerous things to think about and pray about when it comes to this Devastation.  New Orleans comes first to mind, more so because I'm a city person and thats my sister city (St. Louis).  So many poor black people there left to fend for themselves, demonized as looters, attacked by gangs and ignored by the National Gaurd.  But thats just the city.  It gets most of the press...I got an aunt down near Biloxi.  The country side, the rural areas.  I can't even fathom the dead, the dying, the hunger, the thirst.  That anyboyd, ANYBODY should die of thirst in this country speaks volumes about our attitudes towards the poor and the depth of racism and bigotry still thriving in ALL parts of this country.  My wife went from Angry (she saw the AP pictures of the black kid 'Looting' a store for food and a white couple "Finding" food in a store and nearly lost her mind...I cant blame her) to despair at her inability to help.  Go to www.raquita.blogspot.com to see the juxtaposed pictures for yourselves.  People who loot TVs are crazy when they live in a city that wont have power for 3 months...but people looting grocery stores and pharmacies are doing what they have to to survive.  If a bunch of people break into a fast food joint, chances are they're doing so to may cook some food, find something to eat.  That there are reports that people are being turned away at gunpoint by the National Gaurd just serves to worse the sitch.

Send money to Red Cross, or United Way.  That will help.  But will it be in time?  If you believe that America can be a great, wonderful place, or if you think that it should at least be a fair place, do some research, as heartbreaking as it may be, discover the cold, hard, ugly facts that both political parties are equally to blame for leaving us in this state and we, The People, are even more to blame for letting them, and make some decisions.  Start thinking about a world were food prices double and triple because gas is so expensive, where state funding for social programs is cut back even more as the war in Iraq deteriorates into Civil War and the government spends more money on policing its poor than feeding them.  Start thinking long range about the way our world is going to change and how we must change with it or die underneath it.

It's hard.  It hurts, and nobody wants to think about a future that might very well be much worse than what we can imagine, promises from a futile, co-opted government notwithstanding.  But please.  Think, plan, be prayerful, be vigilant and be ready.

Benticore
Out
(God gave us free will so we could save each other...)