On Friday, Barack Obama said, “It has been a rough couple of weeks.” Truer words have rarely been spoken by a politician.

Religion and politics shouldn’t mix. You need look no further than the campaigns of John McCain or Barack Obama recently for classic examples of why. By now, surely everyone has heard about Barack Obama’s pastor, the very wrong Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the fiery soundbites from a 2003 sermon that have made their way across all media platforms and the blogosphere.

You have probably also heard of the controversy with John McCain caused by the also-wrong Rev. John Hagee, who made eyebrow-raising remarks about Hurricane Katrina’s real purpose in the grand scheme of things.

One of my closest friends, my “adopted mom,” Linda, whom I have mentioned and linked before, wrote an article over at Huffington Post about the double standard in the coverage of the Obama-Wright and McCain-Hagee stories.

Back in 2006, Hagee had this to say about Hurricane Katrina:

“I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are — were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know that there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment. And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.”

Here’s what Linda had to say about Hagee’s train (wreck) of thought:

“In the Gospel According to John Hagee, God got fed up and hurled Hurricane Katrina at New Orleans in a raging fit of divine retribution.

“Trouble is, thousands of folks along the entire Gulf Coast suffered and died. Whole towns, innocent communities, were wiped out; folks who had nothing to do with Sin City, had never been there and never intended to go. Thousands of them lost their homes, their schools, their jobs. Their families. Many of them are still suffering, still displaced.

“If Hagee’s right about God’s direct and purposeful involvement, we have another problem. God’s aim is not so good. He hit the Ninth Ward, home of the city’s poorest citizens. Hit ‘em hard. Nothing much was left of it but debris and dead bodies. God got middle class neighborhoods, too. But He missed the French Quarter; the black heart of Louisiana’s Sodom (or Gomorrah, take your pick) was left unscathed. And that makes no sense at all.

“Unless John Hagee’s a hate-mongering hot-head who uses the pulpit badly…and God had nothing to do with the disaster that struck the Gulf Coast. Sometimes you just can’t go along with every word you hear on Sunday morning. Pastors are human, they’re flawed like the rest of us–and sometimes they’re wrong.”

Linda goes on to criticize the media for giving McCain what she says amounts to a free pass on his association with Hagee. Hagee endorsed McCain, but McCain does not attend Hagee’s church. As Linda points out, McCain sought Hagee’s endorsement to impress the religious right, and even more importantly, to get their votes.

But since McCain himself says he doesn’t agree with everything Hagee says, it’s all supposed to be okay, right?

Wrong. Continue reading “Four Wrongs Don’t Make Anyone Right”

I received one of those circulating emails the other day and I wanted to point it out. It purports to have been written by an unnamed “county emergency manager” somewhere in Colorado. Here’s the text that this alleged person allegedly wrote; my comments will follow.

WEATHER BULLETINUp here, in the Northern Plains, we just recovered from a Historic event— may I even say a “Weather Event” of “Biblical Proportions” — with a historic blizzard of up to 44″ inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10’s of thousands.

FYI:

George Bush did not come.

FEMA did nothing.

No one howled for the government.

No one blamed the government.

No one even uttered an expletive on TV .

Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.

Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.

Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.

CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.

No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.

No one looted.

Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.

Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.

No Larry King, No Bill O’Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.

No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.

Sent out caravans of SUV’s to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.

The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn’t ask for a penny.

Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families.

Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.

We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.

We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is “Work or Die”.

We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for ’sittin at home’ checks.

Even though a Category “5″ blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world’s social problems evaporate.

It does seem that way, at least to me.

I hope this gets passed on.

Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living.

The level of anger to be found in this letter might be easy to understand if you can put yourself in the place of a hands-on disaster relief employee who’s trying to get people the help they need quickly without the resources he or she might need at that moment. I’m sure that would be a frustrating job, and I’m sure that person probably needed to blow off lots of built-up steam.

The level of hate to be found in this letter is a different story.

If this person — assuming the text is genuine — really wants to compare that powerful winter storm to Hurricane Katrina, let’s do it. Let’s see what we can find.

Storm to Storm
First, let’s compare the two storms. According to two different news reports, the storm was blamed for 8 deaths in the Pacific Northwest, and/or 12 deaths in four states. I don’t know whether that means there’s a total of 12 or a total of 20. But for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s 20, and then let’s triple that amount, just to give the largest benefit of the doubt. So we’re going with 60, which is probably an inflated number to begin with.

Hurricane Katrina killed 1836 people. There were 705 still missing or unaccounted for last time I checked, so this could bring the death toll to a total of 2541, or roughly 42 times the number of fatalities.

Hundreds of thousands of people were left in the dark in the winter storms. Three million were without power after Katrina.

There’s no clear estimate of property damage from the winter storms. While there were 90 mile-per-hour winds blanketing the area, the main damage seems to be (so far) from house fires caused by people trying to stay warm.

Hurricane Katrina is blamed for $81.2 billion in property damage.

Federal Response
It’s true that President Bush didn’t visit. It’s true that FEMA didn’t send trailers or food. Then again, it appears true that Colorado didn’t ask for any. Governor Bill Owens delcared a Statewide Disaster, which allowed him to pull the Colorado National Guard into relief efforts. The National Guard dropped hay to help stranded farm animals. Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave introduced bills to help speed financial aid to ranchers who lost livestock. So while it may not have come from the Governor, the state did ask for Federal Relief assistance. Some people did demand that the government do something to help them.

And President Bush did sign emergency declarations for Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska — whether those states asked him to or not. That signing paved the way for FEMA to send — if nothing else — financial assistance to the area.

It sounds as if Colorado was better-prepared for dealing with this storm than the Gulf states were. That may have been luck, or it may have been more competent leadership. Still, there’s nothing wrong with asking the federal government for help. There’s something very wrong with pretending it didn’t happen to elevate yourself to a higher status over people who’ve been through worse conditions.

Economy
Since this letter originated in Colorado, let’s start with them. The average per capita income in 2003 was $34,561, ranking that state 8th in the nation in terms of highest individual income. Colorado, by the numbers, averages as one of the top ten richest states in the country.

