How to explain this to Connor

[sereneorange]

I know there are people doing good things. I am hearing those too, and am grateful for it. However, all the negative I am hearing is really really pissing me off.

Astrodome is full. Fine. Don’t stack them on top of each other like a slave ship, open something else. We are chock full of stadiums in this damn city. I don’t even know what sport season it is, but I do know they do not usually occur all at one time. There are 3 brand new stadiums, baseball, football, and basketball. Crack one open.
Lakewood church took over the Summit (or Compaq Center-whatever) What is going on with that genormous church they left? How about Dallas? Do they have something? Can we not ship some people there? How about Alltel Arena in Little Rock? Then they are right near Wal-Mart Headquarters and they can make fat donations to help. I am reading about how some people in Houston are concerned about the impact of having the evacuees here. Aww.Whaaa…You mean we might be inconvenienced or uncomfortable because tens of thousands of people are displaced, have nothing in this world ( a lot of whom had to play bumper boats with the bodies of their dead friends and families to get to any help at all) need someplace to go? I did hear that some are now going to Kelly Airforce Base and 25,000 are heading to San Antonio. Good.

Why aren’t more people stepping up? I don’t mean the little folks. We do. I mean people with unimaginable wealth? Companies.
They need buses. There is no way that Coach, Greyhound, etc. could have sent every extra vehicle they had and wrote it off at tax time?

Sean Combs (because I refuse to call a grown man Diddy) and Jayz are giving a million. Cool. I don’t know if it is each or combined, but I am thinking if that is a little tight, they might sell a car and take their fleet down to 7 or so, or maybe Sean could sell that disgusting piece of bling he wore at the VMA’s- a diamond covered Cross that looks like it weighs more than my 11 year old.

And everyone else.

Lets talk about Bush. What the bloody hell? Ignoring the pillaging that went on with the money earmarked for preventing this from occurring in NOLA to begin with, where the hell are the troops. This cannot be all we have left here in the US, right? Certainly, we haven’t sent all but a few hundred troops off our soil. So where the fuck are they? Because they sure as hell aren’t in LA, MS, and AL.

Connor’s jaw dropped this morning while listening to the Mayor of NOLA cussing in an interview that was aired on CNN this AM. He asked why he was so mad. I explained. He then heard the report of the raping. He asked if that was really happening. I said, “It seems so.” He asked why.
Anyone want to field that one for me? I don’t have an answer.

Comments

[theclamsman.livejournal.com]

I heard throughout the night and read on a coulpe of sites that they are taking people to Dallas, too, now that the Astrodome is full.

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they used the astrohall? (big convention hall next door to Astrodome)

[theclamsman.livejournal.com]

I didn't hear anything about no Astrohall, so I don't know. I just know that Dallas is starting to look good to the busses that've been turned away from teh Astrodome?

BTW, who's complaining about the "inconvenience" of these people? Anyone I know? >______>?

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

no.. not him. Not that I know of. I don't read his blog.
Report in the Houston Chronicle. People worried about our social services resources being depleted and crime (but, the less desperate people are they less crime commited, right?)

[theclamsman.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I think the Diddy JayZ thing was combined. =__=

As for the rapes, like the Mayor also said, there are a lot of drug addicts around. They're not of their right mind. And if the rapes are being perpetrated by non-drug addicts, there are drunks and just plain frustrated people down there at the end of their rope who've lost what little they've had and after a few days without food and water and staying in a place that has no bathroom facilities and is REALLY boiling hot, minds/brains aren't going to function very well and people go crazy and they resort to violence (against anything, including women). It is a horrible place to be right now, a horrible state to be in: A poor, (now probably homeless, perhaps family-less or close to it) black American NOLA refugee who hasn't been cared for yet. yes I do realize that there are some white people too, but every reporter is telling us that the majority of the ones stuck down there are black. :(

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

it would make sense that the one's left are prdominantly black. It is the poor that cannot get out.

I swear if I hear one more person comment on how all those people should have headed the warnings and left , I am going to scream! Sure there are some that could have left and didn't but I really want someone to tell me how someone with $10 bucks and no car is getting out of town?

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

At this point, even if they do have a car, gas is a problem. Some friends of mine are friends with a woman who's still there. She's holed up in an apartment with a friend, they have food and water and even a working phone, but because of the disorder they want to leave.

