So I've been watching the news lately and...

[slipknot]

No kid, you aren't. But you're young enough to work on it.

Ok, not most... Can we agree on 33%  ?

[DYNAMITE]

LOL slip... no... not 33%, but I'll give you 27.5%

[slipknot]

LOL slip... no... not 33%, but I'll give you 27.5%

I'm willing to split the difference, give you the benefit of the rounding, and settle on 30%.

[Mackay]

Lets see, I've been through 4 direct hits by tornados, one of which was an F4 that leveled Altus AFB in 1984, the flood of 1993 on the upper Mississippi, the Blizzard of 95 in New Jersey, hurricane Floyd and Isabel, and 1 small earth quake while in Petaluma CA.

So yeah I've been in the middle of my share of natural disasters and unnatural ones as well, Desert Storm, and New York City right after 9/11 (deployed the morning of 9/12 for 45 days of Port Security)

So yeah I do have an idea, thank you very much.

[midnight Target]

I'm willing to split the difference, give you the benefit of the rounding, and settle on 30%.

28.375% and that's my final offer!

[slipknot]

28.375% and that's my final offer!

Fine, you've got backed against a wall.

(little does he know I was willing to settle for 12.5%)

[Bucky73]

I am one of those Iowa Guard members that went to assist in the floods. (I'm a Iowa Guard member from Nebraska) I spent my first few days working nights in Cedar Rapids patrolling the flood areas (as the water retreated) for looters. I also manned check points and it just broke my heart to talk to some of these people that owned houses in the flooded areas. I HATED to be the one to tell them they couldn't go to see their house's yet even though the flood waters had receded.

I later spent a few days in SE Iowa helping to tend to a levee that was leaking and the volunteers that came were absolutely AMAZING. I remember a hispanic family from TEXAS that were out on the levee helping us. They had 3 of their kids with them and youngs was about 10 and they all worked like they were trying to save their OWN house. Another was a 80 year old man that didn't live in the area anymore but grew up there and wouldn't be able to stand seeing it destroyed.

I don't mean this as a "we are better than you" comment because I wasn't in New Orleans but what I CAN say for sure is..

 The people in the midwest/great plains area ALWAYS pull together when their neighbor needs a hand. I've seen it time and time again and it's a truely amazing thing to see. 

[Fulmar]

Well we have to realize that when you're comparing the Midwest vs New Orleans debate that it can't be limited to region, but also the urbanization of the two areas.  New Orleans is what?  About a million in the metro area?  These towns you see on TV in Iowa etc are pretty darn small as compared to that of NO.  I grew up in a small Wisconsin town of 4-5K people and went to UW-Madison.  I can tell you the 'types' and qualities of people from these two towns are night an day.  I don't believe it's necessarily a race thing either.  The differences I saw are in vastly white predominant areas (99% and about 83%).

Now granted this is my opinion of one example of my short 25 year life.  Take it for what it's worth.

[ZetaNine]

"I grew up in a small Wisconsin town"

which one?

[Fulmar]

"I grew up in a small Wisconsin town"

which one?

Medford

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=MEdford,+WI&ie=UTF8&ll=45.093883,-90.242386&spn=0.252546,0.514984&z=11&iwloc=addr

[ZetaNine]

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Marshall,+WI&ie=UTF8&z=14&iwloc=addr

Marshall.  pop 2000 when I lived there in 1973 for a year.

[AquaShrimp]

.........it's not a "black" thing.  it could very well have been whites.  the enemy in this discussion is two generations of people living on government entitlements..literally nothing but government entitlements.  an entire society called new orleans......that yes, in this case happens to be predominantly black.

If you raise two entire generations of any group of people on government entitlements (welfare) this is to be the expected result.  A society that can no longer stand on their own two feet....is completely and totally dependent of the government for their every need...and will collapse under the slightest of emergencies......not to mention riot, loot and kill under the most dire  ...rather than coming together and helping each other out...which is something absolutely foreign to them.

new orleans is a living/dying example of liberal based "government entitlement mentality" politics gone bad.

Like I said, inner city black culture has failed.  Also, don't use ... in your sentences.  That's not what its for.

[Motherland]

See Rules #4, #5

[Fulmar]

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Marshall,+WI&ie=UTF8&z=14&iwloc=addr

Marshall.  pop 2000 when I lived there in 1973 for a year.

Nice, Google has Streetview of it.

[alskahawk]

 I have spent a lot of time in New Orleans before the hurricane and after and I live in Iowa. In my judgement its not a white thing or a black thing its an attitude thing.

  In the Midwest we know the police aren't going to leave their jobs when we need them most. When the National Guard comes in they can spend time on the disaster not maintaining order. 

 The officials and all the residents of New Orleans all knew they were in a danger zone. They knew that a direct hit would be catastrophic. Every time I was in New Orleans it was mentioned. Blame the officials in New Orleans. The police became part of the problem. The elected officials were slow to react. Criminally slow.

 Where were the local officials when the hurricane struck? There was little national help for 3 or 4 days after the hurricane. George Bush sends a memo then goes on fund raising tour, that's not leadership...He tours the damage from a airplane 3(5) days later? The governor (Dem) in reference to the superdome "Don't send them relief, they won't want to leave"

 Put the partisan politics aside. It was a failure of government. At every level. And given that the citizens held no one accountable it will happen again. In Iowa we still had a government that worked.