yesterday was supposed to be a positive day...

but I may have degenerated into a cynical jerk...

yesterday I needed to sleep (still do), so I did not write as much as I wanted to... and I did not write enough to get through the ranting I felt, the frustration and anger at the slow and incompetent response from the government officials... and the self-applause that officials are giving each other is not just insulting, but psychological cruelty...

government officials failed in their duty... they deserve no applause... they deserve to be investigated for negligent homocide...

to the left you see a link for a New Orleans Journal... if you have not checked it out yet, it is formerly a personal journal at LiveJournal, just a guy writing about whatever... it is now a ground-zero historic record of an eyewitness account of Hurricane Katrina, the flood of New Orleans, and the days following... it is being written, mostly, by Michael Barnett, former marine home from Iraq, from his office in New Orleans... you can find still images and a live video feed (when it's up) there... if you want to know what is going on from an insider's (and survivor's) perspective, click on the link and read... the following is news from the streets of New Orleans:

I was happy to hear the president say, "the results are not acceptible"... apparently there is someone with some sense in his speech-writing corps... when he clearly accepts responsibility for the unacceptible response effort, I might consider viewing his Presidency a bit differently... until now, I have not heard him admit responsibility for any of his mistakes... he personally owes New Orleans an apology for placing Iraq ahead of the Levee project in New Orleans...

if he times it right, now the media will paint him as the hero, the savior, the great leader who stepped in and made the emergency response system work... they can call the first Friday in September Presidential Friday from now on...

and I'll simply add, too bad he was on vacation on Monday when the levees failed and for the first few days when the emergency response system was failing...

I guess that means he's not responsible...

meanwhile, gas prices were $2.89 yesterday at the local Racetrack (historically the lowest price in town)... the station has sixteen pumps,. at least... the station had no more gas... this morning the price was $3.09... a few pumps were open...

will we as a people learn from this that our addiction to oil, especially foreign oil, especially when much of our oil must be gotten from countries that are considered terrorist states, is collective suicide?... can we raise our collective consciousness to the futility of continuing to drain this planet of natural resources while world population just continues to grow and technology just continues to demand more fuels and natural resources?...

I hope so, but expect we will not find oil companies investing in alternative self-sustaining energy sources... perhaps the technological research involved in making solar energy affordable is as challenging as the scientific technology involved in finding a cure for cancer or AIDS...

when will a political leader emerge with the vision of what we, humanity, needs to do to survive as a species?... when will the tax breaks big companies get be in proportion to the true benefit of humanity and not based mostly on the benefit to the government pocketbooks (and in too many cases, the government official's pocketbooks... it is no coincidence that the Bush family money was made in oil)...

unfortunately, the many millions required to climb the political ladder in this country creates a loop in which the rich get power and protect their wealth by supporting the business and industry that made them wealthy...

personally, I think today's news is an excellent example of a political circle-jerk, a find example of public image masturbation (PIM)...

you can decide for yourself whether this is painful comic relief or what was really on the minds of many people wearing white pointy hoods (and leading this country) once upon a time...

today?...

I sure hope not...

I may be letting go of the anger, as anger does little good, being so devisive and oppositional... I want to hang on to the get together feeling that was about half of the previous entry... I do not want you to write me off because you can not see beyond my anger and the venting I aim at our political leadership just because you might support the current political leadership... I believe in calling a spade a spade...

incompetence is as incompetence does...

I looked into the eyes of our President on the morning of 9/11/01 as he sat before a classroom of young kids while an aide whispered news of the tragic evenmts unfolding in NYC... I saw an empty head... I saw someone who needed to be told what to do (excuse yourself politely and get up and and be President during the worst attack on this country's soil in history)... I did not see the eyes of a determined leader who knew what he was doing...

I watched the minutes tick by...

this week, I watched the days tick by... I watched the people crying out for help... for days... and after a few days of watching people cry out for help, I watched the President return from his vacation with empty rhetoric... and today I am watching a President exploit this tragedy by grandstanding for photo opportunities... I watched the leadership of this fiasco called emergency response jerk each other off, pat each other on the back, and applaud each other for the efforts of the past five days... I watched them all smile at their failure...

where were they in 2003 when the US Army Corps of Engineers project to sure up the levees in New Orleans was cut short because the President wanted to revenge his father's humiliation in Iraq?...

searching for weapons of mass destruction, if I recall...

where were they in 2004 when that project to prepare New Orleans for a major storm was cut back even further?...

where were they last week when every news report in the world was aiming a category 5 hurricane at downtown New Orleans?...

where were they Sunday when the storm hit and took out almost the entire southern coast of three states of the Uninted States?...

where were they Monday when the deliberately neglected levees failed and flooded New Orleans?...

where were they Tuesday when the news media was showing us the rising waters, the trapped people, the desperation, the potential for disease and death?...

where were they Wednesday when the people of New Orleans were screaming in their death throes, when the gangs were taking over the streets because there was no order, no government?...

where were they Thursday as anarchy ruled, as women were raped, as people were killed, and as thousands died of exposure, dehydration, drowning, and disease?...

here we are, Friday September 2nd, 2005... and there they are, our leaders, patting each other on the back on every TV station, telling each other what a great job they are doing... and the media eats it up, because it's news...

this is why I do not watch the news...

I want to throw up...

did I say I may be letting go of the anger?... maybe I should turn off the news... just what is so fascinating about watching an old guy walk up and down the steps of a helicopter over and over?... CNN just had the Presidential helicopter take off show... it took about five minutes... what a waste of money...

but finally we see the sky above New Orleans filling with helicopters... finally we see convoys of buses and boats and help rolling along the roads into New Orleans... I noticed they have stopped showing the crowds outside of the Metrodome and Convention Center... are their voices are silent today?...

wait, there's a group of women screaming "water!" as a truck carrying water passes their hiding place...

is the Presidential Tour pre-empting those who need the most with those who have the most is insulting to the concept of humanity... if Darwinian theory is right, then the downfall of the human race just may be when the definition of fittest was changed to richest (and richest being defined as he with the most money)...

dangit, I don't want to be all cynical and crap-filled...

but today, I am watching our leaders stoking their fiddles while a flooded and dying New Orleans and those buried under it, burns...

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
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