The figures from the three states hit hardest by Katrina, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, tell a very different story. The same 2003 income data shows that Louisiana ranked 43rd, with a per capita income of $26,312. Alabama didn’t do much better, with a per-capita income of $26.503. And the rankings from 2005 show that while income has obviously risen across the board, Mississippi ranked 50th, with $33,569. (Keep in mind, that’s a 2005, not 2003, amount.)

If the eighth-richest state in the nation, by per capita income, needed the same level of assistance after a storm that caused much less damage and less casualties then three of the poorest states needed after a storm that caused a much greater loss of property and life, I think that would be a hell of a story.

Media Coverage
Here’s another example of someone who lashes out at the media not having taken the time to check his or her own facts first. It’s always funny how people who are so quick to find fault with the media’s coverage of something can so easily demonstrate a failure that they’re only to happy to criticize the media for committing.

Did the networks visit? I saw live shots on the Today show. I know I saw live shots on the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News. I’m quite certain that correspondents from CNN and MSNBC were doing live shots from the area, probably to the extent that others were complaining that they were making “too much” out of it. So somebody visited. Perhaps it’s the fact that Brian Williams, Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson didn’t personally visit that this person takes as an insult. If that’s the complaint, it’s unfortunate that he or she chose to skew the facts in making it.

As for coverage, I’ve already cited stories from NBC News and ABC News. The writer mentioned people taking in complete strangers and asking for nothing in return. Well, here’s a CBS News story covering an example of that.

You can continue to search other sources if you wish. Each one has numerous stories on the storm as it moved in and after it moved out. But I think the point is made.

Anger can make us say and do silly things. I suppose this person, who was at the center of a crisis, was entitled to lash out. I hope it helped in some way. But if you see this email cycle around, now that the tempers have stopped flaring, now that we’ve had time for a little common sense, I hope you won’t forward it, since most of it is a lie.

Over at The Blue Voice, Dave asks an interesting question about people who call others “Conspiracy Theorists:”

“So why is it the minute someone suggests that the people who own and control EVERYTHING–the land, the labor, the resources–might pursue their best interests at our expense they are labeled a “[Conspiracy Theorist]?” Instantly we are lumped in with the crop circle and black helicopter crowd.”

I’m not referring specifically to Dave in this definition, nor do I recall ever singling him out as one. But since he used the collective pronoun we in his question, I’ll assume that he has been classified that way by others, and I’ll address the situation with that understanding.

When I do refer to “conspiracy theorists,” here’s what I have in mind: someone who analyzes any action until he finds the worst possible motive for that action, and who then insists that this motive must have been the one that caused the action.

After Katrina, rapper Kanye West looked at the suffering caused by the FEMA fiasco and said that George W. Bush hated black people. That, to me, is a conspiracy theory.

It ignores the facts that local and state emergency management officials failed in a major way in evacuating their own people, ignores the fact that FEMA itself suffered major failures, ignores the fact that not all black people are Democrats, ignores the fact that people other than blacks were trapped there, ignores the possibility that the Bush’s failure to micro-manage the rescue efforts might have been caused by him either not grasping the serious of the situation or placing too much trust in everyone else — or both — and assumes instead that Bush intentionally inflicted pain and suffering on those survivors because he must have thought they were all black.

You’ll note, hopefully, that I’m not arguing that Bush doesn’t hate black people; he may or may not. What I am saying is that you have to ignore a great deal of material to leap to that conclusion and be so sure that it is the only possibility.

When it comes to such theories that involve the current president, it’s amazing to see two different versions of the same man begin to emerge. One minute, Bush is a bumbling fool who can’t navigate his way out of the proverbial wet paper bag; the other, he’s a mastermind racist who commits genocide under the clever guise of failing to kick his own emergency management agency’s butt into higher gear to get help, all the while assuming that the constant pictures being beamed into everyone’s living rooms of the shocking conditions would go unnoticed.

Either he’s an idiot or he’s brilliant. Either he lucks into everything that goes his way because he hasn’t the brain power to successfully execute a plan on his own, or he’s a genious who occasionally plays dumb to stay under people’s radar while carrying out an incredibly well-thought-out plan that seeks to accomplish his secret goals while making him appear incapable of having thought said plan up to begin with.

The only way he can be both, it seems, is if you’re a conspiracy theorist, at which point he bounces back and forth to whichever one supports the conspiracy du jour.

As an example in that post, Dave displays a cartoon parody that takes a page from the old ABC Saturday morning series, Schoolhouse Rock. It points at media conglomerates as being evil, truth-hiding monsters who intentionally keep you in the dark to pad their own pockets. (The media is always a favorite target.)

It’s true that less diverse ownership can create more opportunities for a major corporation that has an agenda when it comes to influencing public opinion. Conspiracy theorists who argue about the “evil” media stop right there, right after they remove that pesky conditional word, can. They don’t mention the flip side of the coin: that larger media outlets generally have more money, and are able to provide more coverage, hire more people, and afford more extensive coverage of stories that are important to your community than smaller, “mom and pop” operations usually can. They don’t even seem willing to consider that possibility. It’s ironic that people who criticize the media for their alleged universal bias seem incapable of being impartial.

I once worked for a station that was purchased by one of those big conglomerates. I worked there for years before the big dogs arrived, and stayed for several years afterwards. The changes I saw were profound: the size of our news operation more than doubled. We got new equipment — much better equipment — that allowed us to do more stories in the community. We were encouraged by our new owners to get out into the community more, to become more involved and make note of more diverse opinions in our audience. We began doing more market research, something that was cost-prohibitive before, to see what our viewers wanted our newscasts to be. When severe weather, specifically hurricanes, threatened the coast, we had MORE resources, not less, because we suddenly had more sister stations from which we could borrow more facilities to get the stories told. And local charities had access to grants the big company offered in cities where it held properties, so that the community was able to benefit from corporate donations. Even corporate matching for charites we as individuals chose to donate to was better than when the station had been owned by the smaller company. More than it ever had been before, the station became a good “corporate citizen” and was able, thanks to a new owner with deeper pockets, to better serve the interests of the community.

Not once in all of this change, was there the demand from our corporate office to ever “spin” a story in a manner that would make some corporate concern be portrayed more favorably. Not once did I ever hear or see anyone from the corporate level step in to guide coverage towards one side or away from another. Not once. When it came to day-to-day coverage of news, they didn’t get involved. Their headquarters was located out of state, and their philosophy — as it should have been — was that we knew our market better than they did, and we were empowered to act accordingly.

