Really. I’m just plain sick of seeing people who stole food, pampers, strained beets and bottled water described as ‘looting’. The ‘zero tolerance’ for looting makes me even more ill to my stomach – yet another proclamation by a government official that’s not actually in the trenches trying to survive.

Hint: all branches of government forgot to drop provisions off at the Superdome before calling the evacuation there. Hint 2: apparently, FEMA didn’t KNOW anyone was at the convention center until 2 days later, so no food was dropped there. If you didn’t loot food and water, you were probably going to die.

I pointed out already someone borrowing a school bus to ferry 100 people to the Astrodome. Early on, I saw reports of policemen ’stealing SUVs and looting pawn shops for guns and ammunition’. Maybe, just maybe, their precinct house was underwater, and shitty oldsmobile-model police cars aren’t equipped to cross streets strewn with trees, standing water and rubble. So can we call it ‘commandeering’? KThx.

And here’s an unpopular opinion to point out – the looted have insurance. Most of the stock of these stores would have been considered damaged and unsellable anyway. The looters were most likely the ones with houses 20 feet under water, and they were most likely completely uninsured. Many were looking at starting life over at scratch. Zero. Nada. Maybe they think a pawned plasma TV might help them make that first rent check if normalcy ever returns to the Big Easy. I’m not condoning the action, I’m just saying that most of us writing blog entries from the comfort of our air conditioned dens on our active internet connections may lack the gift of perspective.

But stealing plasma screen TVs is still looting. Can we at least seperate those who are just trying to survive by stealing bread and borrowing buses to get the hell out of there from those setting fires, stealing TVs and jewelry, and shooting at cops? Maybe we can call the good looters ’survivors’ or ’scavengers’. I’m just saying.

All that being said: anyone shooting at a cop or someone attempting to rescue someone should die in a car fire.