Another Article Posted to Useless-Knowledge

Here it is:
Katrina's Lesson Responsibility

Hi everyone. I have written an article from a different perspective - about Katrina and responsibility. Responsibility is different than blame. Blame in reality comes from external forces (people and organizations) applied to other forces (other people and organizations). Responsibility is the self - looking at the end results of a situation and understanding that - hey - things wouldn't be this way - at least in part - without my own participation.

I didn't want to make the article partisan - so I left out another aspect of responsibility. The kind of responsibility that comes with being a leader. Just like the Star Trek Movie where Kirk and Bones go to jail because members of their crew assasinated a Klingon leader - our leaders are responsible even if their specific actions were not to blame for the unnecessary deaths, injuries and harm that has come to people.

In a sense though I do not completely accept the "captain is responsible for everyone on the ship". Because everyone on the ship is capable of thinking and taking action. We live in a time where large number of people make fun of George W Bush because of his relative intelligence - nobody anywhere in our government took the intiative to do the things that had to be done.

So, personally, I do not blame the President. This could have happened to any president. The problems in the New Orleans area are based in a tradition - a tradition of ignoring the relatively low-probability events that can cause large amount of damage - because guess what - it didn't happen this year!!!

So, I guess we are all idiots. The point is can we learn from this - or will we just jump back in to the mold afterwards and do the same blame game next time there is a major natural disaster.

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