Disgusted of Reading

It's not often that I comment about what's in the news, but I am just so amazed at the news of the Hurricane-affected towns.

From the reports coming out of New Orleans, I was put in mind of Russell Hobans's science-fiction tale of post-nuclear catastrophe Britain, Riddley Walker. I was shocked at how quickly society broke down and anarchy appeared. When the crisis in Niger was being reported in our newspapers, a photo of a trader's stall full of food was shown with the caption that just down the road people were starving because they could not afford to buy the food. Market forces were in operation, apparently. In America the people were advised to leave, they said, but obviously not everyone did. Poor people could not afford to leave. And what about all those people who lived in old people's homes or care homes? Did they have a choice about whether to heed the advice to leave? American society left them to their fate. That's not a society, caring for all its people, that's a business - with money being its only scale of value.