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Soap Box Interlude
I Want to be Evil
Stay Away from the Xiphoid
New World, Not Necessarily Brave
Is It Possible?
Purity
But It Works
A R8se By Any Other Name
Yes, yes, let's talk about the weather
Thrills n' Chills
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Yes, Katrina
UPDATE:
If you want to donate to an animal cause the American Veterinary Medical Foundation has a matching program, which effectively doubles your donation. They can be reached through their web site or:
American Veterinary Medical Foundation
Department 20-1122
P.O. Box 5940
Carol Stream, IL 60197
with "Animal Disaster Relief and Response Fund" written on the check's note section.
Now,
There is nothing I can say here that will illuminate or make the disaster and its hideous aftermath any more comprehensible.
But it is shocking how terribly the government has handled this nightmare. As a friend, an American in Paris, wrote to me recently, "Even the French are stunned by the situation, and they've never had much faith in the American system."
Way before I arrived on the scene, my father apparently told someone who took a tumble on ice skates (or skis, that detail is murky) she should "walk it off." As it happened, the poor woman had a broken leg. I won't strain the metaphor, but it does seem that a lot of folks are being told to work through the pain right now by a government that isn't inclined to believe in mortal wretchedness.
The Shakespeare's Sister blog has an interesting entry about this administration's push for small government and what a disaster it is in situations like this one where people really need help and the people who are most desperate are the ones for whom self-reliance is utterly insufficient. This shouldn't be a world so lacking in forgiveness or empathy, where anything that can be interpreted as "weakness" is deserving of punishment. In this administration's philosophy, it is almost a point of pride that the government leaves its citizens to their own devices and shrugs its shoulders when the folks it finds uninteresting or ugly or useless suffer and die in the wake of natural disaster.
I don't think I've ever seen the expression "fiddling while Rome burns" taken literally, but the antics of the Bush administration this week come pretty close. Bush and Cheney continued their vacations undaunted by worsening catastrophes, though Bush did eventually cut his break short by two (count 'em) days. Here, on the island of Manhattan, Condoleezza Rice was living the high life, attending the Broadway show Spamalot (where she apparently got razzed when the lights went up), and playing around at the U.S. Open, ignoring completely how harsh and Marie Antoinette-ish her behavior might seem, until her subsequent several thousand-dollar shoe spree was interrupted by an outraged New Yorker. I usually prefer decorum, but when I read about the Railing Shopper, I had a tiny surge of pride.
It does matter how people conduct themselves. As Maureen Dowd wrote in her column, it is one thing to be faced with a lack of empathy from one's government, it is another thing to have this meanness matched by utter ineptitude, and I suspect that the hollowness that accompanies the sadness I feel is exacerbated by the sense that the people most capable of improving the situation, saving lives, reuniting families and providing calm and helpful resources are leaving everyone to sink or swim.
These are widely available, but here are some links to help:
NAACP Disaster Relief Efforts
Oxfam
Charity Navigator
The Humane Society
Noah's Wish
And if anyone knows of a good place that needs a box of (adult women's) clothes, please let me know.
posted by Elise at 9:52 AM
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