OMG! What about the rich?!?

[johnlal]

Michael Novak, writing for the National Review Online, http://www.nationalreview.com/novak/novak200509070829.asp is beginning to understand what we are seeing in New Orleans.

"I have heard ever since reading about Huey Long of the 1930s that Louisiana is one of the most corrupt and dependency-prone states in the Union. Of all the cities in the south, New Orleans seems the one most welfare-oriented, least entrepreneurial, most state-dependent, and least economically dynamic. More than any other southern city, it is "Old South" rather than "New South." That, of course, is part of its charm. It refuses the modern bustle, says "Slow down, Be easy." It lulls. Its charm seduces. And it is also the prototypical, old-time welfare-state city...

The younger mothers among them have been abandoned by those they should have been able to count on, the males in their lives. The over-65s (in urban areas) are likely to be totally dependent on Social Security and other government benefits, without private pensions or homeownership of their own. In emergencies, such persons need someone else to take care of them. It is wrong to throw them, at this point, solely on their own resources. Some will be able to manage that, but by no means all...

Another question that bothers me: I would also really like to know what happened to the better-off blacks and whites of New Orleans, who escaped before the storm hit...What are things now like in those lovely suburbs around New Orleans? ... I would love to see more reporting about the middle class — and sympathy for them, too. They are Katrina's victims, too.

Is it possible that many of them will not receive the insurance payments they are counting on, in order to get their lives started up again at a level not too far below where they were before the storm hit? Have they taken a permanent hit? How will many cope with that?

The poor may suffer worst of all, but they are not the only ones to taste bitter ashes in times of calamity, and to find their souls tested. Those of the middle class who worked hard (maybe even worked their way out of poverty), played by the rules, and set aside some resources for times of trouble, also deserve our help. Especially just at that exact moment when everything they made so many sacrifices to attain has been taken from them.

It was just then that Job was tried. So might we all be."

Here you have it, folks. The poor are suffering from this storm because of all the single-parent families. This is fallout from the culture war. We need to be more sympathetic to the middle-class and rich, who might have to wait a couple of weeks for the insurance check. Barf.