Blow...hard

As the various victim's stories make their way through the swirling storm of Katrina media editors, it appears to me we have poked the true soft underbelly of our modern life...we are bombarded by blame.

Only four days in from 'the worst natural disaster in our history' and you'd think there had been dereliction of duty from the red cross, FEMA and, of course, the White House. Why weren;t they 'ready'?

One commentator links the disaster's effects to the FDA's decisions regarding birth control (http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1561356,00.html).

The tragic aftermath of Katrina has been blamed on, among other things:

New Orleans gay parade [http://www.repentamerica.com/pr_hurricanekatrina.html] (though no evidence it was going to pass through MS or AL),

america's racism (though strange to contemplate that NO is overwhelmingly, um , African American),

abortionists (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/31/0836/62623) and

US involvement in Iraq (http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L02310631).

...(and of course, global warming) [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050902/ap_on_sc/katrina_warming].

This hot air proves of course that it would be too simple to blame it on the hurricane. In our modern lives, even a tragedy this massive is like some sort of video game or moive...why should a category 4 hurricane across low lying, ocean front ground prevent aid from appearing like magic...instantaneously...at the speed with which we've grown accustomed to news and information appearing in front of us?

Many of us seem prepared to politicize every trauma...from the slightest to the greatest, there are thousands of axes out there, just waiting for the next news-grabbing grindstone. Somewhere in the mess of sparks and smoke, the truth lies...will we like it when it confronts us? The tragedy of poor decisions...of natures unruliness...of victim on victim violence.

And the tragedy of the universally understood, if not universally expressed, sigh of disaster relief. That sigh of relief inherent in humans that, thank God, this disaster did not befall us (does God pick favorites?)...

While some catch our collective breathes, and others take action, I hope we will be able to ride out the storm of shrill voices casting blame...and I wonder how prepared we are for the aftermath of that storm?