Boortz finds the bright sideto the flooding in Fargo, N.D.– it provides us an opportunity to play “Let’s compare disasters!”:
We’ve all be watching the drama from Fargo, North Dakota. Floods are
bad enough, but when you have to deal with those floods in -11 degree
temperatures I would imagine it is almost unbearable.OK .. now for the
insensitive thought. Let’s keep some score. Let’s see how well the residents of
Fargo handle this disaster vs. the residents of New Orleans. The parasite
quotient in New Orleans gives a huge lead to the denizens of the frozen north.
I’m guessing that three and one-half years from now you will not see many Fargo
residents living in motels as guests of the taxpayers.
You just know Boortz’s innards tingled as he tapped out that wondrous “parasite
quotient” locution.Don’t complain. Someone has got to say it! If Boortz won’t use the current
misery of Midwestern flood victims to score points on the previous misery of New Orleans
flood victims…who will?
As you may know, Neal Boortz spent some of his younger days writing speeches
for Georgia GovernorLester
Maddox.In recent years, Boortz glommed on to the conservative talk radio
bandwagon, achieved celebrity, and wrote a half-baked book about a flat tax, or
a pick axe, orsomething along those lines. Over a year ago, when
Boortz came to New Orleans for a book signing, he was repeatedly invited bylocal
talkradio
hoststo go out to lunch with them, and then tour the flooded neighborhoods of the
city. Boortz dismissed their invitations, indicating that he would prefer to eat a
bag ofsliders
and talk at length about how much he enjoyed flying his personal
plane.
That’s the sort of intrepid, inquisitive mind Boortz
possesses. He’ll go to a stricken American city after an historic disaster to hawk books, eat sliders, and brag on his plane. Then he’ll
go back home and tell his fans to “keep score” on how poorly the parasites in New
Orleans match up with the hearty midwestern spirit on display in
Fargo.
===
H/T to JudyB atThanks,
Katrina.
Does this mean you think Fargo residents will still be living in taxpayer paid for hotel rooms 36 months after the flooding?
Just curious…It seems like you went off on a tangent that had nothing to do with what he said…
He’s a fine one to talk about the parasite quotient. Wingnut welfare jackass.
These people never met a disaster they couldn’t use to hate on the poor.
A.
Yes, because the 2 situations areexactly the same. Same scope of disaster, same number of people involved (Fargo’s population rivals Nawleans, right?) and the same people are running things at all levels – oh, and we couldn’t have learned anything from Katrina either, right?
Full disclosure – I grew up in Grand Forks. North Dakota is my home state. I have the utmost respect for the people who live there, because the weather makes an honest attempt to kill you, every winter. I don’t live there any longer, and haven’t for 20 years. However, I admire the spirit of the people who are battling against that river and helping each other out, and in no way do I want to distract from that. I have friends who are in that battle. They are courageous and hardworking and tough and you know they are cuz they live there.
But Boortz is a jackass and this bullshit from him demeans not only the people in NO, but the people of Fargo. NO deserved better during and after Katrina, and Fargo deserves better than this now.
A’s right. Any excuse to be hating on the poor.
Boortz is a Cat5 hurricane on the Homer-Simpson scale of storm stupidity.
So, what -GO- is saying is since the gov’t effed up the response and left New Orleans residents stranded in far flung cities and didn’t exactly help them get their homes rebuilt – paying for modest lodgings for them for a time is wrong, but he/she/it/shit seems to not bat an eye at BILLIONS of dollars of our tax monies going for b.s. bonuses and bailouts to companies that utterly effed up our economy??? I would MUCH rather be paying for homes for taxpayers than pedicures for the already obscenely wealthy.
STFU -GO- plskthxbai,
Elspeth
Dumb Question time:
Is the population density along the Red River the same as the population density in NOLA’s lower 9th?
Were the warning times equivalent?
Were the percentage of population owning vehicles equivalent?
Did both have equivalent times to sandbag the levees?
Were the temperatures the same in both locations?
etc.
Both are catastrophies. But trying to argue equivalencies is like arguing if Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman.
Anything to bash those lazy niggers, right Neal? If only he wasn’t such a typical wingnut coward, he’d just come right out and say what he really means.
