What Did YOU Learn From Hurricane Katrina?

BigTex

I had a pro bono client I was assisting with a divorce from many years before (poor people tend not to get formally divorced, they just separate) and I had to go pick her up to go to court.

I drove to a neighborhood perhaps ten minutes from downtown Dallas. I have spent time in the hood for this and that, and I thought I had seen all the bad areas in town, but this place took the cake.

It wasn't even like what you usually think of as a "bad" neighborhood. There weren't gangs and big dogs and flashy cars and stuff. This was more like the scene from a city that had been bombed. Many of the lots just had foundations on them, probably because the house had been burned at some point and then abandoned (the property values of these homes was in the $10,000-$15,000 range, though I couldn't imagine anyone actually buying any of the houses for any amount of money). It was like a wasteland.

When I got to my clients place and went to the door I realized that none of the still standing houses in the neighborhood had air conditioning. They were all just little 800-1,000 square foot houses built in the 1940s and many had had almost no upgrades since then (an industrial area now surrounded most of the neighborhood). When she opened her door a hot blast of stale air hit me in the face, along with that old house smell.

It also occurred to me at some point that no one in the neighborhood worked. Thus, the entire neighborhood reflected virtually no economic activity of any kind. No one was making more money than the government would pay them to sit in their hot little houses and nurse the combination of physical and mental ailments they seemed to all be struggling with.

It was surreal.

It wasn't quite the third world, but it was certainly a different world from the one a lot of us live in.

The same is true in certain rural areas. My aunt is an ER nurse in a small town in Mississippi and some of the stories she tells are just heartbreaking.
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Hagakure_Leofman

from across the pacific, I learnt that TV wanted me to believe that when african americans went looking for food, it's called 'looting', and when european americans went looking for food it's called 'looking for food'.

BigTex

Jenab6, in the interest of full disclosure, is Jerry Abbott your real name?

If it's not your real name, why bother signing it at the bottom of your posts?
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Keith_McClary

AgentR

1st... Lesson. Do not go to where everyone else is. If you're stuck, a few gallons of safe water, and a bit of wait-n-see sneakiness will go a long way towards being alive and unmangled at the end of the week.

2nd... Lesson. Don't get stuck.

green_achers

Triffin

Lessons from Katrina ..

1) Self reliance

2) Never live below sea level

3) Louisiana has inept state and local politicians

4) Humidity and gumbo kill brain cells

Triff ..

Pops · Last edited by Pops on Fri May 09, 2008 4:32 pm; edited 1 time in total

First, I just want to say that I intentionally took back my badge as a Moderator for just the sort of stuff Jenab posted a couple ago.

Yea, I am the power that be here in PFTF and I will delete such as your last posted on sight from here out - I won't move it to some other forum - I'll just whack it.

Post whatever you will in whatever other forum you care to - I'll let others deal with you however they want.

But to more insightful comments.

Tex, there was a year or so in the 60's when I lived with my grandma in a little trailer (I'm talking 14ft front to back) on a dirt ally with a tin wood stove for heat in the richest agricultural area of the world. This was in the early '60's and my folks were doing odd jobs and ag labor and cannery work around.

Actually the area was a {farm} labor camp in the 30's and 40's where folks wound up building and then buying their lot eventually. Most of my fathers side of the family settled there for a time when they first arrived in CA.

Like you say, it wasn't the third world because the winos and glue sniffers had easy access to what they needed but looking back from the comfortable perch I occupied for a long while and where I am now it does seem surreal.
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"I hope my own children never have to fight a war,"
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patience · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jan 04, 2008 Posts: 818

Jenab,
Don't put words in my mouth, particularly when they are that distasteful. I'm not a racist. I simply have no sympathy for those who won't make an effort to help themselves. I don't care what they look like, laziness is what it is.

As to the poor population, I made a point about how the welfare class got where they are today, and I feel that we who tolerated that social engineering bear some responsibility for making that situation. For myself, I will help anyone I can, if they are trying to help themselves, however little that may be.

The problem is very knotty, however. Having spent several years dealing with the very poor, I learned that their thinking is based on what they perceive as being their options in life. One kid told me, that his brother worked at McDonald's, and made $100/week part time, while another brother sold drugs and made $500 in 10 minutes. He said "You don't gotta be no genius to figger THAT out!"

That kid taught me how hard it is to rise above the situation, due in large part to a lack of learning the simple stuff we never think of. We sent him after a hammer one day, but he didn't know how big a hammer to choose, so he yelled from the truck that he found one that said "Four Ell Bee" on it, was that okay? Some of the other guys ragged him for not knowing that LB meant pounds.

I helped him all I could to learn, and the last I knew, he was still making it.

edit: He was black, BTW.
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Local fix-it guy..

BigTex

Part of the reason people are poor is also how they spend their money.

It's shocking to see how much of many poor peoples' pay goes to the following:

1. high interest rates on loans
2. alcohol and tobacco
3. CDs and DVDs
4. stylish clothing
5. lottery tickets and other gambling

Considering that I spend hardly any money in any of those categories, it was shocking to me that people who are presumably counting every penny would make those spending choices.

The lesson, I guess, is that poverty is often a self-reinforcing, self-replicating kind of situation, even where there is a theoretical way out.
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green_achers

Cloud9 · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jul 26, 2006 Posts: 733

What you are discussing is class as opposed to race. The underclass views money as a source of entertainment. They have already found ways of meeting their survival needs. When they get their hands on cash, it is a windfall to be enjoyed and shared with their friends. So, whatever largess they receive may very well be spent on cds or nails or a car that they cannot possibly pay for. They will ride around to be seen and then in a few months it will be repoed. Most goals tend to be short term. Conversation is for entertainment not for information. A good story should never be ruined by the facts.

The underclass is a world alien to the middle class but it has served it denizens for centuries and should not be discounted.

Ludi

The middle class want to look like the rich, the poor want to look like the middle class.
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BigTex