Tuesday, October 04, 2005

The Pirates of Carnival Cruise Lines

Here in Texas, it's not uncommon to hear even the progressive elements of society discuss shooting looters on sight in the wake of a disaster.

But if we're this quick to embrace knee-jerk frontier justice as the antidote when someone helps themselves to a laptop computer, how come we're not equally filled with gut-bomb rage when Carnival Cruise Lines inks a federal contract charging us double the going rate to house hurricane evacuees on its ships?

I'm not suggesting we force Carnival executives to walk the proverbial plank (though that would make a great pay-per view event), but shouldn't these teat-hogging corporate concerns be held accountable on some level for taking advantage of tragedy with the same cold-hearted calculation a looter uses in the absence of order?

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