Very insightful observation by Maureen (as usual). Remember the wild "Is Mary Lou a racist - is the baby Sam's - why did Meg do everything she did" debates? [please, everyone, do not interpret my mention of the debate as a desire to reopen it!!]. They sometimes got waaay out of hand, and people were discussing fictional characters. It was actually worse than anything seen in the past week; the board would scroll down 2 times in one day so you could only see a half day's worth of posts. Now you apply that kind of passion (as Maureen so aptly called it) to a real-life disaster when emotions are running high and of course people are going to say some things...what was the mantra to calm things down? Calm Blue Ocean? Perhaps given flooding we need a new mantra, but you get my idea.
On a positive note, several Canadian Navy ships loaded with food, medicine and modular tents for temporary shelter are going to arrive on the Gulf Coast within the next few days. Diving teams are being sent to clear underwater wreckage in the shipping lanes, and 37 Canadian Red Cross workers are already there. The Canadian Red Cross had passed along $1M in donations to the American Red Cross by Friday; it should be much higher by now. And we're only one country - I understand Kuwait pledged some enormous aid.