I know New Orleans is a huge city, so you can't really generalize that everyone's handling it well or everyone is turning to looting and crime. There are bound to be some good people and some bad people. But it's interesting that on 9/11 and in the huge northeast blackout a year or two back, tv showed people walking around NYC devastated and the narrative that came out of all news stories was, "New Yorkers are coming together. Crisis brings out the best in New Yorkers."

With this stuff going down in New Orleans, the narrative coming through seems to be more about looting, people shooting at cops, poor people who can't care for themselves, like the victims are generally bad or incompetent.

I don't deny that there might be some looting and some gangs messing around in the area, but why are we so susceptible to believe that New Yorkers would tend to help each other in a crisis and New Orleans people tend to loot and cry and shoot each other in a crisis?