Okay! I have just about had enough of being an invisible victim of Hurricane Katrina. No wonder Mississippi is at the bottom of most all polls taken. Not everyone seems to know that we are a state. We are not the surrounding area of New Orleans, Louisiana as all the major newspapers have been reporting for over 5 months now. New Orleans is not on the coastline AT ALL! I realize they have a population much greater than ours and we didn't have a levee that could fail. We don't have the French Quarter either but we have many things that New Orleans doesn't have that is unique to the people of Mississippi. What is uppermost in my mind is we are thankful for the smallest thing done for us. That is why when catastrophe hits another state we give back monetarily and send the best of what we have in the way of manpower. It's nothing new to the state to be overlooked, it has happened many times.

We are a conservative people so I am sure we have at times caused agitation for our views on different referendum. When Alabama was ordered by the state to take the "Ten Commandments" out of it's Federal Building, Mississippi offered to take them. Mississippi Offers to Take Ten Commandments

Although abortion is now legal in our state the people fought hard to stop the killing of babies and are still fighting Yes,,,,, we think it's a baby and not just a "glob" of tissue. Petition Drive Aimed at Prohibited Abortions in MS

We were appalled at the killing of Terry Schiavo. She had the right to live, as the Declaration of Independence states. When the first baby was aborted, somewhere down the road we knew that euthanasia had gained a foothold. Who is more helpless than a baby, an ill person or the elderly? Because of his views, President George W. Bush had Mississippi's vote.

When there was such a slow response to what happened to us here, I personally felt that even though it was the biggest natural disaster to hit the United States, we wouldn't get the response that we should have from our leaders. Not enough thanks can ever be given to the people of all the states who came to our aid. Without all of you we would have given up hope.

The people of Mississippi are often referred to as poor and ignorant. I am neither. There are many rich people in our area. They didn't take jobs from those classified as poor nor did they abscond money. They worked hard to attain what they had. Katrina took it away but their determination is intact to build again.

I am going to end this rant by saying that constantly referring to us as poverty stricken Mississippi is like kicking us when we are down. I will be the first to admit that what wasn't poverty stricken before Katrina, is NOW!