The Big Breezy

I don't know where to begin.  I never thought I would read a story about residents of the United States being referred to as "refugees" but I suppose that is exactly what the people of New Orleans are right now.  The devastation is overwhelming.  How ironic that on the morning the storm hit, I heard so many people on TV say that the city got a break when the storm turned slightly east at the last moment.  They forgot to tell that to the levies holding back Lake Pontchartrain (the coolest name for a lake in the entire country; Champlagne is a close second).

I had to turn it off this afternoon, because I was suspended between states of anger, disbelief, and unmitigated sadness.  I think disbelief and sadness are easily understood; I feel so badly for everyone down there.  I can't imagine not being able to go back to the city I live in possibly for several months. The anger might have to be explained...

Well, first, it was so nice to see our "Vacationer-in-Chief" finally get off his brush-clearing behind and get back to Washington to actually manage a crisis.  I avoided comment on the whole "let's take five weeks off" deal because it was a complete non-surprise to me (though now that I think of it, don't the French do the same thing?).  I was especially touched at how the President described flying over New Orleans and Mississippi today to get a first hand look at the destruction.  Perhaps someone threw some garbage on him as well, so he could get even more of a feel for it. 

Since I bash him there will be those that read this who think I am blaming the president for all this.  While our fearless brush-clearing leader has been responsible for plenty of shit storms these last five years, even he can't be capable of such a calamity.  I do wonder, though, how many in his precious far right Christian base think these people got what they deserved, since it was New Orleans (liquor and sex) and Mississippi (gambling).  I have yet to see any comments to that effect, but then I don't think Pat Robertson has made a public statement yet.

I do blame the government for something though, and this is truly a bipartisan faulting: if memory serves me correctly, there were FOUR hurricanes that hit the US last year, the most active hurricane season ever.  And every forecast I saw for this year said it would be worse.  I can remember my father telling me twenty years ago that if New Orleans ever got hit directly by a big hurricane, it would be a mess.  He explained to me why: (it took several hours) the city was below sea level.  My father was an extremely smart man, yet I doubt he was the only one in the nation who knew what would happen to the Big Easy if it got hit by a Big Breezy.  Given the events of last year, wouldn't it had made sense for someone to say "you know, this is bad, but if it hit New Orleans, it would be a whole lot worse.  Are we prepared?"  Why wasn't there a plan for the aftermath of a hurricane hitting this city?  The local, state and federal level seems to have dropped the ball on this, big time. 

I give credit for the call for an evacuation ahead of the storm, but in hindsight, given that in parts of New Orleans people live in poverty, wouldn't it have been best to have a plan to get everybody out?  Did anyone really think that putting 20,000 people in a domed stadium would be a good thing?  It was a good thing, I suppose, in that it kept people safe from the storm, but surely, the powers that be knew that with no air conditioning or plumbing, things would get nasty there in a hurry.

One wonders what might have happened if instead of spending 300 billion to invade and (maybe) repair a country that posed no threat to us, what could be happening in New Orleans right now if perhaps a third of that money was spent on higher levees, or a new pumping system.  I see know that it takes many Americans dying at once to get this administration to care, instead of a lot of Americans dying over the course of two years.

You can't prevent acts of God.  I know that.  And I think it is silly to ridicule or blame people simply because they live in a place where this could happen.  Anything can happen anywhere.  Still, there's nothing wrong with being a little prepared for extreme situations when it is likely to happen someday.  Like they say, it's not a question of if, it's a question of when.  I can't help but think that New Orleans had about four opportunities last year to have a significant case of the "what-if" hee-bee gee-bees.

The thing that angers me the most though are the people who have no respect for the place they live in and take this as an opportunity to break the law.  I was completely disgusted to see videoof people looting their local Wal-Mart yesterday.  If I were seeing desperate people taking food and water, I'd think they were being resourceful.  It's the electronics, cigarettes and toys that make me hope the National Guard shows up, starts shooting, and forgets to ask any questions.

Maybe that's a bit harsh.  I'm a big believer in karma, and I know those people who have shown themselves to be complete savages will get theirs eventually.  And that is the best thing I can think of about that.

I heard someone say yesterday that this is "our tsunami."  No, it isn't.  It's not even close.  Have about one hundred more Katrina's hit with the same amount of death and destruction and it might be about the same as what the tsunami did last December.  Why do people have to exaggerate?  It's "your hurricane," and let's hope the rest of the world responds to your needs the way it did in Asia last year.