I think that most people realize that no one can always be completely trustworthy. When it comes to the media issue, I’d never say that the media is perfect or that conflicts of interest do not arise. I do say, from having worked on the inside, that they don’t happen nearly as often as some would have you believe. The fact is that there are many, many dedicated people working in this field, usually in thankless jobs, who care about doing the right thing. It is a supreme insult to them to group them into the same category as those who don’t (just as it is offensive to Dave to find himself grouped into the category of UFO enthusiasts).

But on the other hand, one has to consider the fact that with more scrutiny than ever before, it’s increasingly harder for abuse to occur. Not impossible by any means, but certainly more difficult. Part of that is because of competition itself: if one media outlet doesn’t report on the transgressions of its corporate owner, you can bet that media outlet’s competitors will. Why? Because it plays right into good graces of the conspiracy theorists who can then say, “Hey, look at what Station X or Newspaper Y didn’t tell you!”

Who ever said it was a good idea to trust blindly in one particular media institution? You shouldn’t put all of your eggs in one basket. If you want to stay informed, unfortunately, some amount of work is required on your part. No one said it was supposed to be easy, you know.

Also missing is the consideration that even a mom-and-pop operation could unfairly influence the spin of stories. In this day of the countless media watchdog groups who are champing at the bit for the chance to accuse a major media company of bias, it’s conceivable that a smaller company might be able to slip bias into a story and not have their action be noticed.

A conspiracy theorist doesn’t want to hear any of that. Instead, a conspiracy theorist would simply look at me and claim that I’m “brainwashed” and that this is why I can’t see what’s so obvious to them.

Conspiracy theorists also hate the rich because they suspect that the rich have as their primary motivation your own financial ruin. I don’t understand that. Do you think that Donald Trump gives a damn how much money is in your checking account? If he does, it’s probably only to the extent that he’s competitive enough that he wants to make sure he has at least a cent more than you do. But if the average rich man could be rich and still have all he wants, don’t you think he’d be just as happy if no one was living below the poverty level? Perhaps my view of the rich is too self-centered; but if so, it’s no worse than the labelling of them as heartless, cruel monsters who want everyone else to suffer.

Then there are conspiracy theories about health treatments. Some people believe that the cure to every conceivable illness not only exists, but is being hidden by the drug manufacturers (and/or the government) so that they can profit on medical research. Well when you think about it, that argument really doesn’t make sense, either. If one terminal illness is cured, the patient lives longer. If the patient lives longer, sooner or later, he’ll come down with another illness…or even another course of the same one. (Haven’t we all had the common cold more than once? Haven’t you heard of people fighting cancer that has come out of remission?) The drug companies can make their profits as they keep charging him for cures of the endless series of maladies he’ll endure before he finally dies, sometime around age 215, when even the greatest medical secret ever stumbled upon can’t do the trick.

You get the idea when it comes to the conspiracies. Now consider the way some conspiracy theorists argue their point. Note the language that follows Dave’s initial question:

“You might want to question the wisdom of such an assumption. Ask yourself a simple question: Who benefits from your ignorance? Who benefits? Who benefits from you ignorance of history? Who benefits from your ignorance of corporate welfare?”

Who will your ignorance benefit? What problems will your ignorance cause? A conspiracy theorist always thinks everyone else is ignorant. Only conspiracy theorists know what’s really going on. Anyone who can’t or won’t agree is either a fool, blind or conditioned to accept everyone else’s word without thinking for themselves. Sorry, but I’m not going to automatically side with someone who attempts to use grade school peer pressure to make me conform my thinking to fit their ideals. Why would anyone?

Yet language and wordplay is a big part of the conspiracy theorist’s strategy.

If Dave feels that he has been considered a “conspiracy therorist” for his beliefs, I’ll use him as an example and point out that he once asked, “When will you find the courage to admit that the War in Iraq was wrong?”

It is a very cleverly-constructed question. In fact, it might remind you of that old joke, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” That is a joke question because it’s a no-win scenario: either you’re a wife beater who may have reformed or you’re a still-practicing wife beater.

There’s a very important difference in Dave’s question, however. If you don’t side with him, you’re a “coward” because you lack the courage to admit the truth he wants you to admit. If you do side with him, you’re somehow “courageous” for having done so. So it isn’t a “no-win” scenario, but a “one-win” and that win happens, not by coincedence, when you believe what he wants you to.

Also very much a part of conspiracy theories is the use of “pet names” for the “bad guys” being bashed. That’s why, in political blogs that always vilify the opposing party, George W. Bush is often referred to as “Shrub,” why Donald Rumsfeld is “Rummy,” and why Bill Clinton is “Slick Willy.” The hope is that you’ll jump on the bandwagon more easily if you are provided easy access to cutesy nicknames. Again, it’s a very juvenile, schoolyard thing to do, but it’s quite common.

It strikes me as a somewhat less-than-honest form of debate. And when I see such game-playing, I start asking a few questions of my own. I wonder why such tactics are even necessary. And I wonder about the agenda of the people who are so determined to get you to side with them.

Dave, for example, is anti-capitalist: he’s said so. He’s pro-labor unions: he’s said so. He’s a proponent of anarcho-syndicalism: he’s said so. Is it so unreasonable to wonder, while Dave is questioning the motives behind every action those who don’t side with him take, whether Dave himself might be capable of downplaying any negatives associated with his sides of the issues? Understand: I’m not saying he does, I’m just asking whether it would or wouldn’t be reasonable to ask.

If he’s going to raise the question of bias or dishonesty or unfairness, it seems to me that it’s perfectly fair to apply that question right back to him at least once in a while; otherwise, we must conclude that those who question others should automatically be exempt from their own questions.

The fact is, of course, that we’re all capable of spinning a story in a manner that makes our own position look better than someone else’s. Think about those times you told a friend or co-worker about a rude employee you encountered at a grocery store, or the driver who cut you off this morning, or the telemarketer you told off last night when she interrupted your dinner. Can you honestly say you never embellished such a tale just a bit?

