I am tired of seeing these poor people in Nola (and I mean literally
poor), in chest high water being called "looters" by every caption of every photo on the internet.
Is it even possible to "loot" food? Looters steal TVs; hungry people steal food. Looters were in Baghdad in March '03 and in L.A. after the Rodney King trail. These folks are wading through possibly toxic water to get their hands on some damn provisions!
The store owner isn't going to come back to his/her submerged store and say, "damn, someone stole the chee-tos" they are going to say "damn the walls are useless since they've been under water for a week." I'm sure they are insured and I'm sure that can of Diet Pepsi Lime wasn't going to be good by the time the rightful owner got back within arms length of it. Honestly if it hadn't been taken by this person then it probably would have floated away anyway.
So please, Washington Post, New York Times, AP... Stop Calling them Looters!!