Can someone get my soapbox?

Yesterday I received an e-mail from an online buddy of mine that I've been talking to for quite some time now. HE received an e-mail from an online buddy of HIS who lives in Denver. He sent the e-mail out to see what kind of reaction it would garner. I was passionate enough about it to decide to make it a discussion point with you, my BILLIONS of non-readers. The e-mail is as follows:

WEATHER BULLETIN

Up here, in the "Mile-Hi City" (Denver), we just recovered from a historic event---may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions"--with a historic blizzard with up to 44" of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

FYI:
-George Bush did not come
-FEMA did nothing
-No one howled for the government
-No one blamed the government
-No one even uttered an expletive on TV
-Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit
-Our mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else
-Our governor did not blame Bush or anyone else either.

CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit or report extensively on this category 5 snowstorm, nor do we expect they will in the years to come in the aftermath.

Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards. No one asked FEMA for a trailer house. No one looted. Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something. Nobody expected the government to do anything either.

No Larry King, no Bill O'Riley, no Oprah, no Chris Matthews, and no Geraldo Rivera. No Sean Penn (thank God!), no Barbra Streisand, no HOLLYWOOD TYPES TO BE FOUND.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water. Sent out caravans of SUVs to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars. The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny. Local restaurants made food and the police and fire department delivered it to snowbound families. Families took in the stranded people-total strangers.

We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns. We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it's "Work or Die". We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for "sittin' at home" checks. Even though a category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate." It does seem that way, at least to me. I hope this gets passed on.

Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does not owe you a living.

ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE UNIQUE; JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.

I think the first obvious reaction is that there is NO way to compare the destruction and chaos of New Orleans the days following Katrina to what just happened in Denver. Seriously, how could you? Comparing the situation in Denver to what happened on the Gulf Coast is like comparing a campfire to a 5 alarm blazing building, don't you think?

And since when is it so devious that the country leaps into action to help those in need? Does the author feel we wasted time, energy and money helping the victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami when it occurred? Truly, if any part of the world has a "work or die" attitude it must be that one; you will quite literally die if you don't work. What if a Richter 9 earthquake were to hit and level San Francisco? Should our "affirmative action government" just let them deal with it?

But that isn't all the writer was trying to discuss. I also see a social commentary on the people of the area that was hit. It was a blatant attack on "them." Who are "they?" Well, considering New Orleans has a very high black population, I might say that group is the target. But really, this goes to generalizations and stereotyping. You could type "_____ population" and there would be people who would insert any race they wanted. Some people would insert EVERY race except their own.

Those are very small-minded and inexperienced people. How can you say "black people" in that kind of context? Do the blacks in Germany, France, Hungary, England, Canada, Japan, Russia, etc. all act the same way? No. Neither do the whites.

Now, if you want to say that certain people of a like mindset in a certain area tend to act the same, that seems to be fine. After all, birds of a feather do indeed tend to flock together. So if there are segments of our society that tend toward a feeling of self-entitlement, they are just that: segments of OUR society. Yes, there ARE lazy people who will use the system to their advantage. No, they are not of a specific race.

What do we do about those people? Well, it comes with upbringing. If a person is taught that they should expect something from the government because they have greater pigmentation of the skin than other people then they will grow up believing that. It all comes with education of children. Do we treat all those children the same way? Are we doing what we can to lift the living condition of those people? I'd say not.

If we want to raise the standard of society, we must start with how we treat and educate the children because they are the foundation of the future. Think of society like a VERY heavy sack of groceries. Would you just yank up by the handles on the bag and hope for the best or would you bend over, grab from the bottom and lift carefully? Personally, I'd do the latter as to prevent myself from spending extra time picking up what spills out and extra money replacing it.

Bill Gates spends a lot of his money on the education of children and funding programs to do such. Oprah Winfrey just spent $40M on building a school in South Africa to do the same thing. They have the right idea, in my opinion. I recently listened to a story on NPR about a program in Brazil that establishes learning centers for classical music in the most downtrodden and poor areas of the country. The goal is to take children off the street from an early age and put them into learning something that will engage them and teach them about the world. It has 250,000 participants. We have similar programs through the Boys & Girls clubs, YMCA, etcetera, but we could always use more.

If everyone in North America who made over $1M a year gave 1% of $1M ($10,000) toward educating children, that would be a total contribution of $29 BILLION dollars to educating the children of North America. If you put that into a global perspective and asked the number of world-wide millionaires to make that contribution to a world education fund, you would see a pot of $87 BILLION dollars. If you ask the world's billionaires to make the same 1% contribution, that would be an additional $26 BILLION dollars. How far would $1 Trillion dollars go toward educating the children of the world and lifting our common society? I don't know, but I'd sure like to find out.