DOWN WITH PANTS!

Tonight with Death? on call at the hospital and me with some time to stay home and do some house work before our Labor Day trip to Seattle, I got sucked into the cable networks coverage of Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans. I flipped my way between CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Headline News and whatever other channel had something about it on. Essentially I learned nothing that I didn't learn earlier in the day reading articles online.

I don't really have much to add that you can't find elsewhere online (Boing Boing has a great archive of alternative sources of information that is much better than any of the network national coverage). I'm sickened by the whole thing. From the storm itself to the looting to the lack of readiness to the fact that New Orleans even existed in it's geography in the first place, I'm completely disheartened and frustrated with every single thing going on down there and around the country.

I hate to be so pessimistic, but I feel that no good will come of this tragedy. There isn't a bright side to be found. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and worse than that, will continue to go wrong. The lack of leadership from all facets of government and law enforcement is appalling and there are no signs them getting their act together. Sure the Army and the National Guard are either there or coming, but it truly doesn't look like they have any idea what to do, who to help or who is in charge.

It also feels like in general, throughout the country, nobody knows who is in charge. President Bush has been unmasked as a fraud of a leader. In this his most trying time, maybe even more so than 9/11, he is failing to calm a country on edge about something that doesn't even necessarily affect them directly. The aftershocks of this tragedy can be controlled with the right leadership but it is obvious that unless there is someone he can attack, President Bush doesn't know what to do. I will admit, I'm not totally sure what he should do, but he needs to do something beyond the call of duty to help the citizens of New Orleans, The Gulf Coast and the rest of the country deal with this tragedy and he needs to do it soon.

It is just ridiculous. How it could possibly come to this is amazing. There will be a lot of answering to do about how this happened when everybody is finally out of harms way and New Orleans is being rebuilt, if that day ever comes. From the White House to the Water Department, someone is going to have to answer and it will not be pretty when they do. But for the time being, please somebody do something and get these people a meal, clean water and some dry gound and hurry.