There's been a flood!

Don’t Screw With Mother Nature
By Joseph Walther


Six days ago, August 29,, 2005, the Gulf Coast of the United States took a direct hit of monumental proportions from Hurricane Katrina. The city of New Orleans, as we’ve known her, no longer exists. Common sense dictates that the loss in human lives has to be high, but no one knows how high. I don’t even like to think about how high it might be. Adding insult to injury, the entire world has been watching as our political leaders, national and local, have done their level best to look like morons. With this kind of leadership, Larry, Curly, and Moe will live forever.

I watched in horror as the images of survivors suffering indescribable hell flashed non-stop across the television screen. I shuddered at the mere thought of raging floodwater ripping one of my children from my arms. The longest that I ever went without food was two days. It was not pleasant. How would you react to no plumbing or drinking water, indefinitely at that? Can anyone reading this imagine what it must be like to go five days without food or water and with no idea of when it will end or even IF it will end? How would any of us have dealt with one of our children, sick with fever and infection, dying in our arms as the TV cameras rolled?

Scores of NPR and other major network news reporters described the horror of all of this repeatedly beginning on August 29. Then, on September 1, FEMA Director Michael Brown tried to convince Ted Koppel of Nightline that he had just learned of the convention center mess. To Mr. Koppel’s credit, he blistered Mr. Brown with “Don’t you guys watch television? Don’t you guys listen to radio? Our reporters have been reporting on it for more than just today.” The more Brown spoke, the more inept he appeared.

Congress, continuing its long allegiance to stupidity, stepped right up, and through Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives, doused the flames of rage with this gem. “It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that’s seven feet under sea level… It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed.” Nice touch, don’t ya think?

Then, as only George Bush is capable, came this pearl. “We’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do… The good news is—and its hard for some to see it now—that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house—he’s lost his entire house—there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.” (This drew a bit of crony laughter.) Laura, help us out by insisting that you, not he, do the impromptu remarks.

Last, in the interest of convincing all of us of his congenital situational ineptness, George Bush came out with this tidbit on September 1, 2005. He was speaking on “Good Morning America” when he said, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” I guess he just didn’t hear all of those experts’ repeated warnings six days earlier. LAURA, PLEASE!

Of course, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN did not intend to let Michael Brown and the rest of the Feds hog all that stupidity limelight for themselves. Greta Van Sustern of “On the Record” fame broke off her perpetual coverage of the Natalee Holloway disappearance to lend her probing interviewing expertise to the coverage of Katrina. I hope I'm not giving you the wrong idea. What happened to Natalee Holloway and the gut-wrenching hell her family is going through is no lightweight matter. I just don’t think that Greta’s incessant blathering about it does much to help anything other than her ratings.

I am sure all of you have listened to some of these intrepid windbags. I do, and like many of you, I enjoy listening to them from time-to-time. Personally, I think they can be informative, entertaining, and downright funny at times. This time, unfortunately, they haven’t come close. Having said this, I’m not going to give them any more press here. However, Keith Oberman, from “Countdown,” went beyond all of the others. Keith interviewed none other than the self-appointed guardian of moral integrity, Al Sharpton. You’ll never guess what Al had found? Yes, he discovered racism in this tragedy. Al, of course, finds racism in everything, even if he has to make some up. How’s Tawana Brawley doing these days, Reverend Al?

Finally, let’s not ignore the “God Guys.” Steve Lefemine of Columbus, South Carolina hates abortion. He said, “In my belief, God judged New Orleans for the sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion.” He made this statement because, as he was viewing a full-color satellite map of Hurricane Katrina’s swirls, he saw the image of an 8-week old fetus. He continued his statement with this. “Providence punishes national sins by national calamities. Greater divine judgment is coming upon America unless we repent of the national sin of abortion.”

Here’s a perfect example of how two people can view the same thing and see different things. I looked at the same swirls but I saw something altogether different. As embarrassing as this is to say, let me just tell you that I had to go to confession afterward. The priest told me that there’s no way I’m getting to heaven with such thoughts!