Problem is, they have less than half a tank of gas in their car. Since gas stations around New Orleans are emptying out they're not sure they can get far enough on that to be safe, and they're afraid that if they try to siphon gas from abandoned cars, the police will shoot them.

[gudenna.livejournal.com]

i know that rape is an act of violence. but there is no way i can justify rape by any means, no matter how fried one's brains are.

i'm not meaning this comment in any disrespect to you.

[theclamsman.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know that very well. And I can't justify it by any means, either, BUT if people really are out of their minds then there is no rational thought in THEIR heads, and the line between right and wrong and everything else is gone.

I guess you'd have to clarify that to Con, eh Marilyn?

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

uh.. no.I used that for the excuse for looting food and drink. even clothes..I even explained how I understand about the guns.

but the rest...no

[theclamsman.livejournal.com]

See, I know about your situation and such regarding this horrible thing, so I understand your hesistance to explain it away liek that. But really, I can't offer you anything else, doll. I can't because I don't and have never thought like a rapist does, so I don't know what's going on through their heads/don't know/can't tell exactly what the motivation is in a situation like this, so forgive me? I just wouldn't know how else to explain it. Really. :(

[gudenna.livejournal.com]

i just couldn't imagine having that kind of desire if my mind is so lost. but many if not all times it is an act of violence and not of sexual means.

i do understand what you mean though. i can't even fathom what my brain would be doing in this sort of scenario.

[gudenna.livejournal.com]

get this.

my job is cataloging law books and right after i sent that last comment i look down at my next book to catalog and it's called "sexual offenses in armed conflict" creeped me out a bit :/

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

jesus...someone had to study that..

*shudders*

[theclamsman.livejournal.com]

Wow, that IS creepy.

XD!

But seconding your comment before. I don't know how my mind would behave, but I really, REALLY doubt that I'd go around raping people or even become that outwardly violent.

[smalltownhero.livejournal.com]

I heard about all that was going on this morning when i got to work.. I am shocked... I am devestated... There are so many emotions running thru me when i think about it....

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

it is overwhelming and exausting

[antigone-ks.livejournal.com]

I figure it's like comfort women. Those men have nothing, but at least they can exercise their god-given right to a woman's body.

On a happier note, last night the mayor of Detroit said they were opening their hotels and schools to refugees, and were willing to fly them in at the city's expense.

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

oooh, really? That is very cool!

[antigone-ks.livejournal.com]

Ayuh. And news this morning said they were shipping back 40,000 troops from Iraq... but it'll take them three or four days to get there.

Dude, could you not step it up a little? Kind of an emergency here. And then Bush went a ruined my warm fuzzy with all his "you're not moving fast enough! this is unacceptable!" posturing. You're the one that gutted FEMA and said that flood relief was "pork," you little shit. Could you not once in your life stand up like a man and say "I fucked up. I'll fix it"?

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

have you not noticed that man in incapable of saying he is wrong about anything?

[texasdeathtrip.livejournal.com]

i can explain the violence and rapr thing, but i think most would find the answer most unsatisfactory.

and thus, i do not have children.

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

yeah...some of the hardest stuff about being a parent is explaining the horrors of the world

[texasdeathtrip.livejournal.com]

ahve him read lord of the flies.
that should do it.

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

My sister hates that book.. Con asked what it was. I have it somewhere. He really should read it though.

[mininavy.livejournal.com]

I don't know all the names of the stadiums but where the Dallas Mavericks play is being opend up for refugess but isn't all the other stadiums open air ie no roof Where the astro's play is open and where the texans play is open roof too isn't it?

I thought they shoud send more refugees to Florida St. Petersburg has a closed baseball stadium and a hocket arena. What aboutLSU that is only like an hour away or Atlanta how far is that? they have two covered stadiums?

I hven't heard much but is the Super dome a total lost? They were talking on ESPN last night that the cty was going to lose the saints to LA

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

they have started reporting a lot of places opening up. They are going to San antonio, Dallas, and other states. They are opening the astrohall here, and reliant (crap. I cannot remember, not the stadium, but something else) and the convention center. (pretty damned big)

[mininavy.livejournal.com]

what i don't like is they left behind all the poor people

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

all the people that were there were basically poor. Anyone with money got the fuck out when they gave evacuation order.