The people I call conspiracy theorists take this a step farther, by identifying the worst-case scenario then insisting that it is common practice, and by twisting the facts so far as to make their position look like the only reasonable position anyone in their right mind could possibly take, which is illogical: if that were true, the masses would already be on their side and there’d be no “all-powerful” opposition to debate about.

Thinking if something has the potential to be bad, or if something has been bad before, then it must be bad, and as bad as it can possibly be, all the time, doesn’t make sense to me. No one is all good or all bad: there are degrees of each.

I’m willing to have an open mind and watch for problems on a case-by-case basis. Some would say that makes me the unreasonable one.

You have to decide which sounds more reasonable to you and act accordingly.

I’m not sure how we reached a point in this country at which we actively began spending so much time looking for things that offend us, but now, it seems, that even America’s longest-running game show, The Price is Right has become caught up in a controversy involving Hurricane Katrina.

Casual viewers may not be aware of the fact that ‘Price’ airs reruns during the summer months. This is a practice that has been going on since the 1980s. Later this month, the show will kick off its 34th season on CBS.

Earlier this week, one of the programs that aired featured a trip to New Orleans in one of the showcases. That program originally aired in December and was likely taped last November or so. As soon as CBS realized that prize was contained in the show, it quickly substituted the episode for the west coast feed, but not before being accused of being “insensitive” to Katrina victims.

Those of you who know me know that I love The Price is Right. It’s one of the last of the classic game shows, from the heyday of the era when game shows like Match Game and Hollywood Squares dominated the 1970s and just gave viewers a getaway in daytime that didn’t involve anything but fun. It is not representative of what too many game shows these days have tried to become: some dark, Armageddon-looking reality series with lots of dramatic lighting and music and disgusting things for contestants to eat.

But my affection for The Price is Right aside, it’s just a game show!

Why didn’t CBS make every attempt to pull all of the episodes that contained trips to New Orleans, which is a fairly popular prize on the show? They did. They apparently missed one. How? Simple: the Network’s programming department deals with episode numbers and times the length of commercial breaks and segments of the show. Those who schedule episodes don’t keep up with a long list of every prize involved in the show. Those who produce the show do, but they’re not with CBS. Somehow, either someone at the Network who screened the episodes missed the trip, or someone who provided the Network with the list of production numbers that contained that prize missed one. Or maybe someone had the list and just misread a tape label.

However it happened, it happened.

A spokesman for the Network — yes, some were apparently so upset that this required a spokesman — said:

“Trips to New Orleans are frequently offered as travel prizes on ‘The Price Is Right.’ Out of consideration for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, we made every effort to pull all repeat episodes from circulation that feature trips to New Orleans.

“However, this one episode was unfortunately overlooked … and the content of all other episodes scheduled for rebroadcast has been carefully reviewed to prevent this from recurring. Our thoughts and prayers are with the brave citizens of the Gulf Coast.”

There are people in New Orleans who still haven’t left their homes. There are people throughout Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama that don’t have homes to return to. And people are worrying about a prize in The Price is Right? That’s keeping one’s priorities straight, isn’t it!

If the people who were “offended” by seeing mention of New Orleans in that episode would have spent as much effort contributing to relief efforts and helping encourage others to do the same, rather than just getting bent out of shape, I would think much more would have been accomplished.

A favorite pastime of many, even more than laughing at the president, is laughing at the weather forecasters. How many of us claim that they Brian Williams talked about the National Weather Service bulletin he received on his Blackberry device as he was headed to cover the rapidly-developing story in the Gulf coast over at the blog for the The Daily Nightly.”

Here, as it appeared, was the updated weather service bulletin before Katrina made landfall:

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005…DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED…

HURRICANE KATRINA…A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH…RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER.

AT LEAST HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL…ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED…ALL WINDOWS WILL BE BLOWN OUT.

THE VAST MAJORITY…OF TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING…BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS…AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

They got it right. This time, in fact, they were too accurate.

Debbie left this comment and I wanted to respond to it because there are some important points here and it was too long to deal with as a series of comments.

I’m addressing what she said point by point. Her comments appear in blue.

Generally Agree BUT…Is it just about BLAME? Or is it also about finding where the problems occurred so you can fix them for next time. If you don’t search for where, who, why, then you have no opportunity to correct. You can say later it can be done, but if you want to fix NOW (also needed) then you have to find out where the problems are. Some people think when you say “Hey, this is not right…” you are complaining or whining. That is not necessarily the case. It has not been in all our history. Are you placing the blame/whining when you say slavery is not right? Are you placing the blame/whining when you say sexual harassment is not right?

Valid points. But there is a big difference from examining all aspects of the situation to look for who failed and why…and saying, “this whole thing happened because Bush was on vacation” or “this whole thing happened becuase Bush sent us to Iraq.” Either could played a part, in different ways, but neither could be the sole cause of the nightmarish manmade disaster that followed the natural one.

Some say that the whole problem is that FEMA’s focus shifted to terrorism. That would make sense if not for the fact that just last year, the agency conducted the Hurricane Pam exercise in New Orleans. Their focus may have shifted, but not to the exclusion of natural disaster preparedness.

Yet that faulty, one-sided foolishness is exactly the type of argument that prompted that entry to begin with.

Here’s the difference: people who want Bush’s head on a platter are only interested in looking for ways that Bush failed. People who are “blindly supportive of Bush” want to know why the Democrats in Louisiana failed.

There are lots of failures here, on both sides. I think that if we’re going to take a serious look at what went wrong with the goal of preventing this in the future, we have to do something that isn’t easy: we have to attack our own partiesand see how “we” failed as well as how “they” failed. And I read an awful lot of commentary that just isn’t willing to do that.

I could point out that when Hurricane Georges threatened New Orleans in 1998, 14,000 people ended up evacutating to the Superdome and ended up there for days with no supplies. I’d like to know why, in seven years, local authorities haven’t figured out a way to make sure they have something until federal assistance arrives. That same year, there was talk of using city buses to evacuate those who could not get out on their own. Seven years later, that plan still had not gone anywhere. And after seven years, there was still no formal plan on how to evacuate the Superdome itself if the city became uninhabitable.

