Kelly --

Glad to hear that your family is safe.

Just a few thoughts...
Living on the Gulf Coast I have gone through several hurricanes: Opal, George, Erin, Ivan, and Dennis. The area I live in has always recieved aid from charitible groups first, and FEMA second. It seems it's always been that way.

I spent this past weekend in the mass media neglected Pascagoula, Miss. to help with clean-up and offer assistance to the people of that area. Both the poor and affluent areas looked like a war zone.

The greatest help came from not the bloated bureacratic FEMA, but from the Red Cross, the Mormon church, and Catholic Charities. These groups were there, in place, offering aid, long before the sanctimonious pinheads in Washington decided to do something about it.

My particular group did clean-up efforts for the elderly. Their gratitude was beyond belief. Some offered to pay us, but we told them to give their money to the Red Cross instead. But all offered their heart-felt thanks. That was good enough.

I'm not writing this post for congratulations or pats on the back. I went there because it was the right thing to do. As soon as New Orleans is safe for travel, I will be going there too.

Can we Americans do this clean-up ourselves? Yes. Should we accept aid from those countries that offered aid? Yes. Charity is a two-way street. It is giving and it is gratefully accepting it.

Cogito cogito ergo sum cogito

Even the UN Secretary General admitted that the US is always first to help around the world whenever there is a crisis.

It is disgusting that all Chica can think to say about the New Orleans disaster is that she "has to
bite her tongue" and not become political !

Miss "Chica" your beloved Europe has visited just about all the misery of the last century on the rest of us, e.g. WWI, WWII, Soviet style communism, Kosovo. Europeans refined mass killing under Hitler and Stalin to an art form and we are only talking about just the 20th century! Historians estimate that Hitler and Stalin (two well known Europeans) killed over 25 million people between them.

No wonder we favor isolation !

It's official, US government have asked the U.E. for oil, food, doctors, special rescue teams, medicines, and differents specific tools.
Today the US ambassador in Spain have demmanded to spaniard government oil, doctors, medicines and food rations.
I hope Zapatero help US like US help Kosovo.

Changing the issue, there's something that surprise me, for us is amazing to see a town almost ruled by gangs, people shooting people, and others shoting to the Army and Aid teams helicopters.
I think that americans need to a little bit of autocriticism.

when people post things like some of the things that have been posted here it makes me MAD. that said i am going to do as chica and bite my tongue and keep my mouth shut. i dont see this as the time or place. and for anyone who ventures to criticize the people of new orleans or how they are or have been handling this situation be well aware that i take that personally. theres a lot more i could say about that one but il keep my mouth shut. this is why i have in the past stuck mostly to spain related postings and i think i will do so in the future.
kelly

Pippo:

Yes, there has been disorder in New Orleans and you are right, you do not have to deal with that type of thing very often in Europe, but the reason that we have that type of trouble here in the US is more complicated than can be explained on this message board.

We do far more "autocriticism" than you are probably aware of.

Who will be reaching out to our people in the United States offering help??????

It was a simple questions at the time I've asked. I am not interested in political agendas. I feel very good to know of the international response. I could talk of a night when Hugo came and there was no power for 3 weeks etc. but the Most important thing that I remember was the good that came from people, these deeds are kept in my heart. It is the BAD that makes the news.

It would now please me for any of you not to talk politics but to share the good that you have seen in human nature, maybe even in any tragedy.
I am for one grateful of all the good things, such as my family, my friends, my pets and life in general.

David said:

I was saying that becuase yesterday a spaniard journalist was talking live from New Orleans at night and it was shocking to hear people shooting while he was talking.
I think he was really scared when we (and he) heard those guns...and it was scary too see people from new Orleans with machine guns shooting to the army and aid teams helicopters half hour before.

I'm sorry if you felt I was rude, but it really amazed me.

I hope all the people from New Orleand get saved and the town rebuilt as soon as possible and we, from here help US as much as we could.

im sorry pippo, i probably got a little too defensive, this is just hitting home for me. i can understand how that would have looked to you.

Dearest Dave B. --

I, like several others on this board, steer away from political discussions because they usually go no where fast. So, my initial post was a warning because the perceived tone of the first post was antagonistic, from my perspective. Apparently, I am not the only one who felt that way.

It's clear to me that you haven't read this entire thread because if you had, you would have realized that rather than politicizing the unfortunate devastation that happened along the Gulf Coast (not just New Orleans), my family is acting by mobilizing community based efforts in the Philadelphia area. You see, we are Americans and we live in various parts of the world, the USA, Latin America, Spain, The Philippines, and Russia... and we care. It's not just Europe that is beloved to my family and I, but the world. Isolationism will get you no where but more isolated, and that is a lonely place to be.

What is disgusting is your post that does nothing but criticize with no postive result.

Mecky, thanks for coming back onto the forum to clarify that you were not looking for political agendas. Unfortunately news, in every country, is slanted so it is difficult and time consuming to "get to the bottom of it all". Hopefully some of the more constructive posts on this thread have shown you that there are other countries involved in the relief efforts.

For the other forum members, I apologize for this out-of-character post. I just do not take kindly to being directly attacked unfairly.

Everyone, keep up the good work that you are doing to support the relief efforts. And ¡viva España! for it's plans to help the USA.