No Hurricane Coverage Here

I decided to take the day off from the blog yesterday because judging by the news coverage in the mainstream media markets, the only event was the arrival of Hurricane Katrina. For those who live in its path, it's a terrible thing, particularly for the poor who always seem to bear the greatest loss and suffering in any natural disaster. Of course, that's just the way the ball bounces, and I'm sure there are some theocratic Christo-Fascist idiots somewhere who believe that the poor are merely reaping the wrath of God for sins past. And of course, the condition of the poor has absolutely nothing to do with the distorted, rapacious capitalism that is practiced in this nation and soon coming to a neighborhood near you, no matter where you live.

However, it is hurricane season, and if you choose to live in areas that for millenia have been hammered by extreme tropical weather events, and particularly so in our own recent past, then I'm not quite sure that this is news worthy of special and total coverage by CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX (yes, I'm laughing), PBS, CNBC, MSNBC, and Headline News. So look, I'm not writing today from the eye of the storm with my Gore-Tex all-weather gear flapping dramatically in the driven rain that I'm too stupid to get out of.

Of course, someone like Chimpie loves this sort of occurrence because it gives him coverage from his real problems that the press should be pursuing. While gas surges to $3.00 a gallon (okay by me--I hardly drive anymore), more Americans and Iraqis die for lies, and the fragile matrix of credit and foreign bank indulgences grows increasingly brittle begging a financial collapse, Bush is busy trying to destroy what little remains that still actually works for the peoples' benefit--Social Security. Then he's off to address another hand-selected crowd to explain the insanely complex, expensive and generally useless Medicare prescription drug benefit . . . "explain"? did I write. Sorry. Chimpie can't even explain why he has to take a shit now and then, let alone a plan that not even the insurance industry can sell even as it benefits them at the expense of elders across the country.

Of course, why cover the rape of the financial security coffers yet again when there is a chance to put Lester Holt at the mercy of Katrina. Wow! Look at that! It's raining and blowing in the hurricane. A-fucking-mazing.

Meanwhile, over in Iraq--remember Iraq?--it doesn't look like Chimpie's sanguine view of the "noble cause" is connected to any reality in this universe. "We'll stand down as the Iraqis stand up." Yeah, well, the New York Times notes how well that transition is going.

Simply put, Iraq remains too fragile for any planner to know what shape the country will be in six months or a year from now - whether it will reach compromises and hold together or split apart in a civil war.

And that presents a conundrum for American military planners. With those questions up in the air, they have to fear that any heavy arms distributed now could end up aimed at American forces or feeding a growing civil conflict. And the longer Iraq's army has to wait for sophisticated weapons, the longer American forces are likely to be needed in Iraq as a bulwark against chaos.

Of course, Chimpie will be in San Diego trying to conflate his failed Iraq expedition with World War II in a celebration of the anniversary of the Japanese surrender, not that Bush even understands when, where, or how WWII occurred. He's just looking for political cover.

With any luck, that son of a bitch will find himself like one of the news clones when his hurricane hits this fall as Patrick Fitzgerald unseals his indictments. Maybe we'll get to see him blown into the raging seas right before our very eyes on all networks in real time.

Back to you, Pat.