More Katrina

Everybody's talking about it...so I thought I would too.

--I just paid $3.19 a gallon to fill up at the local quick stop. Actually I didn't fill up, I just stopped at $30 worth. I guess I'm hoping that in a week it might go back down to under $3. Probably not..but I thought it was worth the gamble. If all of this causes us to think more about how much gas we're burning, and how we're burning it, maybe there will be a silver lining to the high gas prices.

--I saw President Bush--along with George H.W.(#41) and Bill(#42)--on TV this afternoon explaining all of the steps that are being taken to ease the restrictions on the movement of gasoline. I hope it helps. I would think the environment can stand a few months of extra pollutants until we get back to something like normal. And, I don't mind that we use a Canadian, Brazilian, or Japanese ship to move some gasoline from one American port to another. Normally, only US owned ships are allowed to do that. I don't know how that got started, but I'm guessing it was something that a union (Longshoremen?), and shipping industry moguls lobbied through Congress.

--I understand that when you're hungry, and maybe thirsty, and have not had a decent place to sleep, or go to the bathroom, for a few days that you start to get more than a little testy. But, I have to go back to what I said a few days ago. All of the people in New Orleans were ORDERED to leave. Not asked. Not expected. ORDERED! Some of the people who stayed despite the order (elderly, sick, without transport) I can sympathize with. But, most of them have no right to be all ticked off or violent because someone isn't coming to their rescue in a timely fashion. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but they broke the law by staying behind. And, how could you not be scared out of there by the prospect of a category 5 hurricane? I would have been halfway to Canada by the time the thing got there.

The National Guard, and anyone else who will be coming in there to help, needs to have a clearly defined strategy and approach. They don't need to be rushing in there one vehicle at a time and be taken over by a mob of people who want to be the first ones out. And clearly, the people who are still in there have a mob mentality. When there is no sense of order, mob rules apply. So, the rescuers have to think about their own safety first, then go in, en masse, to provide the help that's needed. In this case, faster is not necessarily better.

--Make no mistake...we all will be paying for Katrina, in one form or another, for a long time.