Tuesday, September 06, 2005

the levee situation from here...

i could give an elaborate explanation but why? here it is, in a nutshell: the federal government knew that the levee in new orleans needed to be rebuilt but they took the money they would have spent to secure the city to fund the war in iraq. if hurricane katrina hadn't happened, bush would be off the hook until the next catastrophe came along.

as the mayor of new orleans raged so passionately on the air, and millions along the gulf coast were without food, water, medicine or electricity -- or even a way out of that mess of raw sewage, dead bodies, looters and mayhem -- for something like four days running, bush was (where else?) on vacation. when 9/11 was a possibility, guess what the president was doing? evidently, time spent on his ranch in crawford, texas is a wonderfully inventive way to legitimately hide from the world because he takes a lot of vacations, more than any other president in the history of our little country, to be exact. (he just broke reagan's record.) i guess that's why they call his spread the western white house.

when does he work?

thanks to cable tv, there is a constant overflow of (mis)information about what's going on. the whole world is watching us get caught in the undertow.

i didn't vote for bush in either election and i don't like him any more than any one else that i know but somehow i can't shift gears without feeling the heat. louisiana isn't my neck of the woods but i am a southerner, nonetheless. hurricanes, floods and natural disasters were a part of life for us. and i have friends and acquaintances in the gulf coast area. so yes, i feel their pain. my baby brother is in iraq, in the army. he's got something like three years before he's off the hook. you can't even begin to know how hard i am praying that he comes back alive before anything happens to our 89 year old father. i was on my way to jury duty which was located about two blocks from the twin towers when the first one was attacked on 9/11.

the kicker? somewhere in there, i sang at the white house and met bush and his wife -- and i've got the photo op to prove it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Show the photo! Want to scan it? -- Ralph

Queen Esther said...

show the photo, eh? hmmm...maybe i should. then again, that would be enough to get some serious rocks thrown at me, at this point. i can't reproduce it. (my father already tried.) it's copywritten or something.