carrying at the mall, observations of katrina evacuees

[beaucoup ammo]

Wrist Bands Here..No Name Tags

Of the 12k housed in San Antonio, 3500 are at Windsor Park Mall at any given time. This is an empty Mall in an area of the city that's seen the "money" move elsewhere.

Directly across the street, in the city of Windcrest, a gas station/convenience store has "run out of supplies" (toilet paper, paper towels, soap,etc) about twice a week.

Stopped by 2 weeks ago and the lady I buy my lottery tickets from was in tears, and about at the end of her rope..having been yelled at, spit on and generally treated like garbage.

After the first wave arrived post Katrina, I looked for a worthy recepient (chose an elderly man in a wheel chair) and gave him a $20 bill. He seemed genuinely grateful and I felt good, too. Unfortunately, I won't be going there to dispense charity again..for the simple reason crime has spiked in that area. Initially, the paper reported "no significant" rise in police calls. That's changed, however...as has the general atmosphere in this area of the city.

Take Care

 

[zahc]

Waitress have job's from hell.

Psssh! Waitresses don't buy gas. Try delivering pizza nowadays. I'd also like to dispense my general advice that it's really not smart business to stiff a pizza delivery driver, whether you ever find out or not....

We deliver pizza to the patients at a local mental hospital. However the staff shows up at the door with the patient's money and takes them the pizza. We almost never get tipped there, but one day, when ordering, a patient asked if we were getting his tips. Apparently the staff had been intercepting our tips before they got to us. We now get tips from that one customer.

The older I get the more I learn not to overestimate the honor and common decency of the average person.

 

[Lupinus]

I hope these posts are not thinly veiled racism. The majority of the Katrina folks I saw were African American.

I know African American nuclear physicists and Caucasian women and men on welfare.

Me, I jugde people on how they act, not their race

It is that htinking that BAIT's racisim. Stupidity and the thing's mentioned are cultural, not purly racial. A man or woman of any race has just as much chance for being ignorant as anyone else.

I thought about make a list including racial slur's but decided agianst it for the sake of good form and not offending people who are sensitive to such thing's. It would have gone something like this though- I have known x and I have known black people. I have known x and I have known oriental people. So and an so forth reguarding most any race you can think of. You can fill in most any racial slur for the particular race you want for the x.

Any race has the ability to be ignorant. If you are a black man action like x, you just might deserve the title. If you are a white person acting like x, you just might have earned the title. Some racial term's are about the only thing some of these people that deserve them will earn in their lifetime.

But it is that mentality of "Oh, I hope you arn't masking racisim" that bait's it. I am no racist. I am white and belive in no master race, and that just by being a certian race does not automaticly make you worthy of a racialy slurred title. Though I have noticed more and more black youth refering to each other as such...now that is stupidity. I feel no more safe in some trailor park's as I do i nthe middle of an inner city ghetto...well...maybe a little safer I will admit. But the ignorant come from all race's. Do minority's tend to perhap's fill out inner cities as a disproportionate rate and become typical inner city ignorance? Yes. But is that because of race or culture/enviroment? I will give yo ua hint. It isn't race. If it was simply race ever black person would be ignorant and every white person would be a perfect model citizen.

 

[Lupinus]

And waiters and waitresses remain in such jobs by choice - their choice of how to behave

Is this your waying of saying they are lowly waitress's and asking for it? That's the same as saying a brick layer is asking for a bad back and has no right complaining about it when his boss pushed him to hard for 20 year's.

If I read into it wrong, my apologies in advance.

Stopped by 2 weeks ago and the lady I buy my lottery tickets from was in tears, and about at the end of her rope..having been yelled at, spit on and generally treated like garbage.

Oh I know the fealing. I worked at a gas station. I had a reputation. I was perfectly polite to well meaning and even slightly ***** customer's. But you walk in on my shift being a total jack ass and you will not be tolerated. I am paid to take care of you. And I do my job in a polite manner. I am not paid to kiss your arse when you are being a total *****.

