In the unlikely event that a history of our current moment is ever produced, its predominant tone will be morbid irony.

No doubt a footnote in such a history will cast a small, pained smile at this Washington Post headline:

Some GOP Legislators Hit Jarring Notes in Addressing Katrina

Some people will rot in hell for all eternity, and others won't.

OK. But this article appears on the CNN website under the "Politics" section.

I guess it's sad to see such vulgar "political" acts as people paying out of their own pocket to help people.

Looks like someone's got the right idea.

March to Bushville, DC on 9/11/05

On 9/11 survivors of Katrina will commit a
NONVIOLENT
act of Civil Disobedience:
building an encampment on the Washington DC Mall.

Spread the word and join us.

We will post info here as we progress.
It’s up to you to be creative and spread this link:
www.bushville.org

See you on the Mall on 9/11.

Bushville, DC:

Imagine 1,000 Katrina survivors camped on Bush’s doorstep.

Camped in the seat of power and media.

They will be in the Government’s face.

They will have endless stories for the press.

They will be the FACT that even George Bush can’t bluster away.

They will stay there as long as it takes.
-Through Rumsfield’s 9/11 Reichstock Freedom March
-Through the Katrina investigations
-Through the shame of Rovestock.
-Through the Supreme Court Hearings
-Through Bush’s last days of office - soon.
-Through the rebuilding of our government’s ability to protect us.

On 9/11 Bush will try to blindfold us with our own American flag.

Founding Bushville-DC on 9/11 will honor ALL the victims of America’s tragedies.

Help us by telling your friends about www.bushville.org

.

NYTimes:

Welcome to New Orleans in the post-apocalypse, half baked and half deluged: pestilent, eerie, unnaturally quiet.

Scraggly residents emerge from waterlogged wood to say strange things, and then return into the rot. Cars drive the wrong way on the Interstate and no one cares. Fires burn, dogs scavenge, and old signs from les bons temps have been replaced with hand-scrawled threats that looters will be shot dead.

The incomprehensible has become so routine here that it tends to lull you into acceptance. On Sunday, for example, several soldiers on Jefferson Highway had guns aimed at the heads of several prostrate men suspected of breaking into an electronics store.

A car pulled right up to this tense scene and the driver leaned out his window to ask a soldier a question: "Hey, how do you get to the interstate?"
...
On Clouet Street, where a days-old fire continues to burn where a warehouse once stood, a man on a bicycle wheels up through the smoke to introduce himself as Strangebone. The nights without power or water have been tough, especially since the police took away the gun he was carrying - "They beat me and threatened to kill me," he says - but there are benefits to this new world.

"You're able to see the stars," he says. "It's wonderful."

This citizen is far too kind.

Update--courtesy of The Fixin's Bar:

Dear the F.C.C.:

I am writing you to express my disgust over the episode on the news show on CNMSHBO-SPAN where vice potus president Dick Chainie was on the tv, and the one man told him to “go F-U-C-K yourself Mister Chainie”. Firstly I am mad because this person who shouted these sin verbs is taking attention away from the tragedy of the rain in the southland. Secondly, I was then forced to try to explain to my children about mastorbations, and whether or not all men do it, including Mister Chainie. Please stop showing live news and conducting interviews where Black looters can shout out anti-americanisms at the whim of a hat just to try to get on the tv. They are lying on the ! tv, and it is like the new 9/11 all over again.

Sincerely,
an angry american

Last week, a hurricane struck New Orleans, a major American port city. The Federal government did nothing to assist in evacuations of the city before the storm; and it did nothing after the storm to bring aid to stranded and homeless survivors. Thousands and thousands of people died, and the entire city was destroyed. Government officials blamed the victims of the storm for remaining in the city; they insisted that all necessary help was being delivered even as Emergency Management Agency employees refused to enter the disaster zone, and even as reporters provided live television footage of the desperate, dying, and dead; and they promised that survivors found foraging for food would be exterminated. Some local officials expressed concern for the fate of New Orleans, and there is currently a national "debate" occurring as to whether the Federal government's "response" to the hurricane was appropriate. Meanwhile, multi-billion dollar reconstruction contracts are being drawn up between the Federal government and companies run by the friends and business associates of Federal officials.

