i can't understand how anybody -- even a die-hard republican -- can be a fan of this administration after the f**kup in the wake of hurricane katrina (which i refuse to abbreviate to "katrina" since i've decided i'm against naming natural disasters real 'people names').
check out this interview with the mayor of new orleans. sad, sad stuff, but i love that he's taking the federal government's inaction to task.
i also get really worked up reading michael moore's open letter to w.. say what you will about michael moore's tactics (which i don't always agree with) -- but he is spot-on this time, in my opinion.
what i find particularly horrifying is that this disaster is something that has been predicted for the last few years. the times-picayune (a great newspaper name, in my humble opinion) wrote a great series of articles in 2002 about the subject. of course, this didn't prevent federal funds for much-needed repairs and upgrades to the crazy levee system from being cut in the past few years.
and then there are the awesome features of the nytimes's interactive graphic, so that you can overlay household income and non-white population statistics over the map of the new orleans area.
do you think they're related?
i do.
argh.
sooooo angry.
i have a wonderful colleague/co-worker/employee/friend (i hope she considers me a friend! she works for me, but is really a great partner in running things in my group at work) whose family is from the city of new orleans, and who lost everything this week. she has 11 people arriving to stay with her short-term, and then after some of them head out to stay with other family members across the country she will probably have four people living with her long term. i just hope i can help get her what she needs to help them all, since i can't really do anything about the pain and stress she's felt this past week as she struggled (and continues to struggle) to get ahold of family and friends (there are still some she hasn't heard from) and to help them get to safety.
we've had beautiful weather here this week, and it feels so unfair (note: i wanted to write something like "it feels ironic" but i knew that wasn't the right word. i went to wikipedia, hoping they would suggest somewhat similar words, and found that the definition of irony on wikipedia includes an awesome star wars reference. enjoy.)