What the Fuck!?

Ok, I'm really not into the "Oh, I guess I haven't posted in a while, been real busy with my model trains" school of blogging, but OK--I haven't posted in a week, and it's 100% my fault, with the possible exception of having my work schedule turn upside down. That being said...


WHAT THE FUCK!? What the Jesus-fucking-Christ-on-a-bun-with-a-side-of-fries Fuck?!

I am of course speaking of our Federal Government's mind-boggling ineptitude in handling the post-disaster disaster in New Orleans.

I mean holy jumping hell, people, it's not like you didn't see this one coming:

On Saturday 8/27, the National Hurricane Center in Miami extended a Hurricane Watch for Louisiana and President Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana. Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for some of Louisiana's low-lying areas and Katrina was expected to increase to become a Category 4 hurricane; "This is a very, very dangerous hurricane," said NHC Director Max Mayfield on CNN Saturday. By Sunday 8/28, news reports called Katrina the most powerful hurricane ever to menace the United States and said it was expected to slam into the nation's most storm-vulnerable city, New Orleans. "Some 25 feet of standing water is expected in many parts of the city -- almost twice the height of the average home -- and computer models suggest that more than 80 percent of buildings would be badly damaged or destroyed" indybay.org

OK--the highlights again: state of emergency, 25 feet of water, most vulnerable city, most powerful hurricane ever. That sounds pretty dire, right?

Then how in the Flying Fuck is it possible that major federal disaster relief takes five fucking days to get to New Orleans?! I mean, this literally boggles the mind. My mind is boggled. I am trying to imagine what blend of incompetence, neglect, racism, and/or callousness could possibly explain this, and I am failing. I don't mean that I Can't Believe that we would let this happen in the US. I don't mean that I Can't Believe that it was this badly fucked up. I mean that I Can't Imagine the combination of attitudes necessary to allow a hundred fucking thousand people to live like animals in a cage while FEMA and the various national guards got the flying fuck off their asses and into action.

No, wait. Animals in a cage generally have fucking food and water for Christ's fucking sake. I mean, we had New Orleans cops breaking into grocery stores to find food and water for people. Holy Shit! Is this the fucking Day After Tomorrow? I don't know about you, but I know that the next time I see cops looting grocery stores, I am going to get down on my knees an beg the dear Lord/Goddess/Allah(MHBP)/Bill Gates/whatever to deliver me because I will know that I am in a Truly Fucked-Up Situation.

And No, do not feed me that "you can't fly helicopters in a hurricane" bullshit either. No shit, Sherlock. I think the average American has watched enough TV to have a rough idea of the flight performance of your average helicopter. I don't think anyone is suggesting that we should have ordered helicopter pilots to fly into 100 mph winds. However, I think claiming that:

Federal Emergency Management Agency and other federal agencies have done a "magnificent job" under difficult circumstances

(as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff did) is a staggering crock of horseshit. You had a three day head start--what the fuck else do you want, Park Place, Boardwalk, and a Get Out of Jail Free Card? No, I'm not saying that they should have flown helicopters in a category 4 hurricane, I'm saying they should have flown helicopters the first goddamn day after a category 4 hurricane slammed into a city of 500,000 people. And importantly--much more importantly, because it would have made the above possible--you should have had those helicopters gassed up and ready to go the day before a category 4 hurricane slammed into a city of 500,000, especially when that city is motherfucking below sea level.

Ohmyfuckinggod! What were these people thinking? Yes, I know the relief effort was a massive logistical undertaking yadda yadda, but showing up five fucking days after the fact? That's Seven Days after the President of the United States of American declared a fucking State of Emergency! Why were there not National Guard troops sitting in trucks loaded with food and water, just waiting for the wind to settle down enough to roll into the Superdome which held 20,000 people and exactly zero working toilets and water faucets? What part of State of Emergency do you not motherfucking understand?

And yes, I also realize that after the hurricane hit, there was a sense of relief that the damage was not as bad as was predicted. The levees had held, and the flooding was minimal, so it didn't look like a massive relief effort was going to be necessary. But the massive flooding that did end up happening was already known to be a very likely possibility. Shouldn't at least a few trucks have been loaded up with food and water, just in case the massive flooding happened? Shouldn't somebody have drawn up a plan for how they were going to rescue/evacuate a hundred fucking thousand people? HELLO! Where the fuck was FEMA? I mean, isn't this their fucking job?

And speaking of FEMA, am I the only one who thinks that this might have some Homeland Security implications? as in we better hope like hell that Osama bin Forgotten can't come up with much more than a stray roman candle or two because if he ever does pull off some major-municipality type of shit, then we are seriously fucked.

Jesus. I didn't realized how pissed off I was. I mean, these are the people who are supposed to protect us from terrorist attacks and rescue us if (Goddess forbid) terrorists ever do seriously fuck up a major metropolitan area. What if New Orleans had, oh, say, been contaminated by a "suitcase nuke," and the whole place was a flaming, radioactive mess? And it wasn't like, "Oh dear, we've got to get 100,000 people out of this city because they lack food, water and sanitary facilities," but more like "Fuck!. We have to get 100,000 people out of this motherfucking burning-down city in the next 24 hours or they will all die."

So: if you haven't already, sign up to give someone who's lived in a literal cesspool of a stadium for the past week a place to stay. And don't give me that "Oh, I'm too far away" crap--there are New Orleans residents being flown to Utah (dear God in heaven, that's serious culture shock both ways) so wherever you live is probably close enough.

And for any other reason/excuse you may have, put it to the Jesus test: pretend you are looking Jesus (MLK/Ghandi/Mother Theresa/whoever) in the eye and say your excuse/reason out loud. If you feel comfortable doing that, then fine, I support your decision. Otherwise, click here.

And on the extremely off chance that you are a Katrina refugee reading this: we've moved the computers out of the spare room and will have the fold-a-bed in tomorrow. We could handle a family of three, four if one's a baby. Drop us a line.