I've never been to New Orleans.  A cousin of mine has always talked about us taking a trip there, but we've never been able to make it happen.  I did drive through it once, in June of 2003.  I was taking the scenic route back from Tampa and spent the day driving west along Interstate 10.  I've seen some of the places that they have been speaking of the last few days; I drove on the bridge over Mobile Bay that is currently closed because an oil rig slammed into it.  I saw some of the casinos in Mississippi that are no longer there.  What I remember most about that drive is the stretch of I-10 just before New Orleans.  The road turns southwest as it butts the east end of Lake Pontchartrain, and I drove this part as the sun was starting to set.  The sky was clear.  It was just me, the water, a deep blue sky, and a radiant red sun.  It only lasted ten minutes or so, and I was in no position to pull over and take a picture (no shoulder), but the images will stay with me forever.

I chose to stay in Baton Rouge that night instead of New Orleans.  It was a Friday night and I did not have a place to stay, so I figured it would be easier to find someplace in the capital.  As you drive west past New Orleans towards Baton Rouge, you see quite a bit of Lake Pontchartrain.  It's a lot like driving along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago-you see nothing but water.  Lake Michigan, though, does not have the electrical towers rising out of it like Lake Pontchartrain does.  I'm still not sure how they managed to do that. 

I'm going to make it back down to New Orleans one of these days, probably not for a while now though.  I'm kicking myself for not spending a day or two there when I had the chance.    

 

Great thoughts ripped off in the middle of the night

I don't know

how a man decides

what's right

for his own life.

It's all a mystery

Dang chickenhawks

1. What is your current desktop picture?  What made you select it? My nephew hamming it up at PNC Park in Pittsburgh in summer 2004.  I was trying to get a decent picture of him, he was not cooperating and I asked him to look like he was enjoying himself, so of course he exaggerated and posed like a six year old who just unwrapped the biggest present on Christmas morning.  Maybe I will make this the first picture I have ever placed in my journal...

2. A close friend who you consider to be up to date on fashion suggests that you should update your look and offers to pay for a session with an experienced hairstylist you've never dealt with before.  Knowing that it's free, would you go? Yeah, I guess, but my hair is only a few inches long.  Don't see what anyone could do with it.

3. When you do look in a mirror, what is the first thing you usually look at? How much gray hair I am accumulating.

4. Take this quiz:  Which Bugs Bunny character are you? I-I-I say-say-say that I am Foghorn Leghorn.  For the record, I predicted this as soon as I read the question, without even knowing if it was an option.

5. What label seems to describe you the best as a whole? Wordy. 

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #60 from Stacy: Is there a specific person that you credit with your successes? and HOW did they help you? Not really, and I say that mostly because I cannot give credit to just one person.  And this will sound weird, but my father assisted me greatly by dying.  Not that I asked him or wanted him to, but when he did, it made me realize that I was not living the life that I wanted to.  That was three years ago, and I have been changing constantly since then.  Would I go back to how I was if it meant he was still alive?  Absolutely, but he's not, and life goes on. 

Purging

1. Other than the "Saturday Six," what weekly or daily memes do you play most often?  (Please give a link to that journal.) Could someome please tell me what a "meme" is?  All I can think of is something someone does when they are warming up for an opera performance. 

2. If you could look back at photos you know of that were taken during your childhood, from your first school pictures to snapshots taken ten years ago, which one do you think would be the most embarrassing and why? Oh my, so many categories...let's see, as a young school child, I had  hard time smiling.  I thought I could smile, but instead I grimaced.  There are quite a few pictures of me where I look like I am passing a kidney stone.  And the outfits...I love my parents and appreciate all they have done for me, but I can say that if and when I am a parent, I will not be purchasing clothers that come in a "set", you know, where the pants have to be worn with a specific shirt.  Then at around the age of ten, my hair started doing wacky things.  I believe it is my seventh grade picture where the hair around my right ear resembles Cameron Diaz's in the gel scene of "There's Something About Mary" (I would like to clarify that my hair did it on its own, with no added help, for those of you reading with filthy one-track minds).  Then, as we metamorphized into high school, the war between my face and its pores became the highlight of any and all pictures.  But the winner is...a picture that was taken my senior year of college, spring 1991, when for some reason I had decided to let my hair grow over the winter.  One word: (I can't say it...it starts with "M", ends with "T" and has a ULLE" in the middle).

(Yeah, this was a great question all right.  And I didn't even get to the picture of me dressed as "Cinderella" when I was 2...) 

3. What was the last thing you made yourself do, even though you really didn't want to? Answer question #2

4. Take this quiz:  How do you live your life? I'm honest and direct.  And that shirt you are wearing is quite ugly. 

5. What was the last book you started but never finished (aside from any you're currently reading)?  Why did you stop reading it? "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."  I bought it because it was in one of those clearance bins where they are practically giving it away, and I am interested in history, but it's huge, over 1000 pages, and the type is so small that I just could not see myself reading it.  I might finish it one day, though, especially if I have to keep living under Republican presidential administrions and Congressional majorities.

