I've finally settled in here, well as much as possible until the moving truck brings all the furniture.
I missed the first few hours of hurricane coverage because I was preoccupied with moving in and work and such. So it was a total shock to me to turn on the tv and see all of New Orleans under water early last week. The shock only lasted until I realized that GWB et al weren't doing a damn thing to help all those people, then I switched to rage mode where I've been ever since.
I think the Kanye West had it almost right when he said that Bush doesn't care about black people. The truth is that he doesn't even think about black people or poor people of any color. It just doesn't register for him that some people don't have cars. Or the wherewithal to evacuate their homes on a moment's notice. Or cash reserves to get them through months of rebuilding without jobs. That's the main problem with the fed's response to this point: they just don't comprehend the reality of lower middle class life, let alone the reality of poverty.
Of course it would help if LA was more Republican. And especially if the state government had been more fawning and less critical of the way that Bush totally dropped the ball. Seriously, I cannot believe that he expected people to give him a pass on his total disengagement from the tragedy unfolding for the first week.
And where the hell was FEMA, and for that matter DHS. I mean, I know that DHS is trying to say that they plan for terrorist attacks, not natural disasters, but come on. How much harder is it to get into a city where a dirty bomb just exploded than it is to get into NO right now?!?! And the complete lack of appropriate equipment is an embarassment to our military. I could walk into a Hummer dealer anywhere in the country, plunk down a down payment and drive away in a vehicle that would get me almost anywhere in NO. And apparently rescue workers not only have nothing better than a Hummer, they don't even have anything as good. What was the budget for the Pentagon last year? What was the budget for DHS? FEMA? The people in charge of these departments should be totally f---ing ashamed of themselves.
And to make matters one tiny step worse, it looks like the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is going to be John Roberts. A singularly undistinguished candidate. So bland and vanilla that he is clearly hiding something truly horrifying. Besides his views on a woman's right to choose.
All in all, not a fantastic week.
