Letters from home

From my dear mama:

Good Morning All:

You may have heard that FEMA placed about 100 recreational homes at Wind Creek State Park recently, and about 50 or so families are located in them presently. Yesterday, our local Red Cross representative took a truckload of necessities (sheets, towels, brooms, mops, etc. stuff that was donated by local citizens to the local church charity) to Wind Creek because the people had said they needed those items to set up housekeeping. FEMA wouldn't let him in! What are they running up there - a POW camp or something?

One of the local charity workers called the governor's office and got the word back that he "would look into it." Republican speak for "don't bother me." I've been busy emptying out the linen closet of old sheets and towels and anything else I can think of that they could use and will take them over there in a little while. Stuff like this makes me want to strangle all politicians and bureaucrats.

Our tax dollars at work. Yep, they're running guvmint like a bidness, all right -- "...your call IS important to us. Expected hold time is sev-en-ty-five minutes..."

We should gather as many supplies and people (and cameras) as we can and head up there to make a delivery. We need a prominent name leader at the front of the line. Who can it be?

Walkin' to New Orleans

Rumor has it the President will tonight name a "hurricane czar" to oversee reconstruction efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

"Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for -- Kaaaaaarrrrrlll ROVE!"

Josh Marshall: "Maybe you want to spend $200 billion on rebuilding the Delta region too. Fine. Something like that will probably be necessary. But don't fool yourself into thinking that what's coming is just a matter of a different chef making the same meal. This will be Iraq all over again, with the same fetid mix of graft, zeal and hubris. Cronyism like you wouldn't believe. Money blown on ideological fantasies and half-baked test-cases."

Top 10 Reasons New Orleans NEEDS Karl Rove to Lead the Rebuilding:

10. The man knows all about things that leak, mud, where the bodies are buried...

9. It's hard to indict a man with a really fast fan-boat

8. Finally got Cheney out of hiding, so he knows how to handle vampires, the undead, etc.

7. "Scooter Libby, Hurricane Czar" ...just wouldn't sound right

6. The man's been in politics all his life -- he's obviously impervious to toxic waste

5. Those casinos won't rebuild themselves, y'know!

4. Locals aren't allowed to pay for drinks in the French Quarter, so Karl could pay their bar tab

3. Dubya's already done the Mission Accomplished thing -- let Karl have a turn in a haz-mat suit

2. Survivors need a strong compassionate leader, one with experience giving out no-bid contracts to needy corporations

1. He does a rockin' zydeco version of "Pop That Coochie"!

All Lit Up Again

Bush Denies Racial Component to Response

In a sign that Bush is growing weary of the accusations, he testily replied to a reporter who asked whether he felt let down by federal officials on the ground.

"Look, there will be plenty of time to play the blame game," he said. "That's what you're trying to do. You're trying to say somebody is at fault. And, look, I want to know. I want to know exactly what went on and how it went on, and we'll continually assess inside my administration."

He also sharply rejected suggestions that the nation's military was stretched too thinly with the war in Iraq to deal with the Gulf Coast devastation. "We've got plenty of troops to do both," the president said. "It is preposterous to claim that the engagement in Iraq meant there weren't enough troops."

This BushWorld moment brought to you by Pfizer, makers of Zoloft -- in a world that's clearly goin' to hell in a handbasket, what's so low about gettin' high? Tell us Buckcherry!

I'm on a plane with cocaine,
And yes I'm all lit up again...

And yes I'm all lit up again, On the couch, in my bed
And yes I'm all lit up again, flyin' high --
I love the cocaine, I love the cocaine
Mama can you wait, oh can you wait long?

Crack the door for the curious girl 'cause she's waiting
She's been waiting. Chop a line for the fiending man cause he wants one.

You know you know you got to -- can you feel it can you feel it
tonight, are you high love, tell me are you fucking high?!?

In the moment you are just so right, you're right love, oh you're right love --

And yes I'm all lit up again, On the couch, in my bed
And yes I'm all lit up again, flyin' high --
I love the cocaine, I love the cocaine
Mama can you wait, oh can you wait long?

Oh yeah. Don't wanna fight it. Alright. Yeah. Ah YEAH!