There are Republicans who want you to believe that this is the whole story. But it isn’t. When Bush signed that declaration of emergency two days before the storm hit, it authorized FEMA to mobilize and get to those states to assist residents. He acted ahead of the storm…then and obviously only then. FEMA, for some reason, didn’t mobilize. Bush, obviously, didn’t follow up on FEMA’s progress, which doesn’t make an ounce of sense to me. How do you brace for a category four hurricane, get the cavalry ready to go, yell “Charge!” and then never look back to make sure that they actually went?

You tell me how one person can be to blame for all of that. Let’s drop the political pretense.

I’d like to know why each individual failure happened,and I’d like to know how to keep each individual failure from happening in the future. But when someone reduces the myriad failures down to Bush alone, that tells me that they’re looking for a scapegoat, not a solution. And that doesn’t help anyone.

I’m all for looking for facts, but opinions aren’t facts. The people who tend to want to blame Bush and Bush alone aren’t so much interested in facts as much as their own intense dislike for this one single person. We all know the difference when we see it, if we’re willing to open our eyes and think about what we’re reading.

Now, as to your single person idea. If something goes very wrong in a company, does the CEO come out & take the brunt of it & get fired if the company loses money or a crime is committed? Did he necessarily cause the loss/crime? Many times the ones who committed this infraction will get fired also, but you may “let go” the CEO. When the abuse occurred in Iraq what happened? The attackers were put on trial, but who got demoted??? I know you said specifically Bush is not the ONLY one to blame, but we do need to recognize that he is ultimately in control/power!

There’s just one problem with the CEO comparison: it fails to take into account that our government is set up with local, state and federal officials.

Here’s a counter-example for you: I once worked at a major conglomerate that owned more than a dozen television stations. The CEO of the conglomerate was like the president of the United States. Each station had a general manager. The general manager had department heads that reported to him.

When there was a problem with station WXXX in one city, it was the general manager of WXXX that had to deal with that problem, not the CEO of the conglomerate. If some major crisis befell WXXX and it was determined that the management of the station didn’t act effectively and their support systems within the conglomerate didn’t serve them like they should have, multiple heads will roll, to be sure. But the head rolling starts at the station with its management and moves up; it doesn’t start with the CEO’s head on a platter and move down. And I suspect that before the CEO gets the pink slip, one of his vice presidents in charge of something-or-other that was supposed to handle the crisis at WXXX gets hung out to dry first.

Remember…the CEO thing is your example, not mine. I’m just describing what I’ve seen happen at the one I worked for.

If America was a dictatorship, then I could certainly see blaming Bush and Bush alone for anything bad that happened. But if that truly made sense, why would we bother electing governors and mayors? There would be no need for them if the president were truly the one who made all of the decisions and had complete control of every single thing that happens in the country.

Let’s say that you have a problem with garbage delivery on your street. Do you call the White House? Do you call the governor’s mansion? No. You call your city hall. There’s a reason for that. Our country’s government is structured through many tiers, not a single one that puts one man ultimately in charge of every single thing.

And no matter how much a president wants to cut funding for one thing to boost funding for another, the last time I checked, Congress still had to approve that plan, right? The president doesn’t make such decisions by himself.

Our federal system is designed to give states their own power. FEMA is supposed to protect all of us, but they’re also supposed to assist local and state authorities, not do all of the work on their own.

You’re right: I have said that Bush is not without blame. I also continue to point out that just because he’s in power doesn’t mean we should pretend that blame cannot exist with anyone else as well.

I agree those who want to blame JUST him are not wise, BUT remember not all do critically think & know “systems” so compassion is needed for them just as you are asking for compassion of others for Bush.

Compassion for Bush? I’m not asking for compassion for Bush at all!! I’m asking for common sense. You’re right when you say that “not all do critically think and know ’systems.’ What I’m asking for is that these people who aren’t thinking critically start!! Instead of blindly following their own political agenda and at the same time getting mad when people on the other side of the political spectrum are doing the same thing, it’s time everyone started thinking critically and looking at all sides of an issue.

What does political hatespeak accomplish? It further divides us, gets people angry, and causes people to disconnect from dialog that might otherwise be beneficial. It’s time that people check their party affiliation at the door and educate themselves about how the system actually works. They might be surprised by what they find!

(And there are plenty of Republicans and Democrats that aren’t thinking critically here.)

Now to say we are “not a kinder, gentler nation,” that we have not made progress in race relations I do not agree with. If you talk with many who are much older than “us” of how life was like when they were younger, when we were not born yet, you would see it is MUCH different. Is there still MUCH work to be done…SURE! It is not perfect & probably never will be.I watch my nieces with their playmates, see parents with other parents & children of different races & you know the interactions would be Soooo much different when my grandparents & great-grandparents grew up! You may be just viewing all the negative situations yourself & not seeing all the lovely positive examples of race relations!

Fair enough. I don’t think we haven’t made progress. But I do think that all too often we delude ourselves into thinking that we’ve made more progress than we really have. And more importantly, we delude ourselves into thinking that we’ve pushed all of the frustrations and hate out of our minds. When this kind of situation occurs, hearing those frustrations come to the surface is a shock to many people who have been operating under a false sense of racial and socio-economical equality. Things aren’t as good as we like to think they are.

Finally, Who is Eric? Just because one guy name Eric agrees, you are right? Heck, I’m sure we could find many named Eric who are Black, who do not agree with you. Use a stronger argument than that!

I am well aware of the fact that just because “one guy named Eric” agrees with me, I am not necessarily right. But then you must also know that your disagreement with me doesn’t automatically make me wrong, so that’s a moot point.

I think that I am right because I am willing to look at this situation objectively and acknowledge that while Bush definitely has a share of the blame, he is not the only one who does. That in itself is legions more than some people who operate solely on a blind hatred of Bush would be willing to admit.

I mentioned Eric at all because he makes what I consider to be an important point. Go back and read the last post…that point, in case you missed it, is in big bold letters.

I mention Eric’s race, after much consideration, because I want to make what I think is an equally-important point: it illustrates that this is not an “either/or” world.

Too many people approach life this way: if you’re a Republican, Bush can do no wrong; if you’re a Democrat, he can do no right. If you’re black, you must be poor; if you’re white, you must be rich. If you’re a white Republican, you must not care about black people. If you speak out against the president, you’re courageous. If you side with him, you’re blind to reality. And on and on and on….

But those are ridiculous assumptions to make.

