I heard some of what he (the mayor of New Orleans) had to say on the news. He sounded incredibly pissed off and I dont blame him for it. Before I get into that though, I believe I have a post from Granty boy to reply to. Hmmm...It seems that the whole George Dubyah post has raised a few eyebrows in concern...of course it lacks the substance of good information and its absurd, however, its also highly exagerated. When I put Georgie in the hall of Badass villains, I had to find a way to put him on par with the others, and the only reaaal way to do that was to exagerate immensly. By calling him an 'evil overlord' and by using an example (however biased and uninformed it was) I made an attempt to make George look evil, otherwise he wouldnt be able to be a Badass Villain. Of course, I did it more out of personal enjoyment than out of the hopes of arousing controversy, but it is good the controversy has taken place and voices have been raised. About my opinions, what can I say, like anyone, I just changed over time and adopted new views, and who knows, it's likely that my current views will change as well. I like what you've said about tone and offense and whatnot, its all very true, in most cases anyways. There are so many ways to offend people and everyone has their own way of being offended, so in a sense your right, you truly cant please everyone. And of course, you brought up the topic of New Orleans. Well now, this is in my opinion is human nature at its finest. People look like they've sat by and done nothing, but is that really so shocking to us. When Rwanda was happening (a situation which could have been stopped with strong intervention) no one did a damn thing. Sure there were afew minor attempts to help out but no one acted until it was far too late. This goes back to what you said Grant, about people's self-serving motives. The fact that an entire city is in chaos and people are too slow to act is appalling. But it's nothing new. People knew that the storm was coming and they knew that there would be extensive damage beforehand, and yet they acted tardily. The problem with our society is that we cant seem to act on things unless they affect us directly. Sure we could help a child in Africa and prevent them from starving and dying a horrible death, but in the end, how many of us get up and actually go to the phone to make the call? I can tell you I didnt. But does that mean I dont care about the kids? Well in a way it does. I had a conversation with Kay yesterday about actions speaking louder than words. If I really did want to make a change in the lives of those people, I wouldve actually done it instead of sitting around and feeling sorry for them. Its like New Orleans, people see it happening, they think to themselves, oohh thats terrible, and go back to eating their dinner. If you really want people to act, you cant tap them on the shoulder, you have to hit em with a sledge hammer, kind of the like the Mayor Ray Nagin did with his fiery speech, but even that wont be enough.