Look now

Other countries, some bidden by the president, others not, come to our aid.

We should have been able to help our own but we have weakened ourselves. We sent everything overseas.  We sent kids and we sent money.  The vanity of the Bushes spent so much of it in waste.

Look at who is sending us doctors, medicine, water, fuel.  CUBA is sending us help.  Cuba!  Afghanistan, where people are starving will send money.  Poor Honduras, too.  Venezuela,not one of the countries that's terribly happy with us. Germany...  Russia.  IRAN.  The Netherlands.  France.  Japan.  Australia.  Singapore.  Canada.  Sri Lanka.  Qatar.  Israel.  China.  Saudi Arabia.  Italy.

Friends and foes.

We have had offers of aid from several other countries as well.  Greece, Guatemala, Indonesia, India, Ecuador, Paraguay, Norway, New Zealand, Thailand...  remember some of these countries are still recovering from their own natural disasters... tsunamis and such.  The list goes on.  Columbia, Belgium, Armenia, Dominica, Iceland, Guyana, El Salvador, Jamaica, Hungary, the Dominican Republic, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Portugal, Switzerland (Oh, God yes!  Send Chocolate to these people!), Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan....  Forgive me if I've missed anyone.

I'm not just thinking today about the victims but about the people there to help.

I remember what local officials and workers went through and how traumatized they were.  Pray for them.  Give what you can.

OK, I agree.

Our president's response to the Hurricane was slow because he is a dullard who does not give a rat's ass about the bulk of the American people, ESPECIALLY the poor people.  He would just as soon that we died off, leaving the place for him and his pals.

He is an elitist.  Did you overlook that when you chose him?  He is a multi-millionaire in a family that is very, very powerful.  He doesn't give a **** for you or me.

It takes the stupid *man* a while to think and it takes a while for his people to make up lines for him to say.

Have you ever seen true compassion on this *******'s face?  He ought to be skewered, or better yet, dropped naked into the streets of Iraq.

I saw a picture of Sen. Frist of Tenn., using his medical skills to help people on the scene.  here's the kind of man we need for president.  Someone who gets in there with his sleeves rolled up.  A Bob Graham, a Jimmy Carter.

How is it that we declined water-purification aid for Louisianna from Sweden?  Who the hell are we, anyway?  We are not playing the game right.

But we are taking gasoline from South Korea.  We are letting in 25 aid workers from the Phillipines. What is that all about?

I can't do anything but blog about it. It's so frustrating.  I tried to give blood but my veins were too thin.  I barely survive and can't donate much cash.  But I look around the lace at what I do have and think how fortunate I truly am. 

Not only do I have clothes and dishes and a warm, dry place to sleep, I have food and water (that I had to buy, but it's good water) and I have parents and friends who I know will open their door to me without hesitation.  Heck, I have keys to Dad's and Cristy lets me walk on in....

Ramona, too... tried to keep me at her house overnight when they got back from vacation.  No one has tried to rob, rape or kill me.  I have been robbed before, twice, but never while I was there on the scene.  Call me "blessed."

I have been viewing the disaster and reading the reports.  I am glad I waited.  You only get so much true information in the midst of the fury to get news out.  There is too much ego among newscasters. 

I'm sorry if this entry is more than enough for you now, having heard all about the Hurricane and its troubles for days now.  I want thisto stand. I want us not to forget that there are no promises and that security is just an illusion.

People from Louisiana are being transported to Arizona, Utah, Texas, Colorado and who knows where else.  They might not ever go back to the place they used to know as home, a place that might be in their blood, a place that might be in their hearts.

Imagine losing everything except what you can schlepp.  Imagine having to leave your pets.  Imagine seeking shelter only to be robbed, raped or killed.

America has had relatively few overwhelming disasters.  This one is stupendous.

A jarring blow to the mid-section of the country, this Katrina.  You have to feel it. 

There was no gas Friday in this part of town Friday.  People had freaked and filled up en masse.  Today though, there was no problem... well, no problem finding "Regular." 

I pumped up the tires on my bicycle yesterday evening.  It wouldn't actually hurt me to use self-powered transportation.  This girl has some extra booty....

I can't complain, though.  Well, yeah, the cost of transportation just rose considerably.  I could complain.  Still, none of my relative is floating in the swill of Louisiana's devastation.  They all have houses to sleep in tonight, and food and dry clothes.  They aren't missing their pets.  They haven't lost family heirlooms.  Their cars aren't in trees.  Their houses aren't broken or floating or completely waterlogged.

The truth is, for someone living at just about the poverty level, I'm doing pretty good.  I have what I need.

This morning though, in shelters in Louisianna and Mississippi, there are people dreaming that when they wake up it will have all been a terrible dream.  There are people in Texas who have been taken away from the horror and from knowing what is going on with their people.

I saw a picture of a dead man floating in the water. I noticed that his wallet was on his head.  At least someone gave him that much... letting someone know who he was after they lifted whatever cash he had.

