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Dec. 3, 2008

Steven Emerson: Yes, the terrorists are winning

Don Terry: Lifetime, no see

Dec. 2, 2008

Melanie Phillips: The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack

Dec. 1, 2008

Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings

Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?

Nov. 28, 2008

Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be

Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?

Nov. 26, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership

Andrea Simantov: Shades of life

Nov. 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!

Nov. 24, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'

Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends

Nov. 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov. 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 30, 2006 / 6 Elul, 5766

A Tale of Two Cities

By Michael Graham


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In September of 1990, one year after Hurricane Hugo blasted the South Carolina coast, there were no documentaries about it on HBO. Spike Lee never visited Charleston. Outside the northeast, "Hugo: One Year Later" newspaper stories were found buried inside, not on the front page above the fold. Few people outside the Carolinas had anything to say, positive or negative, about FEMA's response to what was then most costly hurricane to hit the US.


This week, one year after Hurricane Katrina, the media coverage is an inescapable deluge. Cable news is a non-stop flood of outrage, horror and political recriminations, interrupted only occasionally by overwrought warnings of the next tropical storm. Democrats have announced their "Katrina Response Plan," and President Bush's poll numbers on how he handled the crisis are lower today than they were one month after the hurricane hit.


One year after Hugo, nobody was asking "What is America going to do about the homeless of Charleston?" One year after Katrina, the homeless of New Orleans are the stars of their own prime-time reality show.


Why so different?


One answer is scale. It's hard to grasp just how hard the one-two punch of Katrina's power and the levees' failure hit New Orleans. As devastating as Hugo was, its impact pales in comparison. Hugo did about $7 billion in damage (in 1989 dollars), left 80,000 people homeless and about 80 people dead.


Katrina did more than $150 billion in damage, killed some 1600 people and chased more than one million from their homes. The city of Houston alone is still housing more evacuees today than were created by Hugo at the peak of its destruction.


But size isn't the only thing that matters. Most people outside Charleston forget what a fiasco FEMA was back in 1989. Then-Sen. Fritz Hollings was making headlines calling them jackasses for their slow reaction and non-stop snafus. And yet, the Hugo recovery was relatively successful.


Instead of finger-pointing, Republican Governor Carroll Campbell and Democratic mayor Joe Riley worked together and did their jobs. Campbell ordered the evacuation before Hugo, without any of Ray Nagin's uncertainty. Joe Riley took control of the recovery efforts, without the buck-passing of Kathleen Blanco.


One year after Hugo, Charleston was still hurting and some people were still homeless, but the recovery was well under way. As a result, Joe Riley and Carroll Campbell both improved their political standing after Hugo.


Why did the political leadership of New Orleans and Louisiana fail their citizens in a way that, for example, the governors of Mississippi and Alabama — also hit by Katrina — did not? Is it really the case that some unseen, racist hand is at play steering resources away from New Orleans' Ninth Ward? That's Spike Lee's theory, but then again, Lee also takes seriously the theory that Halliburton blew up the Louisiana levees, so…


It is more likely that, one year after Katrina, we are seeing what H. L. Mencken would have described as democracy at work — democracy being "the theory that the common man knows what he wants, and deserves to get it — good and hard."


One year after Hugo, there was no widespread unemployment in South Carolina. In Houston today, more than 75% of the Katrina evacuees living in government housing are still unemployed. According to Texas officials, it appears that few plan to get a job before their government subsidies end.


One year after Hugo, there was no significant increase in violent crime in the Carolina lowcountry. In Houston today, one in four of the 252 murders so far this year involved Katrina evacuees.


According to a Gallup survey, nearly 60% of all the Katrina evacuees across the entire state of Texas remain unemployed, in a state where overall unemployment is around 5%. According to that same survey, about 60% of these evacuees were living at or near the poverty line before Katrina even hit.


Hurricane Hugo gave the people of South Carolina the opportunity to rise, or fall, to the challenge. The character of South Carolina was revealed in the months and years that followed, and the result is the prosperous, thriving Charleston of today.


The people of New Orleans had the same opportunity. They responded by re-electing the worst big-city major in America, committing so much violent crime that the National Guard was forced back onto city streets, and then blaming their problems on the racism of George W. Bush — the same president who is sending more than $110 billion to the Gulf coast.


The billions will be spent, but the problem of New Orleans won't be fixed. The real lesson of Hugo and Katrina one year later is this: Character counts.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Michael Graham is a talk show host at 96.9 FM TALK in Boston and author of the highly acclaimed "Redneck Nation: How the South Really Won the War." To comment, please click here.



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