Friday, September 19, 2008

Gig 'Em and Take Your Stuff with You

What a great day to be an Aggie! In the wake of Hurricane Ike, some evacuees in College Station are looking for another place to stay because of a football game. Check out this article in the Houston Chronicle (this is only a section of the article).
"Texas A&M University is scheduled to play the University of Miami — the Hurricanes, no less — in College Station on Saturday, and fans had booked hotel rooms up to a year in advance.

That forced hotel managers to ask evacuees holed up in College Station to leave for a few days.

L.C. Ruiz of Galveston said he went to extend his stay at the Manor House Hotel on Thursday and was told he had to leave today but was welcome to return on Monday.

"We were told we have to get out because they're having a football game," said Ruiz, who evacuated Sept. 10 with his ailing wife, her nurse and the nurse's family.

Ruiz said he ended up putting his wife in a convalescent center after the nurse and her family found a hotel room in Huntsville."
The article does go on to describe that they are taking steps to help evacuees, but I can only imagine if I was in that position what my response might be; I don't think I would ever visit the town again. If I did, I would make sure to have reservations and not be an evacuee.

Really, what does this say about our society? Football and making money is more important than providing for those in need. If there was a doubt why homelessness and poverty exist; it's because we are selfish "we gotta watch our football" and "make our money" society.

I will leave you with some lyrics from David Crowder Band's Surely We Can Change
“When all the love in the world
Is right here among us
And hatred too
And so we must choose
What our hands will do?"

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow! i cannot believe these sinful people! they have so many imperfections that i think we should dwell on them and ignore the problems in our own lives! omg! i just can't believe those darn aggies are so selfish and cruel... this blog posting is just another reminder of how people love to point the finger at others on a daily basis while their own lives are clouded with our their sin and shortcomings. you've got your own problems i am sure, so dwell on them. change your life.

Jeremy Hellums said...

At least you got the most important point, "change your life."

Maybe we should worry about other people when homelessness and poverty strike, not just ignore them.

Hope that is some clarification for lack of reading skills.

Velma said...

I went to the link for that article and this was posted there
"A&M's Association of Former Students asked people who had booked a room for Saturday night to relinquish their reservations, allowing evacuees first priority.

"Hotels are almost uniformly asking guests for non-emergency reservations to reschedule, and I know that because there are guests that have called me to complain," said Scott Joslove, executive director of the Texas Hotel & Lodging Association.

Hotels cannot legally cancel a prior reservation if they cannot reach the guest, or if the guest refuses to give up the room, he said."

So it does sound like that are trying to get people to give up their reservations for the evacuees... But it sounds like there are people who are unwilling to give up their room...

These large scale devastation are always difficult. One being is that they are limited in what they can provide. Then you go a few miles over and those people are unaffected and they can't seem to relate to whats going on.

Anonymous said...

How about you read this:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6010493.html

"Hotels are almost uniformly asking guests for non-emergency reservations to reschedule, and I know that because there are guests that have called me to complain," said Scott Joslove, executive director of the Texas Hotel & Lodging Association. Hotels cannot legally cancel a prior reservation if they cannot reach the guest, or if the guest refuses to give up the room, he said.

Aggies take a lot of crap for a lot of reasons. This is outside their control.

Jeremy Hellums said...

Yes, I did read that. And I hope that some were able to stay...Thanks for bringing that up. Take Aggies out of the equation, I would have posted this if it was U of H or UT... Money vs Humanitarianism, that's what it boils down to; I am just shocked that we are more concerned about the money and not the people who lost everything.