Be-Think [Please visit BeThink.org]

President Bush. Katrina Aftermath; Tornado in Alabama

© copyright 2007 Betsy L. Angert

Please view the scene in Huge Storm Slams Midwest

Pardon the commercial prologue. Please observe Tornado Tears Up New Orleans March 1, 2007

Today ravaging tempests are wreaking havoc in the Southeast. Tornadoes Kill at Least 14 in 2 States. Eighteen months after another deadly storm, Hurricane Katrina, President Bush travels to New Orleans reassuring the public that he all is well. The Midwest is reeling; devastating snowstorms hit the heartland. The ground is giving way in California. A San Francisco landslide displaced sleepy residents. A wide swath of the North Beach hillside came thundering down on buildings below. Unusual tornadoes are swirling in the skies above Southern Florida. Hail and freezing rains are falling in many regions. America is not alone. Severe weather is everywhere!

Mother Earth Is Not Well. Her Climate Changed. Did Your Notice?

© copyright 2007 Betsy L. Angert

Please Ponder the Inconvenient Truth Trailer. As you view this video, reflect on the trauma of today's tornado in Florida.

Please indulge me, allow me to make a comparison that may seem obscure to some. Surely, the Bush/Cheney clan has yet to grasp what others and I have said for years. Humans are harming the balance of nature! We can choose to deny this. Citizen of the world can see them selves as separate from nature; however, we are one. A report released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations, validates this "claim." I offer this analogy in hopes that a personal realization may make the point more profoundly.

Weight loss may be equated with global warming. Those of us that have lost tonnage know that for years, months, or weeks few notice the pounds dropping away. We are aware of the subtle changes because we choose to be. When we work to be sensitive to the mind/body connection, when we work to honor each of these separate entities as one, we become aware of the nuances that surround change.

Barbara Bush. Houston Residents. “Send [Katrina] Refugees Back” ©

The traditional, elegant pearls graced her soft white skin. They hung comfortably around her neck. Her simmering silver-gray hair was perfectly coiffed. She spoke with the dignity and the wisdom of a grandmother. Her words were harsh, though understandably so. She and the rest of this country were overwhelmed as they reflected on hurricane Katrina and the community it devastated. This was perhaps, the nations largest natural disaster.

Everyone was tense; however, few were given the opportunity to talk publicly. Yet, she was. The former First Lady Barbara Bush had the ear of Nation Public Radio, Marketplace listeners.

Mrs. Bush stated, "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this is working very well for them." At the time she spoke, in September 2005, the nation was uncertain of how to react to her words.

Was her comment a flippant slip of the tongue? Did it demonstrate the difference between the classes and the masses? What were we to make of this terse judgment? One year later, we know. Mrs. Bush was speaking for her fellow citizens; they want the Katrina evacuees to go home!

This Could Be You! Homeless in America ©

June 20, 2006, was World Refugee Day. Upon realizing this, I was guilt ridden. I did not know that there was a day in which we honored expatriates, persons in exile, or people that were without a home, a community, adequate food, shelter, or homeless. I wrote of this in World Refugee Day. What Does This Mean To U.S.? ©. In this tome, I briefly spoke of our homeless in America; however, my focus was on those that live in far off lands.

Some readers were ready to read my underlying message, others glossed over it. People responded; yet, they did not. I realize it is easier to see what is external to our selves. Looking at our own “stuff” can be far more stressful than dissecting what is happening to others. Nevertheless, I think we must discuss what is occurring in our own backyards.

There are millions of homeless persons in American.

FEMA 2006, Failure Everywhere, Management Absent ©

The history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] is long and varied. Now, it may end; a Renaissance is proposed. There are formal recommendations; this agency must be abolished. Co-chairs of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Senators Susan Collins and Joseph Liebermann held a press conference this morning declaring FEMA a disaster.

Chairwoman Susan Collins told reporters today in Washington “FEMA is discredited, disorganized, demoralized and dysfunctional.'' She continued, “It is beyond repair. Just tweaking the organizational chart will not solve the problem.''

Senators Collins, Liebermann, and the Senate committee submitted a plan to 'key senators this week, the details of which will be released publicly next week.' In this, there are 86 recommendations. These would undo what our current President did to change the structure of FEMA.

The 800-plus-page accounting is titled, "Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared." This text is a summation of three government studies. Earlier House and White House evaluations are present in this report; however, they are cursory in contrast. This final record is far more comprehensive; its assertions are less delicate.

Katrina survivors and those lost in this storm, deservedly required this attention. The 2005 hurricane killed an estimated 1,460 people. Seven hundred and seventy thousand individuals were forced to flea their homes. Many are still not able to return some eight months later.

2004, Pentagon Tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us ©

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not the problem. Natural disasters are not the cause of our current crisis. Katrina is not the catastrophe that devastates this country; nor is it the forthcoming hurricane Ophelia. The calamity is George W. Bush. From the first, our dear President denied the existence of global warming. Later, he acquiesced. He concluded it is a possibility. However, according to King George II, the United States is not responsible for the destruction of the ozone layer.

It matters not that America produces more waste than any other nation does. We have might, and therefore, we are “right,” or at least the President is. He appears correct because he suppresses whatever might conflict with his truth.

On Sunday February 22, 2004, the Observer disclosed “Now the Pentagon Tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us.” It was more than a year ago, journalists Mark Townsend and Paul Harris revealed the findings of a report commissioned by the Pentagon.

The study proclaimed, “Climate change should be elevated beyond a scientific debate.” It was said; global warming and the effects of it would become a “national security concern.” It seems this was and is valid.