One come's to mind in particuler (black woman that had moved from NYC to the pocono's. I lived in PA longer so natualy, I am a country hick racist. Doesn't matter I moved there from NJ...anyway)
She hated the store because the manager wouldn't hire her little deliquent son. Was he trouble? I don't know him well enough to know. But when it talk's like one, dress's like one, and generaly carries the attitude of one, I wouldn't hire him in my store either. Race had nothing to deal with it. Were the employe's mostly white? Yes. Was the manager a old country girl that was a tad racist? I'd agree with that statment. But you know what? Good, clean cut, well actng black people were in there behind the counter at a proportionate number for the application's I ever receaved from people dropping them off. So anyway, she already has an attitude anytime she is in there anyway. I do my best to be polite as I do with anyone. She come's back a half hour after buying a pack of cig's and demand's a reciept. Does she ask? No, demand's. Meanwhile, I have a line halfway across the store (five minute...on a normal day....from pocono raceway, on race weekend, know nascar? you do the math) and kindly explain to her that our register does not keep a digital record so I can't go back into any sort of log and print it out and then next time she would have to ask for it at the time of her purchese. She say's well then where is it? I say I'm sorry it's already been thrown away. Our cash register was one of those types that print's to a journal tape and pop's up a recipt as well each time. The response from her? Well then boy you better start digging. I say im sorry I have a line right now and can't do that. She say's I want my reciept little boy now find my f-ing recipt!

Now see, this is the point I get to not being polite and tell it like it is. I say it isn't my job to dig around in garbage to find your recipt cause you decide a half hour later on race weekend when I have a line out the door for your three dolalr recipt. Next time, ask for it when you buy something if you want it. My coworker is on lottery with an all knowing little smile on her face. She start's arguing with me, repeat mself and she says boy you better stop being smart with me before I come around that counter and bust your face. I say that's it, your gone now get the hell out of my store.

The local's about burst out laughing but contain themselve's, even the well manered race fan's almost grin. She has that jaw hit the floor I can't belive it look. Leave's. And I never seen her since.

Case in point- It is my job to be nice to you, but that end's at a point when you reach a certian level of idiocy.

Zahc- Ah. That my friend is a job i never did. But yeah. I can see where you'd be ticked. I always tip the delivery guy at least four or five buck's.

 

[Byron Quick]

I rarely leave the house unarmed anymore (unless going to church or some other non ccw friendly place.

Personally, if I were in a state that forced me to choose between being armed and being in church...I'd be organizing to get the law changed. I'd be working on that especially on Sunday mornings when I should have been in church.

I don't leave home at all unarmed to go anywhere. There are a few places where I leave my pistol in the car. As I go into the courthouse, etc. There's no place I go to, that I leave home unarmed. Ever.

The race thing? I've got relatives that need to find out how to get off the government teat, much less white folks.

A while back, our ED at work was staffed by a Pakistani doctor's group. Some were black, East Indian, Pakistani, Caucasians, etc. An eclectic group. The ED nursing staff lodged complaints against one MD who happened to be black. Pakistani head tried to say we were racist, even though we're almost half black in makeup. We just told him,"We're not complaining against the other black doctors, East Indian doctors, or Pakistani doctors. We're complaining against this particular doctor who would be a pain no matter what color he happened to be.

 

[Lupinus]

Playing the race card is a simple effective way to create a very loud noise in a very effecient manner.

 

[Missashot]

It is a sad shame that some of the people who were displaced feel the need to act in a way that would embarass most people. I know that there are people of EVERY color who act in this manner. :banghead:
As far as carrying concealed, I think this is a good idea just becouse of the way that the world is changing.

 

[Mr_Moore]

Glad it was not racism.

I run into the neo nazi/KKK types from time to time. My last contractor told me he was an Ayrian... he was on parole and stole $4500.00.

I did not know if that sort of thing - racism - was accepted here. Glad to hear it does not.

 

[dasmi]

I did not know if that sort of thing - racism - was accepted here. Glad to hear it does not.

Racism most certainly is not accepted here. Also, don't make the mistake of thinking that everyone here is white. I happen to be, but many are not.

 

[Janitor]

Personally, if I were in a state that forced me to choose between being armed and being in church...

Out of curiosity, what if it were the church itself forcing you to make that choice?

 

[dasmi]

Out of curiosity, what if it were the church itself forcing you to make that choice?

Time to find a new church, one that doesn't require you to give up your means of self-defense when you walk through the doors.

 

[Langenator]

I think, in general, giving cash, or anything that acts as cash equivalent, to people who have done nothing to earn it is a bad idea. I'm amazed that anyone thought that giving $2,000 cash cards to evacuees was a good idea. (OK, this was a government decision. Maybe I shouldn't be suprised.) That which is not earned is not valued, especially by those who have been given handouts their entire life.

Back to the fraud, waste, and abuse angle: once upon a time here in WA state, folks on welfare were given food stamps, which could be used to by groceries and other necessities-diapers, soap. The stamps each had a small dollar value, and thus were hard to convert into ready cash for use in buying other, non-approved items. (I'm not counting selling the stamps on the black market as being 'readily convertible.)

Then someone decided that food stamps were demeaning, and someone at DSHS came up with the Quest Card. Kind of the same as debit cards, but you're still only supposed to be able to use it to buy approved stuff. But you can get cash back-$20 with every purchase. Guess how these folks buy their cigs?