Denial River

Dana came in the kitchen for more coffee, said, "They were talking about that study, Hurricane Pam, and how it predicted all this --"

"Yeah, the one the Times-Picayune reporter wrote up -- " Jeff said from the laundry room.

"...how many would drown, how many stranded, they predicted it and nobody did hardly anything. Awful."

Jeff put down the iron; waited a second for the steam sound to fade. "Denial. It all comes down to denial. Before, during, and after."

Dana started to reply, then Chandler grabbed her leg, there was the sound of a magic wand from Little Miss Princess, then giggles, along with Dana's laugh.

"No one could or would admit it could ever happen to them," he continued. "Nagin knew. His business people knew, Corps of Engineers knew, studies and simulations have been done for years, FEMA knew, but all for naught." Hiss.

"Scream 'the sky's falling!', or 'the levee's breaking!' all you want, but who's gonna be the one to put up the money?"

"Meanwhile, the poorest and weakest in N'Awlins have to choose between medicine and food, they're not runnin' out to buy $200 -- hell, $100! -- worth of bottled water and flashlight batteries and whatnot. They couldn't or wouldn't leave, not believing they couldn't ride out Katrina, not till it was too late."

He stopped to cuss the pants again. Stupid worsted wool, what was I thinking? Oh, that's right. Today's sermon: Do people ever really learn anything?

All the lessons we learn as a group get forgotten. History is repeating all around us, but we hardly notice. How can we be expected to remember all those wars and places and dates and names and Presidents? What are you, some kinda trivia geek?

"Never underestimate the power of denial", he thought. And the added distraction of propaganda-channel "news" showing disaster-porn 24/7, mixed in with the usual outrage and blame-everyone-else games. I mean, what did Linda say in response to my email about FEMA's failures -- she went off on Clinton and Denver airport funding?!? Lady, step away from the Kool-Aid.

Other movie quotes came to mind. "Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'. That's damn right."

"There is no one minding the light at the end of the tunnel."

Next came the words "Mama put my guns in the ground... I can't shoot them anymore." And it was almost too much to bear.

Something the Preacher wrote (Everett Joseph Smith Was a Real Boy) came to mind, about a family losing their newborn premature baby: "In the coming days, many of their friends and family will want to pretend that this child never existed. They will want to gloss over the reality of his life in an attempt to ease their pain."

Dana will go see the Katrina reality for herself this week. But that's still a big hush-hush secret; can't wait to hear what she sees and does.

Reality's been kickin' my ass these past couple weeks. I've been alternately on fire to help and doing my bit, and worn out with all of it. Sad all the way to the bottom for the people who lost everything, and pissed off about that sadness 'cause I got nothing to complain about.

But hope really does go on forever. And there's so much work to be done.

Stop me if you've heard this one.

Lavish tastes of card-carrying lowlifes

Profiteering ghouls have been using debit cards distributed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - intended to buy essentials for evacuated families - in luxury-goods stores as far away as Atlanta.

"We've seen three of the cards," said a senior employee of the Louis Vuitton store at the Lenox Square Mall in affluent Buckhead, who asked not to be named.

The distinctive white cards were distributed by the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency and carry a value of up to $2,000.

"It doesn't say anything on the card other than alcohol, tobacco and firearms cannot be purchased with it," the store employee told me. "There's nothing legally that prevents us from taking it, unfortunately. Other than morally, it's wrong."

The source told me that the two women who had made purchases with the card each bought a signature monogrammed Louis Vuitton handbag in the $800 range.

"They didn't look destitute by any stretch. You would never have said, 'They must be one of the evacuees.' The one that I dealt with yesterday was 20. She'll be 21 next month." The source described the reaction of other store-keepers in the mall - which includes luxury brands Ferragamo, Burberry, Judith Leiber and Neiman Marcus - as "outrage."

Anything else going on in the news? Let's see: "Doctors could face death penalty for illegal abortions, some say". Really? Well, it's Texas, what do you expect? And people are worried Roe v. Wade might be overturned...!

"Hey, put on Fox News, I need to know more about that Red Cross debit card scandal..."