A few days ago, all of my fellow Seattle public school students and I were forced back into the brilliant federal machine, better known as school. I see multitudes of my friends for the first time in months, wave to a couple people whose names I pretend to have remembered, and wade through the sea of high school students in the counseling office in the hopes of proving my schedule's grievances worthy of their attention. Oh, the joys of high school.

I believe it was last Thursday when my friends and I, minding our own not-so harmless business during our half hour lunch break, were confronted by two thirty-somethings with blatantly anti-Bush flyers. Being a very liberal group of people attending a very liberal school in a very liberal city, it could be assumed that all of us eagerly grabbed for those flyers with scathing remarks about how incompetent our current United States president is (as seems to be the general opinion of my peer group) hot on our tongues. However, we did not.

Under closer examination the flyers were revealed to focus mainly upon the events of Katrina. The people behind these flyers blamed the Bush administration for the horrific post-Katrina catastrophe. These views seem to slide right in alongside the controversial black-white race issue surrounding the rescue efforts. Both blame the "lack of response" on politics.

My friends and I do not share these views. As was stated above, my almost blindly liberal friends love to jab at President Bush just as much as the next teenager and so for them, this was quite a step out of character. As a whole, we did not find the evidence backing either of these wide-spread opinions substantial enough to engender our support let alone our enthusiasm.

The scale of the damage caused by Katrina is absolutely monumental. No one was prepared to deal to with it; President Bush himself admitted that the initial response was inadequate. Maybe the removal of Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency from hurricane duty and the instating of Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen will assuage their outrage even the smallest bit, though I'm doubtful. And any person who believes that the relief effort was dimmed because the survivors were black should look at the numbers.

The American Red Cross has sent in 39,000 trained workers, more than 6 million hot meals and 5.9 million snacks, and raised over $600 million. Military personnel have delivered over 67 million lbs. of ice, 24.2 million liters of water, and 13.6 million prepackaged meals. The number of troops in the region is expected to soon exceed 70,000. Carnival Cruise Lines offered three cruise ships; Sensation, Holiday, and Ecstasy, to serve as housing for approximately7,012 of the Katrina victims (their offer has yet to be accepted since the people want more permanent and non-aquatic housing). Money and necessary equipment is being donated by nations all over the world.

My friends and I made it clear (though we probably could have been more tactful and acted less like arrogant teenagers) that we were not for the cause being advertised by the flyers. As the two disgusted adults were walking off of Garfield High School property, one yelled back just to make their opinion of us crystal clear. They said that we obviously did not care about the Katrina victims, essentially calling us heartless. Needless to say, we were all offended.

These people who spent their time advocating an 'alternative' viewpoint were outright telling us that ours was invalid. We do care. We do not agree with what they were trying to sell us. It was a truly fantastic example of why freedom of expression is often a paradox.

Katrina was a colossal natural disaster that has already earned its place in U.S. history books. Let us all focus on what needs to be done and how we can help the people who need it now. For the moment at least, leave the politics to the wayside. The survivors of Katrina do not have time for our bickering.

Kyra-lin Hom is a West Seattle resident and can be reached at kl_hom@yahoo.com