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Guest: Eric Holdeman, Director of the Office of Emergency Management for Seattle and King County, Washington
Today, a discussion of religious philosophy, along with politics.
With the horrible devastation of Hurricane Katrina, there are some who naturally blame God. Why do bad things happen to good people? How is that consistent with an all-powerful, all-good God? This question, which the philosophers call “theodicy”, is the great unanswered and some say un-answerable question of religious faith.
My response: I don’t blame God. I blame Man.
“It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to
handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the
price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished,
and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security
issue for us.”
— Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish,
Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.
For more information, see the sites below:
Details on the Failures of the Bush Administration to Protect New Orleans
Several articles from the New Orleans Times-Picayune warning of the danger to come from a Category 5 hurricane
Even the very conservative Chicago Tribune points the finger squarely at Bush’s mismanagement of FEMA as the reason so many people suffered
Eric Holdeman’s op-ed in The Washington Post
Picture of Bush fiddling as New Orleans flooded