OrthodoxNet.com Blog

Peter and Helen Evans January 30, 2006

Why is it that, “Whenever Nature displeases us, it must be our fault for doing something that displeased Nature”? This was a question raised by John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, speaking at the Heritage Foundation on January 23, 2007 in support of his new book “Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism is Hazardous to Your Health!” If the winter’s too hot, summer’s too cold, hurricane Katrina too extreme, environmentalists always conclude that it’s because we did something wrong, like atmospheric pollution, habitat destruction and/or the paving of America. Not only does this knee-jerk reaction indicate a colossal sense of self-importance, that importance lies in what we are doing wrong.

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Roundtable Publisher: Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

By: Bruce Nolan

Storm-damaged New Orleans families continued to receive gifts of private, faith-based aid Thursday, including $400,000 that Catholic school children around the country raised for school children here.

The $400,000 was New Orleans’ share of $1 million that children in Catholic schools raised for other children across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, said the archdiocesan schools superintendent, the Rev. William Maestri.

Separately, a representative of a Greek Orthodox organization arrived in New Orleans on Friday to distribute $50,000 raised by the American Hellenic Education Progressive Association for 50 Greek families in the area. The money is in addition to more than $100,000 already distributed to New Orleans families by Philoptochos, the philanthropic arm of the Greek Orthodox church in the United States, and another agency, the International Orthodox Christian Charities. Another $400,000 is expected to arrive from other Orthodox sources.

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USA Today Franklin Graham November 28, 2005

In September, while surveying a relief team’s work on the Gulf Coast, I had the opportunity to visit Gretna, La., a suburb of New Orleans. I spoke with Gretna’s mayor, Ronnie Harris, who told me: “I have seen church vans from across the United States, and I have seen ministries doing everything they can to help. Church workers were the first volunteers on the ground. It is churches that have made the difference in Hurricane Katrina recovery.”

While state and local governments are working shoulder to shoulder with local churches to rebuild in the aftermath of Katrina, the federal government keeps churches at arm’s length for fear of violating the so-called law or code regarding the separation of church and state. There has been much talk about faith-based partnerships, but, in reality, the federal government often appears scared to death of the church.

I support, to a degree, the notion of the separation of church and state. I shudder to think of one religion or faith ever dominating our government to the exclusion of other faiths. Even more frightening is the thought that government would ever be allowed to intrude on what is preached from our pulpits or read in our Scriptures.

…more

This is the outline of a story in the last issue of “National Review.” Unfortunately I cannot find the story online. All the media missed it. Read it the next time you are at B&N.

In a remarkable article in a recent issue of National Review, Lou Dolinar, a retired Newsday reporter, provides an account of rescue operations in Katrina’s aftermath. He indicates more than 50,000 people were saved by boat or helicopter during Katrina Week. He states that the lower-than-expected number of casualties was due to the effectiveness of these rescue operations.

He cited a Washington Post poll that indicated 40 percent of survivors who had relocated to Houston– which extrapolates to about 40,000-50,000 people– had been rescued.
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Townhall.com Charles Colson

It turns out that many of the most horrific stories we heard about New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina weren’t true. But there’s one nightmarish story that may turn out to be an exception—a story that should cause anyone who plans on growing old to lose some sleep.

Following Katrina, stories began to circulate about the goings on at Memorial Hospital. These stories depicted an overwhelmed and increasingly desperate staff repeatedly discussing the unthinkable: “euthanizing patients they thought might not survive the ordeal.”

Fran Butler, a nurse manager at Memorial, told CNN that her “nurses wanted to know what was the plan.” Were they supposed to put people out of their misery? Dr. Bryant King has told authorities about similar discussions among doctors, adding that he thinks that the matter went beyond mere talk.

Baltimore, Md. (IOCC) ­ Following the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina and later Hurricane Rita, the response by International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) to the Gulf Coast region has grown to more than $3 million ­ the largest intervention ever by the agency in the United States.

“This has been a truly inspiring effort made possible by the cooperation of so many partners in our work,” said Constantine M. Triantafilou, IOCC executive director. “The support of the SCOBA hierarchs, the clergy and their parishes, Orthodox and ecumenical partners and the dedication and determination of the IOCC board, staff and volunteers has been remarkable.”

The IOCC-led effort has brought emergency relief assistance to tens of thousands of hurricane victims, including the distribution of more than $2.3 million dollars of food, canned meat, vitamins, water, quilts, blankets and bed linens, diapers, personal health kits, air mattresses, medicines, oral electrolyte solutions and other aid.
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Wall Street Opinion Journal John Fund Monday, September 26, 2005

In Katrina’s wake, Louisiana’s political culture needs a cleanup too.

