Hurricane Katrina

What the heck is going on in the US in the aftermath of the hurricane? I've been watching the BBC's coverage of the story, as well as reading various articles on the internet and it sounds pathetic, at the very least! In a country as rich as ours, I can't believe that people are being left for dead. Dead bodies remain on the street for days, people are killing themselves, one guy because he said it reminded him too vividly of the atrocities he experienced during his tour in Vietnam! I can hardly believe that the images I'm seeing on television are occuring in the United States of America where we're supposed to be organized and civilized, a term we've historially used as an excuse to declare war on other people.

What are the excuses they're coming up with to explain this? http://movies.crooksandliars.com/HelpKat.mp3 I'm sure you're hearing more on your local news coverage than I'm hearing over here. I have heard a lot of really upset public officials, one who actually apologized for his French when he was talking about how enraged he was by the lack of timely response to the tragedy. What an embarrassment for our country. The Nation, an English newspaper in Bangkok, had a front page last week that showed the damage of Hurricane Katrina next to a picture of the trampling incident in Baghdad. Quite the dichotomy. And all the while Bush is vacationing and walking around with that stick, still lodged up his ass. Would somebody pull that sucker out so he loses his pompous swagger?! I apologize to those of you who like the man. My disgust for him grows daily and, as this is a journal of sorts for me, I'm voicing that disgust and it's proving quite therapeutic.

I just read the following from Newsweek http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9190580/: The political storm may only worsen for the White House. For most of this year Bush's advisers have blamed the president's sliding poll numbers not on the war in Iraq but on high gas prices at home. Those prices spiked after Katrina, topping $3 a gallon in many neighborhoods, as the national average rose to $2.68—a 44 percent hike since last year. And there are signs that Bush's political capital is getting soggy. Former GOP House speaker Newt Gingrich sharply questioned the last four years of emergency planning. John Breaux, the former Democratic Louisiana senator and close Bush ally, rejected the president's claim that nobody anticipated the failure of the city's levees, saying he talked to Bush about it last year.

The article also stated that one of Bush's comments was...and hold on to your hats, this guy, although he's President of the most powerful nation in the world, routinely opens mouth and inserts foot!..."I am satisfied with the response," he said of the government's emergency operations. "I'm not satisfied with all the results." Excuse me, you moron, but how exactly are you measuring your satisfaction?!?

Some of the worst footage is that of the looting. It seems that behavior tends to occur when people are desperate. Take for example the looting out of desperation that the Bush administration was attempting to pull with their request to take over the National Guard units, taking credit where credit was NOT due and placing the blame elsewhere. In this Washington Post article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9189916/, it stated that: The administration had sought control over National Guard units, normally under control of the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request, noting that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. State authorities suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who is an adviser and does not have the authority to speak publicly. So in the midst of such a tragedy, the government, instead of putting their efforts toward helping those in need, searched for ways to blame the people whose community had been destroyed. How do these people look at themselves in the mirror each day?!

Well, my therapy session has come to a close and I'm feeling much better. Enjoy Labor Day!