Has anyone noticed the differences between the state of Iowa and the state of Louisiana?

Looks like the damage from the floods in Iowa will come pretty close to the aftermath of Katrina.

But what are the primary differences between the two.

Could it be that Iowans don't feel a sense of entitlement. Something that has been told to them since they've been able to walk in every church, barbor shop, street-corner, on TV, or in movies all their lives.

Notice how Iowans are able to pull up their boot-straps and go to work instead of waiting for someone to come save them. No pictures of several people carrying a fat woman who is on welfare through the flood waters because she hasn't left her house in years. No YouTube broadcasts of idiots saying "Bush doesn't care about White People".

What are the differences. Are the preceptions different for the people of Iowa then the people of New Orleans. Are the local officials more compitent or just more willing to work together. All of the finger-pointing that went on in New Orleans is nonexistent.

There's plenty of coverage but it seems there is no agenda here. Why is that?

__________________


"These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis,"

"The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies,

the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." - Rep. Barney Frank (D)

Well, there isnt quite as much coverage. We saw Katrina coming, and so it was built up into something bigger than it was. But you are right on many points. I dont expect Iowans to sit around complaining. Also, look at how Katrina affected Mississippi. They were devestated as well, and you didnt hear them complain. New Orleans suffered from its own culture.

__________________
http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

I've got a cousin in Cedar Rapids who has a basement full of water right now. He's one of the lucky ones who loves on a bit of a rise, so he doesn't have a foot of water in the first floor like some people he knows.

He won't bitch, and he won't complain. He'll wait until it's safe to go back in, and then he'll go to work at fixing things. He's the type of person who won't care if the government helps or not. It's his house, so it's his responsibility...

Before Katrina and since, America has had similar disasters. The year before Katrina Florida was ravaged by hurricanes. The worst hit Punta Gorda. In my little town of Gainesville, Florida we were without electricity for up to three weeks. It took almost two years to totally repair all the roofs in South Florida. Katrina ravaged Mississippi and Alabama as well as New Orleans. But under the leadership of Governors like Haley Barbar, they were able to get back on their feet.

Here is a clip of Oprah Winfrey interviewing Mayor Nagan:

Nagan Interview

Yet everything he said was a gross exaggeration. No one was murdered or raped in the Super Dome. And don't forget the infamous Aaron Brousard,

Aaron Brousard on Meet the Press

I don't mean to speak ill of the dead, but everyone is singing the praises of Tim Russert for his tough but fair style of political interview. Yet everything Mr. Broussard said was a pure lie or a distortion. And Russert never challenged him. Later however Russert was forced to ask the embarrassing questions once the truth came out:

Aaron Broussard Sep 25 interview

Since Katrina we've had blizzards in the midwest and fires in California. Only New Orleans was so ill prepared. The media used this disaster as an opportunity to trash the Bush Administration and ruin the career of the FEMA manager, Mike Brown.

And one last thought . . . If the nitwit Barak Obama gets elected, we can expect an America run about as well as Nagan ran New Orleans. And you know something? I can't wait!!

RJ

The major difference between the floods in Iowa and Katrina is scope.
The damage in Iowa is limited to the area immediately adjacent to the river, a mile away from the river, it's just a rain storm.
Katrina covered a huge area, and did damage on a huge scale, in Iowa the damage is limited to a relatively small area, with functioning emergency services, food and shelter just a short distance from the disaster area, and relatively small numbers of people affected.

__________________
“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.”

Senator Thad Cochran, Mississippi (R)
on McCain

“I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.”
Senator Pete Domenici, New Mexico (R)
on McCain

“My anger did not help my campaign ... People don’t like angry candidates very much.”

McCain on McCain

And this grinning idiot isn't in charge in Iowa:

__________________
De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum

"This grinning idiot"??

Oh bullshit ..pleaase…Please, are you seriously asking that..? there aint no minorities helllooooo. So the special interests grps that employ the “man blew up our levees and beat us down” mantra don’t get reved up……of course there’s no media creating stories either telling us that theres 5000 white folks getting gang raped and murder by other white folk ( ooops) in the Illinois State Stadium etc….


I already posted a play on this in off topic….

__________________
Obama-e fungis nati homines....

I think a big difference is that you don't have people stranded on root tops and in horrible conditions waiting for help that isn't showing up. Maybe there just isn't any major failures by federal agencies to report this time around. How do you know that nobody in New Orleans worked hard during the aftermath? I'm sure that some did but it just wasn't the biggest story in the incident worth reporting. Also this hasn't hit nearly a city with nearly as high a population and isn't as famous of a land mark.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

In older cultures, a man who failed as utterly as Nagin would throw himself on his own sword.

