Depressing water cooler topics

First, good news: The Houston Chronicle is reporting that the number of people housed in the three major shelters here (Astrodome, Reliant Center and GRB Convention Center) has dropped dramatically in the last two days. This is being attributed to people finding family out of town or making more permanent arrangements here. Whatever the reason, it is very reassuring to see many of those people getting out of their shelters and moving on to (hopefully) brighter situations.

Now here's a depressing tidbit from the office water cooler. A colleague today said he heard that many of those Astrodome residents were pretty ungrateful, offering this quote, "We're used to grits, not gravy!"

Okay, does that sound like something someone would actually say, or does it sound like something some racist cracker made up? If you're the type of person who went down to the Astrodome to serve food, do you think that would be your lasting impression (if it's even true)? The media has shown almost nothing but super-grateful Louisiana residents on camera. And frankly, if some of the evacuees are a little snippy, don't you think they sorta have a right to be, given their ordeal? I just can't believe that someone who would serve food to those people would broadcast one or two negative comments (again, assuming it's not just some stupid urban legend).

I'd like to attribute those sorts of "guess what I heard!" comments to something other than covert racism, but it's hard to come up with any. The local media (well, fuckin' Channel 2 anyway) has been fanning these flames ever so subtly ("Are your neighborhoods safe, while our police are busy in the Astrodome?").

There's already plenty of blame-shifting around here to the state and local authorities, and I think the conservative apologists of this town are having a hard time coming to grips with reality. The sad fact is that the government - top to bottom - let down the people of New Orleans and it needs to be addressed.

The other sad fact is that maybe people with NO emergency management experience are completely unqualified to run FEMA. And that maybe we should put qualified people, not political buddies, in positions of importance. Just maybe.