Katrina Coverage

More letters about his original column have come in. Also see this. One of the latest letters contains this:
"The looters you saw on TV were criminals before Katrina. One would have to be a moron not to realize what happens when no fathers are around, and when kids grow up undisciplined and uncivilized. I recall […]

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco wants to create a one-stop-shopping organization to help the hurricane refugees. It would receive $2 billion per year and would provide all the information they needed, assistance getting public assistance, etc. etc.
She's contacted the Bush administration with her idea, but hasn't heard back yet.
The plan, released to reporters late Saturday, said […]

The AP discovers poverty:
Before Hurricane Katrina, they were among the poorest of America's poor. In the hardest hit counties, some 305,000 people not only lived in poverty, their families' income fell below 50 percent of the poverty line about $7,500 for a family of three. Now, many live in strange towns with only a few […]

The WSJ offers "The GOP's New New Deal. The bill for Katrina may fall due next November", which contains this shocking stat:
To put that $200 billion in perspective, we could give every one of the 500,000 families displaced by Katrina a check for $400,000, and they could each build a beach front home virtually anywhere […]

Failed former vice-presidential candidate and Wendy's customer John Edwards wants to bring back FDR's WPA, WRAL reports:
…
He said a Bush relief proposal would give victims money in bank accounts that most don't have.
"He's talking about putting this money into people's bank accounts," Edwards said. "Most of these people don't have bank accounts."
Well, let's get them […]

He responds to someone complaining about his Sep. 11 column here.

Theodore Dalrymple:
…Most of the looters look bitter, angry, resentful, and vengeful as they go about what British burglars are inclined (in all seriousness) to call their “work.” The gangs are reported to have used racial taunts during their depredations. In all probability, the looters believe that, in removing as much as they can from stores, […]

George F. Will offers "The type of thinking that Katrina didn't sweep away":
…Released during the post-Katrina debacle, scant attention was paid to the National Center for Health Statistics' pertinent report that in 2003, 34.6 percent of all American births were to unmarried women. The percentage among African-American women was 68.2.
Given that most African-Americans are middle […]

Brendan Miniter:
…Liberals are now blaming small-government conservatism for cutting "antipoverty" programs. That's a tune a surprising number of people are starting to hum, from NAACP chairman Julian Bond to New York Times columnist David Brooks, who speculated recently that the storm will probably spark a new progressive movement in America. The lyrics are still being […]

From libertarian - but don' t hold that against him - Vin Suprynowicz:
What cameramen found at and near the Superdome the next day, as the floodwaters rose, were members of a mostly black underclass with no resources of their own, a people who over a period of generations have come to expect someone else — […]