You cannot take one aspect of a person and assume that his feelings must be shared by everyonewho shares that aspect with him. Kanye West says Bush doesn’t care about black people. Not all of the people who were too poor to leave New Orleans were black. But if there were white people among them, then race would seem not to be the obvious issue. Maybe, some say, Bush doesn’t care about poor people? At least that sweeping generalization better fits the makeup of the people in that footage…so we think. But what if there were people who had plenty of money, chose not to leave after miscalculating how bad things would get and ended up inside the convention center after having lost all of their material possessions? Are they poor if they still have plenty of money in the bank? Can Bush possibly know for sure that there are no people with an income above the poverty line in that crowd? If not, then the “poor” argument isn’t completely an honest one, either.

When a black man and a white man can have a rational discussion about race and its place in a situation, and can find agreement that while there are legitimate concerns, the way in which those concerns were raised was divisive, not helpful, that tells me that there is hope that we are capable of coming together to understand each other and share each other’s ideals. How can that be a bad thing?

Likewise, when a Democrat and a Republican can agree that neither side is perfect (because if one was, there would be no need for the other) and set aside those differences to look at the bigger picture and seek solutions that have nothing to do with party affiliation, I think only good can come from that.

Why? Because when you can’t separate race, religion, politics or any of the other countless things we can use to separate ourselves from your fellow citizens…when you can’t let go of your preconceived notions long enough to listen, you’ll never really hear any viewpoint but your own. (And Debbie, I don’t mean to imply that you aren’t interested in listening to other viewpoints.)

I think that finding that common ground is important. I wish everyone was willing to try.

The photo says a great deal, both in what some of us see and what some of us refuse to see. Study it for a minute before you read on. I’ll get to it eventually, but just look at it and think about what is contained in that image.

I had been working on a piece about Hurricane Katrina and the notion of who is to blame for more than a week. I’ve been reading different blogs…on AOL, Blogger, LiveJournal, Xanga, and other blog hosting services. I’ve read a mountain of news articles linked in those blogs. And, working in television, I have the advantage of seeing multiple stories that the rest of you might have missed.

I would read someone’s attack on someone, and I’d make note of it.

There are those who are still harping on Cindy Sheehan, whom they refer to as a “hero” because she had the “courage” to speak out against the president. They demand that others show the same “courage” and, at the same time, fail to realize that they are using intimidation tactics that they’d call propaganda in a heartbeat if it was used on them. And of those I’ve read who heap praise on Cindy Sheehan, not one of them – not one — has called Herbert Shughart a hero. He had the “courage” to speak out about his son’s death in a war he didn’t agree with to a president he didn’t feel was fit for the job. Sheehan is a hero, Shughart is someone conveniently forgotten.

They embrace people like Kanye West, because he was “bold” and “spoke the truth.” It doesn’t matter to them that people who would have given money to support the effort he was supposed to be helping were turned away because of his remarks. All that matters is that he slammed Bush. If it cost money that would have gone to relief efforts for the very people he was speaking out about, well, that’s a small price to pay for such a nice jab. It doesn’t matter that he could have waited until the next day, or even until after the concert was over, when they’d raised the money they were there to raise, to get people riled up enough that they closed their pocketbooks. What’s important — the only thing that is important, apparently — is that he spoke out, period.

There are some entries that insist on blaming one single person, President Bush, for everything that has happened.

Some base this entire line of reasoning on the fact that Bush was on vacation when the storm hit. They ignore numerous facts to get to this conclusion. Here’s one: Bush declared a state of emergency two days before the storm hit. Here’s another: Bush called Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and pleaded for a mandatory evacuation before one was issued. How do we know this? Easy. Blanco, a Democrat, said so at the press conference on Sunday, the day before the storm made landfall. Bush called for a mandatory evacuation before there was one, and did so while he was on vacation.

But it’s still Bush’s fault, and Bush’s fault alone, right?

Then there was the battle for power behind the scenes, (link may have expired) a story that no one wants to acknowledge happened, and one that no one wants to imagine could have happened: Bush could have taken control at the federal level of Louisiana’s National Guard. Rather than simply doing so, he consulted with Louisiana officials who rejected the idea. Why? The primary reason wasn’t that she thought her state’s authorities could do better, according to a source within the state’s own emergency operations center. MSNBC reported:

“The [Bush] administration had sought control over National Guard units, normally under control of the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request, noting that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. State authorities suspected a political motive behind the request. ‘Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,’ said the source, who is an adviser and does not have the authority to speak publicly.”

And while this power struggle was going on, people were dying. Should Bush have taken control immediately at that point? Damn right! It is his fault if he didn’t take control from a state whose leadership was more worried about getting blamed than helping their own citizens. And if, even for a moment, it was actually true that the fear of being blamed took precedence over the life of a single citizen, those state officials don’t deserve their jobs. I don’t know how anyone could possibly defend leaders who put the fear of being blamed ahead of the lives of their constituency.

Now, that picture. There are at least 200 buses shown in that image. I think the actual total comes to just under 210, but I might have counted one or two twice. Remember that 18-year-old who took a bus, loaded it with 100 people and drove them to safety? Those 200 buses, packed with 100 people each, could have gotten 20,000 to safety. But they sit in a parking lot — a flooded parking lot — in New Orleans.

Forget that FEMA conducted a big experiment they called Hurricane Pam in 2004, which predicted the impact ofa major hurricane hitting New Orleans. Forget that the damage estimates are strikingly similar to what happened because of Katrina. Put out of your mind the notion that state and local authorities saw in this exercise that roughly 20% of New Orleans’s citizens would be unable to evacuate. And for heaven’s sake, please don’t bother to consider the fact that New Orleans’s own disaster plan states:

“Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life saving assistance.”

Two hundred buses sit in a flooded parking lot. That picture should make you as mad as hell. At least twenty-thousand were stranded at the convention center for days with no food or water. Do the math. (And that’s assuming that the each of the buses made one single trip: they could have made more than one trip before the storm hit if the operation had begun soon enough.)

Who would know better — who could possibly know better — how many people in their own city or state would be unable toget themselves out? Somebody could have taken those buses and gone to those poorest neighborhoods and loaded people up.

Forty years ago, Hurricane Betty woke people up to the dangers ofa hurricane in a city so prone to flooding. For forty years, New Orleans had time to designate drivers and a method of comandeering those vehicles that would leave no question about what needed to be done. But the buses sit in that flooded parking lot.

