There are criminals running the streets of New Orleans today. The only problem is that they, most of them anyway, are guilty of something that is NOT illegal. It is the opinion of this blogger that the crime they are guilty of is being BLACK. If let's just say there were some kind of massive flood or mudslide somewhere in Oh Utah, that there would be people that the government wasn't even aware of for a few days holed up in a convention center in Salt Lake? If we can dump supplies to refugees of the Taliban and people in Iraq, why can't we get a few c-130's filled with water and MRE's to dump a few thousand pallets on Canal street and in the area of the convention center? This is outrageous! I am so pissed right now I can hardly think of anything else. The number of refugees stuck in New Orleans is rising daily. I still thought that the original estimate of 30,000 that I heard was the most current. I turned on the tv last night to find that in spite of the Herculean efforts made to reduce the number by the two or three thousand people that have been evacuated to the Astrodome the number of refugees was estimated at 100,000. Is it really any wonder that 100,000 people who have been trapped with minimal shelter and almost no food or water for several days have been looting? It seems to me from watching the several hours on more than three networks of post flood coverage that one of the many things that all of these people have in common is that most of them seem to be African Americans. I am not naive in thinking that racism doesn't still have a serious stronghold in our country let alone the world, but I can't believe that aside from the mostly discredited African American Leaders like Al Sharpton on one is reporting this as a disaster that could have been prevented in large part. I am no sociologist, or for that matter Urban Planner, but I know how things work for people in American cities. If you take away the people who got out of New Orleans who have cars what are you left with? You are left with a group of people on the very bottom of the socio-economic ladder who rely heavily on public transportation to get from place to place, people who live in areas of the city where they have bars on windows and doors to protect their belongings and lives in some areas. You cannot just tell these people to leave and not provide them with basic transportation out of town can you? Now let's talk about what needs to be done. These people need housing as soon as possible. They need cheaply built yet sturdy houses for small family groups. They need a place to sleep, a place to cook, and a place to use the bathroom....