I am tempted to take that last entry down, as the cumulative news from New Orleans seeps into my slow brain after a few days off the grid. Seems pretty assholish to be bitching about how hard it was to lug ALL my STUFF into my new safe apartment with my healthy loved ones, you know? But that would be sneaky, so I suppose I will just have to ask your forbearance.
New Orleans. I don't know about you, but I can't stand to watch the news for more than ten minutes at a time. It's just incomprehensible. I'm so, so sorry to those who are trapped, those who have lost and those who are lost.
CNN was showing footage of people (finally) evacuating the Superdome. A little boy held a piece of cardboard for a makeshift dustpan as a grownup swept up some trash, in preparation to leave - a square foot of neatness in the middle of unbelievable filth, danger, sickness and despair. Totally futile, of course. But also the how and the why of recovery. Best wishes and high hopes for those who keep doing futile, necessary things.
Posted by hilatron at September 4, 2005 12:50 AM | TrackBackI don't know who reads this blog. So if this creates offense, I'm sorry.
But if you voted for the current administration, I wish you in New Orleans right now. Or maybe Point Chistian, Mississippi: it's no longer there.
If you voted for the current administration because of W's Christian faith, I have a question for you:
In the 36 hours immediately preceding landfall by Hurricane Katrina, who would Jesus have evacuated?
I ask that in all sincerity as a professed Christian myself.
I am profoundly shaken that the government to which I pay taxes is prepared to stand idly by while its own citizens die preventable deaths.
When I read that New Orleans lost -- LOST -- 500 schoolbuses to floodwaters while leaving thousands of citizens without the means to evacuate, I am so outraged I hardly know where to start.
And now guess who gets the Katrina clean-up contract? Bingo! A Halliburton subsidiary.
You might recall that this is the president who promised us morality in the Oval Office.
When the f*** is that going to start?
Posted by: Doombot at September 4, 2005 07:11 PMWhat Doombat said!!
Posted by: Auntie Jean at September 5, 2005 09:37 PMWhat you don't realize, Doombot, is that this flood was not - in fact - a natural disaster. It was a test! A test of morality, inasmuch as morality equates to making frequent public statements about belief in Christ as our Lord and Savior, and has nothing whatsoever to do with actually acting on what Christ actually said.
See, everyone who has been evacuated already, and is safe from harm in other states is a believer, who will ascend to heaven. Everyone who has died in the flood (aka "the cleansing") was a sinner who renounced the name of Christ. And everyone who's still there has a very important decision to make: Accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, again as much as that equates to saying so and probably going to church a bunch but not actually acting any more "morally" than anyone else...or be swept away by the flood of Christ's cleansing waters.
LET SINNERS BEWARE, FOR LO; THE RINSE IS COMPLETE, AND THE APRICOT SCRUB IS NIGH!!
Posted by: aaron at September 6, 2005 12:22 PMWell now, wait! Is all this before or AFTER the "Second Coming" of the Flying Spaghetti Monster??
Posted by: Auntie Jean at September 7, 2005 04:15 PMOk Here is what I don't understand.....
They used school buses, tour buses, airplanes, to bring people to Texas AFTER the storm??? HELLO??
Why didn't they use them to evacuate people BEFORE the storm? Did you see the photos of all (hundreds?)those school buses that sat UNTOUCHED?
Nobody even THOUGHT to use them?
(I Thought our country had all these "emergency plans" in place after 9/11- but now, I am starting to doubt our "national safety". I mean, if they can't even protect 3 states, how the HELL are they gonna protect an ENTIRE COUNTRY????