A sober and solemn September song

Like all of you, I have been shaking my head at the images of the destruction and catastrophic devastation in the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans. About all I need to process this disaster are these images. I'm getting sick of the words. Why does whether or not this is going to be the costliest disaster in US history matter? Who in their right fucking mind is coming up with these figures. People are on fucking rooftops for Christ's sake, fuck the numbers. Why do we need body counts? Confirmed dead? Unconfirmed is just as dead. Blame? Hey, I hate George Bush with a passion and I heard Rush Limpdick the day of the hurricane saying the "liberals" had predicted gloom and doom about this storm and had overestimated it's wrath and destruction. Turn on CNN now Rush fuck. Politics? Fuck politics. But to say the government has been slow to respond and to waste time posturing and pointing.....? Fuck that. Look at the images people. How could you have possibly prepared for the total dismantling of the infrastructure of an entire region constituting over a million people. Yes, you're on a rooftop waving a sign.....it aint frustration you're feeling.......it's sheer panic and desperation. Frustrated at the pace of the recovery? $3 a gallon gasoline is frustration......floating on a rooftop for three days is pure hell on earth. But blame? Just how fast could anyone have gotten in? Look at the pictures god damnit. Push a button and give an order? That's being done. The largest response to disaster in the history of the country is underway. We are so freaking spoiled to instant gratification. There will be nothing instantaneous here, except death.

The effects of other significant national disasters have for the most part been limited to the region in which they occurred. Not this one. The Gulf of Mexico produces about a quarter of the nation's oil and natural gas. The city's port is a key entryway for coffee, steel, and an outlet for grain export. All six major US railroads carry commodities and goods through the Port of New Orleans. It is the largest source for seaborne imports of coffee, natural rubber and steel. Steel moves up the Mississippi after import into New Orleans. Now it will be diverted to Houston and transportation costs will quadruple. Any of you in a business that utilizes steel know what that market is already like.

The health issues are beyond comprehension. Not just the tragedies that exist now, but the ones that lay ahead. Beyond comprehension.

I could go on and on but there are those far better informed than I and personally I am just overwhelmed by the horror I see.

But can we dispense with the blame and just support the recovery process please. And, while I am nonviolent by nature, I personally think that non survival looting should be immediately punishable by a bullet to the head.

We have to go create some joy and find it where it currently resides because we have some shit coming down here folks and it's time to shore up the attitude and fucking deal with it.

You aint there? Your day doesn't suck as much as you may think.

These excerpts from W. H. Auden's poem, September 1, 1939 seem particularly appropriate to me today.

September 1, 1939

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
and darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
who have never been happy or good.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages;
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

-- W. H. Auden