AP poll: Katrina changed Americans' thinking

[Pirate Smile]

AP poll: Katrina changed Americans' thinking
Longstanding assumptions shifted on race, safety, spending, survey reports

A 64-year-old Alabamian frets about frayed race relations. A Utah software programmer ponders the slow government response to Hurricane Katrina and decides he'll turn to his church first in a disaster created by nature or terrorists.

A woman scraping by on disability pay in northern Virginia puts her house on the market because of surging post-storm gas and food prices. Cheaper to live in - changing the way we view race and our safety, how we spend our money, even where we live.

-snip-
Storm's bands span America
Katrina's reach in American life is vast: 1 in 3 Americans believes the slow response will harm race relations. Two-thirds say surging gas prices will cause hardship for their families. Half say the same of higher food prices.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9442956/

[ronnykmarshall]

1. In other words ..

AMERICA BEGINS TO PULL IT'S HEAD OF OUT IT'S ASS!

[hardrainfallin]

2. lol.

[Rowdyboy]

3. Well said, sir

Concise and to the point!

[Laelth]

7. Sadly, no.

From reading the essay, it's clear that many of those people would have been happier if all the evacuees from Katrina had just died. The title of the essay, IMHO, is misleading.

-Laelth

[krkaufman]

12. Right. Like the software programmer that says he'll turn to his church...

... for post-disaster relief, rather than the government. This is someone who doesn't get "it." The government isn't the problem; it's the people currently running the government -- largely because people are putting religious hot-button issues ahead of basic governing.

Most heads still firmly planted in rears, IMO.

[fshrink]

29. I'd say heads going a little deeper...

Sounds like an anxious whining.

[Radio_Lady]

21. Ronny K, let's dump the apostrophes -- correctly!

If you can't say "IT IS" then you don't use the possessive (it's), you use "its".

For whatever the reasons, this particular word DOES NOT follow the rule of adding an apostrophe before the final "s". Try to remember "his house" -- "her house" -- "its house". It goes against the rule, which is so difficult to remember that this is one of the most misused possessive constructions in the language. Two points off your grade. Final grade: 98 = still an "A"

AMERICA BEGINS TO PULL ITS HEAD OUT OF ITS ASS.

PS. I didn't take any points off for your for inverting OUT and OF...

Sincerely,

Tough English-loving Broad who plays with the language all the time and makes a lot of mistakes, but not this particular one. Usually.

[CGrantt57]

25. Be correct in your corrections.

If you can't say "IT IS" then you don't use the possessive (it's), you use "its".

Actually, if you can't use substitute "it is," then you don't use the contraction "it's."

"Its" is the possessive form of "it." As in, " the dog lost its bone." "Its" being the possessive which refers to the subject "dog" which is the possessor of the direct object "bone."

Just some friendly anal-retentive English on a Friday morning.

:hi:

Mikey

[Radio_Lady]

27. Thanks, Mikey -- you're absolutely right. I did that too late at night

Thursday after having minor surgery yesterday morning. Thanks for catching it. I needed to rest, but I was on the DU instead...

I'm going to ask the admins to delete the post, since the editing time has expired.

[ronnykmarshall]

30. Yes mam,

Thank you.

Here's a nice apple for the teacher!

[Missy M]

4. But why should these people worry, after all bush has told us the....

economy is doing fine so why should there be worry about gas, food or heating prices going through the roof. He has managed to make this country unrecognizable in just five years.

[ClintonTyree]

5. Just go shopping.........

and don't buy gas unless you need it. If a person follows those two rules, everything will be juuuuuust fine! ;)

[Radio_Lady]

28. Cable TV interview this morning: Expert predicts gas at $5 per gallon

or above. The other possibility is shortages of gas -- shades of the 1970s, for those of us who remember it.

I think I'll take a nap. It's 6:20 AM and I didn't get enough sleep. The news is horrible this morning.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. And all it took

Was a catastrophe.

Is this a great country, or what?

I vote for "what".

[deadparrot]

8. Poll: Storm Changed Americans' Attitudes

A 64-year-old Alabamian frets about frayed race relations. A Utah software programmer ponders the slow government response to Hurricane Katrina and decides he'll turn to his church first in a disaster created by nature or terrorists.

A woman scraping by on disability pay in northern Virginia puts her house on the market because of surging post-storm gas and food prices. Cheaper to live in Pennsylvania, she figures.

As the Gulf Coast braces for another monster storm, a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll shows Katrina prompted a rethinking of some signature issues in American life — changing the way we view race and our safety, how we spend our money, even where we live.

The poll shows that issues swirling around Katrina trump other national concerns.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050922/ap_on_re_us/katrina_changing_attitudes_hk4

[cliss]

9. Now I'm going to state an ugly fact:

the Reagan administration was deathly afraid of inflation. They saw what happened during the Carter era: runaway inflation, people walking away from their homes because they couldn't afford the mortgage payment. It also sunk Carter's re-election chances.

They understood that inflation was caused by too many dollars chasing too few goods. They realized that if there was a large chunk of the population which was poor, barely scraping by, hardly having enough to eat, inflation would not rear its ugly head.

This was their policy, but they would NEVER admit to it. But it's still true.

So the Bush administration, which has tried to copy the Reagan administration in every way, made damn sure there was a huge group of people who could barely survive. They succeeded.

