[The disaster in New Orleans] is not an act of god, ... This is an act of man. The federal government refused to spend the money to improve the levees.

184

That is the behavior people take under the pressure of survival, ... This is misconstrued as looting, as thievery.

177

[Benigno Aguirre, of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, has been watching and reading about looters in Louisiana.] It may look from the outside as if they are stealing or breaking the law, ... when in fact some of them are trying to survive.

128

We want to act as if we can live apart from each other. To me that's the tragedy.

117