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August 29, 2006

HypoChristians in the midst of us (1 year ago today)

Actual office conversation, Monday morning, August 29th, 2005:

Jeff: "Somebody reminded me about Hurricane Georges -- remember that one? They had opened the Superdome as a shelter, but a bunch of people in there thought they would be not only sheltered but fed, and entertained -- "

Lee: "Georges?"

Trish (raised eyebrows, bemused look): "Entertained?!? and fed?"

Jeff: "-- so there was a lot of damage, furniture stolen out of offices and so on..."

Randy: "Well maybe -- if the Superdome got washed away, it wouldn't be any great loss..."

Lee: "Yeah, they could just turn on the gas, y'know...!"

(laughter; then, as I walked out)

Lee: "Jeff had to leave on that one -- !"

Jeff, over his shoulder: "Lightning might strike, y'know, not takin' any chances!"

Lee was joking, I know that; he said as much later. Randy's comment -- not too sure. And he was the one gushing about W's "compassionate" hug-the-9/11-girl photo-op. Libertarian, you say? HypoChristian, I say. [This guy's last day working here is Thursday -- hurry up and GTFO, I say.]

Reported yesterday 8/28/05 on CNN:

Dozens of families have returned to what is left of their homes and found, lying amidst the mold and the wreckage, a body, forgotten, abandoned. Maybe it's their mother or their grandmother, sometimes even their missing child. The state called off searching house to house in New Orleans well over a month ago. They said they completed the job.

(snip)

There was no joy for Paul Murphy in this homecoming. When he walked into his house in New Orleans' Ninth Ward last month for the first time since Katrina, it was shock and anger.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, I'm thinking that, OK, I was going to come and salvage a few pictures or something. And I walk in here. I found my grandma on the floor dead.

(snip)

It is a disgrace that this is happening in America. This is the country that took great pains to recover every little bit of human remains at Ground Zero after 9/11. Now we won't even bother to search homes in which we know bodies remain. This is not a matter of time or resources. The authorities simply chose not to take the time or allocate the resources to Do the Right Thing.

Well maybe, if Jesus were here, he'd remind you:

On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand, "Come, enter the Kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me." Then Jesus will turn to those on His left hand and say, "Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink, I was sick and you did not visit me." These will ask Him, "When did we see You hungry, or thirsty or sick and did not come to Your help?" And Jesus will answer them, "Whatever you neglected to do unto one of these least of these, you neglected to do unto Me!"

And there's this: "For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land." Deuteronomy 15:11 (KJV)

Today, Frank Rich tells us about W's return to the scene of the crime:

Douglas Brinkley, the Tulane University historian who wrote the best-selling account of Katrina, “The Great Deluge,” is worried that even now the White House is escaping questioning about what it is up to (and not) in the Gulf. “I don’t think anybody’s getting the Bush strategy,” he said when we talked last week. “The crucial point is that the inaction is deliberate — the inaction is the action.” As he sees it, the administration, tacitly abetted by New Orleans’s opportunistic mayor, Ray Nagin, is encouraging selective inertia, whether in the rebuilding of the levees (“Only Band-Aids have been put on them”), the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward or the restoration of the wetlands. The destination: a smaller city, with a large portion of its former black population permanently dispersed.

Forgive? Maybe. Forget? Never. Thanks to Ben Greenberg for his updates on the Gulf Coast's vital signs.

Posted by Jeff at August 29, 2006 07:44 AM