I can only imagine the anger and desperation the people are facing in New Orleans and the surrounding areas right now. It is hard to fathom, first, being so poor that you have nowhere to flee TO when a hurricane is on its way. And yet, it seems that America - ordinary citizens and federal government officials alike - have learned nothing from previous natural disasters.

I empathize with the people stuck - no food, fresh water, with dead bodies floating by and being ignored while they struggle to live. I understand looting for necessities - and as Doug and I talked about it last night, I voiced the firm opinion that I would do what was necessary in that situation to get Roman anything he needed - diapers, milk, medicine - even if it meant stealing. Cuz let's be honest - it's not "looting" or "liberating", it's stealing.

And there's always an element in every large city that is going to take advantage of a situation to steal TVs, cars, and weapons. Disgusting, slightly surprising, but it happens.

But when the shooting begins... at each other, at rescuers, at an Army helicopter, for God's sake... my empathy ends. I don't care how desperate you are, how frustrated and out of control your life is - you do not threaten another person's life with a weapon. The shootings in and around the Superdome caused rescue operations to be CALLED OFF. Duh, that was smart, huh?

The same for supplies. A helicopter tried multiple times to land near the Superdome to deliver bottles of water. It was rushed by a mob each time, so they finally hovered 10 feet or so above the ground, tossed the water out, and took off. Because they couldn't even LAND to help the people out.

I'm not sure of why the perceived holdup in aid. Not good to jump so fast after a devastation and say "we should have spent the few million dollars to have everything ready and troops on call, in case this sort of thing happened." Well, a few years down the road those same people will be complaining because millions of dollars are being spent to keep troops and supplies on call for something that hasn't happened in years.

There are people who are upset that the world isn't helping us like we help them. A thought on that - the U.S. has to acknowledge that they will accept help first. We did not, until Thursday afternoon, announce that we would accept aid from other countries. And that made a tiny little blurb in the "Nation" column in my newspaper.

Pray for those in need, but I take media reports with a grain of salt these days. And turn on CBC and BBC to have an accurate portrayal of what the rest of the world is thinking about this.