my last blog entry

I knew it; I shouldn't have shared my blog with people I know, for I feel inhibited writing about them. It's just indiscreet. Specially since some of the people who read this blog know the people I would be talking about. So, I leave it at this.

In the past week I have been accused of spoiling my child rotten (and I can't vent over this accusation on my blog, for it is being read by said person), I've been accused of sleeping with my friend's husband (WHAT??!! - we need to talk, girl...I'm deeply insulted.), someone I consider a very dear friend was commited to the hospital because he didn't sleep or eat for about 6 days or so (stress-related) and then became paranoid, thinking everyone is out to get him. This was horrible. I felt totally powerless in extending my help.
However, I can't write about any of this in detail, for I don't want to be indiscreet.

So, I think I am moving on and will open a new blog somewhere where nobody knows me (and the only people I will actually share it with will be some of my close friends in Austria - i.e. across the ocean ... no foreseeable discretion dilemmas.)

so long m'dear readers.
thanks for reading. and feel free to browse the blog for previous entries. they're rather time-less anyway. I kinda always tried to make each entry stand on its own.
If you want to see where I'm at you can look at my profile.
So, as a last entry I am posting this e-mail from my friend on the situation in New Orleans.

Hello everyone,

Well, here we are again with another disaster situation. I am here in Alabama watching the horrific toll that Katrina has taken on the Gulf coast. If this were a disaster movie, the plot would focus not on the East coast being decimated by some kind of rogue tidal wave, or the West coast being taken out by an earthquake that causes the entire state of California to drop into the Pacific, but instead the third coast of the US (that being the Gulf coast) being destroyed by a hurricane and a great American city being wiped out by flooding.

This is the United States of America and we have never had to deal with a refugee evacuation/shelter scenario before of hundreds of thousands of people. How is it that reporters from CNN, MSN and probably the foreign press are able to get to victims, when the relief agencies that should be doing that have not as yet done so? How is it that people are dying as I write this because they have had no food or water in days or they have not had adequate ventilation? How are corpses being placed in stairwells in hospitals becuase there is no place to put them? Why is it that the images of vicitms are nearly all black and elderly folk? Why is it still going to take till Monday for the military ships with supplies get to the gulf? Why was the priority shifted from evacuating people from New Orleans to taking care of the looters? WHERE ARE THE LOOTERS GOING WITH THE LOOT? Really!!!! People are despearate. If food, water and supplies are being taken...so what. I would probably do the same to save my family. No one is going to airlift them with a plasma tv....and if a person chooses to hold onto the plasma tv over being rescued...well they either choose life or not.

I do not know if I will be able to get back home easily. Gas prices in Atlanta are now $5 per gallon...and I hear that the tank needs to get filled up now for there is no guarantee the there will be any gas available in the next few days.

I hear that New Orleans knew that the levee system was in need of repair two years ago...apparently it was reported in the local papers there that funding from the federal gov't had been approved, unfortunately, the federal aid got re-routed to Iraq...for I guess a more important security issue. I can not confirm what was reported in the local papers...but wait till I email CNN to look into substantiating that rumor. How dare the director of FEMA imply that people chose to stay because they were stubborn. Yes, there was a mandatory evacuation order that he regrets not everybody followed and that he is not one to judge...but he did not understand why people were still there. Hello poverty!!! Most poor people can not drive to safe places and put themselves up into hotels till the storm passes.

Again and again I keep hearing that one of the biggest obstacles to coordinating rescue and relief is communication lines being non-existent. How can that be? 9/11 showed how important communication lines are. How can that be an issue again?

Any way...there are people dying right now....they are not in a third world country...they are here in the "greatest " country in the world. This is more fuel for my doom amd gloom scenarios that fire me up into working in the public health/disaster arena. I still can not sign up to help (they are now begging for medical personnel from other states) physically yet. My first responsibility are my sons. BUT...I can again give monetarily.

Till we meet again...God bless us all.
Mo