Katrina - One Year Later

One year ago right at this very moment, the levees intended to protect New Orleans were broken and flooding. Hundreds of people had already been wiped out. Of course we didn't know any of this until days later. That very evening, the President Bystander (a term I stole from Bruce Springsteen) stood up in front of the country and announced that the levees had held, but the truth was that they had not held. A few days later, he would express another disingenuous false declaration when he stated, "I don't think anyone could have anticipated the breeching of the levees." A comment, almost laughable in its horrible similarity to the same type of incompetent remark four years earlier when Condi stated, "I don't think that anyone anticipated that terrorists would turn planes into bombs." In both cases it's exactly what happened, and people – many people – had indeed warned, of not only the possibility, but the liklihood, of both events. The fact was, and is, that it was a lie and not a very good one at that.

Since that day there have been many statements made by Dubya and his cronies in the Republican congress, not to mention a rather substantial collection of impossible gaffs, blunders and downright incompetence on the part of Mayor C Willy and Governor Katherine, but the lion's share of responsibility and the greatest burden of response lies with the criminally incompetent construction and maintenance of the FEDERAL levee system by the Army Corps of Engineers and the utter lack of timely, responsible and caring action on the part of FEMA and the rest of the federal government; this virulently incompetent, low lying, devious, capricious government of venal bureaucrats and self-preserving sycophants.

So, on the anniversary of our nation's greatest disaster, as he always does, Dubya has set off on another mission of public relations damage control, meandering about New Orleans and making yet another premature declaration of victory in a war that is going to last for years and whose ultimate effects will be left for others to deal with. He will no doubt roll up his sleeves and make big promises and grand statements in mangled syntax that will make some of us laugh through our tears while others just nod and shrug.

Maybe he'll give Katerhine Blanco a back rub; I imagine she could probably use one.
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In the meantime, you can find a really excellent article on the forsaking of New Orleans in The Nation here.

Some things just don't matter... or do they?

I really wish someone could explain to me why the US Flag, as displayed on the uniforms of the Army (I don't know about the rest of the services) is displayed backwards.

According to the US Flag Code when a flag is displayed flat
"... the union should be uppermost and to the flag's own right, that is, to the observer's left." This is of course in the same material that suggests the proper way to dispose of a flag is by burning (something that a few pinheaded members of Congress encouraged by Fearless Leader and including Lady Clinton have been trying to outlaw with an incredibly ill-conceived and patently absurd Constitutional Amendment). What I want to know is what idiot designed the backward flag patch and for what reason? Is it supposed to symbolize the flag flying backwards as our forces go ever onward? Or is it just someone's basic stupidity in ignoring the clear rules laid down for respect of the symbol everybody seems to get so all fired head up about? Clearly... it was not done by anyone who was ever a Boy Scout!

And while we're on the subject... what's up with this well documented desecration of the flag by Fearless Leader his own damn self? Signing a flag with a Sharpie!?!?! Is there any way to call that anything other than desecration, and therefore a distinct violation of the flag code, not to mention an incredibly arrogant gaff for the POTUS (but probably not as big a gaff as giving the Chancellor of Germany a backrub, or "Brownie you're doing a heck of a job!").

So... does any of this matter?

It seems to me that, as has been said by many before... "God is in the details." If you are incapable of, or uninterested in, paying attention to the small things why in the hell should anyone trust you with the big stuff?

Or, as Arthur Miller put it, "Attention must be paid."

Or... as the central message of the Buddha so clearly states... "You must be present to win."