Hmm…I guess I had to comment on AIG related bonus payouts to ensure my comment would be taken seriously…
I also needed to ensure that I tried to somehow compare warning times, Federal Response, etc…
I thought that I was merely asking whether or not the author thought that ANYONE who lost a home or a job as a result of this catastrophe will still be in paid public housing 36 months from now.
As far as the Federal Response…please…Governor Mee Maw was so tranqued up during the ordeal that she was on a live feed on CNN-its on YouTube, folks-where she admitted that she should have federalized the response sooner.
You see, she was worried about losing the ability to control the graft as it flowed into the $tate’s coffers, to make sure her pals & minions got their claws on it, in order to dole it out how they saw fit…
She said it, not me…But, let’s keep talking about the “federal response”.
I love that talking point…
I also love the way that Blanco authorized contractors to start work on “modernizing the coffee area” for employees of her office in the State Capital to the tune of a half a million dollars worth of money a day AFTER the storm hit.
While the citizens of the state she represents-whom overwhelmingly voted for her in Orleans Parish-lay dying on the interstates, she claimed she was “worried about contractors suing the state” for putting the kibosh on the contracts.
[Umm…Mz. Blank-0, you DO realize the Gret Stet Of Loozyana’s got laws on the books that allow you to stop ANY state-approved contract during a Federally declared or even STATE declared Emergency? Oh…you didn’t?]
Yup…I’m sure glad she dropped 500K on “italian marble countertops” and “hookups for plasma screen TV’s” in areas of her office that the public is not-nor will ever be- allowed to venture into…
But, let’s keep talking about the “Federal Response/Failure”…
I’m guessing NONE of you want to venture a guess as to whether oyster thinks Fargo residents will still be living in paid-for hotel rooms 3 years from now…Right?
[cue some cut on Bush or AIG or Republican’ts or the “Party of No”]
fargo is not a big bowl. and those houses on the river look awfully nice
Actually, North Dakota is number two in corruption convictions per capita, just edging out Louisiana. Think of what it’d be like if the state population was larger…
…oh, right. It’s comparing an apple and an orange.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-corruption-louisiana_wittmar27,0,2957672.story
Boortz can go jump in the Red River.
Hey, -GO- make like the MR-GO and shut up.
(okay, I’ll stop feeding the “But poor/mostly dark shif’les folks are shafting us” wanking-points troll)
Elspeth
So NONE of you are willing to answer the question…
Oh, and by the way, Elspeth…You’ll never catch me starting a sentence with a conjunction…
Snip: Floods are bad enough, but when you have to deal with those floods in -11 degree temperatures I would imagine it is almost unbearable.
One of the things officials and residents were worried about was that the temperature would climb; unlocking all that frozen water. Irony. Funny.
GO- Depending on the demographics of Fargo, I think their may well be folks receiving aid from the Feds a year after these floods subside. They may not be as numerous as what we have on the Gulf Coast, but there will be some. (Especially that the fact is very few folks there had Flood Insurance, even though the Red River floods every so many years- no education from the second kick of a mule for those people.)
That having been said I now must go to the B/S of your question- there can be no realistic comparison between NOLA/Coast and Fargo. A rising river is not the same as a tidal surge. I have seen private pictures of the water as it approached Gulfport and I was seriously ill from the imagery. Almost nothing survived the impact of that wall of water.
In Fargo things will get wet, but they won’t be rotting in a bowl of water for weeks as New Orleans was. Jobs will be more readily available for folks in Fargo soon… here we had almost no operating businesses/power/water/gas/cable/phones for months. Fargo will not have that problem. (at least they don’t have the Bushite circus to screw them as we were screwed.)
Gentilly Girl…I applaud you for being the FIRST person to venture an on-topic response…at 4:53pm CST, no less…
I think I’d like to clarify things…Of COURSE folks will need public assistance…That much is a given…
The question is, will they need 36 months of it?
I’ll also give you that New Orleans is still a shambles…When Tulane is still the largest private employer in the City-and we’re almost at the 48 month post-storm point right now-then you KNOW things are bad, and still bad.
That you can blame the Federal Government for an absolutely VAST set of local levee boards in your (red)neck of the woods who got MILLIONS of dollars in federal money to upgrade the levees they were put in charge of, and-instead-decided to build parks, community centers, and do OTHER THINGS with money that was supposed to go towards FLOOD PREVENTION & LEVEE BUILDING is somewhat ironic. I admit it.