 

[MechAg94]

You would think they could have just credited those FEMA debit cards a $100 a week or something. They didn't have to make all the money available at once. Someone was lazy.

Yes, there are stupid, lazy, and ignorant people of all stripes around. Sometimes I think they stay that way because too many people put up with that behavior and/or make excuses for them.

 

[c_yeager]

Then someone decided that food stamps were demeaning, and someone at DSHS came up with the Quest Card. Kind of the same as debit cards, but you're still only supposed to be able to use it to buy approved stuff. But you can get cash back-$20 with every purchase. Guess how these folks buy their cigs?

FYI, the Quest card does not include *just* a persons food stamps. It is also an account which includes their CASH welfare benefits, it is with that cash that they buy their smokes and beer. They are getting that cash either way, this way the state doesnt have to send a check, and we dont have to deal with people selling their foodstamps at .50 on the dollar to less than honest merchants.

You cannot get "cash back" on your food stamps with the Quest Card. In fact, with the new system you do not get any cash at all in change (with the old system any amount less than 1$ was given in cash).

 

[rudolf]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/15/nazi.march/index.html

"A neo-Nazi group's scheduled march against "black crime" in Toledo, Ohio, sparked rioting Saturday afternoon."

"Hours later, aerial video showed people vandalizing buildings and setting fire to a two-story building that apparently housed a bar, Toledo police spokeswoman Capt. Diana Ruiz-Krause told CNN."

I saw it on TV. I saw it was "Afro Americans" rioting. Am I a racist now?

 

[Sportcat]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/15/nazi.march/index.html

"A neo-Nazi group's scheduled march against "black crime" in Toledo, Ohio, sparked rioting Saturday afternoon."

"Hours later, aerial video showed people vandalizing buildings and setting fire to a two-story building that apparently housed a bar, Toledo police spokeswoman Capt. Diana Ruiz-Krause told CNN."

I saw it on TV. I saw it was "Afro Americans" rioting. Am I a racist now?

Apparently that riot is extremely out of control! And of course, looting started.:banghead: :banghead:

 

[Capteddie]

That which is not earned is not valued, especially by those who have been given handouts their entire life.

Very well said. We as a nation, through our tax dollars, have been supporting people who are able, but unwilling, to work for so long that they know no other way of life. These people have lost any initiative to work and are completely dependant on a welfare state. No matter what their color, race, creed, faith, nationality, origin, genus, species, or phylum (there I think I covered it all )

We live less than an hour from N.O. and avoid going there if at all possible. Certainly not all residents of the N.O. area are BGs or even on the dole, however, urban environments do seem to be more conducive to this type of behavior than more rural areas.

Just look at the number of people who sat in front of the Super Dome waiting fro someone to take care of them when there was a dry road to the west bank which was not flooded and did not flood. My guess is the thought to take the initiative to walk a few miles to safety never even crossed their minds, in their entire lives they may have never had to take responsibility for their own well being. Someone was always there to look out for them. When confronted with a situation in which there was no one to take them by the hand and watch out for them they were frozen into inaction.

That is what all our "helping", "support", and "welfare" did for these people over a lifetime. They were so conditioned to expect someone to take care of them that when the time came to take care of themselves they had forgotten how.

It does amaze me, however, that after sitting for days in their own trash with nothing to do, that no one said "Hey maybe if we pick this trash up and put it in that empty can over there it would be more pleasant to sit here and wait for someone to take care of us."

BTW Wife and dogs evacuated for Katrina, had minor house damage, lost food in freezer, no elect. for a week, etc... NEVER TOOK A PENNY FROM THE GOVT.

 

[trapperjohn]

after starting this thread/rant. I run across this link today
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=107538&format=&page=1

with this excerpt:
"The Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued more than $1.5 billion to 607,000 Katrina victims in the form of individual cash handouts of $2,000. There are no restrictions on how the money can be spent, FEMA officials said. "

We gave these people over $1.5 billion just to be irresponsible and to steal money from waitresses:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

I can only hope that this blatant wasting of our tax dollars is so well publicized that maybe the tide will turn against the welfare socialist state.

 

[Yanus]

You're talking about black "African Americans", right?

I'm with you. Were those "white African Americans" or "black African Americans"? How about "African white Americans" or "African black Americans"? I'm so confused.......... So much BS, so little time!

 

[TheEgg]

Race means nothing.

Culture means everything.

 

[Tall Man]

I know that there are people of EVERY color who act in this manner.

Agreed.

It's hard to ignore the images on the colored TV, though.

TM