Camping Out?

Incredible. I read this story in the Chronicle in which our senior Congressman, who was touring the shelter set up in Reliant Park, met a couple boys from New Orleans and said: "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?''

What is so "fun" about losing your home and all your possessions? What is so "fun" about your parents now being unemployed? I have been to the dome and saw a lot of people sleeping on cots. Nobody was having "fun." They were killing time, trying to put their lives back together again.

As a volunteer, I have met hundreds of evacuees the past week coming into Hurricane Relief shelters. They needed medical help, financial help, etc. They ranged from the working poor to Vietnamese business owners and whites who had lived in the New Orleans garden district. All were polite and kind, but no one was having "fun."

I wonder if it would be "Fun" if Mr. DeLay was sleeping on one of those cots after losing his job, his home -- and had to rely on a $2,000 FEMA handout to rebuild?

After all, it was Mr. DeLay who approved cutting the Army Corps budget requests for New Orleans levee enhancement, decade after decade, that would have avoided this hundred billion dollar disaster. The money for levees ended up going for a bridge in Alaska to serve 50 people.