Got this chain email from my dad the other day supposedly written by some "survivor" of the great Denver blizzard of last month. In it, this man goes on to describe how his community got off their butts and looked after their own without asking for or getting much government assistance. He then goes on to compare Denver's response to what happened in New Orleans. For instance:
We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards. No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House. No one looted."
In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate.
Wow. There are so many problems here. First, getting stuck at the airport is not the same as having to swim out of your attic through waters slowly being polluted by the floating corpses of your neighbors and quickly being polluted by every other kind of human detritus. Second, according to the Denver newspaper, many ranchers were indeed wondering, via irate phone calls to government officials, why the government wasn't flying in to save their cattle (yes, that's right, cattle). Third, being snowbound in your house is a far cry from losing your house. Fourth, the weird reference to latitude as determining character...is this a new loophole to claim "I'm not a racist, I'm a latitudinist"?
Lastly, what kind of bitter, hate-ridden person, when humbled by nature's arbitrary displays of power, has time or energy to focus their angry resentment on something that happened to somebody else over a thousand miles away and sixteen months ago? As a U.S. citizen, I can say that my tax rate did not go up due to Katrina's victims, er, freeloading opportunists; ie, blacks.
Why would someone who has survived a natural disaster (or *ahem* snowstorm) suddenly decide that this is a good opportunity to write a chain letter describing how virtuous they are compared to other people who have been through a different and unrelated natural disaster?