Lower mid-section bloggers are computerless today.  They'd love to tell you what's going on.  Exhausted care workers with no end in sight.  Convoys of aid from other states needing shelter.  Bonds forming between people thrown together. Land pirates looting their neighbors, their own people.

I was touched by a picture of a 5-year-old black girl holding hands with a 105-year-old white woman as the elder was wheeled to new shelter.  Not that a baby will remember holding hands with a god....

Personal misery becomes public domain as photographed grief becomes symbolic to the nation.

Once photographed, will anyone help though?  How will they recover?  Will insurance companies deliver? 

And what will become of the area?  Will they rebuild?  Will Texas start to fill?

And what of the environment, littered with alligators, oil, pollution, corpses human and non-human, building debris and garbage? 

Yesterday, I was reading about the libraries in that region.  Some of the libraries were spared, but their contents are likely ruined.  What other great things have been destroyed?  What other treasures are we now deprived of?

If you aren't heartsick, you aren't paying attention.

 

5211

Sunday morning:

Lightning woke me; a quiet flash not followed by a report of thunder, but so bright that it illuminated the inside of my eyelids. My blinds are closed. The awnings are down on the north side of the room. And I am sleeping on the floor. Still a great, quiet flash of light woke me.

Bollywood

If you have not yet experienced an Indian musical, I highly recommend going out and trying to see one. Or seeing if you can't borrow one from your library.

The stories are tales of love, mostly. Sometimes they are epic and filled with music and dance. Sometimes they are stories punctuated by music and dance. And these movies are filmed around the world.

The first one I saw was filmed in India and Egypt and Scotland. I recognized the castle that the principles were undulating around. That's no India, I said. The credits proved me right.

The stars these movies are good actors and singers and dancers. There's one fellow in the flick I just watched who seems to be the Indian incarnation of Elvis. He is gorgeous even by Western standards. Cleft chin, bluish eyes, high cheek bones, symmetrical face, big muscles with a lean build. Good God, were I straight.... And then when he sang and danced, he was so perfect and said to myself, "There's a good chance that boy is gay. He is just too good."

Yahoo! blog

The other day at work I walked by the computer bank and noticed that a young woman was blogging. I can't help the human instinct of curiousity, so I passed behind her quickly and noted that she was blogging on Yahoo! and that she had just written, "Why must it be so hot in Florida?"

Sproing! Rapid cartoonish shaking of the head in disbelief. Eyes wide. Sigh.

Let me explain. This is going to take a while because there is more than one reason: "Relative proximity to the equator...."

My goodness. Who the hell comes here thinking it's 76 degrees Fahrenheit all year long? DUH!

 

My heart hurts.

I have a fractional idea of what Hurricane Katrina survivors are going through.  I was lucky.  I made it, thanks to my family last year.  And we didn't have to deal with overwhelming flooding, just debris, the absence of power and traffic control, the shortage of gas and food, and the need to clean and repair everything.

It was exhausting and depressing, but really, we were blessed.

The losses now are so devastating, I cannot fathom it all.

But on a personal note, this Em, this woman who has been working her way into my heart for a while now, is having an issue with the way that I talk.

I do not speak in one serious voice.  Apparently I use varied accents and inflections as I talk.  It drives her crazy.  I mean, it really makes her nuts.

No one else has ever complained or gotten stuck on the way I say things.

I am not about to change the way I talk.   She's going to have to deal with it.  I told her I was willing to make compromises/concessions but not to change who I am. I like myself and lots of other people do, too.  No one else is bothered by my speech patterns!

It's such a problem for her it may toll our death knell.  We already have enough obstacles.  The distance and the price of gas, the fact that I can only be with her when her sons are not around, the fact that neither of us has much spending money.

I've already made some adaptations to be with her.  Now it's her turn, I'm thinking.

 

a brilliant sickness

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050826144809990012

There will be no heaven for the one who started that rumor.  But what evil genius to get them to kill themselves, to use their fear.  The Iraqis are not enured to daily death.  They still love and they still grieve.

Je me souviens

I was out in the yard this morning, taking an ax to very dead and very hard orange tree limbs.  I have forgotten how healthy it is to whack your cares away.  My arms need exercise.  Maybe that will fatten my forlorn blood vessels so I can give blood again soon.

I was out there, whacking away and thinking about France and how stupid enmity is.

Without the friendship of the Marquis de Lafayette, we would have had a much harder time fighting King George's men.  And that is only the beginning.

The people of France pay more homage to our World War II heroes than we do!

There come a time in every friendship when there must be disagreement.  Does that mean that the friendship has to end? 

How selfish.  A friend who doesn't follow you blindly is less of a friend?  I don't believe that's right.

Sometimes you have to stand for what you believe no matter who it hurts.

In my family, we know the French to be friendly. And if you look back on our short 229 years as a country, you'll see that France has been beside us all along.

They have the right to say no, to keep their sons and daughters out of an unjust war.  I guarantee you our congressmen aren't sending their kids.  Why should we expect France to?

France is a pretty country, full of beauty.  The people are nice, and leaner than us, too. 

So there!  Nanny-nanny-boo-boo! 

Get over yourself!

Viva la France!