09.02.05 - 12:11 p.m.

I'm just. so. angry.

I'm furious. I want to put a boat in the Ohio and float down to the mouth of Mississippi and pluck a grandmother from her attic, an infant from a rooftop, and middle-aged man from the toxic stew of floodwaters. Last night on one of the cable channels, I saw a man named Wardell who rescued 18 children from his housing projecting, but who had to leave their mothers behind. He rowed the boat (rowed - not rode) and left the moms because he had to physically propel it through the sludge from Lake Pontchetrain. I saw footage of elderly in wheelchairs left to die of dehydration in the heat and the sun, while the head of FEMA claimed that they just didn't know that those people were there - even though reporters have been roaming New Orleans for days and days.

Then, this morning, I watched a Republican circle-jerk as Haley Barbour and the governer of Alabama (also a Republican, insufficiently memorable for me to note his name) informed Bush that the federal response had been great! just awesome! really more than the could've hoped for! while Bush asked about cell phone towers and oil pipelines while people not killed by a. the hurricane; or b. the flood; but now c. dying of exposure in the thirty-fifth largest city in this nation FIVE GODDAMNED DAYS after the hurricane and FOUR GODDAMNED DAYS after the flood.

Last night, roving packs of Republican-apologist reporters wander the red-state coast of Mississippi and interviewed innumerable people who had yet to see a National Guard member and/or a FEMA relief worker in the accessible areas, in the areas not under water, and yet Haley fucking Barbour stood there and assured the president that the federal response was wholly adequate, really insanely awesome! That Mike Brown - he's not just giving press conferences (even though he seems to be live on every program on every cable news channel every hour of the broadcast day) - he's working, hard. And, people, it's hard work.

I'm so sick. Truman started the Berlin airlift 1 day after the Soviets closed off access to the city. Why - more than fifty years later - can't we start airlifting supplies to desperate refugees in the center of New Orleans, Louisiana within, oh, five days of the goddamned disaster that engulfed it.

What the hell has the "Department of Homeland Security" been preparing for if not a disaster like this. What do those people DO? Can you imagine what would happen if we have simultaneous terrorist attacks on three or four major cities with mass casualties? Dirty bombs requiring immediate mass evacuations? Is the color-coded terror-alert system (today, the nation's terror risk is barney-purple!) the only thing these wingnuts have managed to do in four years since September 11? Do they really live the lyrics of a country song every day of their lives?

"Out of the rubble of Trent Lott's house, will come a fantastic house. And I look forward to sitting on the porch one day." - GWB, September 2, 2005

Thank god he's on that. Thank god that Trent Lott's beach house will be fucking rebuilt. Maybe by the time Bush is sitting on the porch, all the refugees from Nawlins will have been evacuated.