What’s even more ironic is that you’d probably label the Fed’s slowness to rebuild a systemically Republican problem. The example we’ve set as Louisianians with money we’ve received is a joke. Money for the EXACT same purpose we’re asking for again now that we’ve gotten spoon-fed to us for the past 60 years or so from the Feds…and you say its Republicants fault for being hesitant to throw money down a black hole (Oh wait…Hopefully, no Houston City Councilman are reading that “Black Hole” term, LOL!)…???
In reality, giving us money to solve the problem of flood prevention & levee building yields the results of Hurricane Katrina. The Federal Government, Republicans, Democrats, Cuntservatives & Demolibs, red & yellow, black & white, Jesus loves the little children of the world…They’ve ALL SEEN how bad it was, and they KNOW they’ve been giving us money to do something about it at the local level for years…
Why is it now being assumed to be a Republican screw job based on hating the poor and the repressed of New Orleans?
It’s being assumed that way because the liberal media & the majority Party in Washington want it that way…
But fear not, Gentilly Girl…We all know the score…Whether you all want to cast personal aspersions of make up talking points as excuses…We know where the money-again, for DECADES-went…and it wasn’t where it was supposed to go…
Why would ANYONE give us anymore to graft away?
But,
I read the same sort of rubbish last year when my hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa was flooding.
“Look, white people can handle these disasters because they’re hard-working, while black people are justlazy and looking for government handouts. In fact, Katrina might have been the best thing evah to happen to these people!”
What trash. All the commenters above are right: to compare a flood in a small city to a hurricane in a major city, not to mention the government responses in each case, is impossible, if not irresponsible. The end of racism, my ass!
Au contraire, herodotus…While history is written by the victors, it does not make the story correct…
The point I am making is that it doesn’t matter if there are 18,000,00 inhabitants, or 1,800, or 180, or hell…1.8…
Do you think the smaller number of folks will be on the public dole for longer? Will they need free rental checks they can give to hotels for 36 months?
Do you HONESTLY think it takes people 36 months to find employment? 36 months to find suitable housing in thriving, sprawling urban areas like Dallas, Houston, & Atlanta?
HONESTLY?
[Okay, that was unfair…I know you all HONESTLY agree with me…It’s just that you’d have to admit intellectual cowardice to your liberal brethren for saying so out loud]
The Taco Bell in Rural Livingston Parish, Louisiana, near where I live has had a sign out front since it was built-in mid 2006-that is advertising the $8.50 positions on ALL SHIFTS (in case you have trouble getting free from 8a-5p), and if you’d have jumped on it right after the storm, I KNOW that with steady raises and cost of living adjustments-WHICH THEY OFFER-you’d be making a LIVING wage right now, and THRIVING, PLUS getting FREE FOOD!
But I’m sure the one in my town was the only place hiring…In America…
03n4d…
I spent almost 10 years in Fargo and a small town 40 miles east called Detroit Lakes. It was in my basement in Fargo that I watched New Orleans drown. It was atop a hotel in downtown Fargo at a political fundraiser I scared the living fuck out of my wife when the former chief of staff said on Day 2 of the Federal Flood “people up here would never behave like those animals” and all eyes turned to me as the conversation fell silent and I stood here, visibly shaking with every vein in my head and neck bulging. My wife was sure someone was going to die, and she was not sure who. We stood by a railing and I coolly contemplated lifting him over the railing and tossing him five stories down into the street, until the moment snapped and I walked away.
I am not a violent person, but I will gladly take five minutes alone with Mr. Boortz and an axe handle.
In the end, I found two answers for people in North Dakota who thought this way (and by extension the people I found all over the internet). The first was a thought experiment, in which they would spend two or three days on their black roofs in the hottest stretch of August with a jug of toilet water (out of the bowl, not the tank), dressed in shorts and t-shirts with no sun screen. There would be a cooler full of water at the bottom of a ladder. I would sit there in my Jazz Fest chair with a taser, we would see how long it would be before they tried for it.
The short, conversation answer (which I arrived at before the cocktail party I mentioned above was over) was this: if under the same circumstances you would not steal food and water and diapers, then your people would die and mine would live, and the gene pool would be strengthened. This tended to end the conversation, all conversation, but I had no further use for anyone who required the answer.