Guest Book

Hey everybody. :wave: I have a little bit of good news, which has nothing to do with anything. As of Friday, my wife Nicole is now an officially licensed massage therapist in the state of Kentucky. She has worked very hard to get to this place, and I couldn't be more proud of her. :beer: I've been reading the Guest Book for the last few days, but staying out of the conversation. Frankly, I've been appalled at some of the stuff I've read. It has been a week...maybe we could start relocating some of the back-and-fourth bickering to the Forum. Then y'all can one-up each other 'til the cows come home. I mean, doesn't somebody have a birthday or something? 🙂 The only thing I have to say about our government is that I hope it LEARNS from this tragedy. Our country is relatively young, and still in some ways on a learning curve...figuring things out as events unfold. It goes without saying that Mother Nature is going to whack us again sometime soon. With any luck at all, when the well-coordinated, efficient government response machine swings into action during a future crisis, we'll be able to say that something good came out of the Katrina disaster of '05. At least that is the way I see it. I'm not a big fan of President Bush, but I'm simply not prepared to bash him or his administration on this one. I really don't see where a President Gore or a President Kerry administration would have fared much better. Operationally, these systems of response, such as they are, have been in place for much longer than George W. Bush has been in office. There was only so much that he could have done, and he did it. I'm also not prepared to take cheap shots at our media for the way they've framed the news in the last few days. I keep hearing how it has focused on the 1% to 3% that stayed behind in New Orleans. Friends, that 1% to 3% represents THOUSANDS of people. Fellow human beings...fellow American citizens. How quickly some would marginalize these poor souls, who may or MAY NOT have had the option to evacuate. Here in America, we have a free press. If the government controlled (and funded) our media, then the content and slant would be very different. In my view, our nation's media outlets are businesses. As such, they do what they have to do to sell papers and advertising and so on. And you know what? They give us WHAT WE WANT. If you don't like the "gloom and doom" face of the American press, blame the consumers. We can't always expect the media to responsibly monitor the content of their product. And lastly, if you don't think that race and class has played a part in all of this, I would respectfully offer a quote from Milton D. Tutwiler of Winstonville, Mississippi: "No one would have checked on a lot of the poor black people in these parishes while the sun shined. So am I surprised that no one has come to help us now? No." EAPFP .