Perhaps no footage from Hurricane Katrina was replayed more often than the “Meet the Press” clip of Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, La., telling Tim Russert that bureaucrats had “committed murder” in the storm’s aftermath. He sobbed as he told about a colleague’s mother drowning in her nursing home after begging her son on the phone for four days to save her from the rising waters. Talk show host Don Imus said he had never seen such gripping testimony on TV in his life.

But MSNBC.com later found the story didn’t hold up. Eva Rodrigue, the 92-year-old mother of Thomas Rodrique, the parish’s emergency services director, did drown–but not because federal or state officials failed to rescue her. Mr. Rodrique said his mother died the day of the hurricane because the nursing home’s owners ignored commands to evacuate. The owners are now under indictment for negligent homicide. Mr. Rodrique says his mother never spoke with him, and he can’t explain why his boss, Mr. Broussard, got it so wrong.
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George Bush, the man - David Warren The Ottawa Citizen Sunday, September 11, 2005

There’s plenty wrong with America, since you asked. I’m tempted to say that the only difference from Canada is that they have a few things right. That would be unfair, of course — I am often pleased to discover things we still get right.

But one of them would not be disaster preparation. If something happened up here, on the scale of Katrina, we wouldn’t even have the resources to arrive late. We would be waiting for the Americans to come save us, the same way the government in Louisiana just waved and pointed at Washington, D.C. The theory being that, when you’re in real trouble, that’s where the adults live.

And that isn’t an exaggeration. Almost everything that has worked in the recovery operation along the U.S. Gulf Coast has been military and National Guard. Within a few days, under several commands, finally consolidated under the remarkable Lt.-Gen. Russel Honore, it was once again the U.S. military efficiently cobbling together a recovery operation on a scale beyond the capacity of any other earthly institution.
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This is leadership.

Wall Street Opinion Journal KANE WEBB

Arkansas welcomes refugees from Katrina, and soon Rita.

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark.–They started arriving before Katrina and they are still coming today. Hurricane refugees first headed to places like the Red Cross shelter downwind from the livestock barn at the Arkansas state fairgrounds. They wouldn’t stay long–just a few days till the hurricane blew over, past, or around New Orleans, as all hurricanes seemed to do.

Then Katrina hit. The levees gave way. All hell broke loose on the Gulf Coast, and evacuees sought a little piece of heaven in Arkansas. Or at least a little peace of mind.

But the surest sign of trouble was when FEMA called. Two days after the water started rising on the bayou, with Arkansas playing host to tens of thousands of refugees, an official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency phoned Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s office. Mr. FEMA asked a member of the governor’s staff if, oh, by chance, his state had taken in any folks from the storm.

Huh? Hel-lo? Ever thought of picking up a paper or turning on the TV? Or reading your email?

“I called the folks at the White House and said, ‘This is insane,’” Gov. Huckabee said. “‘You guys sent tens of thousands of people here, airlifted them out of New Orleans to Arkansas.’ . . . I knew then we were pretty much on our own.”

Luckily, Arkansas wasn’t counting on anybody but Arkansas. Within a day of Katrina’s landfall, Gov. Huckabee organized state agencies into one all-purpose disaster-assistance team, set up a command center next to his office, and enlisted the state’s countless churches to do what churches do–take care of the least fortunate among us. The governor learned that most of the churches were already on the case well ahead of the state.
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Religion News Service Dan Murtaught, Virginia Bridges and Guy Busby

MOBILE, AL - While some traditional disaster-response agencies have been faulted for acting too slowly in the face of Hurricane Katrina, religious organizations have quickly welcomed, clothed and fed thousands of storm victims.

Their no-red-tape response follows a trend of faith-based organizations playing an increasing role in functions traditionally performed by the government and secular charities.

And it has some Gulf Coast-area church leaders and government officials - emboldened by the large role that houses of worship assumed after the storm -saying they want congregations to do even more.

“We have seen a paradigm shift,” said Chip Hale, senior pastor at Spanish Fort (AL) United Methodist Church. “Before. in America, since the 1930s or 40s, we’ve thought the government was going to do it. Now we realize the church is going to have to do it.”
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Home News Tribune JOHN MAJESKI

Says faith-based groups outdoing the feds

SOUTH RIVER - It’s been said that any form of devastation or violence seen on television can never fully prepare a person for witnessing the real thing.

Recently back from the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast, the Rev. David F. Garretson knows this to be true.

“It had a sense of unrealness,” Garretson said of the landscape in and around Biloxi, Miss., where he spent more than a week coordinating relief efforts with International Orthodox Christian Charities. “I’ve never seen anything like that. It looked like the set of a sci-fi movie.