AP:

Buffeted by criticism over the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, President Bush said Tuesday he will oversee an investigation into what went wrong and why — in part to be sure the country could withstand more storms or attack.

Is that a direct threat from Bush to the United States of America? I think it is. This is just gallows humor:

Bush also announced he is sending Vice President Dick Cheney to the Gulf Coast region on Thursday to help determine whether the government is doing all that it can.

"When this thing happened, you got people shooting each other," he said. "The only thing I trusted was my dog. I'm not going to leave him."

Millions of animals totally screwed by the Katrina/Bush Disaster. They need help too.

Donate if you can:

The Humane Society

ASPCA

Noah's Wish

She who excreted Bush also excreted these words, according to Editor and Publisher:

NEW YORK Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, "This is working very well for them."

The former First Lady's remarks were aired this evening on National Public Radio's "Marketplace" program.

She was part of a group in Houston today at the Astrodome that included her husband and former President Bill Clinton, who were chosen by her son, the current president, to head fundraising efforts for the recovery. Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama were also present.

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing 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--this [she chuckles slightly]is working very well for them."

To the Editor:

Re "A Can't-Do Government," by Paul Krugman (column, Sept. 2):

The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina is further proof that this country is not properly protecting its citizens. To date, we have not seen elected officials who have met their obligation to protect and serve with regard to the preparation, prevention, and rescue and recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast states.

In Katrina's aftermath, our leaders, much like in the days after 9/11, continue to say that the time will come to look back and examine failures and hold people accountable for the thousands who have been unnecessarily injured, made sick or killed.

As 9/11 widows who are still waiting for accountability when it comes to our nation's failures to prepare, prevent and mitigate damage from the Sept. 11 attacks, we don't accept these hollow promises. We urge Americans to demand accountability now for the government's response to this natural disaster.

If we don't, we will spend our future cleaning up messes that our government officials, through their incompetence, see fit to allow. Sadly, it seems that there is no leadership now, as there was no leadership then.

Kristen Breitweiser
Monica Gabrielle
Shelter Island, N.Y., Sept. 2, 2005

...and the ass-kicking begins.

"If one person criticizes them or says one more thing - including the president of the United States - he will hear from me," [Landrieu] said on the ABC program "This Week." "One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally."

She also referred angrily to comments Mr. Bush had made Friday at the New Orleans airport about the fun he had had there in his younger days.

"Our infrastructure is devastated, lives have been shattered," Ms. Landrieu said during a helicopter tour of the area with an ABC interviewer. "Would the president please stop taking photo-ops?"

I have no doubt one punch from Clinton would send Hastert's bloated corpse to the floor. Landrieu has a more difficult fight, because how do you "punch" a giggling, murderous, dead-eyed hologram?

Rich in today's Times: excellent. Calls 9/11 the "Rosetta Stone" for understanding the current misery.

Chertoff yesterday: New Orleans was struck by two disasters, the hurricane and the breached levees. Why not say that New Orleans was struck by five disasters?--the wind, the rain, the accumulation of the rain on the ground, the blowing of ocean water by the wind into the city, and the presence of people in the area toward which the water was blown?

Landrieu yesterday: sent out a press release explaining that all of the tons of equipment in the photos of Bush at the levee in New Orleans was shipped in exclusively for the photo, and then immediately dragged away. No work is being done on that levee. And the tons of equipment that appear in the photo were not in use yesterday because Bush was having them dragged around for his photo op.

A Dutch reader wrote the following to Laura Rozen:

"There was a striking discrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF."

A question: if Bush were filmed running around New Orleans with a shoulder-held rocket-launcher, firing grenades into crowds of refugees, would he then have to resign from the Office of President? If not, do you have any idea what would have to happen before Bush was made to resign? Feel free to post answers in the Comments.