Polite Vultures
A lot of people have commented that it took George Bush long
enough to decide to cut his vacation short, what with half the
South being underwater and millions of people homeless. It must
have been some mighty important brush he was clearing out there
at the ranch- more important certainly then the tragedy that
overtook the nation that he's supposed to be governing. His
vacation had the air of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, with
the only difference being that Nero could play a musical
instrument.
Yep. A lot of people have been saying that stuff, but not me.
The fact of the matter is that I like him out vacationing at his
ranch. I feel a whole bunch safer with him there then when he's
in the White House, because when he's sitting in the oval office
gas prices go up and Americans die. I hear he would have been
back to work sooner, but there was a frightening middle-aged
woman standing out in the road with a sign, who wanted to know
why her son was dead. If I were George Bush, I wouldn't want to
answer that question either. Now, I've made mistakes in my life,
but all of my mistakes are still around living and breathing. No
one's died yet (that I know of) because of my bonehead
decisions.
It does bug me that he's getting five weeks of vacation. I've
never had five weeks of vacation at a time, or per year or
anything close. Have you? Do you know any American other than
the president that does? Convenience store managers put in far
more hours than this guy and you'd think, wouldn't you, that
running this entire country should take up more time than
running a seven-eleven.
Here's a little history about New Orleans: In 1801 the French
Emperor Napolean Bonaparte sent a vast naval armada under the
command of General Rochambeau (yeah. I'm not sure of that
spelling) to New Orleans with the purpose of attacking that port
and then taking his great fleet up the Mississippi River and
then securing the land on both sides for the French Empire.
You'll notice that we citizens who live near the Mississippi
aren't speaking French and somehow aren't citizens of the French
republic. So what happened? Napolean, in his 'wisdom',
instructed the General to stop by the colony of Haiti - which
was having a slave revolt - on his way to America. General
Roshambeau was to mop up those pesky slaves and then proceed
merrily on to mopping us up. Unfortunately, those pesky slaves
absolutely creamed him and his fleet, with the result that Haiti
became to first country established by freed slaves.
(I know some of you are thinking that Spartacus did that in
Rome. No. He tried. And failed. And was crucified.)
The news media coverage of the hurricane and it's aftermath has,
in my mind, been remarkably restrained, respectful and
dignified. Of course, I haven't seen all of the coverage and I
haven't been able to find the time to watch much TV. I know, I
know, TV's important so I should make the time and I really
promise that I'll do better in the future. The problem with the
news coverage is that it still has to walk that uncomfortable
line between news and entertainment. They have to tell a story,
but then they have to sell stuff, and the story they're telling
is really there so that they can sell stuff. It absolutely makes
me cringe watching one of these heartbreaking scenes and then
they stop for the commercial. This tragedy has been brought to
you by our sponsors at .... You know, that kind of thing.
The media are vultures. They circle around disaster so that they
can feed on the carnage. This time, they're being rather well
mannered about it, but they're still doing it. One of the
interviews I saw on - NBC I believe - was a female reporter
intrviewing a man whose wife was missing, who had lost his home,
had a young child to care for, and didn't know what to do. The
reporter was in tears hearing this story which I'm sure were
genuine, because she's a human being and the man's situation was
very sad.
My question is: What happened when the cameras stopped rolling?
Did they then help this man out? Tell him where to contact the
Red Cross or something? I'd like to think they did, because
reporter are humans with feelings. But do we know that they did?
It's like when we're shown pictures of starving children. After
they got their pictures did they just pack up their cameras and
move on, or did they at least have the decency to give some of
these kids a sandwhich or two?