Mea culpa runneth over.
I’ve heard enough apathetic apologies, and I’m tired of them. With pneumatic regularity, some politician /actor /high profile person makes a statement that he or she believes to have merit, only to find that someone’s feelings have been hurt, and thus an apology must be issued, usually through the “publicist” When is someone going to grow some balls and say, “I said what I meant, screw anyone whose delicate sensitivities were harmed” The latest came from David Well, who “apologized” for his tirade against baseball’s commissioner and his incompetent office. Never mind that his apology was tepid at best, the fact is that Bud Selig is a joke of a commissioner and deserved a public verbal flogging. Wells of course said he was “sorry” and he “made a mistake”. Bullshit. A mistake is trying to carry the water hazard when you should have laid up. Wells has been flapping his fat gums about every topic for his entire adult life. It’s what he does. To apologize for saying what you really think is the definition of cowardice.
Government Failure in New Orleans
The disaster in New Orleans is simply not comprehendible for those of us who have not seen it first hand. I’ve felt guilty this whole week for being able to live my life without disruption while these poor people don’t know if they are going to live to see tomorrow. Needless to say, the usual media suspects have already taken to placing blame upon the Bush administration. It’s hypocrisy at its peak. If Bush had done what needed to be done, that is send in the National Guard and declare Martial law before the storm hit, they would have been wailing and gnashing teeth over his “violations of civil rights”. Unfortunately, Bush hesitated and there was a delay in getting supplies and rescue teams into the city. I honestly doubt many could have been saved, but perhaps some could have been. I suspect far more lives would have been spared had the mayor of New Orleans provided some public transportation out of town. Apparently, it never occurred to him that many of his fellow citizens had not the means. We’ll never really know, but I do know this: we don’t live in a sitcom and every situation is not resolved in a half hour, but that is what our culture has come to expect.
I agree with the media on one count, there was a failure of government in New Orleans, but a failure of far greater proportion than they imagine, and it has little to do with George Bush. What we are seeing in the aftermath of Katrina is the colossal failure of the Great Society. This is what forty years and trillions of dollars spent on government programs of every sort has given us, a massive sub-culture of the impoverished, utterly dependent on the federal government for everything, including their very existence. I always thought it would take an Act of God to make people realize that public assistance programs do little good while they rob people of hope. I didn’t realize how horribly right I was.
1 comment:
Great post. Yes, this was a colossal failure on all fronts, from the slow response by local and federal agencies, the lack of an effective evacuation plan, and the refusal over the years to get government money to build up the levees, etc. But the fact that 78% of the city's inhabitants were on some kind of government assistance before this disaster should have raised some red flags. These people were angry and desperate while trapped at the Superdome and the Convention Center without adequate relief, but they were trapped by the system years before that. The sad thing is that I doubt W or any of his constituents even see this as the real problem; instead of focusing on the relief effort, they flood the talk shows and news channels to make it clear they're not "playing the blame game", and pointing out that they're "problem solvers". Shut up with your spin, this is no time for political posturing, JUST HELP THESE PEOPLE. You know, the same ones that rely on the government for everything, only now they're also homeless because their houses have been destroyed. But W has probably never seen homeless people in person, since every city sweeps them off the street before he comes to visit. As long as people like W's mom thinks the refugees have got it good in the Astrodome, I don't expect things to change.
Mrs. Bush, after touring the Astrodome complex in Houston on Monday, said: "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
Yeah, I'm sure they're ecstatic to be in there, like Cesar Cedeno when he used to smack doubles all over the carpet. So I should just add old people to my list of people not to listen to, along with politicians and athletes.
Of course, if you can't get enough of that last one, David Wells' official website is a hoot (boomer3, boomer33 or boomer16, depending on which team he's currently signed with). Find out what's cooking on Boomer's Backyard Grill! Buy a "Got Balls?" shirt (wow, that's an overused joke)! Thrill to his assessment of Terry Francona's lack of authority ("It's not his job to criticize us when we make a mistake." Oh really?)! Although the website was created years ago, the feature called "The Mental Game" is currently not operational. Naturally.
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