6. Are you named after  anyone?  Has anyone ever been named after you? I have the same name as my father and grandfather.  Rather than being named after one, I assume I am named after both.  No one will be named after me, at least not by me, as my name is too common in my family and needs to be stopped.

 

This is all

I've spent the last five days in the Kansas City area.  My wife's grandfather died.  While it was not unexpected, everyone thought he had a little more time left.  A lot of people in the family did not get the chance to say a proper goodbye while he was still living.

I am reminded of my own horror I felt three years ago when my father was alive one moment, and dead the next.  I was fortunate to have spent most of the evening before with him, not knowing what was to occur half a day later.  And while I am thankful for that, I also know that if I had been unable to see him for an extended period before he had died, it would have been all right.

When you have a strong relationship with someone, quantity of time spent becomes over rated.  All that really matters is quality.

And so it goes...this is the first time that I have spent an extended period of time with members of my wife's family because of a loss.  I have found it to be just like the time I spent with my family following the loss of my father; we found ourselves enjoying each other's company, able to laugh and have fun, in tribute to the person no longer with us.  We may feel like crying on the inside, but there comes a point where you realize that life is all about the living.

People die.  Memories of them do not.  In what I can only describe as an odd feeling, I consider myself to be closer to my father today than I ever have, even though I can't have a conversation with him over breakfast.  I can't seek his advice.  Anything I say to him gets left hanging in the air like a broken spider web.  But the bond is still there, still strong.  It is something I can't explain.

And I saw many examples of that this week.  Call it strength, fortitude, character; it amazes me how people rise to the challenge of their lives at times, when they could just as easily disappear into a fog of depression and uncertainness.

Because of that, I feel very close to a man I met less than two years ago and saw only three times.  I feel like he was around a lot more than that.  It's because I am lucky to be a member of another family that appreciates whatever it is that we have here, and has been kind enough to involve me in the stories and details of a time when I never knew any of them existed.

 

 

 

Aw, man...

Why can't politics be fun?  Seriously, I was all set to be as involved as ever for the 2008 presidential race because of Walken2008.com, but now, sadly, it has been discovered that the news is false-Walken is not planning on running for President.

Do you realize what we will be missing out on?

-Dressed as The Continental (from SNL) for the State of the Union, Walken begins the speech: "You know, the State of our Union is strong, strong like the bubbles in a glass of fine champagnya..."; he then proceeds to hit on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

-It's been a tense few days at Camp David as President Walken continues to meet with the leaders of Israel and the PLO.  After some tough, bitter negotiations, two different peace plans are still being considered, but both sides still are not happy.  Walken sees the opportunity for peace in the Middle East slipping away and knows he has to do something.  Does he offer increased economic aid?  A promise to not deploy the US military?  No.  He goes over to the CD player, pops in Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice", and lays it all on the table-"You can go with this, or you can go with that"-complete with three minutes of spectacular dance moves.  Peace reigns forever.

(Side note: Watch the video, and then someone tell me how that is not the greatest music video in history?  In fact, why do they still bother making them?  At the very least, MTV ought to redesign the video music award trophies.  Ditch the astronaut and cast a mold of Walken thrusting his hips out with his hands in his pockets as he walks through the lobby.)

-President Walken, Trivial Psychic (SNL again): During a cabinet meeting Secretary of Defense Dennis Hopper approaches the President, leans over to say something quietly to him, and places his hand on his right shoulder.  Walken grabs Hopper's hand, sits up straight and says: "Today, after lunch, you're going to be five minutes late for a briefing on the Sub-Saharan Africa situation.  As you rush back to your office at the Pentagon, you decide to make a quick stop in the bathroom.  Since you're running late, you decide to zip up as you are walking towards the sink to wash your hands.  You're not going to be paying attention, and you're going to catch little Hopper in the zipper.  It's gonna hurt real bad."

-Does anyone think that the War on Terror would last another two weeks once Captain Koons from "Pulp Fiction" was on the job?  If the guy will hide a watch in his ass for five years, what's he willing to do to defeat Al-Qaeda?

-And finally, President Walken is meeting with leaders of both the House and Senate to try to find a way to fix a budget impasse which threatens to shut the government down.  He leaves the Oval Office for a moment, and the remaining politicians squabble.  After a few minutes, Walken returns and says "I got a fever!  And the only prescription is a balanced budget...and more cowbell!"  Later, when the press praises him for bartering such a quick and successful resolution, he says "I'm just like anyone else.  I put my pants on one leg at a time.  Except, after I put them on I balance federal budgets."

(If you have no idea what this is from, and really, if you don't, you need to get out more, watch this.)

I'm telling you, after just one year of this administration, we'd be banging down the doors of the US Capitol to get the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution appealed.

How long until Election Day?

I can't tell if this site is serious or not.

If it is, I know where my vote in 2008 is going.