“The people were the walking wounded,” he added.

Garretson, rector of Saints Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Church on Whitehead Avenue, was flown to Mobile, Ala., on Sept. 8 with the Rev. David Kossey of Manhattan. Garretson said his services had been requested by IOCC because he had received disaster training following 9/11. He arrived home two days ago.
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Frontpage picked up my New Orleans article under the title above.

Heather MacDonald City Journal | September 16, 2005 (Published on Frontpagemag.com).

If the government’s failure to get help instantly to Katrina victims reflects American racism, why have the images of thousands of poor, displaced blacks triggered the greatest outpouring of charity in American history?

As the poisonous racial demagoguery in Katrina’s wake continues unabated, Americans are daily disproving its central claim. Carol Moseley Braun, the scandal-plagued former senator from Illinois, has delivered one of the latest entries in the racism-made-them-not-do-it field. Writing in the International Herald Tribune, Braun compares the government’s Katrina response to anti-black lynching riots during Reconstruction. “Those who survive [Katrina] will have stories no less chilling than the stories passed down the generations from survivors who fled the night riders in the late 1800s”—in other words, New Orleans blacks waiting for evacuation were subjected to malicious massacre by the authorities. To be sure, there was horrific violence in the flood’s aftermath, but it wasn’t perpetrated by public officials or relief workers.

Read more: Frontpagemag.com)

White culpability for black poverty.

London Times Online John McWhorter

Black poverty is the result of 30 years of misguided welfare rather than racism, says John McWhorter

As it quickly became clear that there was a certain demographic skew among the people stranded in New Orleans, journalists began intoning that Hurricane Katrina had stripped bare the continuing racial inequity in America.

The extent to which this was hidden is unclear, actually. An awareness that a tragic disproportion of black Americans are poor has been a hallmark of civic awareness among educated Americans for 40 years now.

The problem is less a lack of awareness than a lack of understanding. The publicly sanctioned take is that “white supremacy” is why 80% of New Orleans’s poor people are black. The civics lesson, we are to think, is that the civil rights revolution left a job undone in an America still hostile to black advancement.

In fact, white America does remain morally culpable — but because white leftists in the late 1960s, in the name of enlightenment and benevolence, encouraged the worst in human nature among blacks and even fostered it in legislation. The hordes of poor blacks stuck in the Superdome last week wound up there not because the White Man barred them from doing better, but because certain tragically influential White Men destroyed the fragile but lasting survival skills poor black communities had maintained since the end of slavery.

Read the entire article on the London Times Online website.

Boston Globe Jeff Jacoby | September 14, 2005

It is a sickening slander, especially since there is no evidence to back it up. Worse than sickening: It is hateful. It is a libel spread not in a spirit of constructive criticism, but to inflame racial bitterness — bitterness toward American society generally and toward the Bush administration in particular. Already, a new poll by the Pew Research Center finds that two-thirds of black Americans think the government would have responded faster if most of the victims had been white.

Why wouldn’t they think it? For nearly two weeks that false charge has been leveled over and over, sometimes with breathtaking malice and irresponsibility:

”I saw 5,000 African-Americans on the I-10 causeway,” Jesse Jackson told CNN. ”It looked like Africans in the hull of a slave ship.” He repeated that incendiary comparison a few days later, adding the ugly allegation that when churches were contacted about helping some of the victims, the first thing they wanted to know was, ”Are they black or white?”

Randall Robinson, the former head of TransAfrica, wrote on the blog The Huffington Post: ”It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. . . . This is what we have come to. This defining watershed moment in America’s racial history.” He concluded that America could finally be seen ”for what it really is. A monstrous fraud.” Robinson later retracted his insane cannibalism charge — but said that he stands ”behind everything else I wrote without reservation.”

Rapper Kanye West went on a tirade during NBC’s hurricane relief telethon. ”I hate the way they portray us in the media,” he began. The arrival of National Guardsmen in New Orleans meant that ”they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us. . . . George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

Read article.

Here is how preparation for a natural disaster needs to be done…

Palm Beach Post Dara Kam, Alan Gomez Saturday, September 10, 2005

TALLAHASSEE — One thing Florida knows is hurricanes.

Florida emergency planners criticized and even rebuked their counterparts — or what passes for emergency planners — in those states for their handling of Hurricane Katrina. Gov. Jeb Bush, the head of Florida AHCA and the head of Florida wildlife (which is responsible for all search and rescue) all said they made offers of aid to Mississippi and Louisiana the day before Katrina hit but were rebuffed. After the storm, they said they’ve had to not only help provide people to those states but also have had to develop search and rescue plans for them. “They were completely unprepared — as bad off as we were before Andrew,” one Florida official said.