New Orleans is Sinking, And I Don't Wanna Swim

I think the superior Canadian Band Tragically Hip should re-release this great early song of theirs as a single to benefit disaster relief. May not sell in the USA, but it would sell up here north of the 49.

That song also raises some interesting philosophical points. The story is really morphing at this point to a horror at how slow the response has been. I can't help it -- at times like this my former career as a media whore just flips the switch inside where you start monitoring how the story plays out. Call it my inner Noam Chomsky.

Anyway, there have been government officials who have tried to suggest that "there was no way to see this coming," though FEMA itself had a document in 2001 predicting this was coming, and a Canadian Rock Band used the idea of New Orleans Sinking in a song that they wrote almost twenty years ago.

The Congressional Black Caucus just went on CNN and was hella-pissed. The Senator from Michigan said that Kwame Kilpatrick, the improbably named (I mean, would you put that name in a script? I wouldn't, and I just finished writing for a show with a black character named Lubinsky) has arranged for housing for five hundred families in Detroit, right now. The Congressional Black Caucus (who CNN kept cutting away from, I might add) also said stop calling these people refugees. They are, after all, American citizens.

It's times like these that I just feel useless about what I do. I mean, really, worrying about the beats and the Act Four resolution seem pretty petty at a time like this.

In Toronto this weekend there's always an Air Show as part of the Canadian National Exposition. I live in a condo with a view of the lake, and for the last hour or so I have heard the jets roaring as they practice runs and marshall themselves at the island airport.

Today, those jet sounds make me uneasy. I wonder, are they hearing jets fly over the eerie, depopulated shell that New Orleans has become? Do they react to those sounds with fear? With hope? Why is every News Chopper from Dubuque to Windsor not now on their way to New Orleans? Really, I mean, I could do without the eye in the sky traffic reports for a couple of days. Couldn't you?

Yet there are things that surprise me. I gave it to Anderson Cooper a little bit back on Day 1. Oh Anderson, you gray-haired shaman, all is forgiven. Last night he just gave it to Mary Landrieu. In Salon today they've got the account:

CNN's Anderson Cooper laid into Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu when she used time on his show to start thanking government officials for their relief efforts. "Senator, I'm sorry," Cooper said. "For the last four days, I have been seeing dead bodies here in the streets of Mississippi, and to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other -- I have to tell you, there are people here who are very upset and angry, and when they hear politicians thanking one another, it just, you know, it cuts them the wrong way right now, because there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman has been laying in the street for 48 hours, and there [are] not enough facilities to get her up. Do you understand that anger?"

Landrieu said that she was angry about the storm but that she wasn't angry at anyone. Cooper didn't let up. "Well, I mean, there are a lot of people here who are kind of ashamed of what is happening in this country right now, what is -- ashamed of what is happening in your state. And that's not to blame the people that are there, it is a terrible situation, but you know, who -- no one seems to be taking responsibility. I know you say there's a time and a place for kind of, you know, looking back, but this seems to be the time and the place. There are people that want answers, and people want someone to stand up and say: We should have done more."

The talking heads are actually asking the tough questions. You know the situation must be dire.

Of course, since I am a useless screenwriter type, the distancing monkey within me is already trying to figure out who's the protagonist in the disaster movie about this. So far, my early feeling is to go with h Ray Nagin. Mr. Mayor, as someone who's had the pleasure of visiting your beautiful and troubled city, I pray that you retain the strength to keep speaking out and calling these bastards out.

Well, back to my useless career. At least they found this guy.