“It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire.” This is what a Kuwaiti official by the name of Mohammad Yousef Mlaifi said. He continued, “The Terrorist Katrina is one of the Soldiers of Allah…” Here, I thought we were getting along so well, Yousef. You know, the way we took your oil fields away from Saddam awhile back. Remember?

Stan Goodenough, a Christian journalist over in Israel is upset with us, too. “What America is about to experience is the lifting of God’s hand of protection; the implementation of His judgment on the nation most responsible for endangering the land and people of Israel.” Gee, would it help any if we just stopped sending all that aid to you guys, Stan? I’m just trying to be helpful here.

Do any of you folks know Michael Marcavage from Philadelphia, PA? I’ve never heard of him. Regardless, Mike has it all figured out. Gay men and lesbians, throughout the country, brought all of this on us because they were planning to participate in a New Orleans street festival called “Southern Decadence.” Michael further stated that, “We take no joy in the death of innocent people… But we believe that God is in control of the weather… The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets… We’re calling it an act of God.” Incase any of you are interested, Mike was a 1999 White House intern during Bill Clinton’s administration. He now runs an outfit called Repent America.

What really amazes me about all of this is the fact that neither Jerry Falwell nor Pat Robertson has tried to bring the homosexuals and their attempts at legalizing gay marriage to bear on all of this. It’ll happen, though, just as surely as a hangover follows a drinking binge. I can’t wait to read about it.

This stuff would be laughable if it were not for the fact that people report such maniacal rants with an air of seriousness that encourages more of it. May Odin, Thor, and Frey help all of us sane people. I know that you guys are the “man!”

About a year ago, National Geographic published an article called “Gone with the Water.” Joel K. Bourne, Jr. wrote it. Here’s a small excerpt.

“The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. More than 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

“Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.”

Again, note that Mr. Bourne wrote this about a year ago. The accuracy of the forecast has nothing to do with God. He based it on pure science. The Army Corp of Engineers, at the insistence of State Congressional Representatives acceding to the wishes of the local genre of short-term oriented politicians, built levees along the Mississippi and drained the marshland. New Orleans than sank ever deeper and deeper below sea level, destroying the barrier islands that protected the Gulf. The same thing would happen to your house if you constantly removed dirt from under its foundation. Try it if you don’t believe me.

None of it had a thing to do with boys kissing boys on Bourbon Street. None of it had a thing to do with the Israelis giving up West Bank settlements. None of it had a thing to do with abortions, or Allah, or any other “pull one out of your butt” reason.

Humans created this disaster because we have a habit of praying at the altar of short-term gains instead of considering long-term consequences which, as we’ve seen recently, can be deadly. Politicians can’t think beyond four-years, two in the case of the U. S. House of Representatives. Having people reelect you instead of doing real work is the prime directive. Telling people what they want to hear is the lowest common denominator and surest way to perpetuate this directive. It goes on in every state within this country.

Essentially, we always get what we deserve in the end. We may not like it or think that we deserve it, because we don’t think about the unintended consequences. This will continue to be the case until we learn that “reward” and “punishment” are human terms. They don’t exist in Nature. In Nature, there are only consequences. Upsetting Mother Nature is not a smart thing to do. Some people have told me that even God gets out of her way. Even if there were a God, I would think Him too busy with a whole universe to take care of and all, to be worried about what some shortsighted humans do or do not do, especially things like regulating people’s sex lives. After all, I thought the Republican Party was supposed to do this.

Folks, there were many people devastated by this hurricane. They are going to be hurting for a long time. They need help. If you are one who has a relationship with God, please make contact now and then donate to the Red Cross. If you don’t relate to a Deity, then just make the donation. We need to tell our elected officials to stop embarrassing us in front of the rest of the world. Let’s just tell them to shut up. Laura, you take care of telling George.

It’s going to take solid engineering and scientific know how to get through this. This means money. The politicians could help a whole lot by finding the money, giving it to the people who know what they are doing and then get out of the way. Talk about your impossible dreams!

Thanks for reading. Next week, I want to get back on track and start ripping our local politicians and other assorted public figures, including public school administrators and school boards, to shreds. Talk with you soon.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: TheTrueFacts@comcast.net