Ran across this interesting blog post today, whilst surfing and trying to catch up with Katrina blogs after a week on the road.
The blogger, whom I assume is named Eric, since the blog name is “Eric’s Grumbles before the grave,” says that the aftermath of Katrina is showing us the natural result of 70 years of government dependence.
A sampling of his thoughts:
We have empowered our government to make us into dependent children over the past 70 years, give or take a day or two, and it shows. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people were as effectively isolated from their state and national government by this disaster as if they lived on the American frontier 150 years ago. No matter how dramatically and quickly the various government entities had responded, many of these people would have been isolated from food, water, law enforcement and health care for days. Let’s talk about some of the current problems and criticisms and then we’ll tackle why those criticisms are simply ignoring the blindingly obvious truth of the correct direction to go, both in disaster relief specifically and governance much more generally.
Baldilocks (always a fave read) is adding a Katrina support agency link to each of her posts, regardless of its topic (except for the post announcing Rehnquist’s passing). Baldi also linked to another site that is calling for RVers to donate the use of their vehicles that would otherwise sit idle all winter, and for RV sites to donate unused hookups. Living in a trailer is better than living in a sports stadium, I think.
Please consider donating, for long-term use, your idle RV or travel trailer. We are opening our park to our good neighbors from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama who have lost so much in Hurricane Katrina. We have RV hookups available for their use, but we don’t have RVs. Your donation can make all the difference in the world to people who are looking for a place to call home for a few weeks or months as they sort through the aftermath. It’s absolutely crucial that we all work together to help out our friends and family. Please email (info@buckbrazos.com) or call (254-898-2825) if you’re able and willing to help out. We can help make arrangements for getting your RV or fifth-wheel to our place. Buck loves to drive.
This is the weekend that bloggers are holding a donation drive for Katrina, as well. I learned about it from Baldilocks, but it’s being hosted/coordinated/tracked at TTLB. And it was from following a link on that site, that I ran across Eric’s post that started this entry of mine. If you have donated, or do donate, please log your contributions there, especially if you donated as a result of someone’s blog entry. This started as a one-day deal, similar to what was done back in Jan for the Tsunami survivors, and the response was so huge that they extended it through the holiday weekend.
Their stats as of this posting:
$714,139 in contributions so far
1,659 blogs participating
221 charities recommended
If you’ve not given yet, please give what you can, when you can. If all you can afford are prayers, then offer those. They help too. And remember, while there’s a tremendously generous outpouring right now, the need will still be here months from now. So if you can afford ongoing donations, that’s a good idea, as well.
On a more personal note, I was supposed to have lunch with Joe Comer today, but my work schedule changed, so he obligingly flexed his schedule as well, and we were going to meet at a Cracker Barrel last night, since we would both be in Atlanta. I was very disappointed to hear that he had only gotten as far as Macon, but I know we’ll get together another time – I’m thinking we’re only about 200 miles away from each other, and *everyone* comes to Atlanta at some point.