Step Away from the Mic, Partie Deux

Ok, so I told you about the idiot with the radio show and the BS about Katrina. Well, there's more. I don't know this guy's name. I'm rather glad that I don't. Knowing me, I'd try to listen to him again, just to prove to myself that he really is an idiot, and I really am much more enlightened. And that can only lead to high blood pressure. So, he starts talking about charity. CHARITY! Hah! He says that this storm has "totally transformed" the meaning of charity. He goes on to use Baton Rouge as an example. Over the course of just 3 days, 72 hours! (for those listeners who missed that week in elementary school, i guess), he says the population of Baton Rouge DOUBLED!!! And then he asked us to imagine that happening where we live. And he reminds us that these people (evacuees) are "poor, penniless, and on average far behind others academically". Um, OK. I'm glad you brought that up. He elaborates that some vast majority of the students transferring in to these schools are performing at levels way below their non-poor, non-penniless, obviously far superior Baton Rouge-ian (what IS that word anyway?) counterparts. Hunh. They're poor, and they've gotten an inferior education. Coincidence? I think not. What better illustration of the inequities in the quality of education available to people in different income brackets. In mass numbers we are now seeing it. Will anyone notice? Will anyone do anything about it besides considering it a liability, another hardship to the fine folks who have decided to split their city with the displaced victims of Katrina?

Anyway, he said all that not to prove my point, but to show us that charity has CHANGED. These folks are coming to YOUR town en masse, and it's not just enough to write a check anymore. I think perhaps what he was trying to say is that charity is no longer about your tax deduction, it's about getting these poor, plebeian imbeciles out of your front yard, and not letting them dumb down YOUR school system. Don't want your kids catching poor or stupid do you? Poverty is contagious, you know. And I was thinking about it. And he's so wrong. CHARITY has not changed. Not for those of us who knew what charity was about in the first place. Charity has only changed for those people who gave so that they'd have their name in print, and a deduction on their income tax. Many people have given much of their time for ages, there's never been a tax deduction for that. It's not about a check to them, because they don't have a check to write. But they give of themselves anyway. Some people give because they have generous hearts. They see a need, and they have a natural drive to try and fill it. My Grandma Ramsey is like that. I'll bet you money she's never claimed it on her taxes. Charitable people don't give expecting something in return. They don't give for self-serving reasons. Some of us have always known what charity was. For us, it hasn't changed at all. Seems to me the only thing that has changed is the comfort level of the elite.

Step Away from the Mic!

The only thing worse than a moron is a moron who has his own show on talk radio. Nothing gets my blood boiling quite like some arrogant prick who has it all figured out and spews his largely fallacious tripe to the totally oblivious masses, with complete disregard for the laws of reason.

So tonight, on the way home from my birthday dinner, some conservative pundit (and by pundit I mean socially irresponsible dickhead) is on the radio, best I could tell doing his damnedest to give me an aneurysm. I'm sure he thought he had a point. But I couldn't find it, and I like to consider myself a reasonably intelligent person. First he's going on and on about how 76% of black America believes that race played a part in the response, or lack thereof, of the federal government to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. He's lamenting the sad state of affairs that must exist when "76% of black Americans feel that the color of their skin instantly relegated them to second-class citizenship." As in, "black Americans" are the ones who have decided that their very blackness makes them somehow second-rate. As in, this isn't so much about systematic bias and oppression that began around the same time the first slave ship weighed anchor, as it is a simple self-esteem thing, really. Pandemic low self-esteem. As in, isn't it pitiful, this obvious self-loathing that we white folks clearly have nothing to do with? As in, what was it called? - Oh yeah, RACISM! Oh, Racism has long since left the building. In fact, I hear it splits its time these days between residence wholly in the imaginations of "black America" and a sweet little cottage it shares with the tooth fairy and Easter Bunny.

I'll give the idiot one concession. That statistic is indeed sad. Not new, really, not even exclusive to natural disaster relief debacles, but sad all the same. HOWEVER, he can't let well enough alone. He then says that whether race actually played a part, whether black people in America are in fact still treated as second-class citizens, is COMPLETELY irrelevant to the fact that they feel that way. And further, this is just awful for America. Yeah, buddy, it's awful, alright. But how is it possible for the truth to be irrelevant? If people are being discriminated against, how is that anything but relevant to their believing it to be the case? And shouldn't they be pissed off about it? Shouldn't the rest of us be? Better yet, wouldn't we be, had the proverbial shoe been on the other foot? Seems to me that knowing that there is a problem gives us both the responsibility and the means to go about solving it. Stop pretending that prejudice isn't out there, start dealing with your personal assortment.

Beyond that, I don't believe it's just about black and white. The thing about racism today is that it is far too easy to just pretend it does not exist - if you're white. The idea of hating someone else because of the color of their skin is so fundamentally ridiculous that whenever someone brings up its factual, though illogical, existence, they are treated like they just attributed their troubles to Santa Clause. Racism isn't real! Nobody believes in that stuff anymore! Come on, take some personal responsibility. You can't blame us white folks for EVER! But race is far from the only issue here, and I would even go so far as to say it is not the key issue. I believe the major factor here is socio-economic status. Simply put - money. If there is a God in this country, it is the American dollar. And black, white, or polka-dot, if you don't have it, you are wholly insignificant to those who do. Poor people are expendable. Anyone who thinks the response would not have been different had this tragedy happened in a wealthier place is a fool. Poverty contributed exponentially to the degree of the devastation. And poverty has played a large part in the aftermath. The fact that well over twice as many black families as white ones fall below the poverty line in itself makes race a factor, and raises important ethical questions about the responsibility white America bears. They are poor, they are black, and they are right. So what are we going to do about that? Einstein there, naturally, didn't have any suggestions. Not so much as a "Can't we all just get along?" Apparently, the way he sees it, folks just need to know their role and quit their bitching.

He did, however, have comments about charity. But they were so completely asinine that they warrant their own blog. I know you're all on the edge of your seats. Nothing like a drug induced rant to enthrall the masses. I wonder if any of this will make sense to me tomorrow?

Michael Moore's Letter to the President

Couldn't have said it better myself. But I've certainly thought it. What a terrible travesty.

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina
and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted.
Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do
you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man,
was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could
really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do
like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin
with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans.That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news.Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond
to nothing.Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littlest.There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing --NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army
helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and
the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore