If all the drama queens rushing to the aid of Katrina victims so they can feel better about themselves actually gave a shit about people losing their homes, they would spend their extra time fighting homelessness. They would donate annually to their local homeless shelter. If they cared about people who have no food, they would fight poverty and donate regularly to their local food banks. But you know what? People don't. It takes a tragedy that everyone saw coming to create a drama for everyone to participate in so they can once again escape their own nothingness. So you donated money to the Red Ross? Good for you. It'll pay for some guy's salary. You're just putting a band-aid on a systemic problem that deserves more than your one-time "I did something now I can go back to my normal life of bitching about taxes". A $100 a plate dinner to raise funds for the Red Cross? Bah. Donate that to a local homeless shelter (or even one in Baton Rouge) if you really want the most bang for your buck. But no, you just want an easy way to assuage your guilty conscience. So go ahead, write that check, and forget about the people who lose their homes every day, or the people who are starving every day, or the people who lose everything due to corporate "downsizing" or lose their retirement plans dues to corporate "bankruptcy". THEY are the victims, not of Mother Nature, but of the system we all participate in and perpetuate. But perhaps that would be too frightening an issue for you to confront. It's easier to vicariously live through someone else's suffering than to realize that every time you buy at Wal-Mart you create it. I hope you feel good about yourselves. Hypocrites.