The problem is, after Katrina the nation saw the hideous results, and they were revolted. And rightly so.

But don't believe it was an accident. It wasn't.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

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[Erika]

19. Yes, Reagan hurt the poor badly, very badly

He also downplayed racism. He hid it. All the time saying America's best days are ahead of us. He swept the poor and racism under the rug and told everyone to feel good. For the large part, many American's bought it. But the scenes of poor blacks begging for help in this country will not be forgotten.

[liberalhistorian]

10. I'm also hoping it will

pull American's heads out of their asses as far as climate changes caused by global warming are concerned. Because we're reaping what we've sown right now in Katrina, Rita, last year's FL hurricanes, and on and on and on. And I don't see any end in sight right now.

[amber dog democrat]

11. Until this year we planned to move

to the Pacific NorthWest. Now I am thinking maybe the Great Lakes.
I think this will go on through out the rest of the 21st Cent. The coasts are not a long term safe bet. Maybe they never were, but even I Austin, as Rita nears the coast, I wonder if its so bad being land locked. Karma in a very real sense.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Pirate Smile]

13. kick

[fishwax]

14. It should change America's thinking

:kick:

[tomg]

16. Now all we need is the average American

living in an area not immediately hit by the catastrophe to develop an attention span slightly longer than that of a goldfish. Actually, in reading the hodge podge of responses in the article what struck me was how much of it is same old same old. For example, "Among respondents with incomes under $25,000 per year, 56 percent were concerned about living conditions for refugees in shelters; that was higher than among those who make more money." You mean poor people are a lot more concerned about other poor people than rich people are. Flip the numbers and then there is a change in thinking.

And then there is "I just think it took everybody by surprise,” says Hubbard, who is white. “I don’t care if it would have been the president himself, they couldn’t have gotten there to those people. Some people — not everybody — are trying to make a racist thing out of it.” Okay, a white person concerned not that there might have been racism, but that people are saying it was racism that is troubling. Haven't heard that new idea since, last night on Fox. Have that same person say, "you know, I don't know if there was conscious racism like in the past, but shit, yeah, at least on some unconscious level there were issues of race involved."

Not to knock Ms. McMullen, and I might be overreading her statement, but on the one hand she says she "worries about gang violence, simply because of the prodigious numbers of people flowing into Texas communities" and later says, the government should prohibit people from building new homes in those endangered areas in the first place. As McMullen puts it: “You’re asking for another disaster to happen" a weird version of "not in my neighborhood, and, while your at it, not in your old one.

My, I am in a rather depressed and irritable mood this evening. Bah.

on edit: hit post by accdent - had to finish rant.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Catrina]

17. I wonder if they feel safer now with

Bush in charge of things. I remember Cheney telling them that if they voted for Kerry, they would be in danger ~ where's Cheney these days, btw? Doesn't he have anything to say about 'keeping us safe'. He had a lot to say during the election.

The pictures from LA and Mississippi sort of blew that idea. I hate to say it, but 'we told you so'.

[norml]

22. Poll: Storm Changed Americans' Attitudes

Poll: Storm Changed Americans' Attitudes By ERIN McCLAM, AP National Writer
33 minutes ago


A 64-year-old Alabamian frets about frayed race relations. A Utah software programmer ponders the slow government response to Hurricane Katrina and decides he'll turn to his church first in a disaster created by nature or terrorists.

A woman scraping by on disability pay in northern Virginia puts her house on the market because of surging post-storm gas and food prices. Cheaper to live in Pennsylvania, she figures.

As the Gulf Coast braces for another monster storm, a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll shows Katrina prompted a rethinking of some signature issues in American life — changing the way we view race and our safety, how we spend our money, even where we live.

The poll shows that issues swirling around Katrina trump other national concerns.

Asked to rank eight topics that should be priorities for President Bush and Congress, respondents placed the economy, gas prices and Iraq high. But when Katrina recovery was added to the list, it swamped everything else.


snip


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050923/ap_on_re_us/katrina_changing_attitudes_hk4

[ladylibertee]

23. That goes to show you that America is sending these politicians

a message " We are not stuck on Stupid" I mean, we can see right through the crap they have been dishing out to us.Democrats,Republicans,Green, Blue Purple or Orange,America can see right through the crap.We may have a different opinion on the type of crap that's being dished out, but we all collectively agree.We have been dished nothing but crap from our politicians.Sorry if that comes off a bit terse, but I am a little fed up with them all right now.Both my Senators voted YES for Roberts and I am disgusted with them.:-(

[fujiyama]

24. Katrina was the ideal repuk situation

Every man, woman, child, and invalid for themself.

This should tell Americans more than anything else that they cannot trust this administration with their safety in any way.

Katrina and its respose MUST be tied together with the repuke political philosophy. They go hand in hand. It's no coincidence that FEMA was an effective organization under Democrats, but wasa a failure under Bush Sr. and has been an outright disaster under this "president".

[dbt]

26. Yeah. Whatever happened to the Clinton/Witt version of FEMA?

Seems like it was working pretty well during the term of our Last Elected President. Fast forward to 2005, and you can't find anybody in FEMA's upper management who has any sort of experience at disaster relief. Disaster creation seems to the main hiring criterion.

Remember New Orleans

(Confidential to Moderator: "In a word, CHEMTRAILS.")