And it’s still Bush’s fault, and Bush’s fault alone, right?

Some of those who insist that Bush is the only one to blame want people to explain to them how anyone could be so blindly in support of Bush that they would think he isn’t to blame. “Explain it to me,” someone said the other day over at Blogger, I think it was. (There have been so many.)

What is so telling is that they do not ask anyone to explain how someone could be so blindly opposed to Bush that they won’t look anywhere but him when they look for someone to blame, no matter what happens.

All some people seem to want is to have people agree with them on their political bias. That’s all. If you do agree, they think you’re “courageous.” If you argue, they’re waiting with more talking points to make their case, no matter what you have to say. You’ll never convince them that they’re not even trying to see the big picture. And for some of them, anyone who disputes their position is automatically regarded as making a personal attack, no matter how well-intentioned or rational their counter-argument might be. I’ve played this game before with different people in different locations in the Blogosphere.

I’m tired of playing it.

I could go on and on with examples and counter examples showing weaknesses on all levels. And in all candor, my friends, before a conversation last night, I would have.

But then I talked with a friend of mine named Eric. He happens to agree with me that not only does finger pointing accomplish nothing in terms of helping people who are still stranded, but that it’s ridiculous to think that one person could be responsible for such a massive failure.

Then, he said something extraordinarily profound…so profound that I wish I’d have come up with it first:

“This is a chance for us to really see who we are.”

And so it is.

Some of us do see who we are. Some of us are quite alarmed at what we as a nation have become: a group of petty screamers who don’t give a damn about anyone else or anything else except winning a political argument. It isn’t about who died, or even how many died. It’s about making our candidate or candidates look good. It’s about making sure our political agenda comes out smelling like roses while our opponent’s agenda is dragged through the flood waters. It’s not about a logical argument or even considering both sides of a coin. It’s about a witty comeback.

Witty comebacks don’t solve problems. And they certainly don’t prevent the same thing from happening again.

Eric, who happens to be black, also points out that comments like West’s and the photo captions to which West referred, (captions that portray black looters as “looters” and white looters as “finders”) merely point out that all of those terrible prejudices we keep telling ourselves we’ve managed to eliminate are just as strong as ever. Neither of us deny that West has valid points in some of what he said; we agree that the way to help those people who needed relief wasn’t to bring up those points right that minute. Think we’ve made progress in race relations? Think we’re a kinder, gentler nation? You’re living in a dream world.

Would that reality were that pleasant.

You want someone to blame? You wonder how we could have government agencies so bogged down in red tape (so they won’t get accused of wasting a single tax dollar) that they end up almost unworkable and unable to do what they were designed to do? You want to know how we reached a point at which state and federal authorities argue over who should be in charge of a disaster response because they are worried about who’ll end up in the doghouse?

You want to know who is to blame for making our governments — local, state and federal — so preoccupied with looking good that they’re practically paralyzed…while our fellow Americans, old and young, rich and poor, black and white are dying in the streets of an American city?

Go look in the mirror.

That’s where it starts. That’s where it ends. And yes, I include myself in that statement.

“This is a chance for us to really see who we are.”

Do you like the view?

Keep arguing over who you want to blame, and if it somehow makes you feel good to blame just one single person, when it’s perfectly clear to others of us that there were massive failures at every single level, go for it. If you consider it a sport, go have fun. Enjoy yourself.

I’ve had enough.

Author John Grisham and his wife are donating $5 million to establish a relief fund to help Mississippians rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, according to CBS News.

“In these very, very rare circumstances, this tragic time, we hope the gift will get some attention and inspire other people to contribute money and help our fellow Mississippians on the Gulf Coast,” said Grisham, who maintains a home in Oxford, Miss.

Grisham is a former Mississippi state legislator.

Why, amidst all the human suffering that is happening because of a major hurricane and the failure of levees, would anyone care about animals?

Some people wonder.

For me, I have always been an animal lover. I think the way people treat animals can be a good indication of how those same people treat each other. Animal rights activists have pointed for years to research that many violent offenders in our prisons began their criminal career by abusing animals, not people.

There is story after story coming from the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast about animals now facing starvation after being abandoned by their owners. In many cases, those who did evacuate on buses were not allowed to take their animals with them. But like the rest of the country, these people, forced to make a life or death decision for themselves and, likely, their pets, are now shown not to have had a plan on dealing with disaster in their households.

Would I leave my pets behind? No. Hurricanes scare the hell out of me. I don’t understand why anyone wants to live on the coast; I have enough anxiety in my life as it is, thank you. Every hurricane season, I’d be a nervous wreck…at least more so than I am the rest of the time! When a category five storm was headed my way, you can bet I’d get the hell out of dodge…in my car…with my dogs.

What about the people who didn’t have cars…those people too poor to afford basic transportation? Here’s a question no one is asking so I’ll toss it out there: the average cost of owning a pet, assuming you do feed it and get it at least occasional veterinary care (including those mandatory vaccines) can run into the hundreds of dollars a year. So how are these poor people able to feed pets when they apparently barely have enough to pay for their own food?

When there isn’t a major disaster, any judge worth his robes will lock you up for letting an animal go without food, water, or clean conditions for an extended period of time. It’s called animal cruelty and it’s against the law.

Yet when a disaster strikes, we’re supposed to pretend that there’s no such thing? And even worse, those who are ordering people to evacuate are requiring evacuees to commit what would otherwise be a crime??

Many have complained that the handling of this crisis shows that there is a class system at play in this country. Of course we have a class system: that’s how phrases “middle class” came to be! Some are trying to force the issue of race into this, ignoring the fact that there are poor white, asian and hispanics who are trapped together in the area.

Should the notion that some people seem to be less of a “priority” than others surprise anyone? It doesn’t surprise animal lovers like me: once we start presuming to make value judgments about who should have a chance to live based solely on species, just as the authorities who refused to let victims who’d lost everything else evacuate with their pets had done, the next obvious step is to then start deciding who is and isn’t worth it within the “right” species: humans.

