It's a hard rain gonna fall

Katrina’s damage is probably worse than we thought yesterday. People are still being pulled from roofs and Amateur radio operators all over the country are trying to relay messages out of the devastated area. I just now listened to someone using SATERN, the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Net trying to get help for a woman in insulin shock up on the 20^th floor of a hotel surrounded by water. People are still dying. The flood waters are rising. Good people all over the country will be putting their lives on hold and working to help the millions of people affected by this horrible storm.

George Bush has finally found something important enough to disturb his vacation. He intends to cut the 5 weeks of brush cutting and bike riding and confrontation avoiding short by two days. Last year at this time, while my neighbors were lining up in the 95 degree heat to get water from the various relief agencies, George showed up at the local Red Cross office, had his picture taken, disrupted the goings on for most of the day and then went out and had his picture taken giving a bag of ice to a grateful hurricane victim. He then got into his air conditioned limo and then his air conditioned helicopter and flew off to an air conditioned hotel on Miami Beach to "assess the damage."

Miami, which had had no storm at all, received millions in aid. FEMA bought cars and appliances and paid for funerals of people who did not die in the storm. We sat in the heat, slept in the heat and sweltered in the heat while FEMA fiddled. The lucky ones suffered in their own homes, the unlucky slept on school floors for a month or more. We were all so grateful for his hard work.

''We have got a lot of work to do,'' Bush said today – and who is better at hard work – or at least is better at telling us how hard he works during the full year of vacation time he has spent during his term so far? It’s hard work being a Warpresident and it’s going to be just as hard being a Disaster President too. He will have to suffer long minutes of discomfort having his picture taken, although the White house staff, reports CNN, is at least trying to minimize the disruption and interruption of the rescue efforts his publicity visit will cause. Or so they say.

If you want to help the Red Cross, call 1 800 HELP NOW or go to www.redcross.org
You can donate to the Salvation Army at 1-800-SAL-ARMY. If you are trying to find out about a family member in the affected area, go to SATERN.org

Please do it.