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I think that, if there's anything at all good about this disaster...
...it's the unexpected chance it's given to people needing a fresh start to start over.
It's given a city that has had the skeleton in its closet of a culture of poverty to rebuild itself in a way that will reach out to people who need a hand-up.
Some people will eventually return to New Orleans.
Other people will begin lives elsewhere.
Of course, there were those who didn't survive--but, thankfully, those statistics haven't risen into the originally-predicted tens-of-thousands.
I know that there were around 75 people who have enrolled in Indiana University in Bloomington--and they have decided they like their new surroundings and are going to stay.
The people who return to New Orleans will, hopefully, set a goal to make it a better place to live for ALL residents!
Peace!
AJ 
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Even if they aren't exactly better than sex?) 
posted by
Ainsley_Jo_Phillips
on September 19, 2005 at 1:31 PM
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Your last question is not quite
fair to yourself, but I would say, yes, you need more clues. Hemlocker
posted by
Hemlocker
on September 18, 2005 at 5:01 PM
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I think as adults, taxpayers and thinkers we can see these things.
I think that the phrase "The culture of poverty" was not used to make it seem noble to not have money, but to indicate that a subculture develops once people, usually as unthinking teens or in their twenties, have fallen off the American Dream.
I hear people now trying to legitimize poverty with this phrase. Like the phrase "HipHop Culture", it is a self-serving oxymoron.
There is another factor too which you touched upon and others have as well; many of these folks could get out if they had left when the danger was first apparant (i.e., "Hey, sportsfans, there's a Force Four"(later, Force Five)" hurricane coming right for you". Many got out. Many didn't leave because the cost of dislocation (besides loss of their belongings and pets) would ruin them, others didn't leave because they could not "get their mind around" the concept of a disaster happening to them. Some were just too set on staying at the old 'hood.
Darwin will out. His law applies to cities and civilizations as well as species and individuals.
posted by
majroj
on September 17, 2005 at 7:18 PM
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