“The elderly probably don’t have much time, anyway…the sick might infect the healthy…the poor aren’t productive enough and will bring down the rest…”

It sounds like an old episode of “The Twilight Zone” that portrayed a futuristic world in which those who didn’t measure up were liquidated in the spirit of keeping “the state” thriving. The program was called “The Obsolete Man.”

None of the victims in this tragedy should have been considered obsolete…and that goes for people and their pets.

I’m not saying that this is really what’s happening there; I don’t believe that the government is saying that the people who stayed behind aren’t worth rescuing. I believe that there are epic failures on display here, but I think the main reason behind them is a lot of bureaucratic red tape and nonsense rather than any targeted prioritizing.

On the other hand, when I see all of the heartbreaking photos of dogs and cats desperate for food and few people doing anything to help them, I wonder what gives anyone the right to say that one living thing is meaningless, and another should get all of our attention right this minute.

You’d think we own the universe.

(Noah’s Wish is currently in the area trying to rescue pets and reunite them with their owners. For more information on this group, visit their website, here.)

“The art of conversation lies not only in saying the right thing at the right time, but in leaving unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”
– John Charles Daly

There is a lot of wisdom in the words of the late Daly, a news moderator and host of the original “What’s My Line?” on CBS. Last night’s NBC telecast of a concert raising money for relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina was one of those tempting moments. Unfortunately, hip-hop artist Kanye West failed to follow the advice.

The program was executed much like the concert for victims of the Indonesian Tsunami. Celebrities appeared two at a time in between musical performances. West was paired with comedian Michael Myers, whose apparent level of discomfort grew exponentially as West went into a political rant about the media coverage of and the government’s response to victims in New Orleans.

As reported in The Washington Post, here is West’s sometimes rambling rant as broadcast live:

“I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, ‘They’re looting.’ You see a white family, it says, ‘They’re looking for food.’ And, you know, it’s been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I’ve tried to turn away from the TV because it’s too hard to watch. I’ve even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I’m calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help — with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way — and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us!”

When it was again Myers’s turn to speak, he nervously fumbled through his next line and turned to West (who undoubtedly hoped West would follow the script the rest of the way through).

West didn’t. East coast viewers heard this additional statement from West, which was cut from the West coast tape-delayed broadcast:

“George Bush doesn’t care about black people!”

I can understand the frustration to a degree, but since I’m not black, many would argue that I can’t possibly comprehend what West and many other blacks are feeling in this country at this point. I wouldn’t presume to debate that.

West has the right to speak his mind, and his celebrity status certainly gave him a tremendous platform last night to voice his opinion.

That isn’t the point.

There is a proper time and a proper place to make such a statement. A concert designed to raise money is supposed to unite everyone for a common goal, not further divide by playing the race card.

By not resisting that tempting moment, West turned off some viewers who were looking for ways to help. A friend tells me that the telephones in his NBC affiliate’s newsroom lit up immediately after the remarks aired. One viewer, he told me, said she’d just donated $500 to the Red Cross and would never send them another penny. Such comments were also heard, apparently, at Red Cross call centers.

Of course, my friend took time to explain to the angry viewer that the Red Cross had nothing to do with selecting talent for the concert, that NBC likely had West there because he offered to perform as most of the other celebrities on hand did, and that even NBC didn’t realize he was going to go off-script in the live event. He told her not to hold West’s comments against the Red Cross.

NBC issued a similar statement later in the evening:

“Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks. It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person’s opinion.”

And in NBC’s defense, CBS News reports that though the broadcast was on a slight delay and censors were listening for profanity that would need to be “bleeped,” those censors weren’t following along word for word on scripts and therefore didn’t realize that West’s entire monologue was an ad-lib.

There’s an old saying in television newsrooms: for every viewer that calls to complain about something, there are at least another 10 who feel the same way but don’t call. At times, that ratio is an extremely conservative estimate.

How many people who hadn’t yet donated money to the effort were turned off by West’s rant? I can’t understand how people who seem to believe that there are no wealthy Democrats…that Republicans have all of the money. But for people who genuinely do believe that, I can’t imagine how a statement like West’s could be expected to encourage those with the means to actually give…which is what they were supposed to be there for.

I wonder how much money West cost relief efforts by not resisting that “tempting moment.” I wonder if he’s proud of himself.

In the final analysis, there are plenty of white people stranded there as well. Some of them had the means to evacuate but didn’t. At this point, even if their bank account is 100 times that of the average poor person in New Orleans, they’re no better off at all: rich and poor, black white, homeowner andand homeless, all are sitting in a mess with no power, no food, no water, waiting for help to arrive while their city is dying — literally — around them.

Last night shouldn’t have been about race, income, Republican, Democrat, or any other labels you’d care to throw around.

It should have been about fellow Americans who are suffering. And until all of them, every last one, have shelter, that’s all it should be about.

The first two bookstore casualties are now confirmed in Mississippi. Not that they rank anywhere near the importance of the real lives lost, but since writing is a passion of mine, I thought I’d make mention of them here.

Publisher’s Weekly reports:

Susan Daigre’s Bookends Bookstore in Bay St. Louis, Miss., and Pass Christian Books in Pass Christian, Miss., run by Scott Naugle and Richard Daley, were destroyed irrevocably in the storm. “Both of those stores were completely flattened,” said Wanda Jewell, executive director of SEBA, indies’ southeastern regional association. “I’m told that there’s not even debris around. The place where both bookstores used to be now looks as if nothing were ever there.”

That describes quite well some of the video I’ve seen feeding into the newsroom at work: there are former suburbs where you can’t see roads because there is nothing but debris everywhere. To describe the images to those of Hiroshima almost doesn’t seem to really capture the devastation.

But books and bookstores can be replaced. The people who run them cannot. Thank goodness the people seem to have survived.

In a striking bit of irony, Venezuelan President Pat Robertson said the United States should assassinate, has offered food and assistance to the Gulf Coast area ravaged by Katrina and subsequent flooding, according to a report by Yahoo! News.

“We place at the disposition of the people of the United States in the event of shortages — we have drinking water, food, we can provide fuel,” Chavez told reporters.

A frequent critic of the United States and a target himself of US disapproval, Chavez last week offered discount gasoline to poor Americans suffering from high oil prices and on Sunday offered free eye surgery for Americans without access to health care.

There is apparently no word as yet on whether the United States will accept the offer.