so tonight i click over to joe.my.god (a blog i dearly love, don't get me wrong) only to find that he and his bleeding-heart commenters are all wringing their hands over the possibility that hurricane gustav might decimate the newly-resurrected-at-untold-cost city of new orleans.
and i'm like, so this comes as a fucking surprise to you people?!, and immediately post the following comment:
well, what the hell does anybody expect--that just because we went back into this indefensible, low-lying swampland and rebuilt everything all nice and pretty that mother nature would thereafter maintain a respectful distance? i mean, jesus god, humans are stupid sometimes.
[and lest you think me heartless, when the big one finally hits and my l.a. home comes crashing down around me, you might hear me cursing myself for my stupidity (if i live through it, of course), but you won't hear me asking,"why me?"]
understand: i didn't post this comment to be provocative (ok, that's a lie) as much as because it's an accurate reflection of the way i feel--i mean, to take our goddam tax dollars to rebuild a city without first ensuring that the catastrophe that so easily wiped out said city in the first place can't happen again is nothing if not the height of folly.
and since everyone with half an objective brain agrees that--short of ridiculously-impractical measures that even our present spendthrift congress would never approve--the low-lying areas of new orleans will never be safe, it's best to turn that area into either parkland or build-at-your-own-risk homestead space.
call me heartless if you want, but you better have your goddam ducks in a row before you call me wrong.
sober update: obviously someone was feeling a little pugnacious last night.
5 comments:
Okay, but here's the thing:
It wasn't hurricane Katrina itself that fucked up New Orleans.
It was poor city management.
They *knew* the levee was in need of repair.
They *knew* what the repercussions would be if they didn't make the repairs/opened the locks.
That's all.
And no, I'm not a conspiracy theorist or any of that nonsense; rather, I've lived through hurricane after hurricane since I was a baby (David in 1976 being the first one I remember, Andrew and Wilma being the most devastating to me personally) and it's just common fucking sense.
Florida, for all the stupid it holds, is regularly smart enough to open the locks on Okeechobee and the canals so there's not this massive flooding.
PS--missed you guys. Been busy with work and personal problems. Hopefully the latter is behind me now. :::kisses:::
Being right always seem to take a back-seat to not offending anyone these days.
judi: i'd argue the point with you, but all my pugnacity on this issue has evaporated--i have a short attention span these days.
nice to see you back, and i hope things are ok.
dantallion: not when i'm drinking ;)
i'm sorry, what? wasn't paying attention.
and thanks...things are okay now.
You claim you are a curmudgeon. This is what people who are assholes (pain in the ass if you're nice) call themselves when they want to soften the blow.
You really aren't that (see, I turned what was going to be a major insult into a sortof compliment).
You are a bomb thrower. You like to challenge conventional wisdom.
Lots of liberals I know are just plain saps. So, I don't disagree that a bomb here or there is good to shake things up.
Sorry, I have been gone, so I have postings to catch up on.
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