Who woulda thunk it. And who woulda thunk it would be RAINING!

OMG. California weather has been crazy the past few days…

It was hot as heck last week, and now this week, it’s raining and tornadoes? Really?

This weekend seems like a good weekend for movies and hot chocolate…non-fat of course.

Yummy.

I hope that you guys have a good weekend and that you’re not rained in!

Stay Blessed!

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Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls. It Tolls For “Occupant.”
Here’s a thought.
(written by a live journal user)

It might cross your mind, at some point in the next few days, to write something about how “stupid” the people trapped in the disaster zones have been, or how “lazy” they must be to not have escaped sooner, or how they “deserved what they got” for choosing to live somewhere on the Gulf Coast, within direct reach of hurricanes.

My suggestion is this– sit on your fucking hands. Sit on them until those sentiments no longer make your typing fingers itch.

Natural disasters are ubiquitous. Somewhere in the world, something is always happening… a tornado is touching down, a dam is breaking, a river is surging, an earthquake is trembling, a forest is burning. Some of these events become so routine, that local residents come to view them as quirky inconveniences rather than hellish disasters. Weathering them with a smile becomes a source of pride, an essential element of local character. Inclement weather becomes a feature, not a bug. The national media does goofy human interest stories about it. Locals hook their thumbs in their belts and say, “No sir, them there sulfuric acid geysers ain’t never bothered us none. You just keep the kids indoors and wash the dogs with baking soda after you let ‘em out.”

The Gulf Coast gets hit by hurricanes pretty frequently.

Most of them are nothing like Katrina, or Camille, or Andrew. All of them cause trouble for someone, but most of them pass in a flurry of rain and wind, tear some shingles here and break some windows there, drop a few tornadoes, and then go away. Residents come out of their homes, take the boards off the windows, crack their knuckles, and get to clearing the debris from their streets and their yards. They’ve spat in Mother Nature’s eye one more time and lived to tell about it. Move? Why move, when the weather’s really not that big a deal?

They start to think they can handle anything. And then the once-in-a-century Motherfucker Maximus comes along and turns the landscape into a collaboration between Jasper Johns and Gustav Dore.

Quite a few of them weren’t stupid, or lazy. They were in fact tough, smart, and brave– and acclimated to expectations that didn’t hold true.

Quite a few of them were elderly, infirm, or poor, or without personal vehicles, or families, or anyone out-of-state to put them up even if they could get out.

Quite a few of them were surprised by the speed with which the hurricane gathered force, as was the entire emergency management infrastructure of the entire nation. The state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans were caught with their pants down, to say nothing of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. So the elderly, the bed-ridden, the poor, and the just plain busy were supposed to gather information how… Ouija Board? Owl Post?

Quite a few of the laggards are no doubt lying through their teeth about why they stayed. Pop quiz– a CNN camera crew shoves a microphone in your face and asks you to tell five million viewers why you stayed behind. What are you going to say– “I just shit my pants and had no idea what to do, so I crawled up on my roof and cried,” or “Ha! Yeah, I saw those fifteen-foot waves, and it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. I lived! Bring it on! Saints are gonna be in the NFC Championship Game, Bay-bee!”

Just reflect on that for a moment. Maybe Peg would’ve been honest, because she has the introspection of a Jedi Knight. The rest of you, I’m not so sure about. Me, I’m not so sure about.

And the macho speculation? The “Oh, gosh, if that was me in there, why, I’d just get out my trusty rifle and pack up my bags and I’d have walked right the fuck out of there, not like those pussies who stayed behind,” bullshit? Don’t sit on your hands. Put them together and pray to whatever god you believe in for a spark of empathy. Keyboard strokes are cheap. You are not special. “Skill” has nothing to do with it. “Deserve” has nothing to do with it.

Two weeks ago, half-a-dozen middle-aged folks taking a bus tour of Wisconsin were smeared against glass and metal because a drunk driver blindsided their bus. This happened a mile from my house. Six weekend vacations ended with plastic tubes down throats and helicopter rides to the nearest hospital.

Did they deserve it? Were they stupid? Lazy? What Matrix-esque midair contortions might you have performed in their place, you who are Prepared For All Contingencies?

Two days ago, a bicyclist in his late twenties was struck by a speeding car on the same stretch of road. He was folded up like a Transformer and pounded halfway through the windshield of the vehicle that hit him. He was nothing but a blood sponge when we got him on the stretcher– and the kicker was he had extensive scars on his chest suggesting a previous close brush with death. He reached the hospital but didn’t survive.

Surely, in his place, you would have done much better, right? Specialist training? Ancient wisdom? Some sort of machomancy that would render you immune to the laws of physics?

He was just a guy on a bike. He was obeying traffic laws. He didn’t do anything to anyone, and he’s deader than shit for it.

Yesterday, a motorcyclist and an automobile driver had a disagreement about right-of-way at moderate speed. They were both injured, seriously but not critically. Dozens of motorists behind them were delayed for up to forty-five minutes by the accident. Did they deserve that inconvenience?

One of those motorists began to pass out and experience some of the signs of an impending heart attack. Did he deserve that, for the sin of sitting in traffic on a hot day?

Where do you live, that’s so free from natural disasters you can pat yourself on the back for your excellent judgment? The Pacific Northwest? Volcanoes and rain! The Midwest? Tornadoes, blizzards, thunderstorms! The Gulf Coast? Hurricanes! The South/West? Droughts! Major cities? Blackouts! Bangladesh? Typhoons! Malaysia? Tsunami! Japan? Godzilla!

Look, if you get caught in a natural disaster, it’s your own damn fault for one primary reason– having been born somewhere on the surface of this fucking planet. Circumstance is chasing us all down, slowly but surely. There’s an expiration date stamped on all of us. Empathy, sympathy, and respect all stem from recognition of this. And there’s nothing cheaper, nothing less considerate, nothing more full of witless sound and fury, than sitting in comfort and safety and taunting the drowned, the displaced, the diseased, the lost, and the destitute for not being the Awesome Hurricane Warrior you would have been in their place.

Have some common fucking courtesy. Some day, I guarantee, you will find yourself in a situation where you will need the life- or health-saving assistance of others, and there’s a good chance some of them might regard you as stupid, or lazy, or foolish, or all three, because of it.

Those judgments will not necessarily be fair. Neither are yours at this moment. So muzzle them.

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CLUELESS

WHO VOTED FOR THIS ASSHOLE?

Friday, September 2nd, 2005
**taken from michaelmoore.com**

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 Littles. 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
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

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