the american way

recovering from a katrina-soaked week. mesmorized by how all the cutting edge meteorological technology in the world couldn't provide enough advance warning to gets shit organized. layers of bureaucratic infrastructure couldn't provide ample emergency preparedness. once katrina struck, everyone was like 'duh, er, wha da fuck happind?'. "despair and lawlessness" is how everyone and their dog is describing katrina's aftermath. since when do all the news agencies get together and agree to a tag line for an event?

i'm mesmorized at how the top superpower can fortify its borders from intruders and its moral superiority from all those threatening foreign madmen, but can't establish coping measures in a region that has witnessed a few weather disasters before. intricate layers of local, county, state and federal bureaucracies can't coordinate their way out of a paper bag. i damn near pulled off my face when, as the death toll climbed somewhere over 100, people actually made comparisons to the tsunami that wiped out near 120,000 people in several countries (over there). jeezus.

but i'm also thankful. i'm thankful that it only took a couple of days before people - too bad they happen to be black - started to point big loud fingers at the question of race. we all know that two days after 9-11, you'd have been shot for raising any sort of enlightened questions about what's really going on. i'm thankful for the talk about the colour of who's bearing the brunt, and for the congressional black caucus for getting all up in bush's face. i'm thankful to those who are daring to explain the inextricable relationship between race and class. oh geez, so black people make up 57% of the new orleans population and something like one-third of new orleans residents live below the poverty line? ... hmmm.

big thanks to new orleans mayor ray nagin for losing it on the radio with such refreshing shit as "get off your asses" and "we authorize 8 billion dollars to go to iraq, liquity quick ... you mean to tell me that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need [here]?"

just another gong show down there. tragic, yes. but also ridiculous. america never ceases to amaze me - too busy fighting fake wars and stomping bully boots all over the planet to properly tend to the backyard. then when anything happens there, it's the event of the fucking century. the american way is one of hypocrisy. narrow-minded and beligerent protection of its so-called way of life, but not its people.

skewed political priorities and sheer incompetence are to blame for katrina's impact being this bad. so my heart - sincerely - goes out to the victims, along with this invitation: when you find what's left of your shit, come on up here. there's tons of space, and when mother nature freaks on us, it's usually just snow - everything freezes for awhile, but shit doesn't float away.