__________________
De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum

I guess you haven't been to Barack Obama's web site lately:



Here's what Obama says:

---Several Midwest states were flooded this weekend, forcing families to evacuate their homes and leave their communities.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been affected by the floods.

The American Red Cross is providing relief efforts in Indiana, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and West Virginia. Almost 1,100 workers have been deployed to help out in the Midwest.

Throughout this campaign, we have seen time and again that when ordinary people act together, they can make a difference.

You can help out now by donating or volunteering at a local shelter---

What a stark contrast. Too bad ordinary people in in N.O. didn't act together other than to bash on the Administration.

The poster above had it right - this was all about an opportunity for the media to smear Bush.

__________________
-Eric

"For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought." -Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart

Self-composed.com

Two quick points. One of the things about the Katrina coverage and armchair quarterbacking that irritated me the most was the fact that it was a relatively unprecedented disaster in terms of its overall scope and severity, where emergency services nonetheless worked rather well for most of the effected area, yet the media focused on a relatively small portion of the stricken area in its covereage (New Orleans) where emergency services had broken down as a result of state and local incompetence, yet allowed this to become an attack on the Federal Response.

In a disaster such as Katrina, where the entire system is pushed to its limits, the compentence of the state and local response become even more important.

One of the most appauling part of Katrina was Gov. Blanco's thoughtless and hysterical call for the Federal Government to "send everything you've got", which to anyone giving this statment a moments thought is nothing short of saying 'fuck anyone and everyone else hit by this hurricane, help US with all your resources'

__________________
"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

While Katrina did cover a very large area and did damage on a huge scale, the major damage in New Orleans was due to flooding AFTER the storm had already passed, so it equates to "just a rain storm" for them. New Orleans is only ONE of many cities and towns that were hit hard and yet, New Orleans is the only city that still hasn't got their act together. Don't blame the Bush administration for it either...blame Nagin and the morons that voted him back in.
For the record, over 1/2 of my city was flooded, including, our city offices, our police department and many of our fire stations and rather than wait for the feds to bail us out, we started rebuilding immediately. We also had people stranded on roof tops but our Chief of Police and Mayor worked closely together and didn't play the blame game. Any boat they found, whether just floating around or locked behind a gate was commandeered for rescue efforts and the locals did the rescuing, not the feds. Yeah, Mayor Ben Morris was pissed at the feds for many reasons but he still did everything possible with limited resources whereas Nagin did NOTHING but whine and cry about his damn "chocolate city".
Partofme, yeah, the VOLUNTEERS from other parts of the US worked their asses off but the majority of the locals in New Orleans didn't do a damn thing. The Vietnamese community of New Orleans East were the first to rebuild, even working out something with Entergy to have power restored long before other areas did. The biggest difference between them and the black community of the city though was that the Vietnamese didn't wait for government assistance. They worked together as a community, going from house to house rebuilding until the job was done. Several families would live together in one house while they worked on another until they were all rebuilt. Nagin and other locals could learn a lot from them.

My heart goes out to those affected in Iowa and the rest of the midwest affected by the floods. It's a long, agonizing process to rebuild but I've no doubt that those people are as tough as those in my city and they'll bounce back better than ever.

__________________


"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

No its more likely that Iowa's local and state officials weren't the bungling idiots that Nagin and Blanco were. As convenient as it may be to blame Katrina on Chertoff and Bush every other natural disaster (including the rest of the states effected by Katrina) prooved there is absolutely nothing wrong with the response and help of the federal government, nothing at all.

It is very bad, our city is on high ground, so we are unaffected - however in neighboring cities all around us the floods were horrendous.
3 area hospitals alone had to evacuate, people who were injured for the first few hours had no place to go because hospitals had 4 ft of water inside them.
And Indiana was actually not as bad as others.

The difference to me is that no one waited for others to help them, although the national guard and marines were outstanding in providing security and rescue. In Martinsville, in less than an hour after the storm passed - large numbers of volunteers with their personal boats and 4WD's were assisting people before the national guard arrived, which was about 5-6 hours after it hit.
In less than 24 hours, temporary emergency rooms were set up, temporary housing was setup and area restaurants (that were not flooded) were providing meals for free.
I think Matt is right - difference was local government did something.