I just spent a long time looking at pictures from New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile and all along the Gulf Coast. My boss called it disaster porn, which is fairly accurate. Except most porn isn't obscene. These pictures really were.
I've been through disasters. They really suck. The 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake killed a lot of people in northern California. I was there in my little college town, in my little house with the windows all busted out, surrounded by houses torn from their foundations, the power out for a few days. Many people lost their homes and all of their belongings. But I was warm and dry, and there was food and water.
Those people who got stuck in the path of Hurricane Katrina are not so lucky. I've heard them referred to far too often as "those who chose to stay." Granted, there are some crackpots who think the sheer power of their will, piety and/or dedication to home and hearth will keep them safe. But I seriously doubt that everybody we see wading through the streets "chose" to stay.
I suspect not a few of them were too poor, too sick, too young or too old to get out of town. It's plainly irrational to say that people who couldn't afford a car to drive out of town, let alone the gas to make it go, "chose" to stay and face this devastation.
Now the discussion has given over to "looters." OMIGOSH! When society goes in the crapper for an extended period of time, desperate people with no food or potable water turn to lawlessness? Knock me over with a feather. Fox News anchor John Gibson tried to fan the flames of hysteria (not to mention racism) by repeatedly showing footage of black people taking goods out of abandoned stores. Not even Miami Police Chief John Timoney-- the mastermind behind the Miami Model, wherein cops pre-emptively shoot, beat and use chemical weapons against peaceful demonstrators before arresting them-- would rise to the bait. Instead of agreeing that cops should be shooting looters, Timoney suggested that police might better serve the public at large by trying to save lives.
Ironically, according to EditorandPublisher.com, several cops reportedly participated in the looting of a local Wal-Mart, including one who made off with a laptop computer and a 27" flat-screen TV. (Deep down inside, where I can still experience child-like wonder, I am bubblingly giddy at the thought of cops ripping off a Wal-Mart.)
And then there's the president, who in a now-notorious photo was captured strumming a guitar while flood waters inundated the Crescent City.
A hack would make a "fiddle : guitar :: Rome burning : New Orleans drowning" analogy. A somewhat more clever person would direct your attention to the fingering of the left hand, which suggests not so much a chord as it does an offensive gesture. I must let it suffice to ask rhetorically, "What the F is this dolt doing?"
Bush likes to compare himself to historical figures. For example, lately he's been comparing his entrepreneurial warmaking in the Middle East with the truly noble leadership Franklin Roosevelt showed in WWII. (Memo to Bush: FDR was a Democrat, and the people you surround yourself with are constitutionally incapable of thinking of him without feeling the urge to throttle a kitten.) Maybe now he's modeling himself after his favorite philosopher, Jesus H. Christ, who notably spent three days laying low and chilling before he sprung into action.
Three days after Katrina began battering Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, and then began cutting a swath of destruction through Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio (query: does God hate red states?), George finally did something.
But unlike the socialist Nazarene whose philosophy Bush befouls simply by existing, Bush couldn't be bothered to spend time among the suffering. He did his ministering from a seat in Air Force One, 2,500 feet above the devastation.
Back in Washington, George gave as insipid and lackluster a platitude-filled speech as any "leader"-- for lack of a better term-- has done in similar straits. To wit:
"Right now the losses seem awfully dark for those affected and I understand that. But I am confident that with time, you'll get your life back in order, new communities will flourish, the great city of New Orleans will be back on its feet, and America will be a stronger place for it. The country stands with you. We'll do all in our power to help you."
Sleep well, Gulf Coast. George is confident.