the details of political ineptitude and criminal negligence from the NY Times:

When Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, returned in January from a tour of the tsunami devastation in Asia, he urgently gathered his aides to prepare for a similar catastrophe at home.

"New Orleans was the No. 1 disaster we were talking about," recalled Eric L. Tolbert, then a top FEMA official. "We were obsessed with New Orleans because of the risk."

"We're in our fifth day and adequate help to quell the situation has not arrived yet," said Edwin P. Compass III, the New Orleans police superintendent.

yes he actually said this:

"The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." (Laughter.)

������������������������������������������~ President George W. Bush, ����������from his first remarks on visiting the site of ����������the Hurricane Katrina disaster area

somebody shoot me!

or just bad comic relief?

the real shame is that nobody respect him enough to take what he says seriously... think about it... if anyone ever listened to him, I mean really listened to him, he is his own worst enemy...

wait, don't shoot me yet (we'll call that garden gnome from Orbitz, or whatever commercial he's in), we've just gotta laugh to keep from ringing his neck... read the comments for some comic relief... go ahead, read the comments, stay sane without living in denial...

coming back to an attempt to view all perspectives as clearly as possible, the real question may be who is really in charge?...

everybody points the finger at everybody else and makes a logical case that it is someone else's fault... is it the corporations that produce cars and engines of industry that are dependant on fossil fuels that are to blame for the demand for oil and the oil industry's greed to make as much money as possible supplying oil for that demand?... is it the oil industry hanging on to their sacred cow (and greed) and not wanting to invest much in research in alternative energy sources?... is it the President's ignorance and incompetence that allows him to be lead by advisors and power brokers who have their own agendas?... is it public greed?... is it just human nature to take whatever we want and use it up and leave a mess in our wake?...

Bill Clinton's money was made through banking industry connections and in his administration, the banking industry was volitile... the George Bushes made their money in the oil industry and in his administration the oil industry was volitile to the point of invading oil countries more than once... the people at the top of an industry usually make a fortune when their industry is volitile because they have the inside information, sometimes because they are creating the volitility...

coincidence or organized crime?...

or fiction?...

if the latter, let's write a book and make the movie...

if the first, as the church lady would say, isn't that special...

and if the middle possibility, we may never know... the tracks are so well covered and confused by so many people benefiting through legal donations and payoffs that there's probably no incentive for anyone to prove it... after all, we had a President who was caught and almost impeached once and it shook the country up so much, we'd never wake to go back to a Watergate situation again... there's no profit to be made in telling the truth or casting too much doubt about a President's ethics or credibility...

so we live with a cycle of the pendumlum of two parties swinging back and forth from one industry to another and the elected officials are the wealthy because only the wealthy can afford a winning campaign and the elected officials are satisfied winning some and loosing some because it keeps all of them wealthy...

explain why no one did anything knowing all this...

the buck passing, the careless government, the idle rich fiddle... their vacations are more important than a crisis that will moistly effect the poor (the rich are well insured) and potentially will make them much more money (look at oil prices... think they'll go down again before a hefty profit is made?)...

Hurricane Katrina presented a business opportunity...

a business opportunity that was set up by neglecting the levees because eventually they were set up to collapse and create the very economic crisis we are going to live through now...
the people suffering?...

if the rich really cared there would be no poor...

face that fact... there is enough welath in this world so that no one should be homeless, no one should be hungry, no one should be without a job and comfortable income...

anywhere in the world...

but we are such a wasteful species, such a wasteful culture, we are insensitive to the point of ignorance about how we abuse the planet and in turn, most of humanity... but the people at the top of the food chain are not ignorant... they are just plain insensitive... they just do not care...

and they fool us into believing they care every year in October so we go out and vote for them in November...

because we do not want to believe in their cruelty and greed... because we don't want to believe we are so stupid... so gullible... so manipulated...

and because we dream the dream of having all they have someday and therefore, it's not ethical to condemn the rich for being rich when we want to be just as rich ourselves... when we want to see ourselves as better than the poor, as above them...

so we live in denial with delusions of grandeur... we play the lottery... we dream our dreams... if I was a rich man... yaidle deedle daidle dum...

human nature?...

talk about an an oxymoron...

who is left to die in New Orleans?... the dirt poor... the people waiting for welfare checks who, because the storm came the day before the end of the month, did not have the money for a bus ticket or tank of gas to get out of town...

who is left to die in New Orleans?... a large portion of them are the people not paying taxes, but rather living off taxes... the unemployed... the retired... the old... the people with mental illness... or physical illness... the people living off social security... would the rich benefit from eliminating a hundred thousand people living on tax dollars?...

maybe there are some racists in power too, but the primary motivation for everyone is money... even most romantics who convince themselves that love is their primary motivation first and foremost want to make sure they aquire money so they can support a relationship and family, the fruits of their love...

a Senator tells us he feels the pain of the poor because he lost his house too... but his insurance and bank account will build him a bigger and better house... in the end, he will be better off... just ask the President of the United States...

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)